Vol. 3(9) September 2010
Delegation, Authority and Responsibility: A Reconfiguration of an old Paradigm
Bushardt Stephen C. and Glascoff David W.
Management is often defined in simple terms as getting things accomplished through
people. At the core of management practice is a process that involves assigning
tasks to others (delegation), granting these individuals the right to accomplish
them (authority) and holding them accountable for accomplishing the tasks (responsibility).
The foundation of the delegation process rests on two widely held assumptions that
have been raised to the level of tenets, maxims or even “principles”
of management. These assumptions are that the delegation of a task does not release
the delegator from the responsibility for task completion (“the absoluteness
of responsibility”) and the idea that authority should equal responsibility
(“the parity of responsibility and authority”). The purpose of this
paper is to examine the inherent inconsistency and incompatibility of the tenets
of management, to propose a reconfiguration of the delegation process more consistent
with reality and to discuss how managers can enhance not only their performance
but also the organization’s performance through an alternative model of management
incorporating personal power.
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Intellectual Capital Accounting
Chatterjee Abhijeet and Gupta Richa
The American Accounting Association’s Committee on Human Resource Accounting
has defined Human Resource Accounting as “the process of identifying and measuring
data about human resources and communicating this information to interested parties”.
In this explorative document, the method of calculation is Net Present Value (NPV)
method. The utmost inadequacy of this method is the irrational assumption that people
will continue with their present organization till their stipulated retirement age.
In order to defeat the stated limitation, a certainty factor has been considered
which is nothing but the degree of firmness that an employee will stay with current
organization till retirement age. The objective of this paper is to assist the management
of the institution to understand the long term cost and benefit implications of
their HR decisions so that better steps and decisions can be taken. Management always
has a risk factor involved while taking decisions. Their decisions have short run
objectivity thus can have brutal repercussions strategic terms.
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An Efficient Way to minimize the Impact of Risks in Information and Communications
Technology (ICT) Sector
Nayak Malaya Kumar
Information and communications technology software’s are used very effectively
throughout many organizations and information technology upgrading projects are
often carried out to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the different
functional departments of the organization. Every departmental allocation of information
technology services to the different departments carries a particular level of risk
in implementation and the results that can be generated from it. The task of the
risk managers is to optimize the resources available to the organization bringing
the risk down to the lowest level. The problem statement of this research is to
“Evaluate the effectiveness of risks involved in the implementation of information
and communications technology software’s and projects in organizations”.
The goal of this study is to focus on the effective use of the information technology
infrastructure and the amount of risks that are involved while determining the appropriate
information technology system and what risks are present while using. As simple
as it may sound, risk management is a world of its own, where the managers need
to analyze each and every situation at hand and come up with decisions that are
strategically beneficial for the organization in the long run.
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Suicide Management in India
Ramesh G.
If people do not clearly know what is most important and urgent to their success,
they will be likely to make unnecessary and regretful trade-offs. Hence they have
to create a satisfying balance between those things they want most, those things
that are not important and things that can be postponed. During this balancing act,
many people are surmounted by hurdles and harbour negative results. Many fail to
reach their goals in life for different reasons-some of them completely beyond their
control. The outcome of this failure can be burnout, losing the sense of purpose,
a losing of enthusiasm and feeling despair. Repeated failures leads to hopelessness
and the individual develops pessimistic approach. An extreme passive attitude of
these people is suicide attempt. When people can not survive in the real world and
their genuine attempts are getting undesired results, they attempt suicide. There
are a number of causes for an individual for attempting and committing suicide.
Many factors-demographic, social, environmental, behavioral, psychiatric and psychological
are associated with the risk of suicide. The need of the hour is a robust counseling
system equipped to pick up distress signals in people and help them come out of
their entrapment. Unlike the west, counseling facilities in India are not adequate.
The key towards improvement is to apply right attitude in real situations. It is
up to the individual to take charge of their lives, by not giving up hope.
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The Art of Negotiating
Azhar Samina and Mohindra Vinita
Communication is the most important ingredient of an organization. It has made the
integration and coordination of human resources possible, which as a result has
solved various professional as well as personal problems. This paper aims to discuss
negotiation skills- an integral part of business communication. It highlights the
importance of negotiation and establishes it as one of the most important aspects
of business communication.
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Corporate Disclosure Practices in Indian Pharma Industry -An Empirical Study
Rajashekar H. and Pillai Rajesh S.
This study empirically examines the quantum of corporate disclosure and its association
with corporate attributes such as age, size, profitability, leverage, listing status,
shareholding pattern, audit firm and residential status of a company. It is based
on a sample of 25 companies from the pharma industry drawn from ‘PROWESS”
database of the Center for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) for the year 2009-10
on the basis of market capitalization as on March 31, 2010. An UN weighted disclosure
index consisting of 20 items of information was constructed which was used to compute
the disclosure score of each selected company. Pearson correlation product moment
matrix was used to check the multi co-linearity between independent variables. Multiple
regression analysis revealed that significant association exists among size, profitability
and audit firm and disclosure level. However, no significant association was found
among disclosure score and age, listing status, leverage, shareholding pattern and
residential status of a company.
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On the Relationship between Movie-Genre Popularity and a Country’s Economic
Condition
Moynihan Kelly and Berger Paul D.
In this paper, we statistically determine that a relationship exists between the
economic condition of a country and motion picture genre popularity in that country
the following year. The study uses data from the United States, but also offers
a process for how such a study can be conducted for any country. We consider eight
different economic measures to ensure that we capture all facets of the economic
conditions. Movie genre popularity is determined by considering the top 20 revenue-grossing
movies per year. Our study comprises an extensive, 37-year time period: 1972-2008.
Our conclusions indicate that during economic downturns, comedies and dramas are
more popular than expected, whereas science-fiction and family films are less popular
than expected. Alternatively, during economic upturns, science-fiction and family
films experience more popularity than expected whereas comedies and dramas experience
less popularity. Action/adventure and horror film popularity were found to be unaffected
by the economic climate.
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Satyam-Yesterday and Today
Priya Suchi
Mr. Raju, Chairman of Satyam Computers cheated the people and made a huge money
through false means. Satyam was taken over by Mahindra and now is doing well after
a downfall.
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Stress Management among Private Sector Banking Professionals
Garg Pratibha
This article investigates the relation between distress level and quality of life.
The sample consists of six private sector banks of Chandigarh tricity. The results
show that there is significant negative relation between distress and quality of
life. Results show that quality of life increased after stress management intervention
and distress level decreased significantly.
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Leadership–Well Criticized than Well Understood
Badshah Shital
The success of any organization depends on its leadership. Although a good deal
of research has been done on leadership, it is difficult to say what it is. While
the term "leader" was noted as early as the 1300s and conceptualized even
before biblical times, the term leadership has been in existence only since the
late 1700s. Despite many thousands of theoretical and empirical studies, leadership
remains a tantalizing enigma for thinkers and practitioners
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