Biswatosh Saha

Disciplining the discipline: understanding postcolonial epistemic ideology in marketing

In this study, conducted in two top ranked business schools in India, we examine pedagogy and doctoral research in marketing and show that the discipline is characterised by dependency on the West. We offer an understanding of postcolonial epistemic ideology that is contributing to the creation of unreflexive and dependent subjectivities in the discipline. We show that the marketing discourse in postcoloniality is characterised by mimesis of the West and silencing of local subaltern stakeholders. We further show that epistemic ideology disciplines through the deployment of devices developed in the West to create a compradorian theatre.

Market subjectivity and neoliberal governmentality in higher education

Abstract Using an interpretive case study in a business school in India, this research examines student behaviour and offers an understanding of a marketisation process in higher education. The study deploys Foucaults conceptualisation of governmentality and uncovers processes through which market subjectivity is fostered among students as they strive to become responsible, active, and entrepreneurial subjects. The subject position is attributed to several governmental discourses of peer pressure, abnormality, uncritical pedagogy, loan repayment, and elitism that prevail in the business school. The study further highlights the roles of English language and preference for western corporations which are unique to postcolonial India. Market subjectivity results in the prevalence of instrumental rationality, failure to develop a critical academic perspective, subordination of social concerns, and disenchantment and exclusion among some students.

Knowledge, power and action: towards an understanding of implementation failures in a government scheme

Conceptual knowledge inspires imagination. On the other hand, it is a claim to power as well. Multiple knowledge claims often, therefore, are engaged in a contest. This contest can take the form of several discourses. Extant power structures play a significant role in lending (or not lending) a voice to one or several such discourses. To one with the power to govern, knowledge claims flowing from abstract concepts generated in an elite discourse not only inspires imagination but also often leads to ‘norms’ and ‘rules’ that drive governance in the system which leads to action. Norms and rules define actionability of the conceptual knowledge claim. However, for the one weighed by powerlessness in being governed, knowledge claims often get generated only in action, since an autonomous discourse is often lacking. Yet the sheer powerlessness of the authors of such knowledge claims generated in action leads to its non-celebration. It fails to get elevated. It might also wither away. Such actionable knowledge claims of the powerless often then gets manifested as something like an ‘unvoiced’ or an ‘unvoicable’ discourse, in macabre forms of subversion of ‘norms’ and ‘rules’ of the system that leads to a sense of failure in governance among those with power as well. Power, thus, brings actionable knowledge to the fore, but in two different forms. For the power-holder, it takes the form of a ‘deviation’ from norms and rules in the actionable domain through subversion by the powerless, revealing a gap between knowledge in the conceptual and actionable domain that is reluctantly (often tacitly) tolerated. For the powerless, on the other hand, actionable knowledge is living; negotiating on the ‘deviation’ is an existential requirement. This paper is an attempt to explore these dichotomies, how power (and the lack of it) alters the significance and implications of actionable knowledge.

Systemic Concentration in Sponsored Search Markets: The Role of Time Window in Click-Through-Rate Computation

Keyword-based search engine advertising markets on the Internet, referred to as Sponsored Search Markets (SSMs), have reduced entry barriers to advertising for niche players. Known empirical research, though scant and emerging, suggests that while these markets provided niche firms with greater access, they do exhibit high levels of concentration—a phenomenon that warrants further study. This research, using agent-based simulation of SSM, investigates the role of “market rules” and “advertiser practices” in generating emergent click share heterogeneity among advertisers in an industry. SSMs often rank ads based on the click-through rate (CTR) that gives rise to reinforcing dynamics at an individual keyword level. In the presence of spillovers arising from advertisers’ practice of managing keyword bids with a cost cap operating on the keyword portfolio, these reinforcing dynamics can endogenously generate industry-level concentration. Analysis of counterfactual markets with different window sizes used to compute CTR reveals that industry-level concentration bears an inverted-“U” relationship with window size.

Building a pedagogy around action and emotion: experiences of Blind Opera of Kolkata

Contemporary knowledge systems have given too much importance to visual symbols, the written word for instance, as the repository of knowledge. The primacy of the written word and the representational world built around it is, however, under debate—especially from recent insights derived from cognitive science that seeks to bring back action, intent and emotion within the core of cognitive science (Freeman and Nunez in J Consciousness Stud 6(11/12), 1999). It is being argued that other sensory experiences, apart from the visual, along with desires (or intent) and emotions—like pain, pleasure, sorrow or joy—constitute equally important building blocks that shape an individual’s cognition of the world around. This multi-sensory cognition colored by emotions inspire action and hence is valid knowledge. This is probably nowhere more apparent than in the world of the visually impaired. Deprived of visual sensory capability, they have to perforce depend on other senses. But the dominant discourse in wider society plays a major role in determining what they (the blind) can do. A society built around visual symbols and the written word underplays other elements of cognition and in the process undervalues them. This also gets reflected in the construction of social artifacts of various kinds, such as the educational certification system (The Braille system is an attempt to make the written world accessible to the blind through tactile signals—so that words are ‘felt’ and ‘read.’ But it is quite cumbersome. For instance, even a blind highly skilled at writing in Braille would not be able to match the writing speed of an ordinary visually endowed literate person. Effective and efficient computer-based voice–text–voice converters might solve this problem better.)-based primarily on skills over the written word. Linguistic ability becomes most valuable and at another level the written word gets salience over the spoken word. The blind hardly has a chance, therefore, except through concessions or piety. A practice built around the imagery of an empowered blind person, therefore, must depart from mainstream conceptualization—for power is derived from what one has rather than from what one lacks. It must begin by tapping and valorizing one’s own endowments. This paper is an attempt to identify such a departure based on the experience of Blind Opera—a theatre group of the blind working in Kolkata, India. It seeks to provide an exposition in written word of an experience that can only be partially captured within the confines of a text. It is an incomplete account, therefore, and may be taken as an attempt to reach out and seek an exchange of experiences and insights.

Mio Amore: surviving brand change in transition economy

Subject area This case is about a food brand with franchisee stores which has implemented a brand change initiative in the Indian emerging market. Study level/applicability This case is suitable for MBA level students in courses like strategic brand management, marketing in emerging markets and retail management. Issues relate to brand name change management, building and securing channel cooperation in brand change, channel peculiarities in emerging markets and franchisee institutional support systems in emerging markets like India. Case overview The case documents the process followed by Switz Foods Private Limited (SFPL) in planning for and implementing a “brand-name” change across its 150-plus stores retailing fresh bakery products. The switch away from a 20-year-old food brand that had carved out a place in the popular culture of the community in Kolkata was risky. While opinion inside the organization was divided on whether to use mass media to communicate the brand-name change to its customers, the company finally decided to rely only on in-store signage and product packaging. SFPL took into confidence the franchisee retail store owners, a key stakeholder group with whom it enjoyed a long-term trusted business relation, and relied on their support to implement a smooth transition. It shows how in the context of the bazaars in transition economies, trust-based business relations and word-of-mouth reputation can often provide frugal managerial alternatives. Expected learning outcomes The three main learning objectives are: planning for a brand name transition, which includes three parts: generating consumer insights and using the data to aid decision-making in choosing a brand name and developing a brand campaign; overcoming network or business partner resistance/uncertainties associated with a brand name transition; managing customer perceptions before and after brand-name transition. Second learning objective included understanding risks in a franchisor–franchisee relationship. Third included appreciating the significance of trust-based relationships in managing transition economies. Subject code CSS 8: Marketing.

Affordance Lost, Affordance Regained, and Affordance Surrendered

Informed by the ontology of becoming, this study explores technological affordances in the context of use of social media technologies where multiple human and material agents interact without necessarily being co-present. In such scenarios, tracing the relational configuration of social and material agents becomes a challenge. So far, extant literature based on the ontology of becoming has only considered the actualization of affordances in the proximal co-presence of other people and objects. Extending this understanding of affordances by using actor-network theory (ANT) as a methodological and conceptual device, this research traces translations of the “distant” in the form of inscriptions that can travel across space and time. This study points towards the utility of using ANT, over other interpretive methods, as a tool to study complex technological phenomena. It shows that affordances are collective, ongoing accomplishments of diverse actors, some co-present physically and others, though distant, co-present through translated representations.

From chaos of steel cycles to the promise of “Joy of Building”: Tata Tiscon eyeing the next big leap

Subject area Strategic Management. Study level/applicability The case is designed for a) MBA students b) Short-duration executive MBA courses. Case overview The case refers to India’s leading steel company Tata Steel. Tata Tiscon, the steel rebar brand, is the organization’s leading retail brand. The case chronicles the period between the birth of the retail brand in the year 2000, its dramatic rise and dominance, to the end of 2013 when some of its initiatives had failed. Tata Tiscon was established as a pan Indian brand on the dint of a distribution network comprising 33 distributors and over 2000 retailers, many of them exclusive to the brand. The brand spawned a series of innovation in the category like “selling by piece”, fixed price concept and “free” home delivery. Together with its channel partners, the company achieved dramatic success which was reflected in its leading market share coupled with significant price premium in a category where price had traditionally being the only selling pitch. After 2010, the company saw an emerging challenge in the form of a new business model, where some companies were gearing to provide the complete portfolio of construction material including cement, steel, etc., and a turnkey construction solution for house builders. Tata Tiscon responded by attempting to enter the service space by launching a building design solution and later a construction supervision solution. Both of these initiatives failed. The protagonist of the case is Mr Keshav Viswanath (Chief of Marketing for retail business at Tata Steel), who is concerned with the failures of these key initiatives and is wondering how to ensure the “leader” status of Tata Tiscon in coming years. Expected earning outcomes The students are expected to understand how a core strategy like differentiation is implemented successfully in “practice”; understand the exploitation–exploration dichotomy in an organization; appreciate difference between radical innovation (based on new organizational routines, new business partners and new relationships) and incremental innovation based on fine tuning of existing organizational routines and relationships. Supplementary materials Rebar production: www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6n9sci8j-8; Tata TISCON AV: www.youtube.com/watch?v=89kOUsbnaYQ; TQM – The Toyota Way: www.youstube.com/watch?v=qf3gdrIMxRw; Disruptive vs. Incremental Innovation: www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOOL_GiaLTo; Approach to innovation is dead wrong: www.youtube.com/watch?v=pii8tTx1UYM Subject code CSS 11: Strategy.

Growth of Listed Firms Vis-À-Vis Growth of Economy in India

Time and again we observe the stock market movements being divorced from developments of underlying economy (real sector firms). This is similar to the dynamics in the superstructure being independent of what is happening in the underlying structure. This disparity is strong with respect to the implied growth projections made while valuing listed firms by capital market participant’s vis-a-vis the implied growth projections of the whole economy. The popular media captures this perceived growth disparity using measures such as PE multiples of popular Stock Market Indices (say, BSE Sensex or NSE Nifty) vis-a-vis the projected Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rates. This paper attempts encapsulating the areas and reasons for differences. In the Indian context, some of the factors which impinge on the growth of publicly listed firms are – listed firms growth being driven by exports and activities outside the country; shift of business from unorganized to organized sector; and shift of business from unlisted (private) companies to listed companies. The question that remains unanswered is – how long can a segment in a system grow independent of the whole system – OR, can it for long? Definitely this growth can happen as long as the compositional shifts continue to happen. But, there would be strict limits (say, in terms of size or time span). So, long-run growth rates of GDP and industry might matter for the listed players as well. However, if the abstraction of the firm as a scrip (or counter or stock quote on the ticker tape) is where our interest lies – we can actually think of dynamics in the superstructure being independent of what is happening in the underlying structure (say, due to liquidity or herd behavior) – at least in what economists fashionably call the ‘short-term bubbles’.