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A study on Organizational Commitment in relation to Job Involvement in the Information Technology Industry
The research is entitled A Study on Organizational Commitment in relation to Job Involvement in the Information Technology Industry. Both Job Involvement and Organizational Commitment are areas of much interest to academicians, researchers, HR practitioners and the industry in its entirety. The last few decades has seen an increased interest in the study of both Organizational Commitment and Job Involvement by academicians and practitioners in a variety of work settings in the hope that it improves job performance and organizational effectiveness, and reduces tardiness, absenteeism and turnover. Organizations are realizing that it is critical to not just attract the right kind of talent but also ensure the retention of their key talent by addressing the problem of retention. Hence the increased focus on areas such as Job Satisfaction, Job Involvement, Organizational Commitment, Human Resource Development, Psychological Contract, Organizational Citizenship Behaviour or OCB, Organizational Development or OD initiatives, Retention strategies, Employee Engagement, etc. Each of these HR activities play a key role in achieving an organization??s strategy, goals, vision and mission. Both Job Involvement and Organizational Commitment have been studied because they are believed to affect and impact organizational performance and effectiveness in addition to clearly predicting other important variables such as absenteeism, turnover, organizational citizenship behaviour, etc. Several studies have indicated organizational commitment to be a better predictor of turnover than job satisfaction. This study, however, is intended to examine the impact of Job Involvement on Organizational Commitment specifically in the IT industry, and also understand the influence of several personal, situational, and organizational characteristics pertaining to Job Involvement on Commitment. The sample considered was 250 IT workers across various levels (right from industry freshers with no work experience whatsoever to Senior Managers with 12 to 15 years of IT experience) and functions in various IT organizations in Bangalore, India. It involved all employees working in IT organizations, including employees in functions such as HR & Training, Administration, Quality, Marketing/Sales and Finance in these organizations. The tools used for the study were (a) Organizational Commitment Questionnaire or OCQ developed by Meyer, Allen and Smith (1993); the internal reliability coefficient (Cronbach??s alpha) was found to be 0.95; and (b) the Lodahl and Kejner Job Involvement Scale (1965); Cronbach??s alpha for the 20-item Job Involvement scale was 0.79. Some of the key findings of this study were: 1. There is a significant relation between Job Involvement and Organizational Commitment of employees in the Indian IT industry 2. There is a significant influence of Job Involvement on Organizational Commitment of employees in the IT industry 3. There is a significant influence of Job Involvement on Affective Commitment of employees in the IT Industry. 4. There is a significant influence of Job Involvement on Normative Commitment of employees in the IT industry. 5. There is a significant influence of Job Involvement on Continuance Commitment of employees in the Indian IT industry 6. There is a significant difference between Organizational Commitment across demographics in the Indian IT industry. The researcher has also discussed the limitations and future research areas on the variables of this study. -
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A Study on Indian Foreign Exchange Market Efficiency
Information has always been a constant force for change and improvisation and this particular aspect of the information was study with reference to the stock markets by Prof. Eugene Fama at the university of Chicago booth school of business as part of his Ph.D. thesis work. Now as per his work the financial markets are "informationally efficient". And the resultant effect of this is that, one cannot consistently achieve returns in excess of average market returns on a risk-adjusted basis, given the information available at the time the investment is made. There are three major versions of the hypothesis: "weak", "semi-strong", and "strong". The weak-form EMH claims that prices on traded assets (e.g., stocks, bonds, or property) already reflect all past publicly available information. The semi-strong-form EMH claims both that prices reflect all publicly available information and that prices instantly change to reflect new public information. The strong-form EMH additionally claims that prices instantly reflect even hidden or "insider" information This main purpose behind this research study is to test for the weak form efficiency of the Indian foreign exchange market and for this purpose daily exchange rate of four nominal exchange rates which are US Dollar, Japanese Yen, Euro, and Pound Sterling from April 2004 to December 2011 are analyzed using unit root tests of Augmented Dickey Fuller Test and Phillip Perron test. As per the results all the exchange rate currencies such as US dollar, Japanese Yen, Euro, and Pound Sterling are found to be stationary in 1st difference. This implies that all exchange rate currencies support the hypothesis of weak form inefficiency and information of any nature that can have a impact on the market will take more time to reflect or create an impact on the prices or rates existing in the market, so this time gap and the constant movement of change between the data points can be used to create a pattern of movement or before the market could adjust, investors by assuming the future change will also be constant as it has been in the past can take advantage of the available information and therefore it becomes easy for the investors to forecast or predict the future exchange rates of respective currencies with the use of past data and thereby leading to super normal profits. -
CONTRARIAN AND MOMENTUM STRATEGIES IN THE INDIAN STOCK FUTURES MARKET: A STUDY ON BANKING SECTOR
This thesis tries to investigate the contrarian and momentum strategy can help the investors to lay down the major guidelines for undertaking any derivative transaction. Contrarian strategies are based on the reversal pattern in stock returns and imply buying past losers and selling past winners. On the contrary, Momentum strategies are based on the continuation pattern in stock returns and imply buying past winners and selling past losers. For the purpose of analysis, the stock returns for the Indian stock futures market segment for Indian banking sector for the period from July 1, 2005 to June 30 2011 by using the Fama and French multifactor model. The Fama-French model involves the use of three factors for explaining common stock returns: the market factor proposed by the CAPM, and factors relating to size and value. The company used in this research consists of 16 Banks which were ranked in an ascending order based on their average returns. The ranked securities are then used to form five equal portfolios. While portfolio P1 contains the bottom 20 per cent securities and is called "losers' portfolio," portfolio P5 contains the top 20 per cent securities and is termed as "winners' portfolio." The findings suggests that the stock-return behavior in banking sector for short-term momentum profits and long term contrarian profits exist in this case. Further, the contrarian trading strategy based on long term returns provides moderately positive payoffs and short-term returns show a continuation pattern and the investment strategy based on momentum effect provides significantly high returns. Finally, the study generally supportive of the Fama-French model applied to Indian futures stock market related to banking sector. Keywords: Contrarian, Momentum, Stock Returns, CAPM, Fama-French Model JEL Classification: C12, C22, E43, G11 -
A study on Savings and Investment Patterns of Women in Bangalore
Economic growth of a nation is driven by savings and its transformation into investment. In the last three decades, Indian economy has emerged as one of the fastest growing economies of the world. Households are the biggest contributors to Indias savings rate; their savings equal 23 percent of Indias GDP. Though the percentage of savings by household sector in financial assets is increasing year on year, what is worrying is that only around half of the household savings in India are invested in financial instruments. Knowledge about saving and investment preferences, gender-wise, will help to design effective investment instruments. Another area that requires further examination is the role that a woman plays in influencing aggregate savings and investment. Till the last decade, considering the low earning potential of women to earn, save and invest, not much research has been conducted on this subject. The coming decade, is going to see more and more women getting higher education and aiming for heavy pay cheque jobs. There is an urgent need to understand the savings and investment pattern of women, so as to frame policies and develop financial products exclusively for women. Another reason for understanding the savings and investment pattern of women is that, though they are good savers, they are unable to convert all their savings into investments. They do not invest as much as the men do. According to Barber (2001) though women are not active investors, they make more profits than men when they trade because by trading more, men hurt their performance more than women. Preda (2001) comments that women are always excluded from financial discussions, on the explicit ground that they cannot understand investments. According to Chachoria (2000) women are the next generation financial decision makers and they should be targeted from a financial perspective. She suggests that marketing for financial products should be done differently for women. Through this study an attempt is made to understand the savings and investment pattern of women. The factors which influence their investment decision making are identified. As 60 percent of women in India are house wives , they have been included in this study . The vi variations in the investment pattern between working and non-working with respect to socio-demographic attributes have been analyzed. The sample size consisted of 225 women, who regularly save and invest. The study was conducted in the city of Bangalore. Convenience sampling was used for the purpose of data collection. Data was collected through questionnaires and was subjected to descriptive and inferential analysis. The major findings of the research are: ?The most important reason why a woman saves is because of a Precautionary motive. Saving money in Bank and in the house kitty (saving at home) are the most preferred saving avenues. ?Even though non-working women dont have direct income of their own, they are able to save a minimum of 5 to 10 percent from their household savings. ?Safety of the principal is regarded as a very important criterion before investing, as opposed to instruments with low initial investment. ?The main motive behind investing is to fulfill their personal and financial goals. They also recognize the importance of multiplying savings through investment. ?Gold is the most preferred investment instrument, followed by real estate, insurance products, bank deposits, chit funds, mutual funds, bonds, post office deposits, shares and SIP. ?The highest constraint in investing is found to be lack of awareness and advice. This bursts a common myth: In India women are not able to invest as they are not able to take decisions on their own. -
BUSINESS ETHICS COURSE AND ETHICAL SENSITIVITY AMONG BUDDING MANAGEMENT GRADUATES
The effectiveness of ethics education in developing ethically sensitive corporate leaders is a much debated subject. In the absence of much documented research on this topic in the Indian context, this study explores the question can business schools make any impact in enhancing the ethical sensitivity of the budding management graduates. Along with this primary hypothesis, the impact of variables such as type of schooling, academic achievement and gender is also analysed. The study is conducted on 259 graduate students from 5 business schools in Bangalore. A 20 scenario questionnaire is used to measure the ethical sensitivity score. Statistical tools like ANOVA, t-test and Pearsons coefficient of correlation are used to analyse the data. To the question how effective business ethics education in enhancing ethical sensitivity, the study found that the impact is limited. The outcome of business ethics is limited to improvement in the awareness of certain ethical issues. It does not influence the personal value orientations or inclinations to compromise ethics for self- interests and monetary benefits. This finding goes along with some of the similar researches done in other countries. The research also found that the personal values of students were developed at a young age and had been influenced by the type of school of their primary education. Students who have studied in religious affiliated schools have expressed greater ethical sensitivity compared to students studied in private or government schools for their early education. Another finding of this research challenges some of the earlier observations that academically achieving students exhibit higher sensitivity to ethical issues. The present study revealed no correlation between students academic achievements and ethical sensitivity. It reiterates the importance of providing holistic education than single-minded pursuit of academic excellence. The question whether one gender is superior to the other in ethical orientations is a well-researched topic, though most of such studies are done in the west. The current study in Indian context reinforces the outcome of the majority of researches which state that women tend to be more ethical than men. This study challenges the business schools to rethink the content and process of teaching business ethics to make it effective in developing the ethical quotient of future business leaders. Pedagogy that integrates critical reflection of personal values and ethical choices is recommended to make a difference. A greater sense of responsibility from the part of primary education providers and a holistic approach to education than mere pursuit of academic excellence are some of the other suggestions for introspection emerging from this research. -
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EFFECTIVENESS OF SERVICE QUALITY IN MULTISPECIALITY AND SINGLESPECIALITY HOSPITALS-A COMPARATIVE STUDY
The growth in the health care services in the country is primarily driven by the 350 million strong middle class people aspiring for quality health care services. A health care provider is an institution (such as a hospital or clinic) or person (such as a physician, nurse, other health care service provider) that provides preventive, curative, rehabilitative or palliative care services in a systematic way to individuals, families or communities. Improving access, coverage and quality of health services depends on the way, the services are organized and managed, and on the incentives influencing providers and users. The rate of growth of the health care industry in India is moving ahead neck to neck with the pharmaceutical industry and the software industry of the country. Much has been said and done in the health care sector for bringing about improvement. Till date, approximately 12% of the scope offered by the health care industry in India has been tapped. The health care industry in India is reckoned to be the engine of the economy in the years to come. Health care industry in India is worth $17 billion and is anticipated to grow by 13% every year. The health care sector encompasses health care instruments, health care in the retail market, hospitals enrolled to the hospital networks etc. Literature review on Service quality in the hospitals has mostly emphasized on patients perception of the services, the factors responsible for creating customer satisfaction and their intentions to return for future services available. The literature also reveals the gap between customer expectations and customer perception. The findings of the literature identifies the future courses of action to be taken by the hospitals. The loyalty is created in the hospitals by service quality dimensions. The literature so far shows the research in Hospitals; the research gap is that no research has been done in the sectors like Multispeciality Hospitals and Singlespeciality Hospitals. Statement of the problem: Effectiveness of service quality in Multispeciality and Singlespeciality Hospitals- A comparative study The population for the study consists of the patients from both the sectors. The Questionnaire were administered to 315 respondents out of which 292 were the usable data for analysis. The sampling technique adopted was Convenience sampling. The sample was drawn from 6 multispeciality hospitals and 5 single speciality hospitals in Bangalore city only. The Questionnaire consisted of three sections; the first section on the Demographic characteristics, Section 2 consists of the service quality dimensions for expectations and perception. The dimensions were rated on 7 point Likert scale. The third section on the customer loyalty. The patients of the hospitals have rated independently without any bias. The developed questionnaire was found to be very reliable and valid. Conclusion:The present research found that the service quality is high in Multispeciality hospitals when compared to single speciality hospitals. The Reliability dimension is very important when compared to the other dimension. Also the study revealed that price is the very sensitive variable that the customer loyalty depends on the price justification. Hence the research throws light upon the Servqual and the customer loyalty. -
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FACTORS EFFECTING EMPLOYMENT CHOICE AND WILLINGNESS TO STAY IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY
Employer Brand refers to what people currently associate with an organization, employer branding can been described as the sum of a companys efforts to communicate to existing and prospective staff what makes it a desirable place to work, and the active management of a companys image as seen through the eyes of its associates and potential hires. This study is an attempt to continue afresh with new perspective to the field of human resource and behavioural sciences with special reference to employer branding: factors effecting employment choice and willingness to stay in information technology industry. The review on the related literature in the area of Employer branding and their willingness to stay or quit studied in this research has provided the researcher an insight into many factors. It also provides directions in designing the present study. Having reviewed several studies and having identified the gap, the investigator felt an imperative need to undertake the present investigation. The sample consisted of 276 IT employees from 11 employers of Bangalore city listed by NASSCOM. The sample consisted of both male and female IT employees. Judgemental sampling technique was adopted to select the number of respondents across the three types of management levels. The Major findings of the study were: 1. The five major media adopted to choose to work with the present employer were personal contacts followed by friends at the organization, job portals, company website and campus recruitment. Whereas medias like head-hunters, advertisements, internship, articles in media or product information had less interference in media adoption process. 2. It was found that challenging tasks, good reference for future career, international career opportunity, financial benefits, and work life balance were the top five factors that motivated employees to stay in the organization. Whereas wages / salary,products / services, retirement insurance, vehicle loan / discount facility, support staff for domestic help where least in motivating employees to stay. 3. It was found that compensation and benefits was the highest factor triggering an employees decision to quit followed by rewards and recognition, training programs, corporate culture and too challenging tasks. Other factors like recruitment and induction processes, reputation of the organization, leave and vacation policy, vehicle loan / discount facility and corporate social responsibility did not influence employees decision to quit. 4. It was found that compensation was the highest factor on why employees leave the organization.This was followed by reference for rewards,training programs,corporate culture, and challenging tasks. 5. Employees perception of trust too played a vital role in his decision process to stay or quit. It was found that dimensions like willingness to listen; trust, reliability, accountability, fairness, commitment and integrity played a vital role in influencing the trust process in an employee towards the organisation. Implications : HR managers need to have a good theory or model of how employer branding works in their own organisations. What works in one organisation or one industry sector may be quite different from what works in another. This indicates that there is some hard evidence and useful insights to be learned from emerging research in employer branding and its close relative, talent management. HR managers would be advised to look at this evidence-based work before leaping. Conclusion: The findings and outcome of this research will be beneficial to the IT organisations in India, which is a flourishing industry and contributes significantly to the GDP of the country and the talent pool of the world. The study will bring in sharp focus on the major challenges encountered in these areas and the solutions that will aid IT organisations to deal more significantly in increasing their organisational efficiency. Key words: employer branding, willingness to stay, perception of trust -
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A Study on Organizational Performance related to Employee Attitude and Behavior in the Information Technology Industry, in Bangalore City
The integral part of any management process is to manage the people at work. A well managed organization sees worker as the root cause of quality and productivity. Attitude is a mental position consisting of a feeling, emotion, or opinion evolved in response to an external situation. It can be momentary or can develop into a habitual position that has a long- term influence on an individual's behavior. Employee attitude is the behavior pattern, manners, body language of an employee towards his/her co-workers, colleagues, sub-ordinates, boss etc. It is very much important to keep a good relation between an employee and his/her boss as well as his/her sub-ordinates and co-workers. A good relationship enables an employee to succeed in his/her work field and helps the company to reach up to its goals and maximizes its benefit. In order to be an ideal employee, he/she should be attentive to his/her work. The nature of IT employees job is very time bound, client oriented and technology intensive. The studies have revealed that poor employee attitude and behavior results in poor organizational performance and low outcome also. The study explores the meaning and relationship between employee attitude & behavior and organizational performance of IT employees. The study was carried out with survey instrument, consists of 27 items and completed by 310 employees in the IT industry. The data was gathered and analyzed using Descriptive, Karl Pearsons correlation and ANOVA which revealed interesting factors with organizational performance related to employee attitude and behavior of IT employees across the variables. The review on the related literature in the area of organizational performance and employee attitude and behavior of IT employees studied has provided many insights for the study. It also provided direction in designing the present study. A number of researchers have established the relationship between organizational performance and employee attitude and behavior across various professions mainly in developed countries. Since Bangalore is known as Silicon Valley of India, the attitude and behavior was a major concern among IT employees. Though there were various studies undertaken in the field of employee attitude and behavior, very few researchers have attempted to focus in detail the variables such as job satisfaction, HRM policies, organizational change, and organizational commitment and also with productivity, well being, and absenteeism etc., Having reviewed several studies and having identified the gap, the investigator felt an imperative need to undertake the present investigation. The sample consisted of 310 IT employees from various IT companies in Bangalore respectively. The sample was given representation to both male and female IT employees. Judgment Sampling has been adopted in this study. The purpose of choosing judgment sampling is to exercise judgment or expertise, in choosing the elements to be included in sample because researchers believed that they are representative of the population of interest. Two standard tools were used to measure the variables of the study. The survey questions were drawn from employee attitude and behavior, including Gallie, D, White, M, Cheng, Y and Tomlinson, M (1998); Appelbaum, E., Bailey T., Berg P., and Kalleberg A. 2000 and Wright P.M., and Gardner, T. (2003).and suganya sengupta and her colleagues, 2006. The overall reliability of employee attitude survey was satisfactory. These results suggested that the employee attitude survey is a handy tool for the goal the organization wants to use it for its performance. The major findings of the study were: 1. There is a significant relationship between employee attitude and behavior and organizational performance of IT industry. 2. The employee attitudes are positively related with discretion effort and loyalty negatively related with intention to quit job and job stress. 3. There is a significant difference between gender and the employee attitudes and behavior. The implications of the study will help the organizations to understand the impact of organizational performance related to employee attitude and behavior and its outcome. A famous statement is that a happy worker is a productive worker. This assumes a relation between employees attitude & behavior and organizational performance. -
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Customer Perception and Receptivity to Loyalty Programs offered by Organised Retailers
The Indian Retail Industry is growing at a fast pace. This growth to a large extent is driven by the organised retail market, with more and larger retail organisations investing heavily in increasing their store networks and improving in-store offerings. Apparel, accessories and related merchandise form a considerable chunk of the organised retail space and is in the ambit of a handful of established players vying to capture & increase larger portions of the available market using new strategies. Increased customer satisfaction and service is one of the means through which they will be able to fulfill their goals. The use and implementation of Customer Relation Management tools like Loyalty Programs is one of the ways in which they can achieve customer satisfaction. According to Sharp and Sharp (1997) loyalty programs are structured marketing efforts, which reward and encourage the loyal behaviour of their members. Capizzi et al (2004) defined it as the business process of identifying, maintaining and increasing the yield from best customers through interactive,value-added relationships.Loyalty programs are thereby are a rhetoric of relationship marketing in gaining customer loyalty.(Minami & Dawson ,2008) . Loyalty programs, however serve dual purposes of the organisation ?? acquisition of customer spending related information and ensuring that they patronise their store. According to Peters (1988) the costs of retaining customers are about 80 percent lower than acquiring new customers. This explains why there is a high degree of proliferation of retailer loyalty programs. Loyalty Programs today have become an inseparable part of the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) strategy of todays retailers. It is vital to gauge how successful these programs are as CRM tools. This study is concerned with how customers perceive such programs and how receptive they are towards these programs. The sample size consisted of 168 usable samples of member customers of loyalty programs of four competing departmental stores who were members of the stores. The study was confined to the city of Bangalore. Convenience sampling was used for the purpose of data collection. Data was collected through questionnaires and was subjected to descriptive analysis and inferential analysis. The reliability of the perceptual scale was found to be 0.766. The major findings of the research are: ? Lifestyle is the most frequented store and Shoppers Stop has the most attractive loyalty program. ? Customers have more important reasons for preference of a store than holding membership to the stores loyalty program ? Customers perceive that a loyalty program membership makes them enjoy monetary benefits. Offers and discounts followed by redeemable points are the most popular form of monetary benefits. ? Customers seek ??real and value creating benefits from loyalty programs ? There is a significant relationship between customer perception of loyalty program benefits and purchase behaviour. ? There is a significant relationship between customer perception of loyalty program benefits and store attractiveness and loyalty. The study will help retail organisations understand their customers better and help them in designing and implementing more satisfying, value creating and differentiated programs as a CRM tool to retain customers and build loyalty. -
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IMPACT OF MNP ON CONSUMER SWITCHING BEHAVIOUR WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO DEMOGRAPHIC FACTORS
Indian telecom market is one of the fastest growing markets and is forecasted to reach 9.2 million users by mid of 2012. India has seen rapid increase in the number of players which has caused the tariff rates to hit an all time low and with the introduction of MNP, the mobile users has an option of changing the service provider without changing the number. The availability of Mobile Number Portability to subscriber has intensified the competition among service providers in order to retain the existing customer base and to gain from other operators, which has led to attractive schemes or offers or packages to the end users. This shows satisfaction has become a major influence on switching behavior and only those mobile operators who satisfy the needs of the users at affordable cost can prevail. The study examines the impact of MNP on customer demographics in determining the switching behavior. The data gathered was through a survey and the sample size was 203. The variables considered for the study were customer demographics, satisfaction, tariff, customer care. Independent students t test and chi-square were used to analyze the data to examine the impact of switch propensity for each demographic variable. Research findings suggest that different groups have different switching behavior. Age, gender, marital status and brand have significant dependency on those who switch and there is significant difference on age with regard to VAS, network quality; education and monthly income on low international tariff; marital status on network quality. The study also reveals that call rates play the most important role in switching the service provider followed by network coverage and value added service respectively. It is found that there is a relation between switching the demographic variables. More number of young mobile users prefers mobile number portability. Airtel and Idea Cellular emerged as most preferred mobile service operators in terms of MNP. Both continue to gain customers from other service providers. As per the study BSNL was the biggest loser in terms of MNP. It was also observed that post paid customer prefer MNP over prepaid. Keywords ?? MNP, Prepaid, Postpaid, Switching Behavior, Demographics, VAS, Tariff. -
MOTIVATION IN RELATION TO WORK ENGAGEMENT OF SALES PERSONNEL IN TELECOM INDUSTRY
The study is in motivation in relation to work engagement of sales personnel in telecom industry. Motivation is the Internal and external factors that stimulate desire and energy in people to be continually interested in and committed to a job, role, or subject, and to exert persistent effort in attaining a goal. Workengagement is defined as a positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind that is characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption. Vigor is characterized by high levels of energy and mental resilience while working, the willingness to invest effort in one??s work, and persistence even in the face of difficulties; dedication by being strongly involved in one's work, and experiencing a sense of significance, enthusiasm, inspiration, pride, and challenge; and absorption by being fully concentrated and happily engrossed in one??s work, whereby time passes quickly and one has difficulties with detaching oneself from work. When you don't have the motivation to do your work, you will either eventually get fired or you will not likely get promoted and will stay where you are for a long time. If you are the supervisor or the owner, a lack of motivation throughout your company can create a rather unproductive workplace. This will lead to loss of sales, profits, and market share. In this case, it's important to do what it takes to create an environment where people naturally want to do their work. The importance of employee motivation shouldn't be taken lightly here. The company's survival depends on it. Modern organizations need energetic and dedicated employees: people who are engaged with their work. These organizations expect proactively, initiative and responsibility for personal development from their employees. Overall, engaged employees are fully involved in, and enthusiastic about their work. The hypotheses of the study were (a) The interaction effect between MPS and CPS does not significantly influence the personnel outcomes of sales professionals in telecom industry. (b) The interaction effect between work engagement and CPS does not significantly moderate the personnel outcomes of sales professionals in telecom industry.(c) There is no significant difference in demographics in work engagement across demographics. The review of related literature in the area of motivation and work engagement provided the researcher valuable inputs, perspective, insights and direction in understanding these factors and designing this study. The researcher has attempted to seriously and systematically undertake the present investigation. There are two research models; these two models were tested using the statistical technique hierarchical regression model. These two models were framed based on the job diagnostic model of Hackman and Oldham (1974) and Job resource model of Bakker and Demerouti (2010). The research methodology adopted for the study was surveying of 359 sales employees in different telecom industries using structured questionnaires. The independent variable of this study were Motivation(core job dimensions, critical psychological states, personnel outcomes).The dependent variable is work engagement(vigor, dedication, absorption) and the demographic variables are, age, work experience, marital status, and gender. The major findings of the study were: 1.There is a positive significant correlation between critical psychological states and motivation potential score. Critical psychological states promote high performance motivation and satisfaction at work. 2.The interaction effect between MPS and CPS significantly moderate the personnel outcomes of sales professionals in telecom industry. 3.The interaction effect between work engagement and Critical Psychological State significantly moderate the personnel outcomes of sales professionals in telecom industry. 4.Work engagement significantly influences the outcomes. 5.Age and marital status has a significant influence on work engagement. The concept of motivation and work engagement is gaining importance across every organization. This study aims at helping Telecom organizations to build more effective policies with respect to motivation and work engagement .By offering effective policies and encouraging employees to make use of available policies and programmes the organization will in turn be increasing the employee??s level of satisfaction and also commitment towards the organization. This will help the organization retain its best people or talent. -
A study to identify Critical Factors affecting Performance of Low Cost Airlines in India
The main objective of the study is to identify the critical factors affecting performance of low cost airlines in India For this purpose, the research focused on the low cost airline industry with regards to their macro environment, its strategic aspects and an analysis of the industry The study incorporated the Porters Five Forces Model to study the five forces having an impact on the industry and thus directing a firms strategic actions The study also conducted an industry analysis from the point of view of travel agents through questionnaire A customer satisfaction survey was also done to know their satisfaction levels and loyalty to a particular airline. This is achieved by the adoption of primary research techniques including surveys and interviews of the industry specialist and customers and secondary research including reading the existing literature on the subject, industry reports and articles published in journals A critical analysis of the industry highlighted the factors having an impact on the industry as a whole The porters five forces analysis revealed the current and future trends for the industry and provided an understanding for future survival strategies for the airlines. Industry professionals state that the Airline industry is in infancy stage They have a long way to go The factors such as airport infrastructure, massive expansion plans, aggressive growth strategies, demand and supply patterns and the exchange rate mechanism affects their performance But the highest factor restricting the growth of any airline is the high price of ATF All the three- industry professionals, travel agents and consumers believe that LCCs have benefited the industry providing low fares and making air travel affordable They are quite positive about the times ahead and hope that the industry will bounce back Consumers are quite satisfied and content with the offerings As suggested by a consumer that they should be named as ??value for money airlines and not LCCs The Porters Five Forces analysis revealed that there are high entry barriers as this is a highly capital intensive industry and that buyers and suppliers both have high bargaining power There is moderate threat of substitute like railways looking at the future potential of the aviation sector The analysis further revealed that the market is highly competitive with very few players and to reach the customers expectations the players have to cut their prices most often thus creating an imbalance in the cost and revenue Also, unhealthy competitive practices prevail in the industry which hamper the overall growth process and thus affect the performance The research provided insight on the future opportunities and the several future industry success and survival factors The research also gives further scope of the study and thereby concludes that there needs to be a consensus so that both the regulatory bodies and the airlines are benefited thus promoting growth and prosperity of the country. Dissertation Layout: The first chapter of the dissertation titled ??Introduction primarily covered a range of aspects from history to the LCC situation globally and then following it traces to India thus leading to the statement of the problem and the objectives of the study The second chapter ??Review of Literature covered the previous research on the factors impacting the performance of low cost airlines The third chapter ??Research Methodology covered the data collection process, sampling description and the methodology for data analysis The fourth chapter titled ??Data Analysis and Interpretation covered the customer satisfaction and industry analysis The fifth chapter ??Summary and Conclusion listed the major findings, implications and limitations, scope for further research and conclusion drawn from the research. Keywords: LCCs, critical factors, performance, airlines, low cost, ATF, aviation. -
An Empirical Study on the psychographic factors influencing financial decisions of informed individual investors, with special reference to Bangalore financial market
Behavioural finance has been emerging as a significant discipline in academia as it speaks about the irrational behaviour of investors. Behavioural finance is the combination of classic economics and finance with psychology and decision making sciences. It is the study of how investors systematically make errors in judgment, or mental mistakes.Specifically, behavioral finance has two blocks: cognitive psychology and the limits to arbitrage. Cognitive refers to how people think. There is a huge psychology literature documenting that people make systematic errors in the way they think: they are over confident they put too much weight on recent experience etc. Their preference may also create distortions. Behavioural finance uses this body of knowledge, rather than taking arrogant approach that it should be ignored. Limits to arbitrage refer to in what circumstances arbitrage force will be effective, and they wont be. An Empirical Study on the psychographic factors influencing financial decisions of informed individual investors, with special reference to Bangalore financial market, has done with the objective of identifying the effect of three major anomalies namely over confidence, fear of loss, and effect of information and media and relationship of age and fear of loss on the investment decisions. Primary Data collection has been done with the help of questionnaire and had a sample size of 242. The above three aspects have studied and proved using various statistical tools like chi square, one sample t test, ANOVA and correlation. From the study it was proved that investors are overconfident but at the same time there is high fear of loss as well. Study shows that effect of information and news stories plays a major role in investment decisions. Age and fear of loss also have a significant relationship. Only 3 Anomalies has been considered for the study, considering the remaining will give further scope of research.