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.

Innovative Human Resource Practices and Selected HR Outcomes in Software Firms in Kerala

In this study the relationship between Innovative HR practices and selected HR outcomes is investigated.The current study represents a unique attempt to study the effects of innovative HR practices,with job satisfaction,organisational commitment and organisational citizenship bahaviour considered as the consequent variables.Results have affirmed the role of intervening variables such as job satisfaction and organisational commitment in establishing the link between IHRP and OCB obliterating any direct relation between IHRP and organisational citizenship behaviour.This finding may enable researchers in the human resource management to develop more robust understandings of the positive effects of innnovative HR practices on HR outcomes.Thus the present study provides the obvious contribution of weaving up yet another linkage between the two complimentary disciplines of Human Resource Management and Organisational Behaviour.The present study also contributes to the understanding of OCB by exploring its antecedents and extending the intervening role of job satisfaction and organisational commitment.The findings indicate that a higher level of introduction/initiation and satisfaction of innovative HR practices produces high job satisfaction and organisational commitment which lead to OCB.The researcher drew upon the perception-attitude-behaviour model to further realise the expected relationship among innovative HR practices,job satisfaction,organisational commitment and organisational citizenship behaviour.Consequently,this study makes a contribution to the broader organisational citizenship behaviour literature by manifesting the extended relationship path from innovative HR practices to organisational citizenship behaviour,and demonstrating that innovative Hr practices at the organisational level has an effect on employee attitudes and behaviours as well.

Product and Process Innovation: Antecedents and Performance outcomes in small IT firms in India

Innovation is a strategic necessity for the survival of today’s organizations. The wide recognition of innovation as a competitive necessity, particularly in dynamic market environments, makes it an evergreen domain for research. This dissertation deals with innovation in small Information Technology (IT) firms in India. The IT industry in India has been a phenomenal success story of the last three decades, and is today facing a crucial phase in its history characterized by the need for fundamental changes in strategies, driven by innovation. This study, while motivated by the dynamics of changing times, importantly addresses the research gap on small firm innovation in Indian IT.This study addresses three main objectives: (a) drivers of innovation in small IT firms in India (b) impact of innovation on firm performance (c) variation in the extent of innovation adoption in small firms. Product and process innovation were identified as the two most contextually relevant types of innovation for small IT firms. The antecedents of innovation were identified as Intellectual Capital, Creative Capability, Top Management Support, Organization Learning Capability, Customer Involvement, External Networking and Employee Involvement.Survey method was adopted for data collection and the study unit was the firm. Surveys were conducted in 2014 across five South Indian cities. Small firm was defined as one with 10-499 employees. Responses from 205 firms were chosen for analysis. Rigorous statistical analysis was done to generate meaningful insights. The set of drivers of product innovation (Intellectual Capital, Creative Capability, Top Management Support, Customer Involvement, External Networking, and Employee Involvement)were different from that of process innovation (Creative Capability, Organization Learning Capability, External Networking, and Employee Involvement). Both product and process innovation had strong impact on firm performance. It was found that firms that adopted a combination of product innovation and process innovation had the highest levels of firm performance. Product innovation and process innovation fully mediated the relationship between all the seven antecedents and firm performance The results of this study have several important theoretical and practical implications. To the best of the researcher’s knowledge, this is the first time that an empirical study of firm level innovation of this kind has been undertaken in India. A measurement model for product and process innovation was developed, and the drivers of innovation were established statistically. Customer Involvement, External Networking and Employee Involvement are elements of Open Innovation, and all three had strong association with product innovation, and the latter twohad strong association with process innovation. The results showed that proclivity for Open Innovation is healthy in the Indian context. Practical implications have been outlined along how firms can organize themselves for innovation, the human talent for innovation, the right culture for innovation and for open innovation. While some specific examples of possible future studies have been recommended, the researcher believes that the study provides numerous opportunities to further this line of enquiry.

Global Value Chain Linkages of Manufacturing Export Firms: A Study of The Kannur Home Textile Industry

The literature on the involvement of developing countries in trade has focused on the effects of different aspects of globalization on firms, regions and countries. The study attempts to examine how an export based industry, locallyembedded and originated on the basis of regional strengths has been inserted into the global trade framework. Though the unit of analysis is the manufacturing export firm in the region of Kannur, it represents the entire home textile export industry from the state of Kerala, as close to 90% of fabric exports in home furnishing material, textiles for upholstery and decoration and stitched or fused, and branded made ups are from the region. From a global perspective, how developing countries face newer trade restrictions and overcome non quota barriers by firm and region specific activities within a value chain framework is a major research area, which has already contributions from the Ludhiana woolen cluster (Tewari,1999 ) and the Tirupur cluster in India (Cawthorne, 1995). The study contributes to the value chain literature by examining the governance and upgrading as well as how firms benefit from linkages. India has a number of export oriented agglomerations or regions where firms have been serving export markets for many years. In many cases it is no longer the supply side policy actions that determine how they are able to penetrate new markets or expand existing market share. Based on this study it becomes possible to understand how the global value chain operates in these different industries to examine whether there is a danger of immiserisation of growth or low road growth

Marketing orientation of small Firms- a study with reference to Trivandrum district

The small business has attracted very little attention of the historians in the ancient times, or public mind inspite of the fact that its impact on the various civilisations has been phenominal. Even in recent times economists considered the small firms as inappropriate, obselate and anacronistic as it cannot assimilate the full potential of technological change in the production system. But today everybody agrees that the small business has a definite role in shaping the human destiny and enhancing the quality of life in any society. In a developing country like India small firms are necessary to generate employment for millions, high standared of personal choice to consumers, provide competition and act as a check to monopoly power; further the small firms provide an important source of innovation and in turn it paves the way for entrepreneur development in the society. In many countries the small enterprises played a significant role in the growth and development of their economic system. Italy and Japan are quoted as classic examples . In India, too, with the abundance of labour and scarce capital resources small firms have been promoted and protected by the government. But one must say that the small firm owners/managers in India have been shy in developing a market orientation in themeselves. Due to this many firms failed and closed. The alarming rate of sickness among the small firms in India may be attributed to the lack of market driven/customer orientation approach among the owner/managers of small business. So the study on the market oreintation of the small firms has never been in the mind of marketing experts and academicians. Thus, an attempt is made to enquire into them systematically and scientifically. For the study, Trivandrum district in Kerala has been selected. The data for the study has been collected by the help of a schedule which has been prepared after consulting the relevant literature and after consultation with experts in the field, academicians and practising managers.

Gap Analysis For Implementing Tqm In Seafood Exporting Firms

Gap analysis is a very useful tool for firms contemplating adoption of a new system. This paper envisages the use of the gap analysis tool as a precursor for Indian seafood exporting firms to adopt total quality management. Total quality management (TQM) is a management philosophy which strives to put quality at the forefront of all its decision-making, thereby satisfying customers. We therefore recommend that firms adopt the TQM system for better alignment of management goals. The gap analysis tool serves as a roadmap for TQM implementation, by showing the management where they actually are and where they want to be. The main gaps were found to be in the areas of usage of SPC tools (66.7%), benchmarking (65.6%), top management commitment (56.25%) and customer focus (48.1%).