Koustab Ghosh

Organizational sociotechnical diagnosis of managerial retention in an IT organization

Purpose – Turnover of managerial employees at junior and middle levels has been widely recognized as a critical organizational concern. The problem happens to be more intensified for organizations belonging to the service sector as the services provided to client/customer groups get directly affected. A number of studies have shown that compensation factor alone does not explain the retention of managerial employees in the organization. This paper aims to focus on designing and balancing the organizational social and technical subsystems elements in order to moderate the turnover of junior and middle level managers in the company.Design/methodology/approach – A number of selective junior and middle level managers were interviewed in‐depth and content analysis was made for categorization of level‐wise qualitative responses. The situation actor process‐learning action performance (SAP‐LAP) framework has been adopted as the diagnostic instrument of organizational analysis.Findings – The findings from the pap...

“Buyer's motivation” for online buying: an empirical case of railway e-ticketing in Indian context

Purpose – India has a big pool of internet savvy population that is not only accessing the internet but also buying online. Online shopping could be defined as the concept of buying and selling of goods over the internet. From the perspective of the seller, it is the attempt on the sellers part to attract and persuade the prospect to conduct the purchase decision-making process, and ensure satisfaction and loyalty. From the perspective of the buyer, online purchase behavior is the degree to which consumers access, browse, shop and transact and repeat the behavior. With a revolution in the very basics of transaction from a physical store format to a non-store one, the retail industry has begun to understand the indispensability of the internet as a medium of transaction. However, the rate of diffusion and adoption of the new phenomenon among consumers is still relatively low. With the internet advancing new opportunities, it is important to understand the factors that could motivate Indian consumers to in...

Impact of organizational sociotechnical system on managerial retention

Purpose – The industrial organizations all over the world are operating in a highly competitive and challenging business environment. Achieving customer satisfaction on a continual basis keeping in view of the increasing expectations of the customers has been the key to the growth of business and operations. Customer satisfaction and business development can only be achieved by retaining the competent and capable managers at different hierarchical levels of the organizations. But with the growing career opportunities and better employment prospects available, turnover of managerial personnel has become an increasingly important industrial problem worth studying in the recent years. The purpose of this paper is to examine the industry‐wide problem of managerial turnover.Design/methodology/approach – The paper describes a study which is diagnostic in nature and which follows a causal design approach to empirically examine if the impacts of both the organizational social and technical subsystem elements on m...

Organizational Sociotechnical Diagnosis of Managerial Retention : SAP — LAP Framework

Turnover of managerial employees at junior and middle levels has been widely recognized as a critical organizational concern. The problem happens to be more intensified for organizations belonging to service sector as the services provided to client / customer groups get directly affected. A number of studies have shown that compensation factor alone does not explain the retention of managerial employees in the organization. The focus of developing the present study lies in designing and balancing the organizational social and technical subsystems elements in order to moderate the turnover of junior and middle level managers in this public sector enterprise. A number of selective junior and middle level managers were interviewed in — depth and content analysis was made for categorization of level — wise qualitative responses. The SAP-LAP framework has been adopted as the diagnostic instrument of organizational analysis. The findings from the study shows that the organizational sociotechnical factors have an impact on managerial retention and the suggestive actions from the study attempt to find solutions to the problem of managerial turnover faced by the company. SAP-sdLAP framework as an instrument to the diagnosis of organizational sociotechnical system provides useful inputs to the management for future course of actions. Maintaining the balance between the social and technical subsystem factors is a critical prerequisite to managerial retention.

Can moral development lead to upward influence behaviour? The mediating role of transformational leadership in an empirical inquiry

This empirical study examined the impact of transformational leadership with its antecedent of moral development on upward influence behaviour taking managerial responses from two power sector organisations located in India. Structured questionnaires were administered on the sample respondents in order to elicit the expected hypothetical relationship among moral development; transformational leadership; and upward influence behaviours. A total of 210 valid responses from two power sector organisations represented by junior, middle, and senior level executives were found valid for data analysis. Descriptive, correlations, post-hoc and confirmatory factor analyses were applied to empirically examine the hypothesised framework. Multilevel structural equation modelling (MSEM) analysis showed that moral development (moral sensitivity, moral motivation, and moral implementation) were positively related to transformational leadership, whereas transformational leadership was positively related to positive upward influence behaviours, and negatively related to negative upward influence behaviours.

Institutional effectiveness in higher education: a comparative analysis of students’ perceived responses in Indian context

The demand for postgraduate business management education has witnessed a sharp increase since the last two decades worldwide. Taking this opportunity and for fulfilling the gap between the demand and supply many private players have also made their foray into this education segment. This paper has made an attempt to explore the fundamental issue of the institutional effectiveness factors of such institutions by analysing structured responses from the group of students. The responses from the students of two postgraduate business management educational institutions located in India were obtained, descriptive and gap analysis were done, and finally Kano technique was applied to categorise and prioritise the effectiveness dimensions. The empirical findings from the study established that majority of the effectiveness factors for institution A emerged as ‘attractive’, whereas for institution B it came out as ‘must be’ category. The results of the study would help the planners of the higher education to focus...