Sonali Bhattacharya

A Global Spiritual Index, Its Predictors and Relationship to Crime

This article intends to define a Global Spirituality Index with a holistic perspective and attempts to look at some socio-economic indicators of Spirituality. It also attempts to find a relationship between crimes, such as perceived levels of corruption (as measured by Transparency International) and violence such as homicides, and various aspects of Spirituality.

Impact of Knowledge Management Processes for Sustainability of Small Family Businesses: Evidences from the Brassware Sector of Moradabad (India)

In this research paper, we have studied the role and process of knowledge management in small family businesses at different stages of its growth: startup, business consolidation and succession. We intend to study if in family run MSME clusters education of firm owner gives any edge in the sustainability of the business. There is lack of availability of literature on study of Indian MSME with family business perspective. Our study encompasses factors that stimulate innovation, technology acquisition and business growth and sustainability. Evidences have been drawn from brass manufacturing cluster of Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh, India. The research is based on cross-case analysis of six brassware manufacturing units of Moradabad. We attempted to build on existing literature reviews on knowledge management process in family firms and assess how these theories fit in case of small family run export oriented enterprises, which are highly competitive. It was found family relationship, attitude to learn, critical thinking and social capital are keys in determining sustainability of these firms. A theoretical model has been curved out of the study.

What happens to the “hand that rocked the cradle”? A study of elderly abuse in India

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse the possible causes of elderly abuse in India and its repercussions for the society, based on the real cases and reports. Design/methodology/approach – A multiple case study approach has been used for the study sourced from archival newspaper reports, crime reports, and narration. Findings – Greater vigilance and more effective legislation would be required to solve the problem related to elder abuse. Originality/value – There is not much study of causes, consequences, effectiveness of the legal system with respect to elderly abuse in India. In that way, it will be a unique contribution.

Indian Renaissance in the Twenty-First Century: Management Education, Thoughts and Practices for the Betterment of Business, Nation and Society

The article talks about the glorious past of the Indian ethos, management thoughts and practices, the current situation in India and a suggested roadmap for the future, to regain the past glory. Governance of the country is influenced and affected by the political, social, environmental factors and youth activism; which suggests that there is a strong linkage between the values of the people, their actions and the quality of governance. Quality of governance of a country is an indicator of the maturity and well-being of the society. A new conceptual model has been suggested showing the linkage between youth activism and quality of governance, determining the health of the society. The model is prepared based on evidence from India. The focus of the article is the need to impart quality management education embedded with universal values, for the betterment of business, nation and society.

Knowledge Economy in India: Challenges and Opportunities

India, along with some of the other middle low income countries like Brazil, Russia, China and the Republic of Korea is competing with high income developed nations like USA and Japan in the knowledge sector. India has to its advantage a big pool of knowledge workers like scientists, engineers, and researchers available at low cost. The pertinent question is whether the flow of knowledge has resulted in inclusive growth. This research paper is a critical analysis of the challenges and opportunities on the pathway to Indias journey towards becoming a global leader in knowledge economy with respect to the four pillars as defined by the Knowledge Assessment Model (KAM) of the World Bank, namely, economic and institutional regime, education, information and communication technology, and innovation.

Relationship between Three Indices of Happiness Material, Mental and Spiritual

Every individual in this world seeks to achieve a healthy, wealthy, secured and blissful life as suggested by Maslow’ Need Hierarchy. A regression analysis taking Life Satisfaction Index (as obtained from World Database of Happiness between 1995–2005) as the dependent variable indicated rule of law, voice and accountability, regularity authority as well as economic freedom indicators (as obtained from Heritage Foundation Database, 1995–2006) as very significant predictors. In this article, an attempt has been made to understand this tridimensional concept of happiness and combining them to arrive at a Composite Index of Happiness. Efforts have also been made to evaluate performance of various nations in their persistency to achieve these dimensions of happiness. Most studies have been either in direction of Subjective Well-being or Developmental Well-being. This article has been in an effort to combine both the factors and incorporating age-old values and virtues required for reaching higher realm of lasting peace, tranquility and happiness for one and all. The study shows that mental happiness has significant positive correlation with materialistic and spiritualistic happiness, perhaps for being the intermediary step, but materialistic has no significant correlation with spiritualistic happiness.

Women Advancing to Leadership Positions: A Qualitative Study of Women Leaders in IT and ITES Sector in India

The article examines the key factors that facilitate the advancement of women to leadership positions in the information technology and information technology enabled services (IT and ITES) sector in India. It adopted interview based exploratory case study method using multiple case studies and gathered empirical data using in-depth semi-structured interviews. The study identified critical individual and organizational factors which facilitate the advancement of women in leadership positions. The findings are of value to human resource and diversity practitioners to create gender-balanced and inclusive leadership in the organizations that would lead to attracting, retaining and developing women talent for leadership roles.

Perceived value of internship experience: a try before you leap

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine how internship value is manifested in the context of a business school. The authors have examined the internship experience in terms of experiential learning and employability. Specifically, the authors investigate the factors that determine internship at four phases: design, conduct, evaluation and feedback. Design/methodology/approach The authors have applied a mixed method approach. In all, 110 students of a busines school were first surveyed on their expectation, motivation and level of preparation through a self-administered questionnaire before internship. Based on the survey result, eight of these students were interviewed in details about internship expectations from industry, the selection process for internship, communications or exchanges between intern and companies prior to internship and perceived industry expectation from interns. At the next phase, authors used a qualitative research approach by conducting semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 14 interns and their mentors after internship period. They were interviewed on design, conduct, evaluation and feedback process of the internship. Interviews tried capture what kind of leader-member exchange led to satisfactory internship experience and outcome from view of both inter and mentor. Findings The authors find that at various stages of internship program quality of mentor – intern exchanges (as defined by leadership exchange theory), and task characteristics as indicated by autonomy, task variety, task significance and performance feedback determine intern’s performance. An intern’s performance is antecedent to an intern’s and a mentor’s satisfaction and overall internship value. The authors also found that intrinsic capability of intern such as critical thinking ability and learning orientation result in enhanced value of internship experience. The proposed models, postulate that at designing stage, lower the level of communication from employers, higher the feeling of ambiguity and lower the perceived internship value in terms of experiential learning and perceived employability. Feeling of ambiguity is moderated by existence of prior work experience of interns. At conduction stage, mentor-intern exchange is directly related to flexibility in structure of the program and inversely related to dependency on peer learning. Mentor-intern exchange also related to mentor and intern’s learning value. However, the learning value is moderated by learning orientation of the intern. Originality/value The authors have tried the summer internship experience from the perspective of interns and mentors. This is the uniqueness of the research.

A comparative study of learning organisation practices of Indian businesses

Purpose: In this study we compared the learning organisation practices of Indian Businesses across sectors. Methodology: The study is based on a sample of 406 managers of banking, information technology and information technology enabled services (IT/ITES), manufacturing, hotel & hospitality and hospital and healthcare sectors. Learning organisations have been assessed through lens of holistic framework, strategic thrust, shared vision, empowerment, information flow, emotional maturity or internality, learning and synergy which are considered as managerial levers of dynamic capability. Findings: It was found that profiles of Indian businesses are perceived to have low to medium level performance in dimensions of learning organisation (LO) practices across sectors. They are found to be low in internality or emotional maturity but high in strategic thrust. Among the business sectors, hotel & hospitality services & manufacturing industries have significantly higher LO scores Significance of dimensions of LO differ across sectors as captured through sector-wise exploratory factorial analysis (EFA).

Relationship between onboarding experience and turnover intention: intervening role of locus of control and self-efficacy

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to find industry wise differences in relationship between onboarding experience (OE) and turnover intention (TI). An attempt has been made to find the intervening role of psychological variables such as locus of control and self-efficacy. Design/methodology/approach An online questionnaire was administered to 596 newcomers in five industrial sectors: fast-moving consumer goods, information technology (IT), pharmaceuticals, automobile manufacturing, and hospitality. The questionnaire measured the constructs of locus of control, self-efficacy, perceived OE, and TI. Findings Inverse relationship was found between perceived OE and TI. There is a significant positive relationship between motivation-based self-efficacy and TI which is mediated through OE. Affective self-efficacy moderates the impact of OE on TI, such that for individuals with low efficacy the inverse relationship between OE and TI is strong, but for individuals with high self-efficacy the relationship between the two variables is direct. The OE in automobile manufacturing industries is significantly higher than other industries. TI is significantly higher in IT and hospitality industries. Exploratory factor analysis of the instrument on OE led to extraction of four factors. Based on socialization resource theory, they were termed as orientation, socialization, task characteristics and leadership. Aspects of socialization and leadership are most significant factors in determining TI across industrial sectors, whereas in case of the hospitality and automobile manufacturing sector it was found that better the task characteristics higher is the chance of TI. Originality/value There are limited studies linking various aspects of OE with TI across industries, especially in the Indian context. So, this will be the unique contribution of this research.