House Building and Personal Finance-A Study of Salaried Employees in Kerala

School of Management Studies,Cochin University of Science and Technology

Market Orientation in Indian Seafood Processing Firms

This thesis studied the impact of market orietnation on business performance, in the seafood industry, which is a unique situation wherein the firms were all 100% export oriented. The study was able to prove that in the context of the seafood indsutry, implementation of market orientation principles will lead to increase in business performance. The business performance variables were measured under two heads, namely economic performance and non-economic performance. Market orientation in Indian seafood firms was significantly and postiively related to both the performance measures. Under the non-economic performance, were the customer and employee consequences.Again market orientation was positively and significantly related to both the consequences.Thus, the implication arising from the study is this: market orientation in Indian seafood processing firms increases their business performance. The implementation of market orientation will help the seafood firms in gaining competitve advantages in exporting. This in turn will result in increased exports and the position of Indian seafood in the global market will be strengthened. It will thus become a leading player in the global fish trade. Next, the focus was on the effect of the antecedents on the market orientation of a firm. It was seen that several factors were antecedents to the adoption of market orientation principles. They include top management emphasis, conflict, centralization and reward system. It is noted that top management emphasis and support is vital to the market orientation programme. The top management needs to adopt market oriented behaviour and reinforce the need for being market oriented, for it to percolate down the line.Interdepartmental conflict is seen to affect market orientation positively. A large percent of the Indian seafood firms are traditionally family-owned companies, rather than professionally managed firms. This would result in promulgation of old ideas of management whereby, conflict was seen as a healthy exercise, which helped to build up each department's efficiency. But, this view in the long run proves to be detrimental to the firm's performance and must therefore be kept to a bare minimum, if any.Decentralisation of decision making facilitates the participation of the lower level employees and builds up their motivational levels and commitment to the firm. Thus employees are encouraged to make their own decisions, so that they can deal with customers faster and more efficiently. Reward systems help improve an employee's morale, provide encouragement and helps inculcate commitment and loyalty. It improves the employee's self worth and fulfills his need for achievement. A satisfied employee works better, produces more output and needs less supervision, and is happy, thereby reducing costs to the company for replacement and retraining, if the employee quits.Competitive intensity plays a moderating role on the market orientation business performance. Thus in times of greater competition, the relationship between market orientation and business performance grows stronger. Thus, this thesis was successful in investigating a positive relationship between business performance and market orientation.

A study on the organisational commitment of professionals with respect to various aspects of organisational socialisation

Organisational commitment of various groups of professionals seems to be moderated by the differences of the groups as well as of the socialisation experiences Demographic variable ‘age’ and the semi-structural variable ‘experience’ cause a difference in the level of commitment. Similarly, the professional and organisational differences moderate the level of commitment. From the point of view of the organisations, the socialisation experiences if differ can be used as tool to process and enhance the level of commitment of professionals of various groups.The ‘Socialisation effect’ does not depend on the professional or demographic differences. Socialisation level is moderated only by the organisational specialities. It is purely an organisational variable. However, the difference in the socialisation levels as found among the professionals can cause a significant difference in the levels of organisational commitment of professionals

Commitment of women industrial workers with special reference to electronics industry in Kerala

In this study of workers of the two industrial units, it has been found that the women workers are more committed to the organization than the men workers. The organizational commitment has been a popular research topic among organizational sociologists, industrial psychologists and labour relations specialists. Much of the early research was directed on organizational commitment of men workers and studies on organizational commitment of women workers were less when compared to that of men workers. The results of this study is partially supported by the findings of Aranya and Jacobson (1975) who found that parental responsibility is linked with maintaining stable patterns of employment.

A study on the Effect of Psychological Empowerment on Job Satisfaction and Job Related Stress Among the Bank Employees

The present research is carried out to understand how psychological empowerment, job satisfaction and job related stress are related.In banking sector, employees are less satisfied and less motivated than employees in other lines of work (Kelley, 1990; Bajpai, Naval and Deepak, 2004). The banking industry also suffers from high employee turnover rate (Branham, 2005; Nelson, 2007) and high level of stress (Chen and Lien, 2008). There are no adequate studies linking psychological empowerment and job satisfaction, stress, turnover etc. among employees of banking sector. Lack of psychological empowerment could be a reason for these problems faced by banking sector. Further majority of studies in psychological empowerment are carried out in manufacturing sector and studies in service sector are concentrated on hotel industry and hospitals. Empowerment takes different forms in different contexts (Zimmerman, 1995). In the light of above discussion, the present research is directed to explore the dimensions of psychological empowerment of employees in banking sector and to find out whether high psychological empowerment can increase job satisfaction and reduce job related stress among employees in banking sector

Reinforcement Learning Solution for Unit Commitment Problem Considering Minimum Start Up and Shut Down Times

Unit Commitment Problem (UCP) in power system refers to the problem of determining the on/ off status of generating units that minimize the operating cost during a given time horizon. Since various system and generation constraints are to be satisfied while finding the optimum schedule, UCP turns to be a constrained optimization problem in power system scheduling. Numerical solutions developed are limited for small systems and heuristic methodologies find difficulty in handling stochastic cost functions associated with practical systems. This paper models Unit Commitment as a multi stage decision making task and an efficient Reinforcement Learning solution is formulated considering minimum up time /down time constraints. The correctness and efficiency of the developed solutions are verified for standard test systems

Reinforcement Learning solution for Unit Commitment Problem through pursuit method

Unit commitment is an optimization task in electric power generation control sector. It involves scheduling the ON/OFF status of the generating units to meet the load demand with minimum generation cost satisfying the different constraints existing in the system. Numerical solutions developed are limited for small systems and heuristic methodologies find difficulty in handling stochastic cost functions associated with practical systems. This paper models Unit Commitment as a multi stage decision task and Reinforcement Learning solution is formulated through one efficient exploration strategy: Pursuit method. The correctness and efficiency of the developed solutions are verified for standard test systems

Impact of Quality on Ethics and Social Responsibility in Marketing, in Industries in Kerala in the present Indian Scenario

The paper ‘Impact of Quality on Ethics and Social Responsibility in Marketing in Industries in Kerala in the present Indian scenario’ highlights the observations, based on a descriptive research carried out in five leading industries in Kerala, in the private and public sector. Ethics and social responsibilities, practiced in these industries, are reflected in the results of the survey conducted on specific queries like awareness of products/services provided by them, total understanding of the requirements of the customer, open discussion on technical matters, accountability of employees to the society and social needs, consumer ethics vis a vis business ethics etc. Team working goes a long way, in building relations, which in turn, results in a progressive and effective marketing strategy. This assumes paramount importance, considering the severe competition we are facing in the light of liberalization, privatization and globalization, which encompasses the globe. The prediction of India becoming a lead nation, along with USA, China and Japan, in this decade, can get fructified only if we follow a very high standards of ethics and social responsibility, in all domains including marketing. Organizations like TRW.Rane, Sundaram Fasteners, TVS Motors, in Chennai are a few among others in India, who have achieved the highest distinction in quality viz Deming Prize, and these demonstrate their commitment to quality, society and humanity at large. Cost effectiveness, without jeopardizing quality has become the need of the hour and MRTP has become history. This trait is being brought out through the survey and the results speak for themselves. Unethical practices like switch and bait, not only brings shame to the organization, and country but also results in the company getting wiped out from the market. Adherence to standards like ISO 14000 helps to maintain the minimum level of social responsibility and environmental friendliness. Like quality audit, safety audit etc, social audit is being insisted in all progressive countries to ensure that the organization comply with the minimum statutory requirements. The paper also touches upon Corporate Social Responsibility practiced in the industries and this becomes crystal clear through their commitment to improve the community. Green Marketing lays a lot of importance on the three Rs of environmentalism viz Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. The objective of any business is to achieve optimal profit and this is possible only by reducing the cost as well as waste. In this context, management tools like brainstorming, suggestion schemes, benchmarking etc becomes helpful. These characteristics are brought out through the analysis of survey results. The conclusions drawn throw a lot of information on the desirable practices with respect to Ethics and Social Responsibility in Marketing

The Social Commitment Of The New Leftist Poets

Hindi

Service provider switching: a study on the switching process in retail banking

In a business environment that is characterized by intense competition, building customer loyalty has become a key area of focus for most financial institutions. The explosion of the services sector, changing customer demographics and deregulation and emergence of new technology in the financial services industry have had a critical impact on consumers’ financial services buying behaviour. The changes have forced banks to modify their service offerings to customers so as to ensure high levels of customer satisfaction and also high levels of customer retention. Banks have historically had difficulty distinguishing their products from one another because of their relative homogeneity; with increasing competition,the problem has only intensified with no coherent distinguishing theme. Rising wealth, product proliferation, regulatory changes and newer technologies are together making bank switching easier for customers. In order to remain competitive, it is important for banks to retain their customer base. The financial services sector is the foundation for any economy and plays the role of mobilization of resources and their allocation. The retail banking sector in India has emerged as one of the major drivers of the overall banking industry and has witnessed enormous growth. Switching behaviour has a negative impact on the banks’ market share and profitability as the costs of acquiring customers are much higher than the costs of retaining. When customers switch, the business loses the potential for additional profits from the customer the initial costs invested in the customer by the business get . The Objective of the thesis was to examine the relationship among triggers that customers experience, their perceptions of service quality, consumers’ commitment and behavioral intentions in the contemporary India retail banking context through the eyes of the customer. To understand customers’ perception of these aspects, data were collected from retail banking customers alone for the purpose of analysis, though the banks’ views were considered during the qualitative work carried out prior to the main study. No respondent who is an employee of a banking organization was considered for the final study to avoid the possibility of any bias that could affect the results adversely. The data for the study were collected from customers who have switched banks and from those who were non switchers. The study attempted to develop and validate a multidimensional construct of service quality for retail banking from the consumer’s perspective. A major conclusion from the empirical research was the confirmation of the multidimensional construct for perceived service quality in the banking context. Switching can be viewed as an optimization problem for customers; customers review the potential gains of switching to another service provider against the costs of leaving the service provider. As banks do not provide tangible products, their service quality is usually assessed through service provider’s relationship with customers. Thus, banks should pay attention towards their employees’ skills and knowledge; assessing customers’ needs and offering fast and efficient services.

A study on the Effect of Psychological Empowerment on Job Satisfaction and Job Related Stress Among the Bank Employees

This study focuses on psychological empowerment of employees in banking sector because of the reasons stated below: Firstly, very little research has been conducted in understanding empowerment as a psychological construct. Majority of the studies have been conducted on the various empowerment practices in the organizations. Secondly, there is no empirical evidence that the empowerment practice will create a subjective feeling of empowerment within the individual. Employee empowerment will be effective only if the employees actually experience the empowerment. Even if the organizations have the empowerment practices like providing power and open communication it is not necessary that the employee is empowered. Empowerment describes only the condition of work environment. It does not describe employees’ response to these conditions. These responses form the basis for psychological empowerment