Academics

Despite the pursuit of similar industrial policies during the post-1990s, Indian states have revealed divergent outcomes in industrial growth. Such divergence suggests different levels of policy implementation which itself is a result of the interplay of formal and informal institutions, historically shaped. We try to ex-plain this divergence in the context of the evolution of state–business relations in West Bengal, a coastal state in Eastern India, and unique among Indian states not only by virtue of being ruled by a Leftist regime for an uninterrupted 34 years (1977—May, 2011), but also by having witnessed a turnaround of sorts in the outlook of the former government towards private capital within this period. Our findings suggest that it is the peculiarity of institutional behaviour that determines the policy outcomes in the state. The rigidities in political as well as economic institutions in the state are prompting us to look at West Bengal as a classic case of ‘institutional stickiness’ leading to ‘path dependency’.

Introduction The Kolkata leather industry has been divided in to different sub-sectors such as tannery units (medium and small scale), export oriented leather goods manufacturing units, fabricator of leather goods and units catering to indigenous market, fabricator of industrial gloves, small, medium and large scale footwear manufacturers, house-hold manufacturing units and merchant exporters etc. The available data shows that the trends in the employment creation by these subsectors are not uniform. The lack of uniformity seems to be natural as the number of units in each type of sub-sectors widely varies across leather industry in Kolkata. For example, the number of micro-enterprises across sub-sectors of Kolkata leather industry has been maximum creating highest number of employment whereas the number of large scale units in the leather industry has been very limited. Table 1 shows the trend in employment creation in the sub-sectors over the years. During 2007-2009 period employment in Kolkata leather industry has increased at a very moderate rate of about 4.6%. The growth rate is relatively higher in fabricator and house hold manufacturing units, export oriented leather goods manufacturing units etc. However, the only large scale footwear manufacturing unit in the Kolkata leather cluster has witnessed reduction in the number of workers. Except a few major leather and leather products manufacturing units, in majority of the units across different subsectors of the Kolkata leather cluster, the working conditions are not only appalling but there is also scant regard for workers' safety or health. Though, the traditional leather units of Kolkata is dominated by low caste and Muslim migrant workers from neighboring states of Bihar, Jharkhand and Eastern Uttar Pradesh, the entry of people from different backgrounds are growingly visible in the sector. About 70% of the workers engaged in the industry are traditionally employed as temporary workers. Most of them join the industry as workers with very low or no skill and they acquire required skills simply by observation at the initial stages. Very often these low skilled new entrants to the sector acquire skill under the guidance of their relatives or somebody else from their place of origin, also employed as worker in a leather unit in Kolkata. They are the people who actually bring these very cheap workers from their villages to enable them to learn the required skills at the place of their employment. However, the labor market is flexible and intensively competitive and mostly they are paid on a piece rate basis. Abundant supply of labor together with the absence of unit level strong labor unions has pushed down the wages to the reservation level. Minimum wages are not followed in most cases and the workers are also not in the position of demanding higher wage rates as the supply of labor is in abundant. According to a recent government order, the minimum wage rate for unskilled /low skilled workers in tanneries and leather manufacturing units in KMDA area should be Rs. 162.33, Rs. 178.46 for semi-skilled workers and for the highly skilled workers it should be Rs. 196. 31. In reality very few units comply with these minimum wage rates. In most of the manufacturing units, specially in the leather footwear and accessories manufacturing units, work is based on almost putting out system and during peak season the workers work for 16 to 18 hours per day and during the slack season the daily working hour comes down to 6 to 7 hours per day only causing loss of employment to many low skilled or unskilled workers. However, the limited number of workers under the regular pay-roll remains with their jobs. In tanneries and fabricating units the machine operators and highly skilled workers are offered regular employment and in leather product manufacturing units the high skilled workers, specially the solemen and uppermen are kept as fixed workers. …

More and more companies make recourse to loyalty programmes within the framework of a defensive marketing strategy. After the liberalization of the Indian telecommunications industry and the advent of both private and public service providers, this sector saw stiff competition. Prices were reduced, service qualities increased and with all mobile service providers offering undifferentiated services, retaining subscribers and making them loyal has become an ever escalating challenge. Operating in a market which will eventually be saturated with intense competition, frequently changing government policies and increasing operational costs, the strategy of consumer loyalty development seems to be a good option. This paper attempts to illustrate the factors which are responsible for creating brand loyalty among mobile subscribers in Kolkata.

Cloud computing is the latest development in information technology arena, which has started changing the way the business used to be conducted till few months back. This seems to be the next generation watershed event in the field. A simple example of cloud computing is Yahoo email or Gmail etc. Here somebody does not need software or a server to

That the rates of growth across Indian states started diverging more in the 1990s over the 1980s is accepted even by the sympathisers of the reform. The highest rates of industrial growth were observed in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Gujrat which grew at more ...

The positive and negative stories on effects of globalization on working class in both developed and developing countries are available in plenty in the research field . But , most of these literatures have the limitation of failure to deliver a comprehensive and unbiased picture on the issue . Most of the available papers could not overcome biasness of being ideologically influenced with parochial motives. Therefore , the present paper attempts to describe effect of globalization on universal job scenario ( both in terms of job-abolition and job-creation) and the impact on employment situation from a relatively neutral perspective , by reviewing academic literature and available survey reports and findings. Key words: Effects on globalization on working class ideologically influenced , job scenario, employment , review , academic literature , survey reports .

Call centre is situated at the intersection of several forces namely rapidly expanding information and communication technologies (ICTs), reengineered business processes, a changing (or changed) profile of customer needs and expectations. Call centers are also creating employment opportunities in millions throughout the world. Performance management in call centers is therefore emerging as a widely sensitive issue, affecting both morale and physical potentiality of the employees as well as management issues such as performance control, monitoring and surveillance. As the frontier of technology horizon is changing along with the non-ending dilemma of prioritizing between quantity and quality as performance destinations, adoption of automated and electronically developed monitoring system has become the essential predisposition in call centre industry. This paper attempts to analyze the context, trends and the long term impacts of electronic performance monitoring systems such as automated call distribution system (ADS) , distant voice monitoring technology (DVMT) etc.on call centre workers. This paper is an empirical study on the basis of data .set collected through questionnaire survey. In order to arrive at some specific conclusions the paper has used .some fundamental statistical techniques like Chi- square Test, Contingency coefficient. Two way ANOVA, and concept of Mathematical Expectation etc.

Over the years, government’s enacted laws and enunciated policies to provide for decent work life, guarantee minimum wages, cushion against rise in cost of living, ensure equal remuneration and deter employers from making unfair and arbitrary deductions from wages has led to a change in the impact trade unions had on wage determination. The present article discusses different aspects of trade union’s role in wage and salary administration in terms of choices and options for trade unions, unions’ impact on general wage levels, unions’ impact in terms of spill-over effect, role of trade unions in wage and salary policies and practices and so on.

UAE has the largest number of expatriates from across the globe and has the presence of the largest number of products, services and brands from across the globe. Understanding the consumer consciousness or business ethicality of the products, services or the brands available is important for sustainable marketing. The present research explores the level of overall consumer consciousness about the business ethics adopted by different brands or products and whether consumer consciousness or perception remains different about the ethical practices followed by different companies, according to their places of origin. The results show that the overall consumer consciousness about the ethical practices of the products/brands available is significant and the consumer consciousness about the ethical business is different according to the regional groups.

Compliance with regulatory needs and framing an appropriate legal system have emerged as one of the major challenges in recent times. Not only the different legal systems practiced in various parts of the world such as common law, civil code and religious law but also the employment standards and recommendations propagated by international organizations are being considered for developing countries by HR leaders. Supranational binding regulations and extra-territorial laws have become growingly significant over time to influence regulatory frameworks, policies and practices in international HR. In spite of many developments and multiple influences on international labor and employment regulations, challenges of adjustments due to commercial diplomacy have posed biggest threats to the interests of the working populations globally.

The paper discusses regarding the impacts of the culture on managerial decision making on the topic of the human resource management and people management for the implementation of the international business growth strategies. The study presents a brief analysis on a selected organization working in the software development and network security industry named as Sez-Craft. Sez-Craft is a Dutch company which is based in Amsterdam and operates across the globe. The company is able to decentralize their entire business operations with the hope of increasing the flexibility and efficiency of their business actions. In doing so, the company faced considerable amount of necessity of managing their human resources in an appropriate manner and manage the impact of cultural differences in expanding their business. The study shows that the impact of the culture is significant in various fields of business such as expatriate exchange, workforce diversity and team performances. The paper also h...

The positive and negative stories on effects of globalization on working class in both developed and developing countries are available in plenty in the research field. But, the most of this literature has the limitation of failure to deliver a comprehensive and unbiased picture on the issue. Most of the available papers could not overcome biasness of being ideologically influenced with parochial motives. Therefore, the present paper attempts to describe effect of globalization on universal job scenario (both in terms of job-abolition and job-creation) and the impact on employment situation from a relatively neutral perspective, by reviewing academic literature and available survey reports and findings.

Introduction The Kolkata leather industry has been divided in to different sub-sectors such as tannery units (medium and small scale), export oriented leather goods manufacturing units, fabricator of leather goods and units catering to indigenous market, fabricator of industrial gloves, small, medium and large scale footwear manufacturers, house-hold manufacturing units and merchant exporters etc. The available data shows that the trends in the employment creation by these subsectors are not uniform. The lack of uniformity seems to be natural as the number of units in each type of sub-sectors widely varies across leather industry in Kolkata. For example, the number of micro-enterprises across sub-sectors of Kolkata leather industry has been maximum creating highest number of employment whereas the number of large scale units in the leather industry has been very limited. Table 1 shows the trend in employment creation in the sub-sectors over the years. During 2007-2009 period employm...

Vocational Courses give some amount of technical skills for students to be able to work in industry. However, to achieve higher income and higher sense of achievement, a bachelor’s degree is imperative these days. Many students who have completed their vocational courses thus join Top UP Programme to achieve this goal. In computing curriculum, an advanced module “Web and Systems Based Programming” is introduced to them which has a Summative Assessment that includes a Report and an advanced Website creation. Being from varied universities, their curriculum not necessarily have included the prerequisite modules and skills. These technologies are also important for these Computing would-be-graduate soon for their Employability in Industry. As a tutor and evaluator, it poses a challenging task to make such Top UP students in par with the regular students. The undertaken Action Research (AR) Project aimed to make Top Up students work on the current trends of Web Development Technologies ...

Micro-finance refers to small savings, credit and insurance services. These services are extended to socially and economically disadvantaged segments of society. The women artisans from Shantiniketan leather cluster, who have a long tradition of manufacturing leather bags and other accessories, have changed their lives and their socio-living condition in many aspects, by adopting the ways of self-help group formation under different coordinating agencies (specially the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) since 1992). These self-help groups have been extended soft loans of various natures; through the respective coordinating agencies. These initiatives have added different and new positive dimensions in respect to the lives of members of such groups. This structured and questionnaire based feedback empirical study, attempts to evaluate the level of positive changes that occurred in the lives of under-privileged rural women artisans, engaged in leather craftsmanship under several se...

Information security and privacy continues to be a major concern around the world. As the world becomes more dependent on technology in order to carry out its various activities, it is also increasingly getting exposed to the dangers that continue to trouble these technologies. From credit card fraud to impersonation to cyber bullying to phishing the list of information security and privacy challenges is ever expanding. In a span of more than two decades the Web has changed the behavior of people around the globe. From making travel reservations online to buying merchandise of choice to sharing photographs and videos online, the Web has permeated all spheres of life and continues to impact the daily activities of millions of citizens around the globe. Although members of the global community continue to use these emerging technologies every day, the awareness about the threats lurking behind these technologies is still in its infancy. Since Web based technologies are still immature, our knowledge about the flaws and shortcomings of these technologies is limited. At the same time, the awareness about threats and how to deal with them among the users is rather scant due to a variety of reasons that range from user callousness to lack of concerted efforts by regulatory agencies to lack of awareness building initiatives, among others. From corporations to governments, an urgent need of the day is to understand the evolving nature of the information security and privacy challenges for the emerging technologies and to initiate appropriate actions to handle them.

Training needs are being regularly assessed for the operational level employees across banking sector in UAE. These banks have sufficiently large number of employees, who are employed at the branch level and engaged in daily banking operations like transactions across teller counters, processing papers on credit application, selling financial products like mutual funds and insurances etc. Performance of these large numbers of employees plays a very critical role in setting the direction of not only the respective branch performance, but also of the overall organization as a whole. Therefore, regular training is required for the continuous improvement in the performance of this category of workforce and both local and foreign banks design and develop the training programs according to their respective priorities. Based on the feedback of 498 operational employees of 16 branches of four major banks, two each from local and foreign bank categories, located in emirates of Dubai, the pre...