Sanghamitra Bhattacharyya

Measuring organizational performance and organizational excellence of SMEs – Part 2: an empirical study on SMEs in India

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to empirically establish an indigenously developed model for measuring organizational performance and organizational excellence, and to examine the relationship between organizational performance and organizational excellence.Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents a model based on seven variables, at the overall and work unit level, for measuring organizational performance and organizational excellence – tested by using a large sample. A structured questionnaire is developed for collecting data from 407 respondents from 230 organizations. Summated scale average method is used for calculation of organizational performance and a total correlation method is used for the calculation of organizational excellence.Findings – It is established that organizational performance and organizational excellence could be measured by consolidating performance variables, using two different methods: performance can be measured by averaging the performance variable scores, an...

Measuring organizational performance and organizational excellence of SMEs – Part 1: a conceptual framework

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a conceptual framework for measuring organizational performance and organizational excellence, which could be used by small and medium enterprises.Design/methodology/approach – Altogether, seven variables are proposed in the overall and work unit level for measuring organizational performance and organizational excellence. The proposed model for evaluating organizational performance and organizational excellence was taken through a round of pre‐testing using relevant statistical analyses, in order to validate the hypothesized relationships.Findings – Excellence is redefined as the ability or capacity of one performance variable to affect or influence the other performance variables in an organization. Total correlation is suggested for measuring different excellences and equations are suggested for calculating overall organizational performance and overall organizational excellence.Practical implications – The model developed for measuring performance and ...

Organizational Downsizing: From Concepts to Practices

Downsizing is currently one of the most popular strategies being used by organizations in an effort to survive and compete in the current business scenario. Existing literature in the area has broadly focused on the following three issues: Why do organizations downsize? What are the consequences of downsizing on the individual and the organization as a whole? What are the strategies that can be adopted for successful downsizing? While imperatives for downsizing have been considered from economic, institutional, strategic, ideological, and arational perspectives, suggestions for successful downsizing strategies have repeatedly reinforced the importance of adopting a planned, long-term, and people-oriented approach to implementation. The bulk of empirical research, however, appears to have focused on the consequences of downsizing both at the individual and organizational level. Given that downsizing today has achieved the status of an institutionalized norm, the relevant question is not so much whether or why organizations should downsize, but rather, how best to implement the process in a way which will enable organizations to accrue benefits and effectively manage the negative consequences of such an exercise. A review of literature reveals that a planned approach to the implementation process would lead to sustained and long-term benefits to the organization. Drawing from change management theories as well as related theories in organizational learning, theory of business, and business model innovations, this paper has attempted to identify issues that need to be addressed at each stage of downsizing in order to ensure effective implementation. At one level, this would imply a need to question the very rationale for downsizing in terms of whether it really is the best alternative under the existing situation. At another level, assuming that downsizing has been accepted to be the most viable option, and given that any successful planned change would need to be handled as a multi-stage activity, this would include : reframing of the existing mental models and assumptions about the business extensive communication with employees at each stage managing the needs and expectations of survivors, victims, and implementers themselves planning for employability initiatives for employees helping employees to renegotiate their existing psychological contract with the organization. This would necessitate bringing about a change in the mindsets and attitudes of the people involved in the exercise. Moreover, a downsizing exercise would also need to be implemented as a part of an overall corporate renewal package rather than as an isolated strategy on its own. Suggestions for future research in this area, especially in the Indian context, have been identified with a view to adding to the existing body of knowledge and also facilitating greater understanding on the part of practitioners in handling a downsizing exercise.

Employee Commitment to Organizational Change: Test of the Three-Component Model in Indian Context

The study aims to check whether the three-component model of commitment to change proposed by Herscovitch and Meyer is applicable in an Indian context. The three dimensions of commitment to change considered for the study are affective, continuance, and normative commitment to change. Data were collected via survey from employees who have been part of major transformational change like restructuring, merger, and acquisition from various organizations across manufacturing and IT sectors. A total of 305 responses were obtained and the data were subjected to exploratory factor analysis. The results demonstrated that affective and continuance commitment are clearly distinguishable; however, the normative commitment items loaded into two factors rather than one. The results provided evidence for potential cultural differences in the three-component model of commitment to change.

Regret and Disappointment: A Conceptualization of their Role in Ethical Decision-making

Workplaces provide settings for the manifestation of an assortment of emotions that impact managerial decisions, ethical or otherwise, in a variety of ways. Most of the research work in this domain has concentrated on identifying and analysing the influence of positive affect on decision-making, with little work done on negative affect and its implications. To address this gap, the paper seeks to study the role of negative affect in ethical decision-making by managers. All decisions have outcomes. Post-decision affect may be negative when a decision appears to be wrong in retrospect, and ⁄ or when the outcome of a decision is not what was expected. How does negative affect experienced by an individual as a consequence of a decision impact his⁄her potential ethical decision-making process? In order to develop a model that illustrates how negative affect might impact the components of an individuals ethical decision-making process, this paper makes use of two negative emotions: Regret Dissappointment. Although regret and disappointment have a lot in common, they differ in ways that are relevant to decision-making. Unlike other emotions, regret is unique in its relation to decisionmaking and responsibility. Individuals regret an outcome when they could have taken a different decision and prevented that outcome. Being an outcome of individual choice and hence personal agency, its behavioural consequences comprise an active attempt to undo the unpleasant effects of the decision that went wrong. Disappointment on the contrary is experienced when the negative outcome is the result of a random procedure rather than choice. The behavioural consequences of disappointment might include complaining and talking about the event to others, feelings of powerlessness and a tendency to do nothing and get away from the situation. The paper discusses the possible behavioural consequences of the two emotions in terms of ethical decision-making. As numerous ethical decision-making models have succeeded in integrating personspecific, issue contingent, and organizational contributors to ethical decisions, the need now is to probe further into specific causalities. Understanding affect induced by work is important to gain further insights into the person-specific variables that impact ethical decisions. This paper is an attempt in that direction.

Social and Cultural Challenges in ERP Implementation: A Comparative Study Across Countries and Cultures

This paper studies the differential practices of change management in organizations of western origin and compares it with the best practices prevalent in Indian organizations, with special emphasis on social and cultural challenges faced in these countries. Since Enterprise Resource Planning ERP, as part of an information and communication technology ICT initiative, is frequently associated with organization change and transformation in relation to its adaptation, it has been used as the context in this study. The impact of social factors and cultural challenges on change management processes and elements are compared and contrasted using multiple case studies from USA, Canada, European Western/Eastern and Indian organizations who have adopted ERP technologies. The conceptual framework highlights cultural and social factors that affect ERP implementation, and offers suggestions to researchers to empirically test these influences using sophisticated analytical methods and develop change strategies and practices in response to these challenges. Further, it also draws attention to the need for a contemporary, result-oriented, quantitatively measurable framework of change management at the individual and enterprise levels. It is expected that such an approach would result in better buy-in from all stakeholders in terms of increased accountability.

Exploring the role of HR practices in supply chain

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to establish the importance of human resource (HR) practices in achieving high levels of supply chain (SC) integration through a conceptual framework (depicting the moderation effect of HR practices on the relationship between information sharing and SC integration) and validating the framework empirically to establish the proposed relationships.Design/methodology/approach – The conceptual framework is proposed based on gaps in extant literature. Data from 60 automobile component manufacturing organizations in India are used to analyse the relationship between the study variables. Regression analysis is used to find the relative impact of predictor variable (Information sharing) on SC integration and the moderation effect of HR practices (training, collaborative performance systems and reward alignment) on this relationship.Findings – The results indicate that information sharing has a significant effect on SC integration, and the relationship between these two varia...

Measuring value progress in outsourcing organizations

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop and validate a scale for measuring value progress in outsourcing organizations. The scale is also intended to capture the differences in the nature of progress between different categories of outsourcing organizations.Design/methodology/approach – The procedure for developing measures suggested by Churchill was adopted. The balanced scorecard framework has been used to generate items. Data were collected from 693 employees in 49 outsourcing organizations in India (specifically, those categorized as knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) and business process outsourcing (BPO)) and the scale reliability and validity was tested using content validity, exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, and co‐efficient alpha scores. Confirmatory fit indices have been used to establish validity and unidimensionality of the measures.Findings – The study statistically establishes a tool to measure progress of outsourcing organizations. The findings reveal that some organ...

Change processes and its impact on individuals: perception of ERP users in India

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the relationship between organisational change processes and its impact on individuals from the perspective of enterprise resource planning (ERP) users. The study is based on the perceptions of ERP users on change processes adapted in their organisations and its outcome at an individual level. The perceptions were obtained by means of a questionnaire survey administered to 160 respondents from India. The data collected has been analysed using statistical techniques such as multiple regressions. At an academic level, the study enables one to study the performance of the change processes from the perspective of the end user of ERP. For practitioners, these relationships would facilitate decision-making on change processes as per their impact. To the best of our knowledge, a study of this nature is the first of its kind in India. Evaluation of a change process in an ERP context highlights the importance of elements other than technical aspects that have generally been the focus of several ERP studies.

Antecedents of Employee Readiness for Change: Mediating Effect of Commitment to Change

The study attempted to look at the influence of individual factors (creative behavior and practical intelligence), process factors (participation in decision making and quality of communication) and context factors (trust in management and history of change) on employee readiness for change to transformational changes. Commitment to change and its three dimensions- affective, continuance and normative were hypothesized to act as a mediator in the present study. The data was collected through a survey using self-reported questionnaire and by judgment sampling. The data was collected from large sized organizations in manufacturing and IT sector, which were undergoing transformational changes and the total sample size for the study was 305. To understand the mediation effect of commitment to change dimensions, mediated regression analysis was carried out. Among the three dimensions of commitment to change, affective commitment to change alone was found to have a partial mediation effect. Thus, focusing on the employees’ emotional attachment to the change could be one way for increasing employees’ readiness for change. The study also provides insight into the construct commitment to change in the Indian context.