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Decisions pertaining to working capital management have pivotal role for firms’ short-term financial decisions. The purpose of this paper is to examine impact of working capital on profitability for Indian corporate entities.

Both classical panel analysis and Bayesian techniques have been employed that provides opportunity not only to perform comparative analysis but also allows flexibility in prior distribution assumptions.

It is found that longer cash conversion period has detrimental influence on profitability. Financial soundness indicators are playing significant role in determining firm profitability. Larger firms seem to be more profitable and significant as per Bayesian approach. Bayesian approach has led to considerable gain in estimation fit.

Observing the highly skewed distribution of dependent variable, Multivariate Student t-distribution has been considered along with normal distribution to model stochastic term. Accordingly, Bayesian methodology is applied.

Analysis of working capital for firms has been performed in Indian context. Application of Bayesian methodology is performed on balanced panel spanning from 2003 to 2012. As per author’s knowledge, this is the first study which applies Bayesian approach employing panel data for the analysis of working capital management for Indian firms.

The chapter examines the sources of total factor productivity growth (TFPG) of the 2-digit manufacturing industries as well as total manufacturing industry of Gujarat during the period from 1981–82 to 2010–11, using a stochastic frontier approach. The empirical finding clearly states that although factor accumulations as well as resource allocations in most of the 2-digit manufacturing industries of the state have been improved during the postreform period, technological progress (TP) and technical efficiency change (TEC) of the same have deteriorated in most industries of the state during that period. As a result TFPG in the major manufacturing industries as well as total manufacturing industry of the state have declined because the combined effect of their improvement in scale effect (SC) and allocation efficiency effect (AEC) could not offset the declining effect of both the TP and TEC of the same during that period. In this context, the government should take some policy initiatives to improve productive efficiency of the organized manufacturing industries in Gujarat. Once efficiency increases, it enhances competitiveness, thereby increasing productivity growth and its different sources of organized manufacturing industries of the state.

Earlier work often referred to as the ‘hole in the wall’ experiments has shown that groups of children can leam to use public computers on their own. This paper presents the method and results of an experiment conducted to investigate whether such unsupervised group learning in shared public spaces is universal. The experiment was conducted with ‘hole in the wall’ (minimally invasive education, or MIE) kiosks in 23 locations in rural India. Focus groups in each location were tested for computer literacy for 9 months. Results, which are discussed in the paper, show that groups of children can leam to use computers and the Internet on their own, irrespective of who or where they are. The paper also discusses the engineering considerations for building such ‘hole in the wall’ computers in public spaces.

Marketing, Marketing environment, Marketing strategy.

Post Graduate (MBA), Executive Education Program.

The present case study deals with the marketing strategies of Punascha (meaning re-beginning), a publisher of Bengali non-textbooks based in Kolkata, India. This case is suitable for teaching in Marketing Management course in a Post Graduate Program in Business Management. It could also be taken up for an executive program in marketing strategy. The case study is a live case study, which was based on in-depth interviews with the company people and company site visit. The case study discusses how Punascha started from a humble beginning in 1988 and became one of the leading publishers of Bengali books in India. The key focus of the case is on how a company can use marketing tools effectively (and uniquely) and become successful.

Understanding the basics of 4Ps of marketing and how they are used in synchronisation with each other to achieve the marketing objectives. Understanding the role of marketing environment in marketing strategy. Realizing the need of a new product development strategy. Assessing the need of non-traditional modes of marketing communications and its role in product promotion.

Teaching notes.

The purpose of this paper is to combine the elaboration likelihood model and hedonic/utilitarian values into a coherent model of shopping motivational values for online and offline Malaysian shoppers. Once these values were identified, they were compared to one another based on shopping channel, gender, and age group.

The Shopping Motivational Value Questionnaire was developed by the researcher after extensive literature review and measured the respondent’s perception toward shopping motivational values in both shopping channels. Data were collected from 306 Malaysians above the age of 21, and analyzed using exploratory factor analysis and pairwise t-test techniques.

The factor analysis revealed a three-factor model of shopping motivational values. Gratification Values were the most important to shoppers, followed by Essential and Societal Values. Shoppers perceived all these motivational values as important when shopping offline as compared to online, regardless of gender and age group.

The results of the factor analysis revealed a three-factor model of shopping motivational values: Gratification Values which were the most important to shoppers, followed by Essential and Societal Values. These values were then compared to one another based on shopping channel, gender, and age group. Results indicate that shoppers perceived all these motivational values as important when shopping offline rather than online, regardless of gender and age group. Moreover, the perception of shoppers toward specific product categories and other shopping channels were not taken into account.

This study attempted to combine the elaboration likelihood model and hedonic and utilitarian values into a coherent model. A questionnaire was developed by the researcher with these two theoretical models as its foundation. Additionally, the shopping motivational values of this study have been formulated to be compatible to both shopping channels.