Social media platforms, owing to its great wealth of information, facilitates one's opportunities to explore hidden patterns or unknown correlations. It also finds its credibility in understanding people's expressions from what they are discussing on online platforms. As one showcase, in this paper, we summarize the dataset of Twitter messages related to recent demonetization of all Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes in India and explore insights from Twitter's data. Our proposed system automatically extracts the popular latent topics in conversations regarding demonetization discussed in Twitter via the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA)-based topic model and also identifies the correlated topics across different categories. Additionally, it also discovers people's opinions expressed through their tweets related to the event under consideration via the emotion analyzer. The system also employs an intuitive and informative visualization to show the uncovered insight. Furthermore, we use an evaluation measure, Normalized Mutual Information (NMI), to select the best LDA models. The obtained LDA results show that the tool can be effectively used to extract discussion topics and summarize them for further manual analysis.

In cloud service provisioning, spot instances are an attractive option for IT managers of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that usually have sporadic requirements for cloud resources. Though priced dynamically, spot instances are usually cheaper. Cloud service providers (CSPs) employ the spot instance approach to sell their "idle" resources because spot instances are spare slots requiring no pre-booking, unlike reserved or on-demand instances that require prior booking. However, IT managers have to win spot instances via auctions conducted by CSPs. An SME continues to consume spot instances as long as its bid exceeds the current spot price. But, if it loses at any point in time, the unfinished task is to be put on hold by checkpoint mechanism. Optimizing both bid price and checkpoint overhead calls for strategic thinking on the part of the SME. This chapter dwells on this issue to help the IT managers of SMEs transform their business with cloud.

For most managers, purchasing decisions are key decisions in the achievement of business organisation's strategic objectives. Appropriate supplier selection is necessary as it fulfils these important objectives of the organisation by maximising overall value to the purchaser, reducing uncertainty in supply, and by forming a long term, reliable relationship between buyers and suppliers. Supplier selection being affected by several conflicting factors requires an appropriate multi-criteria decision making approach. One of the recent approaches used for supplier selection is a hybrid data envelopment analytic hierarchy process (DEAHP) approach. However, this approach suffers from serious drawbacks as it uses counter intuitive priority vectors for inconsistent pair wise comparison matrices and also at times, it generate illogical weights for consistent pair wise comparison matrices as well. The objective of this paper is to present a revised DEAHP (RDEAHP) approach to overcome these drawbacks of DEAHP. The uniqueness of the research lies in the application of RDEAHP approach for supplier selection problem.

Two of the most dominant challenges in post disaster emergency resource allocation are: 1) understanding the exact utility, i.e., exigency, of emergency resources and 2) collecting and transmitting the need for these resources to the control station from where resources are allocated. Measuring the utility of resources with precision becomes tricky in a dynamic post disaster scenario, where demands are constantly evolving and supplies trickle in at an uncertain rate. Moreover, collection and transmission of resource needs of far-flung areas are easier said than done owing to the post disaster disruption of communication infrastructure. These result in the ad-hoc allocation of emergency resources to the shelters. In this paper, we first derive a utility function for dynamically enumerating the shelter specific utility of each emergency resource. Subsequently, we propose an opportunistic knowledge sharing scheme for gathering and disseminating resource needs to the control station using a smartphone-based delay tolerant network. Finally, based on these opportunistically transmitted needs, we formulate a utility driven optimal resource allocation model which minimizes overall resource deficit and total resource deployment time. The proposed system optimally assigns constrained emergency resources to different shelters, so that high-utility resources are deployed fast. The effectiveness of the proposed system is evaluated using ONE simulator and LINGO optimization modeling tool. Exhaustive simulation is done to evaluate the comparative performance of our system with a number of competing schemes. Results show that our system outperforms all these schemes in a fully connected scenario. It is also observed that even in an intermittently connected environment, the performance of our system is almost at par with the competing schemes. IEEE

Sustaining a competitive edge in today's business world requires innovative approaches to product, service, and management systems design and performance. Advances in computing technologies have presented managers with additional challenges as well as further opportunities to enhance their business models. Advances in Data Communications and Networking for Digital Business Transformation is a critical scholarly resource that examines transformative technologies from the perspective of data communication and networking and research challenges faced by the industry and research and development laboratories. Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics such as routing protocols, network visualization, and corporate social responsibility, this book is geared towards executives, managers, academicians, researchers, and students.

This book studies accounts of alternative organisations in India and provides critical insights on if and why alternative organisations matter to management theory and practice, how management theory can be applied to the context of alternative organisations, and how, from an alternate organisational perspective, existing debates in management can be enriched. Some other questions examined in this book are: what are spaces of organising outside corporations? How do these alternative organisational forms challenge our assumptions about a globalised, monolithic capitalist order? How do we understand the organisational lives of those marginalised, silenced and oppressed? How can we imagine an alternative organisational reality? It includes cases from different parts of India that explore the functioning of a Special Investigation Team constituted by the Supreme Court of India, Mritshilpis (idol-makers), homeless shelters, panchayats, Shahid Hospital, Budhan Theater, Swaraj University, and organisations that promote social inclusivity. Cambridge University Press 2018. All rights reserved.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to understand the ethnocentric tendencies of Indian consumers towards foreign multi-brand retailers (FMBRs), and the influence that such ethnocentrism has on their attitudes towards, and future purchasing behaviour from, these international retailers. Design/methodology/approach: The paper used a mall intercept method with a randomised data collection process to secure data from 119 organised retail shoppers in a major metropolitan Indian city. The analysis was carried out using analysis of covariance, bootstrapping mediation, multiple regression analysis, and Johnson's relative weight analysis. Findings: Two main results are as follows: concern for livelihoods of small retailers and a perception that earnings of foreign retailers are unjust are revealed as the most significant drivers of negative attitude towards FMBRs, and although high ethnocentric customers have a strong negative attitude towards FMBRs, they are open to the idea of making future purchases of goods that are not available with small retailers, from the foreign retail outlets. Research limitations/implications: The study sample is from a single metropolitan city, albeit one which serves as a miniature version of the Indian society. As a limitation, the results might not be generalisable to small, non-metropolitan Indian towns. Practical implications: These results provide valuable input regarding the marketing strategy and sustainability of foreign retailers planning to launch operations in India. For example, FMBRs should position themselves as not being in competition with existing small retail shops by offering a different array of products. Further, younger and more educated Indians are the least ethnocentric towards FMBRs, thus making them an attractive target segment. Originality/value: Extant research has studied consumer ethnocentrism of Indian consumers towards foreign brands and products, but not towards FMBRs. This paper attempts to fill that research gap.

Pro-market reforms were expected to increase competition, improve efficiency and reduce agency costs by improving the institutional environment in emerging markets. In an attempt to establish the macro-micro linkages of these goals, this paper aims to analyse the impact of reforms on the performance of firms belonging to different ownership categories. We find that while state owned enterprises have shown signs of convergence, the performance of other domestic firms has stagnated. Meanwhile multinational subsidiaries have shown consistently better performance, raising questions on the motive and direction of reforms. We end by discussing the policy implications and avenues for future research.

This article describes how Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is a 3G cellular network standard that uses location update (LU) and location search (LS) for mobility management. LU requires update in two location registers (LRs) - home LR (HLR) and visiting LR (VLR) - where one HLR controls multiple VLRs. HLR updates (HLRUs) are costlier, and hence should be less frequent. To achieve it, VLRs maintain a forward pointer chain among themselves, instead of updating HLR. But a lengthy chain increases LS cost considerably. So, we propose to restrict the chain length to unity by introducing an additional backward pointer, and using the concept of root-VLR similar to the home agent concept of mobile IP. We derive a closed form solution to approximate the average HLRUs per call, and substantiate it by simulation in cases of both random and diurnal mobilities. Results reveal substantial reduction in HLRUs per call, even when call-to-mobility ratio is high. UMTS operators will find the analysis worth considering, while managing their 3G networks.

The case study covers aspects of service innovation in the IT services sector. The client Nordics is a global telecommunication major. They have a large and diverse set of IT business applications, most of which is on SAP applications. The subject of the case study is that of SAP Releases, the service of enhancing and creating new business functionalities in the existing business applications. The case is seen from the perspective of the Program Manager of the SAP Release service. This service is delivered by the IT Services major AVON. The case study covers the full lifecycle of the innovation in service, from the identification of the need, conceptualization and creation of the service offering up till pilot execution. The important aspects of innovation in the revenue model and service delivery model are also covered. The case can be analyzed from two perspectives, as a detailed lifecycle of a major innovation in service or as a requirement of dynamic capabilities in the IT service provider organization, to bring about that innovation.

In spite of an overwhelming importance of business groups (BG) in the economic development of many countries, systematic inquiry on how the BGs and their affiliated firms approach and contribute to shared value creation and sustainable development is rare. In this paper we address this research gap by investigating two related questions-do BG-affiliated firms differ from non-BG firms in their corporate sustainability strategy (CSS) and how does BG affiliation influence the relationship between stock of fungible resources and CSS of firms? Drawing from the BG literature we theorize that BG-affiliated firms tend to adopt of both environmental and social sustainability strategies more than non-BG firms. We also argue that although according to resource-based view, the stock of fungible resources of firms positively influences CSS, BG affiliation negatively moderates the relationship between stock of fungible resources and CSS of firms. Stock of fungible resources matters less for BG-affiliated firms in undertaking CSS as they have access to resources of the BG network. We test our theoretical predictions using a proprietary data set of 163 Indian publicly listed firms, out of which 76 are BG-affiliated firms belonging to 74 BGs. The data for corporate environmental and social sustainability strategies have been obtained by administering a survey instrument among the top level executives of the participating firms. We find support for our theoretical predictions that signify that BGs and their affiliates make important contributions to shared value creation and sustainable development in emerging economies like India.

We complement the resource-based view of the firm with agency theory in order to explore the link between R&D intensity and degree of internationalization of firms affiliated to Indian business groups. Results from the two-stage least squares panel regression estimation indicate research intensity is positively associated with the firm's degree of internationalization. The relationship is strengthened by the concentration of ownership by family and affiliated business group firms, the board of directors' professionalization, the wedge between voting and cash-flow rights, and the board interlocks of professional directors; but weakened by the board interlocks of family directors. Implications are discussed.

The adoption of IT-based performance measurement systems (PMS) has increased in recent times. The proliferation of business intelligence (BI) has significantly impacted performance measurement in organizations. In this paper a novel process-based framework is proposed to enable end-to-end analysis of technology driven PMS implementation in an organization. The framework has been used to study PMS implementation in a large manufacturing firm in India. The analysis of the case provides key lessons about successful planning, execution and adoption of a BI based PMS as well as identification of critical success factors (CSF) in the implementation of PMS, that would be of interest to organizations planning to implement a similar system. .

The National Democratic Alliance government has often claimed revolutionary success in introducing the auctioning of coal blocks. However, the auctions route accounts for less than one-sixth of the total coal reserves allocated by them. The rest has been allocated through the allotment route to government companies, which have gone on to sign mine developer-cum-operator contracts with private coal miners, opening up an opaque channel for back-door privatisation.

Purpose: The growing wine market in India presents a tremendous opportunity for marketers to formulate a strategy targeted at the Indian consumers. The purpose of this paper is to identify the attributes that are important for young wine drinkers in their selection of wine, the preferred option within the identified attributes and the relative importance consumers place on the identified attributes. Design/methodology/approach: In-depth interviews were carried out to identify the attributes of primary importance in the wine selection process. Subsequently, conjoint analysis was conducted on the data collected through a survey of 252 respondents which ranked purchase intention of profiles derived from an orthogonal design. Findings: In-depth interviews revealed five factors as important in the choice of wine, namely, price, brand, taste, origin and type of the wine. The results of conjoint analysis showed price as the most important factor, followed by the type of the wine. Red was the most preferred type. Brand, taste and origin follow up in that order of importance with millennials preferring to buy familiar brands, sweet wines and of Indian origin. Originality/value: The study contributes to the wine consumer behaviour research by identifying the attributes that are important for marketing of wine to the large segment of Indian millennial consumers. The findings will help marketers to better position their wines in the Indian market. The study will also aid in the development of product, branding and pricing decisions.

We elicit the views of 37 experts who compare three distinctive approaches to the study of cross-cultural understanding: dimensions, cultural metaphors and paradoxes. Underlying this survey, although not openly stated and hopefully invisible to the expert respondents (and confirmed by informal meetings with some of them after they completed the survey), is the assumption that complexity of understanding increases as one moves from dimensions to cultural metaphors and then to paradoxes, with feedback loops connecting them. Prior research supports this progressive perspective based on feedback loops. Also, these three approaches are among the most popular, if not the most popular, methods for describing and analyzing cross-cultural differences, similarities and areas of ambiguity. Indeed, other approaches to cross-cultural similarities and differences can be subsumed in this progressive perspective. This chapter starts with a background discussion of the rationale for focusing on these three approaches, and the justification for analyzing in a comparative manner the major issues that have surfaced about these three approaches relative to their respective strengths and weaknesses. There is then a discussion of our reasons for selecting the 19 survey items, followed by a description of the methodology used, including sample selection and statistical procedures. Since this is an exploratory study of experts, we report only the major findings. However, in the final part of the review we offer suggestions about the manner in which this progression of cross-cultural understanding (via feedback loops) can be applied in the areas of research, teaching and practice, with particular emphasis on modeling human behaviors.

Last leg delivery plays a crucial role in improving logistics efficiency and customer acquisition through improved service quality and time. When implemented successfully, it becomes competitive advantage and ensures long-term success of the business. Last leg or last mile delivery is gaining importance in recent times in India, due to growing prominence of e-commerce. Major challenges in last mile delivery in India are: identification of best possible route to the destination, identification of best possible time window to reach and increasing efficiency of logistics through adoption of best possible delivery method to reduce delivery period. This paper first carries out a comprehensive literature review of last mile delivery practices adopted by e-commerce companies worldwide and the different factors affecting last mile delivery performance. The paper then describes a framework identifying necessary and sufficient conditions for selection of effective last mile delivery practices in India for specific product types.

Market regulators and stock exchanges around the globe need to ensure that investors trade in a fair and efficient manner. The main motive for market surveillance is to make the market more efficient and free from rouge elements. Identification of financial rumors is vital for orderly functioning of the stock market. Social media platforms allow spread of unverified information to a large mass quickly due to their interconnected nature and large number of participating members. Due to the deluge of data over various media channels including social media, manual scanning of financial rumors is inefficient. This necessitates the use of a big data infrastructure for collection, storage, and analysis of financial news related data. In this paper, we introduce a framework for automated detection of financial rumors using big data. Our framework is based on extant research on knowledge-based discovery in databases and detection of fraudulent financial activities. We describe an in-depth descriptive case study of the world's fastest stock exchange, the Bombay Stock Exchange. Through the case, we highlight the importance of analytics for detection of financial rumors and the importance of the big data infrastructure to carry out such a task. We identify several critical factors that lead to successful identification of financial rumors. We believe the framework can be used by market regulators, stock exchanges, and security research agencies to identify information-based market manipulation using a systematic data-driven approach over a big data infrastructure.

Purpose: This paper aims to explore the implementation of an innovation in an executive education programme in the context of the Indian manufacturing industry. This paper presents an understanding of a conceptual framework for delivering a unique manufacturing leadership programme, explaining the different linkages between government, industry and academia for changing the mindset of participants and growth of a nation by developing highly skilful employees to lead India's manufacturing industry. Design/methodology/approach: The paper reports a single case study of an innovative manufacturing leadership development programme. Primary data were obtained from focus group studies and interviews. Documentary evidence in the form of reports, student work, course curriculum and meeting minutes was studied. The individual participants in the programme are used as units of analysis to explore systems of innovation, at individual levels. The analysis was carried out by applying theoretical models to explain the design, delivery and development of the programme over the years. Findings: The findings from this research are an exploration of factors for sustaining the value of a system of innovation with special focus on a subsystem of knowledge creation and competence building. Institutional change is found to be a key input to the innovation process in terms of a collaborative mindset between three different academic institutes well known in different areas of expertise. Building an innovative coordination mechanism and curriculum combining academics with practical learning helped in changing the mindset of the students and faculty of the programme. This is linked to the development of country through leadership development by mindset change in mentors and students. The findings show that the studied programme has grown in terms of creating demand (in the form of increased applicants), guaranteeing 100 per cent placement with an average 50 per cent increase in salary and accelerated career in terms of role in the organisation. This was possible through continuous improvement practices for making local changes to the programme from time to time and building a community of practice in collaboration with industry. Originality/value: The value of this research lies in highlighting the importance of international cooperation in speeding up the process of transferring management and technological knowledge from academia to industry. The framework developed for implementing a system of learning for creating a national system of innovation in manufacturing can be generalised to develop more such programmes in emerging nations for addressing skill challenges to lead future innovative projects.