|
Dynamics
of Role Stress in BPO Industry
-- Avinash
Kumar Srivastav
Business
Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry is ridden with inherent
problems that result in stressful working. This study aims
at understanding how role stress operates in BPO industry.
Organizational Role Stress (ORS) scale was used to measure
10 role stressors (Inter Role Distance, Role Stagnation, Role
Expectation Conflict, Role Erosion, Role Overload, Role Isolation,
Personal Inadequacy, Self Role Distance, Role Ambiguity and
Resource Inadequacy) on 104 respondents from 15 companies
engaged in business process outsourcing. Role Stagnation was
found to be the most prominent role stressor. 47 out of 55
possible pairs of the 11 role stress variables (i.e., 10 role
stressors and the total role stress) have significant and
positive inter-correlations. Exploratory factor analysis of
10 role stressors brought out that role stress is experienced
in the BPO companies under study in three ways. Role Distance,
Work Life Imbalance and Role Inadequacy are the three meta
role stressors prominently operating in these companies. Role
Distance represents a combination of role stressors that results
in a role occupant distancing from his/her own role and his/her
role distancing from other related roles. Work Life Imbalance
represents another combination of role stressors that result
in role occupant experiencing difficulty to balance between
work and life. Role Inadequacy represents yet another combination
of role stressors signifying lack of competence and resources
for the role. These meta role stressors reflect the most important
problems and concerns in BPO industry.
©
2008 IUP . All Rights Reserved.
Investor
Profiling and Investment Planning: An
Empirical Study
-- Saptarshi Purkayastha
Risk
tolerance, a person's attitude towards accepting risk, is
an important concept that has implications for both financial
service providers and consumers. This paper attempts to characterize
and profile the individual investor in order to determine
whether the variables—age, occupation, designation, income
and dependants—impact the risk appetite of an investor.
The paper draws on data collected from the clients of an international
bank operating in India. The data are analyzed in two stages.
In the first stage, it analyzes whether demographics impact
the risk appetite of an investor or not. In the second stage,
it analyzes as to where people having specific demographics
and risk appetite invest their money in reality. Some of the
key findings are that age, salary and designation do impact
the risk appetite of an investor. However, in reality, investors
tend to invest in average risk mutual funds, irrespective
of their demographics and risk tolerance. The findings provide
some opportunities for purveyors of financial services to
be selective in their approach to various groups of individual
investors.
©
2008 IUP . All Rights Reserved.
Working
Capital and Profitability: An Empirical Analysis of Their
Relationship with Reference to Selected Companies in the Indian
Pharmaceutical Industry
-- Kaushik
Chakraborty
Working
capital is essential for the day-to-day operations of a business,
and hence it is the life-blood of any business. Working capital
management is about the management of current assets and current
liabilities in such a way that a satisfactory level of working
capital, which maximizes the profits of the firm, is maintained.
Inadequacy of working capital may lead the firm to insolvency,
whereas excessive working capital implies idle funds which
earn no profits. Therefore, efficient management of working
capital is an integral part of the overall corporate strategy
to improve corporate profitability. But in reality, controversy
persists on the issue whether the working capital of a firm
affects its profitability or not. Empirical studies that have
been conducted in India also ended with contradictory results.
Besides this, there are many intricacies in examining the
influence of working capital on the profitability. Against
this backdrop, this paper seeks to evaluate the relationship
between working capital and profitability of 25 selected companies
in the Indian pharmaceutical industry during the period 1996-97
to 2007-08. The issue has been tackled using relevant statistical
tools and techniques.
©
2008 IUP . All Rights Reserved.
Drivers
of Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty in Indian Retail Supermarkets:
An Exploratory Study
-- Shirshendu
Ganguli and B Vinoth Kumar
A
number of research studies have been conducted in the field
of retail services in different countries in order to measure
customer satisfaction and loyalty, but all these studies mainly
focus either on service quality or service features. Hardly
any research exists that attempts to take into account both
service quality and features and measure their impact on customer
satisfaction as well as loyalty. The importance of such a
study is immense in one of the fastest growing retail markets
like India, where the impact of service quality and features
on customer satisfaction and loyalty from the retail users'
point of view is a very crucial field of discussion. After
extracting different variables of service quality and features
from studying a body of literature on services like retail,
banking, fast foods, etc., done in the similar context of
exploring drivers of customer satisfaction and loyalty, this
study attempts to find out the underlying constructs (using
factor analysis) of these service variables for the Indian
retail supermarket customers. Then the variables (factors)
extracted have been used as independent variables and an attempt
has been made to explore the impact of these factors on customer
satisfaction and loyalty as dependent variables, and also
to explore the effect of satisfaction on loyalty.
©
2008 IUP . All Rights Reserved.
Understanding
the Aspirations of Prospective Employees
-- Vivekanand
and Sunil Pevekar
The
increasing influence of capitalism as the dominant means of
organizing economic activity across the globe has also deeply
affected the socioeconomic environment in India. As a consequence,
it is felt that this might affect the aspirations of people.
This paper examines the aspirations of the prospective employees
by conducting a survey using the aspiration index on postgraduate
management students across three B-schools in Bangalore. The
aspiration index captures seven different types of aspirations,
which can largely be classified as intrinsic or extrinsic
aspirations. The data are analyzed with the objective to identify
the importance of different aspirations and examining statistically
significant differences based on various demographic variables,
such as gender, annual family income and family structure.
©
2008 IUP . All Rights Reserved.
| 
