ORSI Ahmedabad chapters has taken the initiatives to conduct an annual conference focusing on theory and practice of operational Research in the Indian context. These conferences are named as Management Science and practice (MSP). The peer review edition proceedings of the conference are published for wider dissemination. The 5th edition of MSP was held at IIM Indore in August 2012. This event was attended by about 50 scholars. A dozen invited presentations from eminent academicians formed the core academic program. The edited proceedings are presented in this volume.
The intensity of global competition and ever-increasing economic uncertainties has led organizations to search for more efficient and effective ways to manage their business operations. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) has been widely used as a conceptually simple yet powerful tool for evaluating organizational productivity and performance. Fuzzy DEA (FDEA) is a promising extension of the conventional DEA proposed for dealing with imprecise and ambiguous data in performance measurement problems. This book is the first volume in the literature to present the state-of-the-art developments and applications of FDEA. It is designed for students, educators, researchers, consultants and practicing managers in business, industry, and government with a basic understanding of the DEA and fuzzy logic concepts.
The present book is based on the research papers presented in the International Conference on Soft Computing for Problem Solving (SocProS 2012), held at JK Lakshmipat University, Jaipur, India. This book provides the latest developments in the area of soft computing and covers a variety of topics, including mathematical modeling, image processing, optimization, swarm intelligence, evolutionary algorithms, fuzzy logic, neural networks, forecasting, data mining, etc. The objective of the book is to familiarize the reader with the latest scientific developments that are taking place in various fields and the latest sophisticated problem solving tools that are being developed to deal with the complex and intricate problems that are otherwise difficult to solve by the usual and traditional methods. The book is directed to the researchers and scientists engaged in various fields of Science and Technology.
This study not only demonstrates application of modern organization management tools in agri-business operations around credit, but also provides important clues toward improving performance of credit in this country.
Organising small producers for dealing with production and market risks has been an issue of much debate and research. The co-operative model has been the predominant form of organization of such producers in the past across the developing world and more so in India whether for input supply or output handling and marketing. In 2002, the Companies Act was amended to make space for producer or farmer companies under the Act. As a result, over the last decade, hundreds of producer companies have been promoted by different stakeholders like government, NGOs, farmers’ unions and some corporate agencies to link farmers with markets and create better bargaining power to deal with modern and changing markets. In this context, this study examines the nature and process of promotion of producer companies in India and their performance and dynamics across four states, commodity sectors, and promoters within agricultural sector with the help of case studies of two dozen such companies. It compares and contrasts the Indian producer company structure with traditional co-operatives and with similar innovations in other contexts like Sri Lanka’s farmer companies. The study analyses the performance and the problems of the producer companies from various perspectives, and examines policy and organizational issues to provide guidelines for better structuring and management of this innovative form of producer collectivization in India and the developing world.
The book advances the nascent concept of depersonalized workplace bullying, highlighting its distinctive features, proposing a theoretical framework and making recommendations for intervention. Furthering insights into depersonalized bullying at work is critical due to the anticipated increased incidence of the phenomenon in the light of the competitive contemporary business economy, which complicates organizational survival. Drawing on two hermeneutic phenomenological inquiries set in India focusing on targets and bullies, the book evidences that depersonalized bullying is a sociostructural entity that resides in an organization’s structural, processual and contextual design. Enacted by supervisors and managers through the engagement of abusive and aggressive behaviours, depersonalized bullying is resorted to in the pursuit of competitive advantage as organizations seek to ensure their continuity and success. Given the instrumentalism associated with the world of work, targets and bullies encountering depersonalized bullying display largely ambivalent responses to their predicament. Ironically, then, organizations’ gains in terms of effectiveness are offset by the strains experienced by these protagonists. The theoretical generalizability of the findings reported in the book facilitates the development of an integrated framework of depersonalized workplace bullying, laying the foundations for forthcoming empirical and measurement endeavours that progress the concept. The book recognizes that whereas primary level interventions mandate repositioning the extra-organizational environment and/or recasting organizational goals to balance business and employee interests, secondary level and tertiary level interventions encompass various types of formal and informal social support to address targets’ and bullies’ interface with depersonalized bullying at work.
This innovative introduction to business policy and strategic management, covering both the illustrative cases and conceptual foundation, offers authoritative approaches to strategic leadership in emerging markets. Among its many unique features, this comprehensively updated and revised second edition is structured to help students think strategically. The major organizational issues in strategy development are covered through an analytical study of: Nine different perspectives on organization to capture the rich history of the discipline and enlighten the nature of strategy. The concept of strategic intent to guide action. 9-M model to analyze strategies in functional areas of manpower, materials, methods, money, manufacturing, machine, marketing, motivating, and manipulating. Competitive gaming model to strategize different types of market structures. Internetworking model to develop high-performance Internet ventures. Strategic business model to unfold hidden value into new directions. Value model to explain strategic elements of innovation and technology management. Ethical and international issues in the context of corporate governance. Strategic leadership model relevant to the emerging market ground realities. Strategic control model (both balanced and extended scorecard) to explore the influence of environmental and cultural contexts on effective performance. The text is well supported by more than one thousand sources of international research, India-focused case studies and experiential assignments. This comprehensive text on theory and practice of strategic management is a must read for management students as well as business practitioners and consultants.
Ravenor and his retinue become fugitives from the Inquisition in order to hunt down the arch-heretic Zygmunt Molotch. Inquisitor Ravenor continues his persecution of the arch-heretic Zygmunt Molotch – a hunt that has, for him, now become an obsession. In direct contravention of Inquisition orders, Ravenor and his team go rogue, in relentless pursuit of their quarry. Thrown through time and space, pitted against enemies of limitless power and cunning, just how much will Ravenor and his team have to sacrifice in order to thwart Molotch's schemes and bring the heretic to justice?
