Vol. 1(3) June 2008
Assessing School Drop-out Rate at Primary Level in
Eastern Region of India
Bhattacharya Abhijit
The present study attempts to predict the percentage
of districts with school drop-out rate of less than 10% at primary level (grades
one through five) in the eastern region of India. The eastern region comprises of
the States of West Bengal, Orissa, Bihar and Jharkhand. The computational experience
provides strong statistical evidence (p-value=0.9928) for the use of proposed Beta
- Binomial model as an effective tool for assessing the school drop-out rate. It
has been estimated that in the next three years, only 25% of the districts in eastern
region are expected to achieve the targeted dropout rate of less than 10% whereas
20% of the districts are expected to have more than 10% dropout rate.In view of
Government’s goal of reducing school drop-out rate to less than 10%, the predicted
percentages seem to be alarming and call for immediate intervention of policy makers
and planners to reformulate appropriate strategies to ensure more number of districts
to have less than 10% dropout rate.
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Transformational Leadership and Work Motivation in
Modern Organizations
Polychroniou Panagiotis V.
This study investigates the relationship between transformational
leadership and work motivation in modern organizations. Critical attention is given
to transformational leaders’ competencies needed to motivate individuals/teams effectively
and improve employee performance. Some implications of the study are discussed including
the need for supervisors to acquire and use emotional intelligence competencies
and empowerment tools in order to enhance their own transformational leadership
and develop motivational strategies. Moreover, organizational culture and design
can affect skilled employee motivation levels in several ways such as job rotation,
participation, employment security, performance appraisal, compensation systems,
training and task allocation.
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Revamping the Business Communication Curriculum-Looking
Ahead
Sethi Anjanee1* and Adhikari Bhavana2
The paper discusses the need to wake up to the challenges
that face the Business Communication course in B-schools in India today. It stresses
the need to respond to the wake- up- call, as the gap between current pedagogical
practices and the requirements of businesses seem to be widening. What encompasses
‘Business Communication’ today has undergone a great change due to the emergence
of highly competitive business environment and very different working conditions.
The paper highlights this mismatch that exists with respect to the content and in
terms of the pedagogy in ‘Business Communication’ practice. It also suggests that
along with a curriculum review, pedagogy and infrastructure issues also need to
be addressed concurrently to have substantive desired outcomes.
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The Direction of Causality between Growth, Agriculture,
Industry and Services Sector: Time Series Population Data From Turkey: 1924 – 2003
Katircioglu Turan Salih
This study empirically investigates the causal impacts
between economic growth, agriculture, industry and services sector using population
data for Turkey which has a developing and large economy in a very strategic location
of the world. History of the Turkish economy showed many ups and downs since year
1924 due to both external and internal factors. Apart from 1980s, Turkey moved to
liberalized economic policies after the long years of protectionist policies. Granger
causality test results of this study show that the causal impacts exist between
economic growth of Turkey and its main sectors: Agriculture, industry and services
sector. The results also show that agriculture sector in Turkey is still of a major
importance although industrialization efforts took place in Turkey since year 1980s.
Therefore, comparative advantage of this sector for Turkey should be carefully evaluated.
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Wildlife Tourism in State of Sikkim: Problems and
Prospects
Jha Ajeya* and Munjal Sonia
Wildlife tourism is tourism based on free-ranging or
captive wildlife. It is often confused with nature tourism. Nature tourism is a
much broader concept. It encompasses all types of tourism that relate to nature.
Thus, even adventure tourism is also a type of nature tourism. Wildlife tourism
is a nascent but a promising segment. It is growing rapidly. In East Africa, particularly
in Kenya, tourism is primarily wild-life tourism. Sikkim offers immense promises
in the arena of wildlife tourism.
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Customer Perceived Value of Internet Shopping
Hossein Miladian
The rapid expansion of information and communication
technologies in daily business activities is the most important long-term trend
in the business world. Accordingly, a large growth potential is forecasted especially
for the purchase of product and services via internet. The emergence of e-business
and development of technology have emphasized new possibility for value creation.
The scope of customer perceived value was redefined and broadened by combining value
and E-service quality. Based on the theoretical and empirical findings as well as
the conclusion discussed in this paper, it is evident that time and locations are
important value drivers from a customer perspective. At this point it is essential
to acknowledge the main practical consequence of the finding.
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Assessment of Healthcare Quality through Provider’s Perspective
Kumar Santosh* and Gupta S.D.
Provider’s perspective is one of the important aspect for quality of the hospital services, specially in the areas where the staff deals continuously with critically ill patients and agitated relatives who require most attentive and prompt care. This paper attempts to bring the important factors which would greatly affect the satisfaction level of providers.
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A simulation based optimization method applied to a printing workshop case
Chehade Hicham, Yalaoui Farouk* and Amodeo Lionel
This paper presents an optimization technique made by coupling the ARENA simulation software with a multi objective optimizer based on a Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm (NSGA-II). This simulation based optimization technique is used to optimize the performances of a simulation model repres-enting a printing workshop by choosing the best queuing scheduling policy for the machines. The objective is to offer for the industrials a decision aid tool in order to manage their systems better. After a description of both the problem and the adapted method, we present the experimental results by comparing the new platform optimization results with previous theoretical and simulation results. The computational experim-ents show the success of applying our development to the industrial case and that the application could be extended to cover other domains than scheduling policies and other types of management and simulation models.
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New Dimensions of Workplace Learning
Farooqi Rahela
Workplace Learning is seen as the critical contributor dealing with change, coping with uncertainty and complexity in the environment and creating opportunities for sustainable competitive advantage1. The paper tries to analyze the new dimensions of workplace learning at individual and organizational level. It also throws light on new methods of enhancing workplace learning which includes formal methods like e-learning and informal methods like coaching and mentoring with the help of case studies of two Indian organizations.
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