Prasad Deshpande and Suhas Baxi
The purpose of the paper is to present a practical case study of a mid‐size Indian organisation, where the whole brain thinking (WBT) approach has been successfully used to align…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the paper is to present a practical case study of a mid‐size Indian organisation, where the whole brain thinking (WBT) approach has been successfully used to align strategy to development needs, based on a simple but powerful model, the ST‐IM™; the authors also share how WBT has been useful in increasing the effectiveness of the implementation of key strategic projects.
Design/methodology/approach
The approach was to engage the wider team (leadership and managers) in the formulation and implementation of strategic goals by making them aware of their thinking preferences/mindsets through a collaborative approach to working. Project teams were then formed and the project plan – right from the project definition to the milestones – was created, using the whole brain walk around. This approach helped managers to identify “gaps” and bridge these gaps. The Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI®) was used as a tool to “colour” the organisation (the leadership team and all managers).
Findings
There was a high degree of acceptance of the WBT concept and the HBDI profiles generated among managers at all levels. This acceptance of their own thinking preferences as well as avoidances has led to managers being willing to become more flexible in their thinking – to become more “situationally whole brained” when required, leading to a visibly higher degree of success of implementation of projects.
Originality/value
The ST‐IM model demonstrates a practical way for organisations to engage the potential of a much wider team in the implementation of strategies.
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Philip Beaulieu and Alan Reinstein
Extant theory tends to treat Organizational Culture (OC) and fraud-related values as static, characterizing culture as synonymous with potential ethical values − but devoting less…
Abstract
Extant theory tends to treat Organizational Culture (OC) and fraud-related values as static, characterizing culture as synonymous with potential ethical values − but devoting less attention to how the culture and values arose and where they are headed. Buffer/conduit theory proposes that accountants learn to use a taxonomy containing three dynamic layers: collective fraud orientation, a buffer/conduit layer, and individual fraud orientation. The middle layer contains OC-related internal controls that buffer the orientation layers from spreading fraud-encouraging values, and serve as conduits transmitting fraud-deterring values − or, when controls do not function as intended, transmitting fraud-encouraging values. A factor analysis of 11 indicators of this three-layer taxonomy suggests that older generations of accounting practitioners apply the taxonomy, but millennials do not. Predisposition to commit fraud is especially salient to internally focused millennials, who uniquely perceive recruitment and training as compensating mechanisms and as collective buffers.
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Ambika Prasad, Laurie T. O’Brien and Caitlin E. Smith Sockbeson
The purpose of this paper is to explore the relevance of caste identity in applied settings. The authors do this within the larger framework of affirmative action programs (AAPs…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the relevance of caste identity in applied settings. The authors do this within the larger framework of affirmative action programs (AAPs) or “reservations” in India. The paper explores the interplay of a primordial identity like caste with the modern institutions representing equality – a context unique to India.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper reports the findings of two experimental studies collecting data using Mechanical Turk.
Findings
The first study finds that an individual hired under the AAP is perceived poorly on his/her competence and reward worthiness. The second study finds support for the influence of an individual’s conception of modern casteism and his/her caste identity as factors in shaping attitudes toward AAP.
Research limitations/implications
The paper lays the groundwork but does not explore the contours of casteism in contemporary India. Understanding of this construct as well as the impact of factors as region, education, urbanization, religion, nature of employment, etc. on caste dynamics should be considered by future research.
Practical implications
The paper uncovers some similarities between Indian and Western findings, but it also demonstrates key differences between findings related to race-based AAPs in the West and the caste-based AAP in India. This understanding will guide discourses on diversity management in under-researched countries like India. The findings can sensitize organizations to the need for addressing unconscious biases related to caste.
Social implications
The paper underscores the continuing relevance of caste in modern India and the negative perceptions of lower castes. The paper finds that individuals with an appreciation of the subtle forms of casteism are sympathetic to programs that promote social equality. In modern social contexts this nuanced operationalization of casteism can be a relevant indicator of caste dynamics.
Originality/value
This is the first empirical study to examine caste-based AAP in India in an applied study and unpacks the psychological underpinnings of the attitudes toward AAP.
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Corporate social responsibility, specifically nonprofit business collaborations from a nonprofit’s perspective.
Abstract
Subject area
Corporate social responsibility, specifically nonprofit business collaborations from a nonprofit’s perspective.
Study level/applicability
Graduate level programs in nonprofit management, corporate social responsibility and development management; it can also be used for executive education.
Case overview
Social enterprises and nonprofits at present increasingly look to corporate firms for grant funds to finance their activities and assets. This case features the experiences of one of the largest nonprofit eye care providers in India, LV Prasad Eye Institute based in Hyderabad in accessing corporate financial support in the form of corporate social responsibility funding. The case deals with the organization challenges, stresses and strains that arise in a nonprofit–corporate partnership. Specifically, it focuses on the strategic and operational challenges that emerge from the partnerships. The partnerships reviewed in the case pertain to rehabilitation.
Expected learning outcomes
After solving the case, the participants will be able to understand the stages in developing collaborations between nonprofits and businesses for corporate social responsibility. They will also be able to understand the internal implications for nonprofits operations and strategy from such collaborations.
Supplementary materials
Teaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.
Subject code
CSS11: Strategy.
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Srinivas Goli, Nagendra Kumar Maurya and Manoj Kumar Sharma
A continuous mixed opinion on the relevance of caste-based reservations and caste as a factor of socioeconomic disparity in the recent period demands update of evidence on…
Abstract
Purpose
A continuous mixed opinion on the relevance of caste-based reservations and caste as a factor of socioeconomic disparity in the recent period demands update of evidence on socioeconomic inequalities among caste groups for effective policy making. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the caste inequalities in terms of socioeconomic opportunities and poverty are still persisting in rural Uttar Pradesh based on village census surveys?
Design/methodology/approach
This study used data primarily collected from four village census surveys under the project rural transformation in Uttar Pradesh, 2013. Bivariate analyses, human opportunity index (HOI), multidimensional poverty index (MPI) and inequality decomposition analyses used as methods of analyses.
Findings
The authors findings suggest that in spite of more than six decades of welfare policies and major political mobilization movements among lower castes in the state, the huge inequalities in terms of critical socioeconomic indicators such as landholding, higher education and wealth distribution and multi-dimensional poverty across the castes are still persisting in the state. Decomposition results suggest that between group inequalities contribute more to the total inequality in landholding whereas within group inequalities contribute maximum to total inequality in education and wealth status of different castes in rural Uttar Pradesh. However, within inequalities much less in general castes compared to SCs/OBCs.
Originality/value
Based on its latest empirical evidence, this study strengthens the argument that caste still matters in socioeconomic achievements of the population in India even after decades of planning and financing of social welfare schemes to uplift the lower castes in India. Thus, provides critical inputs to current debates on the relevance of caste as a determinant of socioeconomic status in India.
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Raji Srinivasan and Gary L. Lilien
The products of some firms emerge neither from new technology developments nor from attempting to address articulated consumers’ needs, but from a company-internal design-driven…
Abstract
Purpose
The products of some firms emerge neither from new technology developments nor from attempting to address articulated consumers’ needs, but from a company-internal design-driven approach. To explore this design-driven approach, we propose a construct, design orientation, as a firm’s ability to integrate functionality, aesthetics, and meaning in its new products. We hypothesize relationships between a firm’s design orientation, customer orientation, technological orientation, and willingness to cannibalize on its new product performance.
Methodology/approach
We use data from surveys of senior marketing executives entrusted with design in 252 US firms, we validate the construct of design orientation and establish its distinctiveness from related constructs of creativity, technological orientation, and customer orientation. Using a structural equation modeling approach, we test the hypotheses and find support for them.
Findings
Individually, design orientation, technological orientation, and customer orientation improve new product performance. In addition, customer orientation decreases the positive effect of design orientation while willingness to cannibalize increases the positive effect of design orientation on new product performance.
Implications for theory and/or practice
More than two-thirds of respondents (69%) perceive that their firm can improve its new product performance by increasing its design orientation, an overlooked organizational capability.
Originality/value
Although practitioners have acknowledged the importance of design as a strategic marketing issue, there is little in the literature on how firms can benefit from building capabilities in the design domain, the issue we focus on in this research.
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Patricia Ahmed, Rebecca Jean Emigh and Dylan Riley
A “state-driven” approach suggests that colonists use census categories to rule. However, a “society-driven” approach suggests that this state-driven perspective confers too much…
Abstract
A “state-driven” approach suggests that colonists use census categories to rule. However, a “society-driven” approach suggests that this state-driven perspective confers too much power upon states. A third approach views census-taking and official categorization as a product of state–society interaction that depends upon: (a) the population's lay categories, (b) information intellectuals' ability to take up and transform these lay categories, and (c) the balance of power between social and state actors. We evaluate the above positions by analyzing official records, key texts, travelogues, and statistical memoirs from three key periods in India: Indus Valley civilization through classical Gupta rule (ca. 3300 BCE–700 CE), the “medieval” period (ca. 700–1700 CE), and East India Company (EIC) rule (1757–1857 CE), using historical narrative. We show that information gathering early in the first period was society driven; however, over time, a strong interactive pattern emerged. Scribes (information intellectuals) increased their social status and power (thus, shifting the balance of power) by drawing on caste categories (lay categories) and incorporating them into official information gathering. This intensification of interactive information gathering allowed the Mughals, the EIC, and finally British direct rule officials to collect large quantities of information. Our evidence thus suggests that the intensification of state–society interactions over time laid the groundwork for the success of the direct rule British censuses. It also suggests that any transformative effect of these censuses lay in this interactive pattern, not in the strength of the British colonial state.
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The paper's purpose is to identify the differences in organizational culture between exporting and non‐exporting firms.
Abstract
Purpose
The paper's purpose is to identify the differences in organizational culture between exporting and non‐exporting firms.
Design/methodology/approach
A binary logit model is used to test organizational cultural differences in four different types; market culture, ad hocracy culture, clan culture, and hierarchy cultures. A univariate t‐test is also used to determine mean differences in organizational culture of exporting and non‐exporting firms.
Findings
Non‐exporting firms tend to be more customer‐driven and competitively oriented (market culture) than exporting firms. However, they are found to be more internally oriented (clan culture) than exporters. There are no significant differences for ad hocracy and hierarchy cultures.
Research limitations/implications
First, the study omits the effects of industry conditions in the firm's cultural orientation. Hence, industry factors need to be studied in relation to exports and organizational culture. Second, organizational culture may play a facilitating rather than predictive role in international expansion since managerial attitudes and characteristics can shape the vision of organizations. It is recommended that future research examine the relationships between managerial characteristics and organizational culture and how this relationship affects the firm's export decisions. Finally, a further classification of non‐exporting companies into interested and not‐interested firms is suggested to further the current literature.
Originality/value
The paper may help interested non‐exporters undertake an organizational change to align their organizational culture with the dynamics of international business so that they can become exporters.
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Zahra Daneshfar, Aswathy Asokan-Ajitha, Piyush Sharma and Ashish Malik
This paper aims to create a better understanding of the challenges posed by work from home (WFH) during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, to investigate the public sentiment toward…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to create a better understanding of the challenges posed by work from home (WFH) during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, to investigate the public sentiment toward this transition, and to develop a conceptual model incorporating the relationships among the factors that influence the effectiveness of WFH.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper uses netnography method to collect data from the Twitter platform and uses Python programming language, Natural Language Processing techniques and IBM SPSS 26 to conduct sentiment analysis and directed content analysis on the data. The findings are combined with an extensive review of the remote work literature to develop a conceptual model.
Findings
Results show the majority of tweets about WFH during the pandemic are positive and objective with technology and cyber security as the most repeated topics in the tweets. New challenges to WFH during pandemic include future uncertainty, health concerns, home workspaces, self-isolation, lack of recreational activities and support mechanisms. In addition, exhaustion and technostress mediate the relationship between the antecedents and outcomes of WFH during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, the fear of pandemic and coping strategies moderates these relationships.
Originality/value
This paper is one of the first efforts to comprehensively investigate the challenges of WFH during a crisis and to extend the remote work literature by developing a conceptual model incorporating the moderating effects of fear of pandemic and coping strategies. Moreover, it is the first paper to investigate the tweeting behavior of different user types on Twitter who shared posts about WFH during the ongoing pandemic.
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Despite an extensive body of knowledge on the importance of customer orientation in the marketing and management literature, the impact of customer orientation and interactive…
Abstract
Purpose
Despite an extensive body of knowledge on the importance of customer orientation in the marketing and management literature, the impact of customer orientation and interactive system infrastructure throughout enterprise networks is not fully understood. The purpose of this paper is to present a model linking customer orientation, interactive system infrastructure, value chain practices, and network performance outcomes.
Design/methodology/approach
The prior literature on customer orientation and supply chains is reviewed and a framework is presented which shows the relationship between customer orientation and network performance outcomes, along with other variables.
Findings
The conclusion supports the importance of customer orientation in the context of the proposed value chain framework.
Research limitations/implications
The framework introduced in this paper provides a review of customer orientation in the enterprise network and a basis for further empirical validation.
Practical implications
The research framework suggests that customer orientation practices may have a positive impact on network infrastructure design, practices, and performance outcomes. Implementation of customer orientation practices and outcomes within this research framework may allow management to meet customer requirements more effectively.
Originality/value
This paper expands the concept of customer‐orientation in the extended enterprise network context.