Vol. 4(10) October 2011
Research Articles:
Design of an Instrument for
Evaluating Emotional Intelligence among Professionals
Aruna R., Suganthi L. and Anand A Samuel
Research indicates that a person’s behaviour and competency at work are related
to that person’s personality and his emotional intelligence. These two parameters
define a person’s ability to handle stress, work pressure etc. and help determine
the performance levels and the sociability levels of the employee. An instrument
for determining the emotional intelligence (EI) level of individuals at work place
has been designed and validated. A set of 12 parameters to define EI was identified
and the questionnaire was based on these parameters. The parameters were derived
after comparing three of the most popular theories in EI. The options and scores
were decided based on discussions with the expert group. The questionnaire was validated
through discussions and Delphi study with experts. The questions were scenario based
and the respondents have to choose from four options which they feel they would
most likely take in such a situation. The questionnaire was administered among 60
IT professionals in an IT firm which had a population size of 780 employees. The
analysis revealed that most of the employees in the IT organization surveyed had
an EI level of average only. It was found that the score was highest in the case
of emotional awareness (94.82% of respondents). This indicates that in times of
stress, it will help employees to sense and check their emotions and concentrate
on work.
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Dimensionality of Service Quality and Its Critical Predictors to
Customer Satisfaction in Indian Retail Banking
Arora Vibha, Nravichandran and Jain N.K.
This paper investigates the various dimensions of service quality and how these
dimensions determine customer satisfaction in Indian banking sector. Using Service
performance (Servperf) model, the survey was undertaken in Delhi and National capital
region on the sample of 318 respondents to test dimensionality of servperf by using
construct validity and reliability test. Servperf model proved to be four dimensional
in context of Indian banking sector. Further multivariate regression analysis was
used to see the impact of service quality dimensions on customer satisfaction. Reliability
and service interaction were found to be significant variables to customer satisfaction
in India.
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The Variables that influence New Product Success
Vijayan K. and Jayshree Suresh
Launching new products is an exciting and daunting task. As new product success
rate is only 60% to 70% across industries, to avoid possible losses and trauma of
failure, one needs to take care to do thorough homework on operations and alternative
contingency plans. More importantly the antecedents and predictors of new product
success need to be identified and incorporated in the new product ideation-concept
development-testing-screening-business analysis-physi-cal product development and
test - launch process. Twenty four factors that are drivers of new product success
have been identified from past studies. These drivers of new product success are
classified under product characteristics, process characteristics, stra-tegy characteristics
and market place characteristics.
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Workforce Diversity and HR Challenges
Sreedhar Uma
In the 21st century, the expected trans-formation of economic environment, cutting
across borders, advances in technology, the ensuing intense competitive global and
domestic markets have created enormous pressure on organization to manage their
workforce. In particular, the rapid expansion of firms in new markets outside their
resident economy has made employment of workforce from these new markets imperative.
The cross cultural, cross border mingling has resulted in the creation of a new
class of people- global citizen with global attitudes, tastes and networks. This
has been posing challenges to the corporate world, culminating in Olympian competition.
Thus, globalization requires that organizations increase their ability to learn
and collaborate to manage diversity.
Three interrelated phenomena are emerging namely; borderless world, diversity and
knowledge power. Globalization unleashes multiple variables, the borderless world
preludes immense complexity – complexity in the world, inter-organizational relationships,
in modes of conducting business and in socio cultural diversity.
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Case Study:
A Study on Organizational Behaviour with reference to Amara
Raja Batteries Limited
Reddy Vijaya Bhaskar M., Haritha K. and Subrahmanyam S.E.V.
Organizational climate is the condition of an organizational environment related
to the characteris-tics of the job, the leadership, the workgroup and the various
subsystems as well as the total organization. In the vast literature based on job
satisfaction, one may find that job satisfaction has been investigated through differing
methodologies, serving as a predictor, outcome, moderator and mediator variables.
Job satisfaction has been linked to organizational commitment, life satisfaction,
training, empowerment, customer satisfaction and reduced intention to quit.
Organizational Commitment exists within four factors: Commitment to the organization,
commitment to top management, commitment to immediate supervisors and commitment
to work groups. A distinction between organizational climate and organizational
culture must be made as they are related but two distinct concepts may not be used
interchangeably. In order to fully understand organizational climate, one must also
understand how it differs from organizational culture. Organizational culture is
a result of the social system, work unit, or even department, whereas organizational
climate is an aggregate of an employee’s perceptions of the policies, practices
and actions that are noticed, supported and rewarded in a work environment. Previous
research has supported that organizational culture and organiza-tional climate are
two distinct and unique concepts. It has been empirically provided in many Indian
and western organizations that employee-centered climate and achievement-oriented
climate ultimately improved performance.
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Impact of Working Capital Management on the Profitability of
Limited Companies
Trivedi Savita
Finance is regarded as the lifeblood of any business organization. The Financial
management deals with the process of procuring of financial resources and its judicious
utilization with a view to maximizing the shareholders wealth. Efficient management
of every business enterprise is largely dependent on the efficient management of
its finance. Financial management is managerial activity which is concerned with
planning and controlling of the firm’s financial resources. Most of the businesses
fail as they are unable to meet their working capital requirements. If the firm
cannot maintain a satisfactory level of working capital, it is likely to become
insolvent.
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An Empirical Investigation of the Relation between Risk Tolerance and Socioeconomic
Characteristics of Individual Investors
Syed Tabassum Sultana and Pardhasaradhi S.
Assessment of risk tolerance is an essential consideration for optimum asset allocation
within an investment portfolio. It is crucial in determining and achieving long-term
investment goals. If the risk tolerance is based on a rational and informed evaluation,
then the investor is prepared for a trade off between returns and the degree of
risk leading to mitigation of risk related problems and optimization of returns.
For example, individuals with low risk tolerance may not achieve expected investment
goals in the long term. They may experience opportunity losses for not investing
in stocks. Similarly, individuals with high-risk tolerance levels may unnecessarily
lose wealth for not investing in short term investments. This empirical study is
designed to determine the subjective risk tolerance level of Indian individual investors
and discover the relationship between investors’ socioeconomic characteristics (such
as marital status, education occupation earnings, number of dependents etc.) and
risk tolerance. Statistical technique chi-square is used to explore the relationship.
The research concludes that investors’ socioeconomic characteristics such as Marital
status, Earnings, Occupation and number of dependents are dependent on risk tolerance
but Educational level, regularity of investment decision and basis of investment
decision are independent of risk tolerance level of the Indian individual investor.
The finds could constitute vital input for the investment product designers to design
financial products that can cater to the individual investors’ requirements.
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