Bibhas Chandra

Communication related issues in GSD: An exploratory study

Global Software Development (GSD) projects use virtual teams that linked through telecommunication technologies. The work carried out in GSD process involves several issues. One of the key issues named is effective communication among team members. It has a great effect on the success of global software projects. In this paper, the influencing factors for effective communication have been highlighted considering the life cycle of the project development. Furthermore, a framework incorporating the relevant factors such as temporal distances, geographical distance, socio-cultural distance, attitudinal issues and social communication have been proposed and introduced in this paper. According to our study, social communication and attitudinal issues effects the team members also influences the communication in GSD projects. An exploratory research method has been used for collecting data from various Indian software organizations. Moreover, we also developed propositions for further research in this area.

Evolving Motives for Fair Trade Consumption: A Qualitative Study on Handicraft Consumers of India

Abstract Research on fair trade consumption, particularly on handicrafts, has been scarce in India. Globalization further complicates the understanding of their consumption patterns, which needs to be studied. This paper qualitatively explored the consumer motives and values towards handicraft consumption and their development in contemporary society. An online survey, some mall intercept interviews, and an online sentence completion test were conducted for data collection. Content Analysis was performed with the help of software for qualitative data analysis. Findings suggest that due to globalization, young consumers have become more individualistic and worldminded while older consumers have remained utility and culture oriented. A new factor, contradictive aspect emerged from this paper, which has been attributed to the effects of globalization. So far, studies of consumer behavior lacked paradoxical perspective on consumption of handicrafts. This paper dealt with those paradoxes and developed a concept towards conscious consumption of handicrafts for sustainable development of society.

The Impact of Knowledge Management and Data Mining on CRM in the Service Industry

The marketing trend in the service sector is changing at a rapid pace due to fierce competition and ever-growing innovation in the field of information technology. The marketing approach has transformed from product-centric concept to customer-centric concept. Adopting customer-centric strategy has become the essential component of business philosophy especially in the service sector, where customers are treated like guests. The whole concept of business performance is based on the philosophy of hospitality. Efforts are on satisfying individual needs of the customer and thus creating personal relationship by offering customised service. Customer relationship management (CRM) has replaced the traditional concept of marketing. Successful implementation of CRM program requires effective database management system to facilitate acquiring and maintaining customer information and thus applying this information to extend customised service based on individual needs thereby, supporting customer satisfaction and retention. Hence, it is evident that technology-based CRM has become essential for the survival and growth of business organisation mainly, the hotel sector and maintaining effective CRM strategy has its origin in knowledge management and data mining technique.

Prioritizing challenges of agile process in distributed software development environment using analytic hierarchy process

Software organizations are increasingly combining agile methodologies and distributed software development (DSD) for efficiently and effectively built software products. There are numerous challenges associated with scaling agile methods in a distributed environment. Our study is intended to explore and prioritize the challenges for scaling agile practices in the DSD environment. This study was divided into 3 stages. In the first stage, 22 challenges were identified from literature review and grouped into 4 categories: management, team, technology, and process based on discussion with experts. In the second stage, an online questionnaire study was conducted to validate the identified challenges. Finally, analytic hierarchy process method was used to prioritize challenges and their categories based on their relative importance. The results highlighted that management is a most significant category as compared with the other categories. Similarly, lack of management commitments, lack of effective communication, lack of knowledge sharing, etc are identified as the most significant challenges that need to be focused by the organizations for scaling agile methodologies. On the basis of the research findings, we could conclude that the identified challenges along with their categories provide a robust framework to scale agile methodologies in the DSD environment.

Challenges of management in the operation of virtual software development teams: A systematic literature review

The emergence of telecommunication technologies, collaborative software environment and group support systems have developed the new opportunities for the software organization in the form of virtual teams in order to accomplish the development activities for the complex software projects. The use of virtual teams helps software organizations to get various benefits with respect to time, cost and access to skillful resource. However, the virtual team relies on telecommunication technologies, team members faces various challenges in order to complete the activities. Therefore, in this study we have used the Systematic Literature Review (SLR) by applying the customized keywords derived from our research question to investigate the various challenges which create the difficulties in the successful operation of virtual teams. The results of the study shows that the various challenges like lack of effective communication, lack of trust, cultural differences, lack of IT infrastructure, geographic distance have been considered as key challenges that affects the successful operation in virtual teams.

Influence of Age and Education on Blood Donation: A Qualitative Research

Abstract Studies on blood donor motivations in Indian context are scarce. The aim of this study was to examine the variables that cardinally affect the blood donors’ decision on donating blood in India. Responses were collected from 670 prospective donors from three cities by adopting snowball and convenience sampling approach. Content analysis was firstly performed with the help of software for qualitative data analysis with an aim to know the perception of donors. Secondly, correspondence analysis was used to decipher an association among variables relating to blood donation and demographics (age and education). Findings suggest that new variables such as religion, caste and peaceful protest influence blood donation in India. Correspondence analysis justified the association of demographics. Blood banks may use these inputs to launch awareness programmes to motivate and educate individuals for blood donation and help them in recruitment and retention of donors to ensure adequate supply of safe blood.