Executive Editor

Keeping an eye on Kaleidoscopic range of issues influencing the business management and administration Prastuti - Journal of Management and Research forays into the realm of advances and amelioration being made in the field of management practices and studies. It provides a podium for the dissemination and experimentation for practices and policies of the business management and administration. Prastuti (ISSN 2320-2262) is published biannually in January & July by the Institute of Business Management, GLA University, Mathura.

GLA University of PRASTUTI, Journal of Management & Research assumes no responsibility for the views expressed or information furnished by the authors.

Please direct all the manuscripts, editorial correspondence and subscriptions by D.D. payable at Mathura to the EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, PRASTUTI, Journal of Management & Research, Institute of Business Management, GLA University, Mathura-281406, Ph. No.: +91-5662-250718, E-mail: prove@gla.ac.in

Editor’s Preface

Progress made in the field of business management and managerial practices in

the recent decades have invited quantum of queries and inquisitive thoughts being

raised in the form of apprehensions and reservations over the relevancy and efficacy of

the policies and procedures adopted by corporate world. Protagonists and Antagonist

of modern business management have their own logic and counter logics to validate

their statements. However time has come to look back towards basics for restructuring

the base and to redefine the management policies capable of facing the chameleon

demands of corporate world.

In this regard attempt has been made in the inaugural and special issue of

Prastuti - The Journal of Management and Research-an humble initiative of Institute of

Business Management, GLA University, Mathura-to extract immaculate and

impeccable managerial elixir lying unexplored in the womb of the Basics, through the

papers being presented here by scholars, academicians and professionals.

This issue portrays beautiful blend and fascinating fusion of historical,

reflective and contemporary views and thoughts presented by the constellation of

academicians and researchers. It consists of nine papers and articles which further

fashions the rendezvous for past and present to mend ways for future policies.

The journal also stands testimony to the fact the articles and papers were

selected on the basis of the criteria employed by the editorial board and as such there

are a number of excellent, novel papers which are not included in the collection.

We hope that the inaugural issue of the journal would prove to be intriguing

journey of exploring the unexplored path of forgotten but precious past for striving

towards better future.

Anand Mohan AgrawalEditor-in-ChiefPrastuti

Contents

1. Work and Wages of Labour- A Study of Ancient India 01-07

Pratibha Goyal, Mini Goyal, Shailja Goyal

2. From Strategic Business Unit to Spiritual Business Unit:

A complete Organizational Transformation 08-14

Mehta Ankur, Mehta Manjari

3. Employee Motivation : A powerful Model 15-19

Ruhee Singh

4. Brand Personality, Consumer Congruity and Advertising:

Influence on the Apparel Brands 20-31

Reshma Farhat, Dr. Bilal Mustafa Khan

5. Impact of Locus of Control on Job Stress: An Empirical Study 32-37

Rajiv Kumar Jha, Bushara Bano

6. Understanding Attitude and Predicting Behavior in

Virtual Social Communities 38-45

Dr. Rajan Yadav

7. Reliability Analysis of Quality Determinants of

Corporate Financial Reporting in India 46-54

Pramod Kumar, Hina Agarwal

8. Organisation culture and Job involvement in cement industry - A study 55-61

Venkata Subbaiah K, Adi Narayana Rao U. V.

9. Impact of Technology in Attracting Retail Customers 62-69

Abhaya Ranjan Srivastava, Dr. Saumya Singh

Among all the factors of production, labour plays a vital role. It is relatively easier to manage all other factors of production when compared with labour. Wages paid to labour undoubtedly sets the starting point while dealing with labour. In this research, many kinds of vadic literature have been studied to understand the models of division of labour and wage system that can be followed even today for sustainable business.

Keywords: Labour, Wages, Vedas, Smrities.

Work and Wages of Labour:A Study of Ancient India

Abstract

Introduction

Success of trade and commerce and the resultant

growth of economies depend a lot upon the hard work of

labour. The fact that a happy and contented worker

contributes better to the growth of business was very

well realised in the ancient Indian period. Labour and

their welfare were important aspects of the ancient

Indian law. In India, by 2500 BC, pastoral stage gradually

faded away and people took to agricultural profession.

Till the Vedic period the scale of operation was such as

did not require employment of hired labour. But in the

post Vedic period (600 B C onwards) labour came to be

employed in various types of occupations.

The main sources of information on ancient Indian

labour and labour laws are Sukraniti, Manusmriti,

Yajnavalkyasmiriti, Naradsmriti and Arthshastra. These

sources have given detailed provisions regarding

payment of wages (vetanadana), employer-employee

disputes (svamipala vivada), breach of contract of

service (abhyupetyaasurusa) etc (Jayashree, 2002).

These codes or provisions hold relevance even today. In

ancient India, various types of workers were found.

Narada divides workers in two broad classes-slaves

(dasas) and labourers (karamkarahs) (figure 1).

Karamkarahs are further divided into four categories-

pupil or student, apprentice, hired servant or wage

earner (Bhritakas) and official or commissioned servant.

A pupil is the one who owed obedience to spiritual

teacher for the purpose of acquiring knowledge of three

Vedas and paid to the teacher by performing some work

for him. Apprentice worked under the master craftsman

and got on-the-job training. Bhritakas were hired

servants or wage earners and they were soldiers,

agriculture labourers and porters, husbandmen or

Pratibha Goyal*Mini Goyal**

Shailja Goyal***

*Associate Professor of Business Managemnt, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, Punjab, India**Associate Professor of Economics, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, Punjab, India***Head, History Department, LR DAV College, Jagraon, Ludhiana, Punjab, India

01

herdsmen while adhikarmakrit were officials or

commissioned servants (Gupta, 1992).

Shukraniti classifies labour on the basis of devotion to

master- as excellent (who is devoted to master), mediocre

(who serves master well and yearns for remuneration)

and worst (who serves another master while being

maintained by his own). Jain canons mention four kinds of

labour- those who received daily wages in cash or kind,

those who were specially engaged for a journey, those

who were employed on contract to perform whole work

and those employed on contract to perform a part of

work. Brihaspati divides labour on the basis of caste,

occupation and reason for service (figure 2).

Figure 1: Narada’s Classification of Labour in Ancient India

Persons Who Serve

(Susrusakah)

Workers / Labourers Slaves

(Karamkarahs) (Dasas)

Pupil

Apprentice

Hired Servant

Official (Shishya)

(Antevasi)

or

or

Wage Earner

Commossioned

(Bhritaka)

Servant

(Ahikarmakrit

or Kautumbika)

Highset

Middle

Lowest

(Uttam) (Madhyam) (Adhama)

Soldiers Agricultural labour Porters

Nigam’s classification of labour is quite comprehensive as

he covers almost all types of labour prevalent in ancient

India (figure 3). Besides this, labour was performed

towards the payment of taxes. Gratuitous performance of

public services was called visti but those who could not

pay taxes in cash or kind performed forced labour called

simhanika. Division of labour is evident from pali Jataka

stories where one man would fashion shaft of an arrow, a

second would fix the flights and a third would make an fix

the points (Basham, 1994).

02

Prastuti: Vol. I, No. 1, July-December 2012

Work and Wages of Labour: A Study of Ancient India

Figure 2: Brihaspati’s Classification of Labour in Ancient India

Slave Labour

On the basis of terms and position Forced Labour

Hired Labour

Agricultural Labour

Pastoral Labour

On the basis of activities Industrial Labour

Mercantile Labour

Domestic Labour

Skilled Labour

On the basis of Skill

Unskilled Labour

Workers

(Bhritahs)

According to Caste According to Occupation According to

reason for work

Science Knowledge Love Gain-cash/kind

(Vijyana) (Vidya) (Kama) (Artha)

Highest Middle Lowest Serving a Serving an

Husbandman owner of cattle

(Soldier) (Agricultural (Porters (Krishijivanam) (Gojivanam)

Labour) and servants

Employed in

Household

Work)

03

Conditions of Employment

Study of literature reveals that the conditions of

employment varied with the status of labour. Slaves

generally got their maintenance only in return while wage

earners got their stipulated wages. Both Jatakas and

Arthshastra suggest a humane attitude towards slaves.

Children of a slave were not slaves. A slave was permitted

to own that was earned by him or inherited from father.

Proper treatment of women slaves was insisted upon.

This suggests that slavery in India was not as severe as in

Greece (Majumdar, 2007). Contrary to the other sources

Magesthenes has stated in his account that there were no

slaves in India. It is possible that Magesthenes having the

Greek conception of slavery in mind did not recognise the

Indian system which was different from that of the Greeks

(Thapar, 1997). Mauryan slavery was organised according

to the system described in Arthshastra where slaves had

been given rights to own property, right to inherit

property, right to regain freedom, right to earn for

himself.

Wages

It seems that wages in ancient India were fairly high. Law

givers emphasised that the wages should enable the

worker and his family to lead a normal standard of living.

According to Sukraniti an equitable rate of wage was that

which provided not just the basic necessities of life but

that which recognised the standard of living and comfort

as implied in the care of family and dependents. Unlike

the modern concept of minimum wage which takes into

consideration, as per recommendations of Indian Labour

Conference, 1957, a family of three persons only, the

ancient Indian wage paid to a worker aimed at fulfilling

the needs of a 20 member family which included wife,

mother, step mother, daughter, father, daughter in law,

widowed daughter, sister who has no off spring, aunt,

brother’s wife, sister of father or mother, grand father,

preceptor who has no son, father-in-law, uncles, grand

son who is a minor or an orphan, brother, sister’s son. It is

further said that wage earner should maintain the

families of both parents, wife’s family and the attendants,

servants, maid servants, deformed, strangers, the poor

and the helpless (Gupta, 1992) This shows that the wages

must have been sufficiently high.

Manu also provided that for the payment to the most

menial worker the consideration of maintenance of

family is a must. Kautilya maintained that the salaries of

the workers should be sufficient to enable workers to

adequately meet bodily comforts, to serve loyally and

enthusiastically and to be free from temptation and

discontent. Besides good wages emphasis was also on

proper treatment. According to Suktaniti low wages,

harsh treatment, abuse, impositions of heavy fines or

severe punishments are causes of unrest among workers.

It was very well recognised that by payment of adequate

wages in time, promoted honourably, cheered by gentle

words and consoled in grief, the employees will never let

down or desert their master (Jayshree, 2002). Low wages

were considered dangerous to society for “those who get

low wages are enemies by nature”. That wages were high,

is clear from the fact that, one Jataka speaks of even

servants giving alms (Srikantan, 2011).

Sukracharya, the jurist who lived in 6th century AD, was of

the opinion that wages of a worker ought to be so fixed as

to enable him to meet all his necessary expenses. He

sounded a note of warning that if worker was not paid

adequate wage there was a likelihood of the worker

getting frustrated and turning an enemy. They could

become auxiliaries to others and opportunists and

deserters (Saran, 1957).

Labour on fixed pay

On the basis of mode of payment Labour on share in Agriculture/cattle

Labour on share in produce/Trade

Highest Labour

On the basis of Importance of work Middle Labour

Lowest Labour

Figure 3: Nigam’s Classification of Labour in Ancient India

Prastuti: Vol. I, No. 1, July-December 2012

04

For government servants wages were carefully fixed by

king on the basis of surveys of cost of living. To decide

wages, family budgets were studied and their assets and

liabilities were estimated. Says Kautilya, “A gopa shall

keep account of ten thousands, twenty thousands or forty

thousands households. He shall not only know the caste,

gotra, the name and occupation of the family members

but also ascertain their income and expenditure

(Srikantan, 2011).

Wages were decided by bargaining or mutual agreement

between employer and employee but for certain

occupations a pre-decided customary wage rate was

given. In the cases where the wage was not settled earlier

through an agreement or by bargaining, labourer was

paid in accordance with the nature of work and the time

spent on it at customary rates. The customary wage rate

for the various categories was one tenth of what they had

produced (Table 1).

In ancient India both time rate and piece rate system of

payment were in vogue. Payment of wages was daily,

weekly, fortnightly, monthly, quarterly, six-monthly,

yearly or on the completion of work or as agreed upon.

Shukracharya stated that time could be divided according

to solar or lunar movements. Kautilya provided that

workers could be made to work on holidays by payment of

special wages. Most of the agricultural workers were paid

in kind. According to Yajuvalakya if two persons were

engaged to do a work jointly and if they could not finish

the same, wages were paid only for work finished. Full

wages were paid only when the work was completed.

Narad observed that wages could be paid either at the

beginning or in the middle or on the completion of work

as agreed upon (Saran, 1957).

In this way the literature reveals that various factors

influencing wage rates were agreement between

employer and employee, standard fixed by state,

opportunity cost, quantity and quality of work, time spent

on work, caste and status of worker, skill, devotion,

productivity, family needs and incentives. So wage

payment was a dynamic concept as no single basis of

payment was prevalent. The consideration of humanism

and social justice were dominant in deciding wage rates.

Disputes regarding wages were settled on the basis of

evidence of witness. If there was no witness, an on the

spot enquiry was held. Denying the payment of wages

that were due and not paying wages for the work done

were both punishable offences (Rangarajan, 1992).

Conditions of Work

Shukraniti suggested that good treatment, sweet words,

respect, love, praise appreciation of worker by employer,

award of prizes and ranks, delicious food, fine clothing,

betel leaves, umbrellas, promotion etc keep workers

satisfied (Gupta, 1992). In case of illness or distress the

employee had the right to have the contract annulled or

to have the work completed by someone else. Unlike

other law givers of ancient India, Kautilya provided that

wages were to be given only for work done. An employee

had right to full wages only if the employer prevented him

from finishing a job of which he had already done a part.

An employee was not obliged against his will to continue

working for his previous employer if he had completed

the task allotted to him and already accepted

Table 1: Customary wage rate in kind for certain occupations

Type of

Occupation

Payment

(One tenth of)

Cultivators Crops

Cowherds Ghee (Clarified Butter)

Merchants Goods traded

But Brihaspatiniti gives higher wage rate providing that a

fifth share of profit or produce was payable to a worker

along with food and clothing and a third share in case

nothing else was given to him. In case of self-employed

professionals like artisans, craftsmen, doctors, story

tellers, cooks etc remuneration was similar to others of

the same profession or as decided by experts in their

profession.

Wages were also based on quality and quantity of work.

For example wages of a weaver depended on whether the

threads spun were fine, coarse or of middle quality, and in

proportion to the quantity woven (Shamasastry, 1951).

The system of fixed wages for a given amount was also

known. Further payment or reward was given for work

done during holidays (Thapar, 2007). In case of domestic

servants food was given in lieu of wages. As a general

practice all needs of domestic servants were fulfilled by

master (Saran, 1957).

Work and Wages of Labour: A Study of Ancient India

05

employment under another. Employee had right to

additional compensation if he did more work than agreed

upon (Rangarajan, 1992). Workers and craftsmen were

protected against injury and theft. If a craftsman was hurt

the person responsible was put to death. A person

accused of stealing the articles of an artisan had to pay a

very heavy fine of 100 panas (silver coins). All artisans

were protected by state and punishment was given on the

person who impaired the efficiency of a craftsman

(Mahajan, 1960)

There were equally strict rule against deception by

workers. Strict supervision and examination of the

product was enforced (Thapar, 1997). A servant

neglecting or unreasonably putting off work for which he

had got wages was fined 12 panas and caught hold of till

the work was done. The loss incurred by employer owing

to such delay was to be made good by extra work. An

employer or supervisor not taking work from an

employee was also fined 12 panas. Guilds of workmen

had a grace of 7 nights over and above the period agreed

upon for completing work and beyond that they had to

find substitutes to get the work completed. A healthy

person who deserted his company after work had begun

was fined 12 panas. The fines for various offences varied

from 1.25 panas to 500 panas (Cunninggham, 1891).

Apart from guilds there were workers’ bodies such as

workers’ nco-operatives. These generally included

artisans and various crafts associated with a particular

enterprise (Thapar, 1990). The person who was found to

have neglected his share of work by stealth was shown

mercy for the first time and given a proportional quantity

of work anew with a promise of proportional share of

earnings as well. In case of negligence for the second time

he was thrown out of the company. If he was guilty of a

glaring offence, he was treated as condemned

(Shamasastry, 1951). If the work was not completed at the

right time or in right way it could be disqualified for

calculating wages. Workers were to report at the fixed

time of work failing which one fourth wages were

deducted and by way of punishment a fine equal to

double the amount of such deductions was imposed,

unless the failure to be punctual was due to some

unforeseen obstructions.

Ancient Indian labour law had provision of leave for

workers. Kautilya provided that if the worker was unwell

or was in some trouble he could get leave but if a worker

wanted leave for some other reason he could proceed on

leave by providing a substitute for himself. Under Manu’s

law the period of absence due to illness was treated as the

period of leave with pay only if the worker returned to

complete the work after recovery. According to Brihaspati

a sick person was not forced to work but if a healthy

person refused to perform assigned work punishment

was given. Sukracharya provided for festival holidays in

cases where work was not of emergency type. He

observed that no deductions could be made from wages if

the worker was ill for a week and also worker could have

fifteen days annual leave with wages.

The workers attached to an employer for a long time were

entitled to several concessions. The ancient law provided

that the king should grant half the wages for life without

work to the man who has passed forty years in service and

f the worker was not living this be give to the widow or son

or to his daughters. In this way pension was given to

workers. In the form of bonus the servant was given one

eighth of salary by way of reward every year when the

work done was good. In fact bonus was considered as the

claim of employee on the profits made by industry. The

noteworthy point is that in Sukraniti bonus (1/8th of

annual salary) was payable irrespective of the profit made

or even in absence of profit. Bonus meant deferred wage

(Jayashree, 2002).

The employers were expected to provide provident fund.

Shukracharya says, “the master should keep with him as

deposit one sixth or one fourth of wages of worker and

should pay half of that amount in the whole or in two or

three years” (Srikantan, 2011).

The condition of labour in ancient India must have been

good. Hiuen Tsang, describing the conditions in those

days writes, “People are not subjected to forced labour.

When the public services require it, labour is exacted but

is paid for; the payment is in strict proportion to the work

done (Srikantan, 2011). In ancient India, employer-

employee relations were based on Dharma. The guiding

principle of Dharma was the mutual good. Deviation from

the rules of fair conduct meant going away from the path

of Dharma. The employer making profits from the hard

labour of workers was bound to provide for their welfare.

Right of one party was the duty of the other. The ancient

Indian labour law provided for the rights of domestic

labour also while in modern times the domestic labour

and other workers in informal sector are not protected by

law.

Prastuti: Vol. I, No. 1, July-December 2012

06

Conclusion

In ancient India labour was engaged in various

occupations. Wages were fairly high and enabled the

family of the worker to lead a normal standard of living.

Wages were decided on the basis of careful surveys of

standard of living and cost of living. Unlike the modern

norm for wage fixation, the worker was supposed to

support a larger family and thus the wages were paid

accordingly. Just as efficient management in modern

times recognises the importance of employee benefits

and incentives, similarly in ancient India it was very well

known that besides good wages the worker should be

paid sufficiently so as to meet the day to day

contingencies of life and arrangements were made for

social security. It was very well known that timely

payments, honourable promotions, gentle words,

rewards for good work and appreciation keep the worker

happy and satisfied. Ancient Indian literature reveals that,

the modern practices of pension, provident fund,

workmen’s compensation, insurance, leave with wages

etc are not new in our country. These are our old legacies.

It is evident that India has been concerned about the

welfare of labour right from the beginning of civilization.

The ancient law givers have been as conscious of the

rights and duties of workers as we are in the modern

times.

References

• Basham A L (1994) The wonder that was India. Rupa

and Company, New Delhi.

• Cunningham, A (1891) Coins of ancient India: From

the earliest times down to the seventh century A D.

Asian Educational Services (Reprint, 2000), New

Delhi.

• Gupta B L (1992) Value and Distribution System in

Ancient India. Gian Publishing House, New Delhi.

• Jayashree K S (2002) Labour relation in Sukraniti.

Home>Digital Library>Index of Newsletters> 2002>

Vol 1 Available at http/ignca.nic.in/n100 1905.html

on 21.11.2011.

• Mahajan V D (1960) Ancient India. S Chand and

Company Ltd, New Delhi

• Majumdar R C (2007) Ancient India. Motilal

Banarsidas Publishers Pvt Ltd, Delhi.

• Rangarajan L N (1992) Kautilya: The Arthshastra.

Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, New Delhi.

• Saran K M (1957) Labour in ancient India. Vora and

Company Pvt Ltd, Bombay.

• Shamasastry R (1951) Kautilya’s Arthshastra.

Bangalore Government Press, Bangalore.

• Srikantan K S (2011) Labour Legislation in ancient

India. Available at http/yabaluri.org/TRIVENI/

CDWEB on 21.11.2011.

• Thapar R (1990) A History of India. Volume 1.

Penguin Books, London.

• Thapar R (1997) Ashoka and the Decline of the

Mauryas. Uxford Unversity Press, New Delhi.

Work and Wages of Labour: A Study of Ancient India

07

Spirituality is one such element of that that transforms any human being into human resource. Due to innocence, many are under opinion to discuss the issue is a taboo in society and it must be understood that though spirituality is an integral part of all the religions, it is confined to only religious preaching. It can be taken as change agent to transform not just an individual working in an organisation but a complete organisational transform. In this research, a variety of spiritual techniques were deeply discussed to achieve the objective of organisational transform.

Keywords: Spirituality, Economic Value Addition, Human Value Addition, Organisational Transformation.

From Strategic Business Unit to Spiritual Business Unit: A completeOrganizational Transformation

Abstract

Introduction

Spirituality is a way of life in the journey towards

actualization of individuals, corporations and society.

Over the past century management has continuously

been evolving. There have been a wide range of

approaches in how to deal with management or better

yet how to improve management functions in our ever

changing environment. From the Pre- Scientific era to

the modern day management, from F.W Taylor to Peter

Drucker, management has evolved from being mere

concept to a matter of experience. It’s been a process of

transformation from the management theory of jungle

to the modern day contingency and empirical school of

thoughts. Along with these changes, the approach

towards working in organizations has changed

inevitably. From the Darwinian’s concept of survival of

the fittest and cut throat competition, management has

grown matured enough to discuss the utmost need for

ethics, values, morals and spirituality.

The advent of spirituality in the corporate corridors

shows its marks only a decade ago. It was towards the

end of the 20th century that ethics, morals and values

gained some voice. It was then in the beginning of 21st

century that the urge to think more seriously and deeply

about inculcating ethical and moral behavior in the form

of a conduct was recognized. Corporate examples of

Enron Corporation of Houston, Texas, LDDS WorldCom

of United states, Tyco international of Princeton, New

Jersey, Kanebo Limited of Japan, American International

group (AIG) of Shanghai, China, Satyam Computer of

Hyderabad, India, Scandal of Xerox, Bernie Madoff’s

Ponzi Scheme, the Stannford Financial Fallout, The

Galleon Greed Scandal, Freddie and Finnie, Lehman

Mehta Ankur*Mehta Manjari*

*Volunteer, Shantikunj-Dev Sanskriti University, Haridwar - A Spiritual Academy ankurmehta83@gmail.com,manjari.dsvv@gmail.com

08

Brothers, 2G scam-India, the NOTW (News of The World)

episode, show that in all the cases trust built first to

bubble status, and then only it popped.

Workplace Spirituality or Spirituality in the Workplace is a

movement that began in the early 1990s. It emerged as a

grassroots movement with individuals seeking to live

their faith and/or spiritual values in the workplace. One of

the first publications to mention spirituality in the

workplace was Business Week, June 5, 2005. The cover

article was titled "Companies hit the road less traveled:

Can spirituality enlighten the bottom line?" Thompson

(2001) denotes that spirituality at workplace has to do

with how you feel about your work whether it is a job or a

calling. Sanders et al. (2004) de?ne spirituality in the

workplace as, ‘the extent to which the organization

encourages a sense of meaning and interconnectedness

among their employees’. Sheep (2004) de?nes spirituality

at workplace through four components: self-workplace

integration, meaning in work, transcendence of self, and

personal growth of one’s inner life at work.

But it was all like the case of blind men and the elephant.

Whoever was holding the elephant from whichever part,

was describing the elephant in his own way, without ever

seeing it. The Western school of thought based on

modernizing concepts could never ever match the

solutions available in the East. Deeper discussions and

explorations revealed that the solution lies in the text and

scriptures of the country where the term Spirituality was

born- India. It was then when the West started looking

towards the East and establish new code of conducts

based upon a deeper sense of value based humanitarian

approach across all streams of life.

Spirituality can refer to an ultimate or an alleged

immaterial reality; an inner path enabling a person to

discover the essence of their being; or the “deepest

values and meanings by which people live.”

These individual deepest values and meanings when

collectively aligned in a group create a bigger circle of

value based initiatives and puts the founding stone of a

SBU (Spiritual Business Unit, hereon mentioned as SBU).

There needs to be a greater sense in the present day’s

organizations to enhance the value base of each and

every employee. Afterall, the question business leaders

need to answer is- Which value needs to be exchanged

among them and their team members? What value does

an employee bring home towards the end of the day?

Does s/he go home frustrated, deprived, anguished or

hurt; or does s/he reach back with a sense of

achievement, greater hope, meaning and purpose for the

next day, some new learning to share with her/his own

people, and after all a smile on the face? Does s/he feel

the urge for waking up next day and reaching out to the

organization as her/his second home where s/he spend

more than half of the waking time, or does s/he get the

blues every day? Answers to these simple practical

questions leave us with the understanding of a Spiritually

built and run organization. John Elkington’s 3BL although

do draw some attention on People and Planet other than

Profit motives but very less efforts have been made in this

direction for the simple reason being practically these do

not go that well hand in hand as the moral bankruptcy of

the organization does not support the combination of

profit (the traditional bottom line) with the much needed

Social and Environmental cause.

“We are not human beings on a spiritual journey. We are

spiritual beings on a human journey,” Stephen R Covey.

Spirituality is an element that is within the essence of

each employee, and it can’t be separated from the

employee, whether a business decides to acknowledge

the spiritual aspect of humankind or to ignore the

spiritual essence, but a business cannot make spirituality

vanish from humanity. A SBU increases the sense of

satisfaction of the employee and extends to her/him a

delightful event to cherish upon, as she knows that the

performance is based upon values like honesty, integrity,

trust, respect, togetherness and compassion. A sense of

greater purpose drives the employee to perform with full

zeal dedication and devotion, beyond the thinking of

mere paychecks and this sense of greater purpose is

considered to be spiritual. Spirituality guides behavior. It

as well impacts the response of an employee towards the

change. As there sustains an environment of trust, help,

cooperation and not competition in a SBU, the response

to change is always positive and the transition is

comparatively smoother.

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From Strategic Business Unit to Spiritual Business Unit: A complete Organizational Transformation

Building a SBU is a two way process of mutual exchange of

values and principles among the employees and the

employer. It is a connection of one with the whole, one

soul with the higher soul; similarly one employee’s value

system with the organization’s value culture. “When two

Buddha meets they become one, when thousand Buddha

meets, they also become one”. The natural sense of

community in us makes us commune with the rest of the

world. This helps us align with the organizational

objectives and remain in communion with the same.

Spirituality is not an attribute that can be acquired by

education. Spirituality is a journey from being at one level

to the next up level. A SBU implements Spiritualized

Leadership, Performance Systems Metrics, and a

Spirituality Quotient. Here, employees and leaders search

for meaning in the business organization. It is selfless and

reflects shared values. Employees experience spirituality

as a guiding force or a higher power (Mitroff & Denton,

1999). The guiding force or the higher power intertwines

with work and influences behavior. It is like the modern

day Astrophysicist’s concept of Black hole; it is all around

us, and it is still a mysterious force which is yet not fully

understood. So is the guiding force of spirituality, which is

present all around and inside us, and is also ready to

intervene and guide us, provided we surrender ourselves

and listen to its voice.

Conclusion and Recommendations

SBU model offers a sustainable competitive advantage for

increased profits, business performance, leadership,

employee satisfaction and employee retention. The

leader’s task is to create an environment that will foster a

culture of commune, empathy, faith, trust and

belongingness.

Some recommendations are as follows:

• From EVA to HVA: Economic Value Added should be

replaced by Human Value Added. Focus should be

paid on how much value has been added to the

human resources and how much have they

contributed as a result of alignment.

• From Survival of the Fittest to Arrival of the Best:

Explained later.

• From Success to Excellence: Focusing on Excellence

and not Success, as every excellent effort does yield

success.

• From Capitalist to Socialist: Change in approach

from Capitalist (individualistic/money and profit

oriented) to Socialistic (developmental/collective

commune).

• From MBO (Management by Objectives) v/s MBV

(Management by Values) approach: The internal

drive for excellence and not success yields team

performance, higher dedication, deep sense of

commitment, and of course, no doubt about higher

profit margins.

• From Organizational BSC to Individual BSC: Kaplan’s

and Norton’s Organizational Balance Score Card

should give space to Individual Balance Score Card.

As the organizational performance is measured on

the parameters of Finance, Customers, Processes

and Learning & Growth; similarly, Individual should

be rated on the 4 quadrants of SQ, IQ, Communion

with peers-customers- and stakeholders, and

Productivity & Efficacy.

PerformanceSystemMatrix

SBU

SpiritualLeadership

SQ

Fig. 1: Campuzano & Seteroff, 2009 proposed the following model of a SBU

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Prastuti: Vol. I, No. 1, July-December 2012

Quadrant 1: SQ, EQ & IQ: Spiritual quotient (SQ) is

described as a measure that looks at a person's spiritual

intelligence similar to EQ and IQ.

Quadrant 2: Transcendental Approach: This is a unique

approach as taught in Indian scriptures, especially Geeta

when Arjuna had to fight against his own family members

but yet stand by the values, ethics, truth and honesty.

Quadrant 3: The productivity and efficacy of the

employee in terms of value contributed to the

organization shall also be measured.

Quadrant 4: Communion with the SELF and others: How

well does one manage to remain connected with her/ his

real self? Also, how does one reflect the same

communion with others?

Following are some postulates proposed by the patron

founder of Thought Revolution movement, reverend

Spiritual Guru, Pt Sriram Sharma Acharya, which imbibes

the guidelines for building a strong SBU:

Postulate 1: Abiding with the essential disciplines of the

Divine/ Humanitarian principles.

Everlasting and rich organizational cultures are based on

practicing tested disciplines. Any healthy culture is the

outcome of healthy practices.

The personality of any corporate house is reflected by its

actions, deeds, initiatives, culture, people and off-course

the key decision makers. For e.g. The recent

advertisement by TATA Steel, showcasing its relationship

with its employees says: It is not an advertisement, its life

@ TATA Steel; relations stronger than steel; “A promise is a

promise, and it has to be kept”, Ratan Tata. This is a

reflection of strong character based upon divine values.

Such examples showcase the value based DNA of the

organizations, which starts from the top and come down

to create a culture and represent the high value system of

the organization.

TIP: Start from the top and bring in values based changes

throughout.

Postulate 2: Regarding the body as a temple of God, we

will be ever watchful to keep it healthy and full of vitality

by adopting the principles of self-restraint, order and

harmony in our daily lives.

Health is wealth. Often we ignore our body and stop

regarding it as a vehicle for conducting and achieving the

best in the world. HR departments emphasize on

providing physical infrastructure & amenities like

Gymnasium, pools, recreation corners, etc but the

employee usually gives no thought for her/his health. Yog

is making its importance felt but that too more like a

fashion statement or an in thing, and is limited to Aasan,

Pranayam and not as a Way of being.

TIP: Create meditation corner/peace corner; yog as a

compulsory practice for atleast 15 mins in the morning

and 15 mins in afternoon, to keep employees fit and

afresh; Check the menu at Cafeterias, if any- offer sprouts,

curd, beans and other vitamin rich food as it keeps both

body and mind fit and fresh.

Postulate 3: With a view of keeping our minds free from

the inrush of negative thoughts and emotions, we will

adopt a regular program of study of ennobling and

inspiring literature and of keeping the company of saints.

Good companionship, good literature and elevated

people nurture and shape our personalities, which in-turn

creates an organizational culture. Spiritual space/

meditation corners/ Yog rooms/ Reading zones, should be

accessed more as compared to Smoking zones and plush

cafeteria.

TIP: Study corner with inspiring, ethical and moral based

literature, case studies & biographies of value based

organizations/ people/ institutions/ civilizations, etc

should give way to magazine stands and smoking corners.

Also, regular training workshops and brainstorming

sessions on such topics should be organized.

SQ, EQ, IQ Productivity& Efficacy

TranscendentalApproach

Communion with the SELF & others

Individual BSC

Fig. 2: Individual Balance Score Card

11

From Strategic Business Unit to Spiritual Business Unit: A complete Organizational Transformation

GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT

NATION DEVELOPMENT

ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT

FAMILY DEVELOPMENT

SELF

DEVELOPMENT

Postulate 4: We will consider ourselves as inseparable

parts of the society and will see our good in the good of all.

‘Oneness with the whole’, such was the principle of our

ancestors and that’s what made us self sustainable,

diverse, peaceful and contented. CSR has got its real

essence in this principle of the East. A CSR should be

sustainable and shall bring change in the lives of both who

conducted it (employees) and the beneficiaries (society

members). There needs to be a societal will rather than

creating headlines.

gain focus in the Assessment centers of the HR

department and strategic policies.

TIP: Create an honesty counter at the work place,

example a cash drop counter at cafeteria or a stationary

counter. Let people use the drop box to put in the money

against the things/ eatables they consume. Observe the

collection against inventory at the end of the day. This is a

very effective tool to find the level of thinking among

employees, honesty, loyalty and trust towards the

organization and may reflect to the HR related issues like

attrition.

The more the loyalty, the better is the trust and faith and

lesser will be the attrition. This shall also indicate the

moral and ethical patterns of the employees at a large and

how much do they refrain from the basic moral code.

Postulate 6: We will never evaluate a person’s greatness

by his worldly success, talents and riches, but by his

righteous conduct and thoughts.

The ever failing and dissatisfying Appraisal systems of the

institutions fails because the evaluation patterns are

based on the output, success, targets, client base, etc.

Imagine an appraisal system focusing on the righteous

conduct and thoughts will encourage an indomitable will

among the employees.

TIP: Create Appraisal system, which rate human value

systems, practices of the employees, their conduct at the

office, initiatives and motives in different activities, along

with the talent, skills and other KRAs.

Postulate 7: We will never do unto others what we would

not like to be done unto us.

“Be the change you want to see”, Mahatma Gandhi ji. If

the top management starts practicing what they preach,

organizations will become a heavenly place to work for.

Top management should focus on this and cautiously

practice everything on them before communicating it

down to the rest of the organizational levels so as to make

it a culture.

Have a look at these statistics:

Only 45 % feel that their managers behave in a way which

is consistent with company values.

Fig 3: A Holistic model of development: Allowing everybody to develop

TIP: Find the special areas of interest of employees;

determine their social orientation and initialize them to

create activities of CSR. Replace CSR with ISR (Individual

Social Responsibilities). Make CSR initiatives employee

driven; the department should help & execute it. Start

from your own campus. Let the employees feel

responsible for their office campus and then take them

outside to meet the needs of the society.

Postulate 5: We will earnestly and firmly imbibe in our

lives the virtues of wisdom, honesty, responsibility and

courage, and will constantly and sincerely endeavor to

create an environment of loving kindness, cleanliness,

simplicity and good will.

Wisdom to do the right things, honesty to our own selves,

responsibility to commit and contribute and courage to

follow a principled employee life; such attributes should

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Prastuti: Vol. I, No. 1, July-December 2012

Only 35% feel that what their organization says it values is

consistent with what it actually rewards.

After all, it’s not what you say, it’s what you do.

TIP: Walk the talk. Initiatives like, An evening with the

CEO, Culture exchange at the Shop floor, Coffee with the

boss, etc helps employee feel connected with the

management and gets inspired by knowing the leaders

closely.

Postulate 8: We will actively involve ourselves in bringing

together people of goodwill, in resisting evil and injustice,

and in promoting New Creation.

Community initiatives by corporate houses should be

based on this principle. There is a greater need in the

organizations to ensure that people of good will stay

tuned with each other and enrich the rest. They should

beware of the Garbage trucks who keep on spreading the

filth across the organization. When more such tunings

take place among value based employees, it gives birth to

innovation, creativity, team efforts and great ideas start

manifesting. 3M, Google, Toyota are some good

corporate examples who promote creativity and have

policies and systems in place to ensure justice. They not

only promote innovation, but also are known for low

attrition rates and retaining employees for longer terms

and generate goodwill among them.

TIP: Create platforms and matrices to identify individual

value systems; freeze such people together for some time

and then unfreeze them to spread the good values across

organization.

Postulate 9: We will remain committed to the principles

of national unity and equality of all human beings. In our

conduct we will not make any discrimination among

people based on caste, creed, color, religion, language or

gender.

The buzz of Globalization is the prime Vedic concept

called ‘Vasudev Kutumbakam’. There is a huge gap

between Darwinism (survival of the fittest) & Gandhism

(survival of the weakest/ poorest), which needs to be

filled. The fight of the fittest always encourages the

animal instinct and on the name of competition again

gives rise to the unethical and unhealthy practices.

Here is an exhibit of the same…

Darwin’s

Jungle Raj

Survival of

the Fittest

Civic Society

Sacro-Civic

Society

Gandhi’s Ram-Rajya.

‘!rrival of the best’

TIP: Ishwar Jan To Tene Kahiye Je Peed Parayi Jane Re. In a

Ram Rajya, everyone enjoys equity; be it the queen of

Ayodhya or the Common Laundry woman. Only Good

Dharma is worshipped. In Darwinian’s Jungle Raj concept,

which prevails all around today, it is only about Survival,

and that too at any cost. Hence, in corporate terms, we

have not evolved; rather we have become animals, and so

are the jargons like CRAB Mentality, CUT THROAT

competition.

13

From Strategic Business Unit to Spiritual Business Unit: A complete Organizational Transformation

Summing up:

The governance of the corporate house and institutions,

in both crisis and smooth sailing situations should focus

on utilizing these learning as building blocks of their

culture. Only when these become the fundamental

ingredients of the organizational personality, will we not

face such Ethical bubbles and reports like NBES will have

different findings.

Bibliography

• Pt. Sriram Sharma Acharya, 1956, Yug Nirman Sat-

sankalp: The Solemn Pledge- AWGP

• Subhash Sharma (1996): Management in New age:

Western Windows Eastern Doors, New Delhi: New

Age International Publishers.

• A New Approach to a Spiritual Business Organization

and Employee Satisfaction, Lydia Guadalupe

Campuzano, Sviatoslav Steve Seteroff, Eastern

Academy of Management.

14

Prastuti: Vol. I, No. 1, July-December 2012

Saha Yajnah Praja Sarstva Puro Vacha Praja PatinAnena Prasavisya Dhvam Eso Vo Ast – Vista Kama Dhuk

(Srimad Bhagvad Gita, Chapter Three, Verse 10)

(The prajapati, the creator, having in the beginning of creation created mankind, together with sacrifice and mutual help they would grow, prosper and multiply)

Purpose - This study seeks to focus on the teachings of Lord Krishna and Shri Ram which were simple yet so meaningful and could be implemented by contemporary managers and leaders for motivating their employees and followers.

Design/methodology/approach - Few Kands from Valmiki Ramayana, chapters from Shrimad Bhagvad Geeta and their relevance for the growth of modern management have been discussed. Also, the characteristics of Shri Ram and Lord Krishna are highlighted and compared with the contemporary Human Resource Practices. The study not only tries to highlight the ways that were used by Lord Krishna to motivate Arjuna but also explores Shri Ram’s quality of motivating rishis, sages and small animals that later helped him in building the Sri Ram Sethu.

Findings - Ancient philosophies and literature, somewhere, hold strong meanings and solutions to the various modern problems, if understood and implemented properly.

Originality/value - This study could help not only the Indian leaders or managers but also universally, the people who are dealing with issues of lack of motivation in their employees or followers.

Keywords - Motivation, Human Resource Practices, Ancient Philosophies, Lord Krishna, Arjuna and Shri Ram.

Employee Motivation : A powerful Model(Philosophies of Shrimad Bhagvad Gita and Valmiki Ramayana)

Abstract

Introduction

What is Motivation? Is it just a term related to human

behaviour? No, its not just a term but a power that gave

courage to soldiers to fight on Siachen Glacier at a height

of 6,400 m above sea level. A steady push that made a

Harvard undergraduate, Bill Gates to write a version of

programming language BASIC for the MITS Altair

microcomputer. A spark that lead India towards

freedom. A passion that made people like Chris Gardner

excel.

But then, several question arises, Is motivating someone

an easy task? If yes, then why today many Multinational

Organizations are facing issues motivating their

employees? And, If No, then what could be the ways that

may be used to motivate people?

It is not that motivation has come into picture due to the

globalization, MNCs and hence, work overload, late

working hours, or competitive pay. Even in ancient times

motivation had played a major role but somewhere we

are overlooking it in haste. For example, Not only in India

but all across the world, it is still a widespread practice

that when a child is born or when a person dies, his or her

family members and relatives memorize and pray to god

for the child’s growth and soul’s peace as the case may

be. It shows that people from all across the world are still

following the customs defined by their predecessors.

Then why are we not paying heed to the ways defined by

our ancestors to get motivated?

Seeking new ways for motivation is a good practice but at

the same time it is imperative that we should not

overlook the methods and solutions which were defined

in our religious mythologies.

Ruhee Singh*

*English Translation of Verse 10, Chapter 3 (Srimad Bhagvad-Gita). Available at: http://srilapurimaharaja.org/books/srimad_bhagavad_gita.pdf

15

I start with a brief overview of Srimad Bhagvad-Gita

followed by a similar overview of Valmiki Ramayana and

the traits and characteristics of Lord Krishna and Sri Ram.

This study tries to focus on different factors of

demotivation and various solutions for motivation. In this

paper I’ve tried to compare the verses given by Lord

Krishna and Sri Ram to motivate Arjuna and Hanuman,

respectively. And, how it can be used by modern

generations for motivation.

Srimad Bhagvad-Gita and Motivation

The Srimad Bhagvad-Gita is an ancient Indian spiritual and

philosophical text and its more than 5000 years old. Lord

Krishna dictated Srimad Bhagvad-Gita to his friend and

disciple Arjuna at the battle field prior to the

commencement of war between the Kauravas &

Pandhvas. The Holy Srimad Bhagvad-Gita is the essence of

the Vedas and Upanishads. It is a universal scripture

applicable to people of all temperaments and for all

times.

Let us discuss, how Lord Krishna motivated and energized

Arjuna to do his duty through verses.

When Arjuna, the great disciple of Lord Krishna, saw his

family and relatives in the battle field he became de-

motivated and refused to fight for his empire. Then, Lord

Krishna taught him about the ups and downs of life and

said:

matra-sparsas to kaun teya sitosna-sukha-dukha-dah

Agamapayino ‘nityas tams titiksasva bharata

(Srimad Bhagvad Gita, Chapter Two, Verse 14)

(This means, it is the senses, and their contact with

objects, which give rise to heat and cold, pleasure and

pain, O son of Kunti, these appear and disappear

temporarily like winter and summer seasons. Endure

them, O Bharata.)

Predominately contemporary managers focus merely on

motivation and usually, forget factors which lead to de-

motivation in their employees. For example, when an

employee does his best he gets rewarded but at the same

time no matter however much the employee had tried

and ultimately fails to achieve a target, manager instead

of encouraging shows his resentment. It ultimately leads

toward de-motivation. So, through the above mentioned

verse, Lord Krishna tried to explain that a person should

remain unperturbed even in worst situations.

Coming to the next HR Practice defined in the Srimad

Bhagvad-Gita is:

yoga-sthah kuru karmani sangam tyaktva dhananjaya

siddhy-asiddhyoh samo bhutva samatvam yoga ucyate

(Srimad Bhagvad Gita, Chapter Two, Verse 48)

(This means, perform your duty equipoised, O Arjuna,

abandoning all attachment to success or failure. Such

equanimity is called yoga.)

This verse tries to explain that the managers should focus

on encouraging their employees in taking up new

assignments irrespective of the consequences. This will

not only give the employees a feeling of belongingness

but also enhance their capabilities and knowledge.

Consequently, monotonous work will get reduced once

the fear of taking up new challenges is out. And,

eventually, employee will feel motivated.

Moving on towards the other demotivational factor and

its solution defined in the Srimad Bhagvad-Gita. More

often than not employees face situations wherein their

superiors try to sneak into their work, which often leads to

resentment in subordinates. Once a task or work has been

assigned to the employees, mangers should trust their

subordinates that they will perform the activity to the

best of their ability and if faced with any problem they

would certainly ask. But nowadays, it has been seen that

that the faith which managers had in their employees

previously is on a descend and thus, the dissatisfaction

among the employees towards their work is on the

ascend.

We can easily relate this problem with the Verse 35

mentioned in the Chapter Three named Karma-Yoga in

which Lord Krishna said that:

sreyan sva-dharmo vigunah para-dharmat sv-anusthitat

Sva-dharme nidhanam sreyah para-dharmo

bhagavahah

(Srimad Bhagvad Gita, Chapter Three, Verse 35)

(This means, It is better to discharge one’s prescribed

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Employee Motivation : A powerful Model (Philosophies of Shrimad Bhagvad Gita and Valmiki Ramayana)

17

duties, even though faultily, than another’s duties

perfectly. Destruction in the course of performing one’s

own duty is better than engaging in others’ duties, since

to follow another’s path is dangerous.)

This shows that we have solutions to many problems but

we are failing to notice it. Globalization has lead us to

adopt several HR Practices, but more often than not these

practices focus more on the extrinsic factors and mere

imitation will not help. The situations for de-motivation

could be the same but we should not forget that people

are different and hence their traits and perception of

embracing the situations are different. And, one can

easily see that in every verse Lord Krishna focuses on the

internal (intrinsic) motivation more than external

(extrinsic) motivation.

Traits of Lord Krishna andContemporary Managers

Lord Krishna played a major role as a mentor, guide,

trainer, developer to revive Arjuna’s Motivation. He was a

focused, intelligent, simple, modest, compassionate,

motivator, leader, manager, forgiver, unalloyed in

thoughts with a balanced mind, practical, immovable,

rock steady in hard days, impartial for all living entities,

good decision-maker, etc. But these days, people are only

focused towards the target achievements.

Managers are neglecting the fact that they are those

entities in an organization who could make an

organization the best place to work for. No matter what

targets are assigned, with what level of employees you

are dealing in, according to Lord Krishna, a person

shouldn’t let his temperament tantrums anytime. He

should be clear in his thoughts and should treat every

person equally and fairly. It is clearly explained in the

chapter five named Karma-Sannyasa-Yoga, Verse 18th,

27th and 28th.

vidya-vinaya-sampanne brahmane gavi hastini

suni caiva sva-pake ca panditah sama-darsinah

(Srimad Bhagvad Gita, Chapter Five,Verse 18)

(This means, sages look upon all with an equal eye,

whether it be a learned Brahmin endowed with humility

or a cow or an elephant or a dog-eating outcaste.)

sparsan krtva bahir bahyams caksus caivantare bhruvoh

pranapanau samau krtva nasabhyantara-carinau

yatendriya-mano-buddhir munir moksa-parayanah

vigateccha-bhaya-krodho yah sada mukta eva sah

(Srimad Bhagvad Gita, Chapter Five, Verse 27-28)

(This means, avoiding all external sense objects, fixing his

vision between the eyebrows, balancing the inward and

outward breaths within the nostrils, controlling the mind,

senses and intelligence, the transcendentalist becomes

free from desire, fear and anger. One who always remains

in this stage, is certainly liberated.)

Here external objects could be anything like, changes in

economy, growing competitors, achieving high targets

which can easily perturb a manager. Being focused and

rock steady in these situations will eventually build a

perfect manager and a great leader.

As discussed earlier, Lord Krishna was impartial for all

living entities and a good decision maker. He explained in

the verse 18 of chapter six named Dhyan-Yoga of Srimad

Bhagvad-Gita that a person should not get influenced by

the external or internal thoughts. So, when relating to the

current scenario we can say that by being impartial and

having control on thoughts a manager will not only be

able to take good decisions but also, he could help his

subordinates to work optimistically under different

situations and pressure.

yada viniyatam cittam atmany evavatisthate

nisprhah sarva-kamebhyo yukta ity ucyate tada

(Srimad Bhavad-Gita, Chapter Six, Verse 18)

(This means a yogi becomes situated in transcendence,

when he is detached from all material desires and

affinities and his thoughts are controlled and are fixed on

the self and Godhead.)

Dissatisfaction of employees from their managers is one

amongst the several challenges that are nowadays faced

by contemporary managers. One of the main reasons for

their dissatisfaction is more heed paid by managers on

employees’ work rather than on employees itself. On the

other hand, if we look into the Lord Krishna traits, he

always sought towards the betterment of his disciple

Arjuna. This quality of Lord Krishna helped not only in

winning his disciple Arjuna’s heart but also made Arjuna

loyal towards his Guru Lord Krishna. This characteristic of

Lord Krishna can be easily depicted through the following

verse:

sri-bhagavan uvaca

bhuya eva maha-baho srnu me paramam vacah

yat te 'ham priyamanaya vaks yami hita-kamyaya

(Srimad Bhagvad-Gita, Chapter 10, Verse 1)

(This means, the Supreme Lord said: O mighty armed

Arjuna, hear my supreme words once again which I am

now going to impart for your betterment, as you are very

dear to me and it will give you immense pleasure.)

Similarly, contemporary managers should also focus on

the betterment of employees’ knowledge which will help

them from overcoming the issues of employee

dissatisfaction.

Just like the Shrimad Bhagvad-Gita, Valmiki Ramayana

also narrates various ways to motivate people. So let us

now move towards the Valmiki Ramanyana.

Valmiki Ramayana and Management

Valmiki Ramayana is an epic poem of India which narrates

the journey of Sri Ram. Ram is the Hero and aayana his

journey. It is believed that Sri Rama lived in Treta Yug,

millennia BC. This religious mythology tells us about the

characteristics of Sri Rama. Like, Lord krishna, Sri Rama

also used to motivate his disciple Hanuman on his good

deeds.

It is believed that Hanuman was a very powerful man but

he himself was unaware about the hidden powers and

strengths he had. One day he was asked to find goddess

Sita, the wife of Sri Ram, who was captured by Ravana.

Hanuman lost his moral when he was asked to jump

across the sea to find Goddess Sita. It was Jambwant and

Sri Ram who motivated Hanuman to cross the sea, which

is a true example of motivation.

When a seemingly powerful person was required to be

motivated then why not normal human beings require

motivation?

Jambwant and Sri Ram made Hanuman aware regarding

his hidden powers. Similarly, it is managers’ responsibility

to explore the hidden abilities of their employees and

motivate them towards the work that could use best of

those abilities.

It is clearly explained in Yuddha Kanda that Sri Ram always

recognized the efforts of people. For example, when

Hanuman came back from lanka and told Sri Ram

regarding Sita, Sri Ram appreciated and embraced

hanuman for his work.

kritam hanumataa kaaryam sumahadbhuvi durlabham

manasaapi yadanyena na shakyam dharaNiitale

(Valmiki Ramayana, Yuddha Kanda, Chapter 1, Verse 2)

(This means, Sri Ram Said: outstanding work, the most

arduous in the world has been done by Hanuman, which

could not be carried out even in thought by any other on

the surface of this earth.)

Another example of motivation that described in Valmiki

Ramayana was when Nala, who was a glorious person and

the son of Vishvakarma motivated by ocean. Ocean told

Nala that “Nala was given a boon by his father and is equal

to Visvakarma.” Then Nala, the more distinguished among

monkeys stood up and motivated all monkeys to build the

bridge. Sri Ram in turn thanked all monkeys for helping

him in crossing the ocean and bringing his wife back who

was captured by Ravana.

So, managers should always recognize the efforts of their

employees no matter however small or big it is. It will

definitely make their subordinates feel motivated.

Valmiki Ramayana has indeed thrown lights on the several

characteristics of Ram which would definitely help

contemporary managers to adapt themselves in certain

situations and also as to how to perform in certain

circumstances.

avalepam samudrasya na darshayati yat svayam

prashamaH ca kSamaa caiva aarjavam priya vaaditaa

asaamarthyam phalanti ete nirguNeSu sataam guNaaH(Valmiki Ramayana,Yuddha Kanda, Chapter 21, Verse 14)

(This means, O, what arrogance of the ocean, who does

not appear himself personally before me! Indeed

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calmness, forbearance, kind spokenness and straight-

forwardness these qualities of noble men give weak

results, when directed towards those having no virtues.)

This describes that managers should always try to deal

with a situation very calmly, but if someone is taking

privilege of their serenity than they should not sit silently.

It was only when Rama is about to release a missile

presided over by Brahma from his bow, the sea-god

appears in person before him with joined palms and

advises him to get a bridge constructed by Nala across the

ocean. This tells that even though managers should focus

on employee motivation but sometimes they have to

maintain control over their employees as well.

Having discussed various ways of motivation and factors

of de-motivation, it is still suggested that a deep research

is required to explore the hidden solutions given in our

religious mythologies. Furthermore, a manager ought to

focus more on those factors which could lead an

employee towards demotivation. Since demotivational

factors are less and could be controlled easily.

Conclusions

Ancient philosophies and literature definitely hold strong

meanings and solutions to various problems. But

nowadays everyone is just in the pursuit of imitation.

Given such useful motivational ways, these religious

mythologies have yet not received much scholarly

attention as required. I am sure there must be several

other solutions hidden into these mythologies. Had I done

more in-depth analysis, I would have certainly got more

solutions to the various other contemporary issues faced

by today’s managers. But due to time constraint, I was

unable to do more analysis but these mythologies would

certainly require in-depth analysis for the exploration of

old yet so simple solutions of the challenges faced by

today’s people and might be faced by people of

tomorrow, if researchers and contemporary managers

keep on ignoring the simple solutions hidden in these

mythologies.

References

• Swami Bhaktivedanta, A.C., (2009), “Sankhya-Yoga”,

Srimad Bhagvad-Gita(Hindi Translation), Verse 14,

p. 65.

• Swami Bhaktivedanta, A.C., (2009), “Sankhya-Yoga”,

Srimad Bhagvad-Gita(Hindi Translation), Verse 48, p.

93.

• Swami Bhaktivedanta, A.C., (2009), “Karma-Yoga”,

Srimad Bhagvad-Gita (Hindi Translation), Verse 10,

p. 117.

• Swami Bhaktivedanta, A.C., (2009), “Karma-Yoga”,

Srimad Bhagvad-Gita (Hindi Translation), Verse 35,

p. 136.

• Swami Bhaktivedanta, A.C., (2009), “Karma-

Sannyasa-Yoga”, Srimad Bhagvad-Gita (Hindi

Translation), Verse 18, p. 114.

• Swami Bhaktivedanta, A.C., (2009), “Karma-

Sannyasa-Yoga”, Srimad Bhagvad-Gita (Hindi

Translation), Verse 27-28, p. 200.

• Swami Bhaktivedanta, A.C., (2009), “Dhyana-Yoga”,

Srimad Bhagvad-Gita (Hindi Translation), Verse 18,

p. 216.

• Swami Bhaktivedanta, A.C., (2009), “Vibhuti-Yoga”,

Srimad Bhagvad-Gita (Hindi Translation), Verse 1, p.

330.

Employee Motivation : A powerful Model (Philosophies of Shrimad Bhagvad Gita and Valmiki Ramayana)

19

Purpose- This paper aims to analyse the mechanism of brand personality on advertising response in apparel brands and the congruity affect on the purchase intention of consumers. It attempts at integrating the four concepts of BPC, attitude towards the ad, attitude towards the brand and the purchase intention and in the process present viable propositions as managerial implications for building the brand personality.

Design/methodology/approach- Based on the existing literature and as part of our analysis, the paper examines the influence of brand personality on advertising response in fashion clothing branding context. Stimuli of 7 fashion apparel brands with different expected personalities were evaluated by young students (21-26 years old) in terms of Brand Personality Scale of Aaker (1997). The implications of self-congruence are discussed.

Findings- This paper comprehensively examines the self-concept and the analysis the relationship between the three related parameters is being carried out, i.e., attitude towards the brands, attitude towards the ad and the purchase intention and to see how the brand personality congruence is affected by all three of these factors. The analysis of the study should help in understanding the antecedents and consequences of brand personality processing.

Research Implications- Caution is advised in extrapolating the results beyond the issues investigated in the study.

Practical Implications- The implications raise awareness that brand personality and consumer congruity need to be examined independently or at least both included in the planning process to determine their importance in a brand’s overall identity. Central to developing and maintaining a long-term brand image strategy is an understanding of the dyadic relationships forged between consumers and brands.

Originality/value- Most of the research on the subject of personality has been designed around Aaker’s five dimensions of personality. The self-concept literature in consumer behaviour can be perceived as multi-dimensional perception of one’s self. The study fills the gap in the literature about the congruence between brand and human images, and demonstrates how self-image congruity dimensions impacts brand preference among consumers. The findings This paper uses qualitative research methodology, specifically a grounded theory framework, to discover the personality of products, and to compare these outcomes with Aaker’s five dimensional scale.

Keywords: Brand Personality, self-congruence, advertising, purchase intention

Paper type- Research Paper

Brand Personality, Consumer Congruity and Advertising: Influence on the Apparel Brands

Abstract

Introduction

An effective communication of what a brand stands for

has become a fundamental principle of marketing.

Marketing managers of today have recognized the real

value of establishing an identity for their brands. Apart

from the functional utility, the psychological trait of the

brand gives an identity to a brand. The concept of brand

personality has emerged as an effective tool for

measuring the level of congruency between the brand

and the self personalities. Researchers also

acknowledge the value of the brand image as a

contributor to brand equity (Keller, 1993).

Distinguishing brands based on physical attributes and

functionality have been the traditional foci. However,

attention to the concept of brand personality has

expanded in recent years, in part due to the difficulty of

product differentiation based on functionality and

quality (Veryzer, 1995). Although the significance of

branding has been broadly recognized and well-

documented, the expanding role of branding serves to

underscore its topical importance.

Brand personality plays a crucial role in attracting the

consumer following which the consumer prefers a

particular brand. Brands by emphasizing on the key

attribute that consumer’s deem important, can increase

Reshma Farhat*Dr. Bilal Mustafa Khan*

*Department of Business Administration, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, U.P., India

20

the probability of being chosen by the consumer, by

inducing the level of self congruity. Moreover, in order to

derive the relationship between the personality of the

brand and consumer, the concept of brand personality

congruity is adopted with advertising acting as a major

source of communication between the two. This provides

an opportunity to establish a relationship with the

consumer.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the personality of

apparel brands and to examine the influence of self-

concept and BP congruence on student’s advertising

response. Also the effect of advertising in building an

attitude towards a brand and the purchase intention is

also assessed. The research finding indicates that other

than these known and certain factors there are many

independent factors at work that play a dominant and

determining role in influencing the consumer’s attitude

towards the purchase intention and selection of a brand.

This study is concluded by identifying opportunities for

future research which ultimately influence the consumer

buying decisions when it comes to apparel brands. From a

brand builder perspective, brand personality is an

important input variable, normally considered in

branding strategy models (Kapferer, 1991; Keller, 1993;

Aaker, 1996).

Review of literature

Brand personality

Brand personality is created by any direct or indirect

contact that the consumer has with the brand. Basically,

brand is a tangible object which, unlike a person, cannot

think, feel or act, but the managers of today have shifted

their focus from functional utility to symbolic utility. A

type of anthromorphism occurs when human traits are

attributed to non-human objects, Consumers easily

assign personality qualities to inanimate objects like

brands in thinking about brands as if they are human

characters (Blackston, 1993; Fournier, 1998; J. Aaker,

1997).

Keller (1998) states that “brand personality reflects how

people feel about a brand, rather than what they think the

brand is or does”. The symbolic use of brands is possible

because consumers often give brands human

personalities (J. Aaker, 1997). Consumers perceive the

brand on dimensions that typically capture a person’s

personality, and extend that to the domain of brands. The

dimensions of brand personality are defined by extending

the dimensions of human personality to the domain of

brands.

To measure the brand personality, many techniques have

been used, as that of personification techniques (Lannon,

1993), the Zaltman’s Metaphor Elicitation Technique –

ZMET (Zaltman and Higie. 1993) or the IMPSYS model

(Heylen, 1990; Heylen et al., 1995). The most recent and

the most used concept of measurement is the Aaker’s BPS

(1997). She developed a brand personality scale in which

she identified five brand personality dimensions and 15

facets: sincerity (down-to-earth, honest, wholesome and

cheerful); excitement (daring, spirited, imaginative and

up-to-date); competence (reliable, intelligent and

successful); sophistication (upper class and charming);

and ruggedness (outdoorsy and tough). Depending on

these dimensions the personality of the brand and that of

the self is being calculated.

Brand personality congruity

Product attachment is defined as “the emotional bond

experienced with a product” (Schifferstein and Pelgrim

2003). Usually consumers own many products for its

functional or symbolic benefits, but they develop a long-

lasting relationship with the brand when they become

emotionally attached to these products or brands. Here,

the concept of brand personality congruity plays a crucial

role in maintaining a long term relationship with the

brand and this product attachment can thus result in a

longer usage period. Product attachment exists next to

the product’s utilitarian benefits (Schifferstein, Mugge,

and Hekkert 2003).

Self-congruity refers to the fact that consumers prefer

products associated with an image that is similar to their

self-concept (e.g., Belk 1988; Malhotra 1988; Sirgy 1982).

Sirgy (1982) suggested in his self-congruity theory that

when a consumers goes for a brand, he makes a

psychological comparison between his self-concept and

the image of a product. If the consumer identifies the

affinity with that of the brand he will experience a high

self-congruence which positively influences the purchase

intention of the customer and the satisfaction level. Sirgy

(1982) specifies that products can serve as means by

which an individual can symbolically display his/her self-

concept to oneself and to others.

21

Brand Personality, Consumer Congruity and Advertising: Influence on the Apparel Brands

Aaker (1999) proposed a theory based on the concept of

self-congruity that consumers prefer self-congruent

brands. She conducted various researches and found

confirming evidence for a congruity effect for brands.

Consumers evaluate and prefer a brand with a matching

personality more positively than incongruent brands. In

the context of apparel brands, clothing is a non-verbal

communication form of the individual personality and

self-image (Thomas et al., 1991). According to Pervin and

John (2001), self-concept is often viewed as a component

of personality. A number of researchers have suggested

that there is a positive association between self-concept

and brand image (Levy, 1959; Sirgy 1982; Sirgy and Su,

2000; Sirgy, Grewal and Mangleburg, 2000; Johar and

Sirgy, 1991).

This paper contributes to the research on product

attachment by investigating product-personality

congruence as a determinant of product attachment in an

experimental setting. Most of the research on the subject

of personality has been designed around Aaker’s five

dimensions of personality. This paper uses qualitative

research methodology, specifically a grounded theory

framework, to discover the personality of products, and

to compare these outcomes with Aaker’s five dimensional

scale.

Advertising effectiveness

Communication is a fundamental aspect of human

existence. Advertisers use these decisions to

communicate the product’s meanings, and therefore the

determined brand personality to consumers. Advertising

is recognised as one of the most potent sources of

valorized symbolic meaning. Consequently, the brand

personality depends on the advertising process.

Advertising creativity is the ability to generate fresh,

unique and appropriate ideas that can be used as

solutions to communications problems. Every brand has a

personality. Advertising design plays a major role in

maintaining this personality. Brands and advertising can

be described as my two main topics. My intention is to

focus on brand personality and advertising design and the

connection between them.

S. MacKenzie, R.J.Lutz and G.E.Belch (1986) highlighted

through their body of work that attitude towards the

advertisement (Ad) has been postulated to be a casual

mediating variable in the process through which

advertising influences brand attitude and purchase

intentions. J.S. Johar and M.J.Sirgy (1991) discussed the

implications of two kinds of advertising appeals: Value-

expressive advertising appeals, which are effective when

the product is value-expressive; and utilitarian appeals

which are effective when the product is utilitarian. When

the product is value-expressive, audience persuasion is

influenced through self-congruity. Conversely, when the

product is utilitarian, audience persuasion is influenced

through functional congruity. The effectiveness of the

value-expressive as opposed to utilitarian appeals is

argued also to be a function of such product-related

factors as differentiation, life cycle, scarcity, and

conspicuousness, and consumer-related factors such as

involvement, prior knowledge, and self-monitoring.

A strong managerial relevance to advertisers, coupled

with the well-defined theoretical background of multi-

attribute attitude models (Fishbein and Ajzen 1975), has

generated considerable research into attitude toward the

ad. Ad has been found to be related to attitude toward the

brand, AB (Mitchell 1986; Gardner 1985; Homer 1990;

Muehling and Laczniak 1988; Stayman and Aaker 1988),

advertised deal (Burton and Lichtenstein 1988), the

likelihood a brand is considered (Moore and Hutchinson

1983), ad recall (Zinkhan and Fornell 1989), purchase

intention (Mitchell and Olson 1981), and attitude towards

the act of buying the brand (Mitchell 1986).

J.W. Hong, and G.M. Zinkhan (1995) hypothesized in their

study that advertising appeals congruent with viewers'

self-concept would be superior to incongruent appeals in

terms of enhancing advertising effectiveness. Advertising

effectiveness was operationalized as: brand memory,

brand attitude, and purchase intentions. Again,

Meenaghan (1995) illustrated that advertising has a

central role to play in developing brand image, whether at

the corporate, retail or product level. It informs

consumers of the functional capabilities of the brand

while simultaneously imbuing the brand with symbolic

values and meanings relevant to the consumer.

Hypotheses Development &Conceptual Model

This research aims to explore the mechanism that builds

brand personality through media communication like

advertising. It attempts at integrating the three concepts

22

Prastuti: Vol. I, No. 1, July-December 2012

of advertising variability , brand personality and

consumers self congruence with each other and in the

process present viable propositions as managerial

implications for building the brand personality

considering the variables of marketing communications.

The hypotheses set within the integrated framework lead

to the construct of the advertising model cohesive to the

brand personality measures.

For the purpose of this research the main hypotheses are:

H1: Consumers will favor advertisements of brands (in

terms of attitude towards the ad, attitude towards the

brand and purchase intentions) with a personality

congruent with their (ideal) self concept.

H2: The higher the perceived degree of self image and

product brand personality congruity, the more positive is

the attitude towards the advertisements.

H3: The higher the perceived degree of self image and

product brand personality congruity, the more positive is

the attitude towards the Brand.

H4: The higher the perceived degree of self image and

product brand personality congruity, the more likely is the

purchase intention towards the brand.

Thus the model is established on the premise that a

favorable brand - personality congruence will further lead

to a more favorable attitude towards the advertisements

and attitude towards the brand. The three will eventually

lead to positive, ratifying and complying purchase

intentions. The research objective is to testify whether

the above model holds true in the practical world. It aims

at exploring the extent to which the consumer’s buying

behavior is influenced by the advertising and how in turn

it influences his attitude towards the brand and finally his

purchase intentions. It explores whether the company’s

efforts in delivering advertising in a more appealing

dimension have quick cognitive reflexes on customer’s

mind.

Sincerity

Competence

Ruggedness

Excitement

Sophistication

BPC

Attitude

towards the Ad

Purchase

Intention

Attitude towards

the brand

Figure 1: Conceptual Model

Research Methodology

This research employed the survey research method to

explore the brand personality congruence, attitude

towards the brand, attitude towards the ads and whether

the three finally culminates into an affirmative purchase

intention. For this purpose an extensive questionnaire

was designed that comprised of two sections and a total

of 10 questions. The first section measured the

aforementioned dimensions and the second section

23

Brand Personality, Consumer Congruity and Advertising: Influence on the Apparel Brands

recorded the demographic details of the respondents. On

the basis of popularity, prominence and acceptance

seven apparel brands were selected for undertaking the

study. They were United Colors of Benetton, Tommy

Hilfiger, Diesel, Levis, Wrangler, Raymond and Van

Heusen. The process that produced the scale in this study

involves a sequence of steps consistent with the

conventional guidelines for scale development (Churchill,

1979; Anderson and Gerbing, 1988). Content validity was

established by evaluating the items for conformity to the

theoretical definitions and for redundancy.

A convenience sample of 80 students was undertaken.

Analysis of the respondents profile revealed that most of

them were in the age group of 21-26 and males

outnumbered the females in terms of sheer numbers.

Analysis by gender reveals that 71% of the respondents

were young males while the remaining 21% were

females. Most of the respondents had considerable

purchasing power.

Using a five-point Likert scale (1=strongly disagree,

5=strongly agree), subjects rated the extent to which the

42 Brand Personality Scale traits described each brand

presented. The self-concept and brand personality

congruence was measured with an adaptation of the

method suggested by Aaker, 1996.

Anlaysis & Interpretation

The design of the study assured independent and random

responses. However the scale and items were tested

according to their distributional characteristics.

Exploratory data analysis was performed to weed out

outliners and was examined in particular for the

normality and kurtosis. None of the variables were found

to have significant departure from normality or

pronounced kurtosis, and therefore all variables were

found suitable for use. Some questionnaires were

rejected as missing data was more than 75%.

Analyses of the responses involving the elicitation of the

level of involvement of the respondent with respect to

the clothing revealed that most of the respondents

bought fashion and lifestyle products as these represent a

way to express their values and personality and also a

majority overwhelmingly believes that fashion and life

style products are a source of pleasure or a way to indulge

themselves (hedonist). Overall fashion and lifestyle

products were found to be hugely important in the

respondent’s life.

This is in keeping with the fact that most of the

respondents are at a stage in a life cycle where brands and

products which have a self expressive benefit are

patronized. Consumers view the brand as an extension of

self and hence purchase products and brands in

conformance with their youthful image.

Table 1: Brand Personality Congruence: Brand Personality Scale (Myself)

Traits

Facet Name

Factor Name

Mean

Down-to-earth

Family Oriented

Conservative

Down-to-earth

Sincerity

3.2476

Honest

Honest

Sincere

Real

Wholesome

Whole-some

Original

Cheerful

Cheerful Sentimental

Friendly

Daring

Daring

Excitement

3.8615

Trendy

Exciting

Spirited

Spirited Cool

Young

Imaginative Imaginative

Unique Up-to-date

Up-to-date Independent Contemporary Reliable

Reliable Competence

3.8267

Hard working Secure Intelligent

Intelligent Technical Corporate Successful

Successful Leader Confident

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Prastuti: Vol. I, No. 1, July-December 2012

As indicated by the BPS scale for myself, the research

findings suggest that on a Likert scale of 1 to 5, most

respondents identified themselves with the attribute

sophistication which had the highest mean value of 3.98

and a low standard deviation at .41 suggested that there

wasn’t much variation in their responses. Excitement was

another attribute that people easily identified with and it

ranked second on the 5 point Likert scale with an average

mean score of 3.8615. In other words the respondents

considered themselves daring, trendy, excited, young,

cool, up-to-date, contemporary etc. The quality that

found most takers after Excitement was Competence with

a mean score of 3.8267, but a higher standard variation

suggested a lot of variation in the responses. The

recognition with these attributes and in this order follows

naturally from the age pattern of the respondents, mostly

belonging to the age group 21-26 and at the prime of their

lives.

Ruggedness and sincerity were next in the order of

preference with a mean score of 3.3 and 3.2 respectively.

The scaling of the respondents personality on the Jennifer

Aaker’s Brand Personality Scale was a preliminary step for

finding out the associations that consumers formulates

with the brands. The result highlights the order of

attributes with which most respondents finds easy

recognition. To summarize the findings for the

respondents personality dimensions, the aspirational

qualities like good looking, upper class, smooth were

considered most attractive and thus most accepted,

taking sophistication peaking the popularity scale among

the five dimensions. Excitement and Competence were

next in row and preferred over ruggedness and sincerity.

Upper Class

Upper class

Sophistication

3.9893

Glamorous

Good Looking

Charming

Charming

Feminine

Smooth

Adventorous Outdoorsy

Ruggedness

3.3849

Masculine Western

Tough ToughRugged

Table 2: Summary of brand personality scores

Brands Sincerity Excitement Competence Sophistication Ruggedness

United colours

of Benetton

3.6500 3.8899 3.0675 3.0798 3.6925

Tommy Hilfiger 3.7095 3.7511 3.5053 2.9857 3.7440

Diesel 3.5571 3.7327 3.1918 3.2940 3.5079

Levis 4.2881 4.1136 3.6270 3.0440 3.5536

Wrangler 3.9548 3.6818 3.1561 2.9083 3.1905

Van Heusen 3.1929 3.6393 3.8889 3.5024 3.9226

Raymond 2.9381 3.5119 4.0807 3.8929 3.6647

25

Brand Personality, Consumer Congruity and Advertising: Influence on the Apparel Brands

Figure 2: Graphical Representation of BPS Congruity

26

Prastuti: Vol. I, No. 1, July-December 2012

The above graph represented in the figure 2 depicts that

on the scale of Sincerity and Excitement, Levis is said to be

the most sincere brand. Raymond is the most

Competence and Sophisticated brand, whereas Van

Heusen is considered to be the most Rugged brand.

Brand attitude was obtained from average ratings on a

five, five point scale: superior to other brands, grown to

like this brand more than the others, continue to buy this

brand in the future, when feel the need to buy the clothes

think of this brand, loyal to this brand. Scale items were

taken from the past researches in the field (e.g., Beihal

et.al., 1992, Mitchell 1986 and Gardner 1985). Analysis of

the brand personality dimensions revealed some

interesting facts. Levi’s scored highest at 4.2881 and

4.1136 on Sincerity and Excitement respectively.

Raymond scored the highest at 4.0807 and 3.8929 on

Competence and Sophistication respectively. Surprisingly

the respondents regarded Van Heusen as the most rugged

brand of all, with a score of 3.9226 on the dimension of

Ruggedness.

The underlying table demonstrates how the attitude

towards the advertisements influences the Brand

Personality congruence, the attitude towards the brand

and the purchase intention. In case of Benetton, on the

dimension of sophistication generates favorable attitude

towards the ad which leads to favorable attitude towards

the brand and finally culminates into favorable purchase

intentions. Benetton fails to appeal the respondents on

any other dimension.

In case of Tommy Hilfiger the sophistication aspect of the

brand appeals to the respondent, leading to favorable

attitude towards the brand and an even higher purchase

intention. The dimension of competence, excitement,

and ruggedness generated favorable response towards

the advertisement, which did not necessarily lead to a

favorable attitude towards the brand but generated very

favorable purchase intentions.

For Diesel the dimension sincerity generated significant

purchase intention at 0 .275*.

Excitement led to favorable attitude towards the ad at

.425** and positive purchase intention at .274*.

Sophistication garnered most positive result leading to

favorable attitude towards the ad at .393**, attitude

towards the brand at .342**and finally favorable

purchase intention at .368**.

For Levis, almost every dimension generates favorable

response. Sincerity generates favorable attitude towards

the ad at .283**, attitude towards the brand at .504**

and finally leads to favorable purchase intentions at

.418**. Similarly excitement generates favorable attitude

towards the ad at.423**, attitude towards the brand at

.454** and finally leads to favorable purchase intentions

at .464**. Competence leads to favorable attitude

towards the ad at .293**and favorable purchase

intentions at .413**. Sophistication generates favorable

attitude towards the ad at .407**, attitude towards the

brand at .327** and finally leads to favorable purchase

intentions at .490**. Finally ruggedness leads to only

favorable attitude towards the brand at .215* and

purchase intentions at .251*

In case of Wrangler, sincerity generates favorable attitude

towards the ad. 215*,. Excitement leads to favorable

attitude towards the ad, brand and purchase intentions at

.412**, .360** and .313** respectively. Competence

leads to only favorable attitude towards the brand and

purchase intention at .378** and .360** respectively. The

dimension sophistication leads to favorable attitude

towards the ad, brand and purchase intentions at .532**,

.300** and .259* respectively.

Likewise similar interpretations could be drawn for the

remaining brands from the table. What is evident from

the tabular arrangement of the above statistics is that the

most popular brands are Raymond, Levis and Wrangler,

which have a favorable outcome on almost every other

dimension. Purchase intentions were highest for Levis,

reason being that the sampled segment frequently

indulges in buying jeans and casual wears. Partly the

intentions are associated with the way the brand is

advertised and how it communicates the message of

being unique and individualistic. The reason for the

popularity of Wrangler could also be associated with the

advertising techniques, the most recent being “We are

animals” theme that portrays the raw and rugged appeal

of the brand very convincingly.

27

Brand Personality, Consumer Congruity and Advertising: Influence on the Apparel Brands

Discussion and Conclusions

The research model hypothesized that favorable attitude

towards the favorable brand attitudes and favorable

purchase intentions should result as the congruence

increases between consumer self-image and a brand’s

image. Researchers typically operationalize self-brand

congruity with indicator scores representing the

measured distance between self and brand personality.

The latter, brand personality, is traditionally captured in

respondents’ perceptions of the brand, and other social

and psychological factors like, influence of the social

group, individual aspiration etc. By encouraging congruity

researchers examine the different brand image

constructs that can enhance the usefulness of the self-

brand congruity. Because the primary purpose of the self-

brand congruity is to predict consumer brand attitudes

and since brand image represents the cognitive structure

of brand attitude, a broader conceptualization of brand

personality enhances the application of self-congruity in

modeling brand attitudes.

The prime objective of this study was to analyse the

relationship between the three related parameters, i.e.,

attitude towards the brands, attitude towards the ad and

the purchase intention and to see how the brand

personality congruence is affected by all three of these

factors. The research objective was testified on the

mentioned hypothesis and it tried to probe into the

consumers psyche by means of the questionnaire. The

hypothesis were confirmed in certain cases, however

there were many cases where the results departed from

the main hypothesis. The present research indicates the

predictive power of consumer personality on brand

preferences and provides supporting evidence for brand

personality congruence effect.

Table 3: Attitudinal Dimensions of the Advertising Effectiveness

Brands BPC At AD AtB PI

United Colors of Benetton

Sincerity .8793 .077 -.063 -.021

Excitement .8737 .243* -.035 .060

Competence .8989 .184 .206 .123

Sophistication .9815 .259* .511** .331**

Ruggedness .7326 .235* .082 .138

Tommy Hilfiger

Sincerity .9380 .008 -.027 -.006

Excitement .6846 .295** .177 .220*

Competence .7377 .325** .155 .238*

Sophistication .6937 .321** .331** .432**

Ruggedness .6987 .316** .155 .301**

Diesel

Sincerity 1.008 .203 .146 .275*

Excitement .9771 .425** .132 .274*

Competence .9480 .365** .163 .226*

Sophistication .9834 .393** .342** .368**

Ruggedness .8037 .194 .037 .062

Levis

Sincerity .8989 .283** .504** .418**

Excitement .6734 .423** .454** .464**

Competence .643 .184 .293** .413**

Sophistication .6287 .407** .327** .490**

Ruggedness .7138 .161 .215* .251*

Wrangler

Sincerity .9068 .215* .079 .171

Excitement .8545 .412** .360** .313**

Competence .8968 .378** .360** .212

Sophistication .9373 .532** .300** .259*

Ruggedness .7833 .334** .291** .323**

Van Heusen

Sincerity .8990 .239* .150 -.029

Excitement .6324 .507** .199 .179

Competence .6137 .338** .405** .205

Sophistication .6050 .263* .336* .262*

Ruggedness .8566 .499** .362** .231*

Raymond

Sincerity 1.067 .283** .314** .196

Excitement .6851 .305** .255* .263*

Competence .6600 .285** .376** .317**

Sophistication .5472 .502** .475** .529**

Ruggedness .9451 .279** .397** .292**

Significance level: *p<0.050; **p <0.010Note: AtAD-Attitude towards the ad, AtB-Attitude towards the brand

28

Prastuti: Vol. I, No. 1, July-December 2012

The results brings to the fore a new finding which

indicates, in case of many brands that it is not necessarily

that the presence of a high brand personality congruence

will always influence the attitude towards the brand and

ad and ultimately the purchase intention. The absence of

it could also generate a correlation on these dimensions.

The research finding indicates that other than these

known and certain factors there are many independent

factors at work that play a dominant and determining role

in influencing the attitude towards the brand and

purchase intentions. The finding holds true for all five

dimensions of the Jennifer Aaker’s Brand personality

scale.

In regards to the self-brand congruity framework and the

modeling of self expressive brand attitudes, BPC provides

an additional brand image construct useable in the

operationalization of the congruence phenomenon.

Similar to the traditional user imagery based self-brand

congruity, BPC tends to differ based on respondents’ self

image dimension; at times actual-BPC best predicts brand

attitudes, while in other instances it does not.

In light of this, brand personality congruence provides a

framework for studying the construct brand personality

and its relationship to brand attitudes. The brand

personality construct, does not remains confined to a

particular theoretical domain. As per the results that were

derived in the course of the research work there is a need

highlighted to incorporate those independent factors that

influences the attitude towards the brand, & purchase

intention.

This study was exploratory in nature and presented an

original comparison using the construct referred to as

BPC. Several limitations of the study are identified that

restrict the conclusions that can be made, though they do

not preclude the value of incorporating a more

encompassing conceptualization of the brand image

construct in the self-congruity model. Instead, via their

acknowledgement, areas for advancement in future

research are recommended, enhancing the contributions

of this study and maximizing the potential of

incorporating a more holistic conceptualization of the

brand personality construct in the self-brand congruity

research.

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31

Brand Personality, Consumer Congruity and Advertising: Influence on the Apparel Brands

Locus of Control (LOC) concept was evolved from social learning theory of personality in the form of reinforcement. Rotter coined the term in relation to learned behavior and the reinforcement of such behavior. In the light of the phenomenon, individuals come to hold beliefs about the cause of their actions, and these beliefs then guide their attitudes and behavior for future actions. Job stress is inability to cope with the pressures of the job. Job stress may cost 10% to the GDP of any economy. Apart from the financial costs, the employee may suffer from many physiological and psychological diseases. One of the major sources of job stress was found to be the personality of the individual. This study attempts to analyse the impact of locus of control on job stress. The researchers attempt to assess whether internal or external locus of control relates to job stress of the employees. 100 employees were surveyed in the study. Job Stress and Locus of Control Questionnaires were administrated to the employees. The analysis revealed that the Indian employees are facing high job stress. It was found that employees who have internal locus of control are less stressed by their jobs and more satisfied with the organization while the external locus of control employees are high on stress and more dissatisfied with their jobs. The study suggests that while designing any stress management programme, management should give due consideration to the variable of Locus of Control.

Keywords: Locus of Control (LOC), Job Stress, Sources of Stress, Internal Locus

Impact of Locus of Control on Job Stress: An Empirical Study

Abstract

Introduction

Stress has become one of the most serious health issues

of the twentieth century, a problem not just for

individuals in terms of physical and mental morbidity,

but for employers, governments and the society at large

who have started to assess the financial damage (ILO,

1993). Work-related stress is very costly. It has been

estimated that 12% of the US’s GNP and 10% of the UK’s

GNP is lost due to stress related absenteeism and

turnover (Cartwright & Cooper, 1996; Quick & Quick,

1984). Stress can be defined as the reaction of

individuals to demands (stressors) imposed upon them

(Erkutlu & Chafra, 2006).All stress is not harmful. A

moderate amount of stress is essential for personal

enhancement and organizational success. But, stress

more than an optimum limit decreases performance and

creates disorders within the individual. Occupational

stress is the inability to cope with the pressures of the

job. It is a mental and physical condition which affects an

individual’s productivity, effectiveness, personal health

and quality of work (Comish & Swindle, 1994). The

workplace stands out as a potentially important source

of stress purely because of the amount of time that is

spent in this setting (Erkutlu & Chafra, 2006).

Rajiv Kumar Jha*Bushara Bano**

*Quality Manager, Medica Synergie Pvt Ltd., Aligarh, India. Email: rajivkumarjha1902@gmail.com**Research Scholar, Department of Business Administration, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India. Email: syedabushara@gmail.com

32

The researcher has developed one model (Figure 1.1).

Stress may occur due to under-load and overload of

matter, energy and information of internal and external

environment. Internal environment may include

frustration, personal goals, conflicts, and anxiety or

tension of the individual. External stressors may consist of

demands, conflicts, pressure and information from the

surroundings of the individual. These antecedent

conditions may create stress within the individual. The

response of these antecedent conditions can arise in the

terms of strain. The individual tries to defend himself by

fight or flight response. By fight response, an individual

tries to use various coping strategies to reduce or

overcome the ill effects of strain. But, if the individual

doesn’t use any coping strategy or use any inadequate

coping strategy or the stressors are very severe in nature,

flight response may occur. It can create physical and

psychological disorders. These disorders can last for short

time in the form of acute symptoms or can change in long

term diseases.

In absolute terms, the causes of work stress are

categorized into two groups, namely, job related stressors

and individual related stressors. Job related stressors may

be the factors intrinsic to job, role in organization, career

development, relationship at work and organizational

structure and climate while individual related stressors

may be the level of anxiety, level of neuroticism, tolerance

for ambiguity, personality traits, locus of control, family

problems and financial difficulties (Cooper et al., 1976).

Thus, locus of control may be individual factor that can

change the level of stress.

The word locus of control was emerged from social

learning theory given by Rotter (1954). Locus of control is

a term in psychology that refers to a person's belief about

what causes the good or bad results in his life, either in

general or in a specific area such as job, health or

academics. Locus of control refers to the extent to which

individuals believe that they can control events that affect

them. Individuals with a high internal locus of control

believe that events result primarily from their own

(Antecedent conditions) (Response to antecedent conditions)

Under load of Overload

Internal

Frustration

Personal goals

Conflicts

Anxiety/ tension

External

Demands

Conflicts

Pressure

Information

Stressors

Strain

Fight Response

Symptoms

(Short term)

Long term diseases

Fight Response

(Coping Strategies)

Figure 1.1: Organizational Stress-Strain Model

Source: Developed by Author

33

Impact of Locus of Control on Job Stress: An Empirical Study

behavior and actions. It refers to sometimes personality

trait reflecting the generalized belief that either event in

life is controlled by one’s own actions (an internal LOC) or

by outside influences (an external LOC). Those with an

internal LOC believe that they can exert control over life

events and circumstances, including the associated

reinforcements, that is, those outcomes which are

perceived to reward one’s behaviors and attitudes. In

contrast, those with an external LOC believe they have

little control over life events and circumstances, and

attribute reinforcements to powerful others or to luck

(Sundaresh, 2010). It was found from the research that

the persons who have external locus of control

(externals), believe on more fate, chance, luck and

powerful others oriented are positively correlated with

job stress or general stress in comparison to persons who

are internally located (Daniels et al., 1992).

Review of Literature

Chris et al. (1979) carried out a study on 130 teachers of

11 schools in England. The data was collected through a

stress questionnaire and Rotter’s I-E locus of control

questionnaire. The results showed that the external

located teachers were positively correlated with job

stress.

Schmitz et al (2000) undertook a study on 361 staff nurses

to evaluate the effect of locus of control and work related

stress on burnout. The survey was done through Maslach

Burning Inventory, Locus of Control Questionnaire and

Work-related stress inventory. Results support the

hypothesized model and suggested that greater work-

related stress and burnout would be associated with

poorer locus of control in nurses. The findings supported

the notion that perceived degree of control is

instrumental in enabling nurses to cope with stress and

burnout.

Lu et al (2000) investigated managerial stress in Taiwan

and UK using the Occupational Stress Indicator 2 (OSI 2)

and Work Locus of Control (WLCS). There were consistent

moderating (vulnerability) effects of internal control for

the Taiwanese managers. It was also found that

Recognition and Managerial role were important

predictors of strain for the Chinese managers, whereas

Relationships, Organizational climate, and Locus of

control were important predictors of strain for UK

managers.

Glazera et al (2004) examined the effects of Type A/B

pattern, locus of control on job stress. Data was collected

from 2032 nurses of 19 hospitals. External locus of control

positively related to job stress, and this relationship was

different across countries. Type A was positively related to

stress in Italy, Israel, and USA, though the correlations

were not significantly different from each other across

countries.

Hsu-I Huang (2006) exhibited that male culinary arts

workers had a higher degree of internal locus of control

than female culinary arts workers. Internal locus of

control was significantly and positively correlated with

employee job satisfaction.

Sundaresh (2010) carried out a study on 100 team leaders

working in three different IT companies to find out the

relationship between locus of control and job stress using

Occupational Stress Index and Work Locus of Control. The

result showed that the team leaders having external locus

of control scored high on all twelve sub scales of the

occupational stress than the team leaders who had

internal locus of control.

Objectives

• To understand the concept of locus of control among

the employees.

• To identify the level of organizational stress among

the employees.

• To find out the correlation between inter internal

locus of control and external locus of control with

organizational stress.

Methodology

Data was collected by random sampling from 100

employees of the different sectors. Two questionnaires,

namely Organizational Role Stress (ORS) scale and Work

Locus of Control (WLCS) along with demographical factors

of the employees were administrated through survey.

ORS scale includes 50 statements on 5 point likert scale

and WLCS includes 16 statements also on 5 point likert

scale. The data was collected from the state of Uttar

Pradesh. The data was analyzed through the help of SPSS

16.0.

34

Prastuti: Vol. I, No. 1, July-December 2012

Hypothesis

• H01: There is no significant correlation between

internal locus of control and organizational stress of

the employees.

• H02: There is no significant correlation between

external locus of control and organizational stress of

the employees.

• H03: There is no significant difference on

organizational stress with respect to socio-

demographical factors of age, gender, education.

Reliability:

It was found from the reliability analysis that the cronbach

alpha value of the WLCS scale has been found to be 0.67

while the cronbach alpha value for the ORS scale was

found to be 0.92 (Table 4.2.1). The researches supported

that the Cronbach Alpha value greater than 0.6 is

acceptable for further analysis (Hair et al., 1998).

Therefore, the data is valid for further analysis.

The table 5.1 shows that the employees are facing fair

amount of stress as the mean value of stress was found

2.32 on 5 point likert scale ranging zero to four.

The table 5.2 clearly depicts that the employees surveyed

are mostly facing medium high stress on most of the

stressors. They are facing highest stress due to Role

Erosion while least stressful stressor was found Role

Ambiguity.

Variable Number of

Respondents

Percentage

Age

21-30 70 70

31-40 20 20

41-50 10 10

Gender

Male 70 70

Female 30 30

Education

Intermediate 17 17

Graduate 30 30

Post Graduate 53 53

Table 4.1.1: Demographical Profile of the Respondents

Table 4.2.1: Reliability of the Scales

Scale Name Cronbach’s !lpha No. of Items

WLCS 0.67 16

ORS 0.92 50

5. Results and Discussion

Table 5.1: Overall ORS score

N Minimum Maximum Mean Std.

Deviation

ORS 100 .72 4.00 2.2328 1.25034

Valid N

(listwise)

100

Table 5.2: Status of Stressors

Stressors Mean SD Remarks

IRD 2.30 1.13440 High Medium

RS 2.52 1.34900 High Medium

REC 2.00 1.44110 Medium

RE 2.48 1.31871 High Medium

RO 2.24 1.35079 High Medium

RI 2.18 1.39393 High Medium

PI 2.02 1.48106 Medium

SRD 2.32 1.32177 High Medium

RA 1.90 1.34915 Low Medium

RIn 2.36 1.18466 High Medium

35

Impact of Locus of Control on Job Stress: An Empirical Study

The findings on table 5.3 depicts that gender has not any

significant difference in the stress level of the employees

i.e. both the males and females are facing same role

stress. But, age and education have significant differences

on the stress level of the employees. The older employees

of age 41 to 50 years are facing higher stress than younger

employees (f=5.768, p=.004). Similarly the less qualified

respondents having education of Intermediate were

facing more role stress than graduate and post graduate

employees (f=27.38, p=.000). Graduate employees are

facing least stress among all the educational groups. Thus,

hypothesis H03 stating that there is no significant

difference between stress and socio-demographical

factor is partially rejected and partially accepted.

Regression Analysis:

The major objective of the present study was to find out

the relation of locus of control and stress. Therefore,

Regression analysis was run on the sample by two times.

First time, it was run to know the relation of internal locus

of control and stress while second time it was conducted

to find out the relationship of external locus of control

and organizational role stress.

Locus of Control and Organizational Role Stress:

The adjusted R square value was found 5.4%. The

adjusted R square value indicates 54% variation in

dependent variable i.e. ORS is explained by independent

variables of locus of control. The beta value was

calculated 0.232 and the significant value was calculated

0.020. This is showing that locus of control is significantly

impacting the organizational stress among the employees

(Table 5.1.1.1).

Table 5.3: Stress and Demographics

Variables Mean

value

SD t/f

value

Sig. Remarks

Gender

Male

Female

2.23

2.21

1.21

1.34

.060 .952 Not Rejected

Age

21-30

31-40

41-50

2.02

2.37

3.38

1.13

1.61

0.30

5.768 .004* Rejected

Education

Intermediate

Graduate

PG

3.35

1.20

2.45

0.71

0.32

1.29

27.38 .000* Rejected

Table 5.1.1.1: Regression Table

Variable R square

value

Beta

Value

Sig.

Value

Locus of

Control

0.054 0.232 .020*

Impact of Internal/External Locus of Control and

Organizational Role Stress:

The table 5.1.2.1 clearly is showing the positive and

negative correlation of external locus of control and

internal locus of control on organizational stress of the

employees. For internal locus of control, the R square

value was calculated 0.387 and beta value was found

0.622 which is negative and significant value was

calculated 0.000. This is showing that the internal locus of

control has significant negative correlation with

organizational role stress. It means that internals are

negatively correlated with stress. If internal locus of

control will increase, stress will decrease. Thus,

hypothesis H01 stating there is no significant relationship

between internal locus of control and stress is rejected.

Table 5.1.2.1: Regression Table

Variable R square

value

Beta

Value

Sig.

Value

Remarks

Internal Locus

of Control

0.387 -0.622 .000* Rejected

External Locus

of Control

0.448 0.669 .000* Rejected

On the other hand, for internal locus of control, the R

square value was calculated 0.448 and beta value was

found 0.669 which is positive and significant value was

calculated 0.000 (Table 5.1.2.1). This is showing that the

external locus of control has significant positive

correlation with organizational role stress. It means that

externals are positively correlated with stress. If external

locus of control will increase, stress will increase.

Thus, hypothesis H02 stating there is no significant

relationship between external locus of control and stress

is rejected.

36

Prastuti: Vol. I, No. 1, July-December 2012

Conclusion /Implications

The study concludes with the notion that employees are

facing medium high level of stress. The employees are

facing role erosion more than other role stressors. It was

also found that age and education have significant

differences on organizational role stress of the

employees. It was also found that locus of control has

significant impact on role stress. The present study

establishes and supplements the existing literature that

the internal locus of control is negatively correlated with

organizational stress and external locus of control is

positively correlated with stress. It was found that

internal employees are facing less job stress while

external employees are facing more job stress. The

present research suggests the management to identify

the locus of control of the employees and design their

training stress management programmes while taking

locus of control into consideration. The paper also

suggests the employees that they should develop internal

locus of control by learning to effectively cope with the

job stress.

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37

Impact of Locus of Control on Job Stress: An Empirical Study

The paper is aimed to explore the youngster’s attitude towards online social communities which is now emerging as an ideal platform for getting meaningful consumer insight worldwide. The survey was administered over 120 post-graduate students of Delhi University. Factor analysis and multiple regression analysis were used to test the stated hypothesis. Factor analysis explained 45 percent variance among the variables. The ß coefficients for Social trustworthiness (ß=.012) and Privacy concern (ß=.082) were statistically found significant in determining overall rating of virtual social communities. The overall internal consistency of the data was checked by applying Cronbach’s alpha which demonstrated the value (0.69) within the acceptable limit. For researchers and practitioner, the paper provides a conceptual and theoretical framework to understand the key factors in acceptance of virtual communities which is pivotal in making strategic decisions to improve e-commerce in India.

Key Words: Virtual Communities, Factor Analysis, Perceived Hedonic Benefits, Social Motivation

Understanding Attitude and Predicting Behavior in Virtual SocialCommunities

Abstract

Introduction

It is invariably proved in many studies that traditional

marketing practices which focus more on consumer

segmentation elements like gender, age, income, culture

and psychographic elements are no longer truly

represent modern consumer buying behavior per see. In

modern times, it is digital communication which acts as a

revolutionary and powerful media in enhancing

consumer socialization through systems of blogs,

message- boards, sharing of individual sentiments and

opinion on various issues.

Several other researchers opined that information

shared through online discussion forums, electronic

bulletin boards, blogs, news-group, product-service

review sites including virtual communities put more

interactive, trustworthy and credible impact on

consumer buying behavior (Goldsmith et al 2006, Liao et

al, 2006, Bickart, 2001,).These studies offers a great deal

of potential impact that SNSs and other interactive

media may have on various stages of consumer decision

making process. Many adolescents have integrated a

part of their daily existence and to a much higher

intensity than many adults (Lee et al, 2005).It is

interactive abilities and high degree of customization

provided by virtual communities which has made them

as a powerful tool of consumer motivation and

socialization in particular (Hoffman et al, 1996, Shib,

1998,Stoor, 1992).

Unlike traditional media like television and radio, the

virtual social communities are considered as a high

interactive media where people can transmit content,

pictures, music in their social communities without any

cost (Deborah, 1999).Ability to develop social capital

Dr. Rajan Yadav*

*Dr.Rajan Yadav, Associate Professor, School of Management, Inderprastha Engineering College, Sahibabad-201010,email: raj_yadav1974@yahoo.co.in

38

and interactive nature of these communities act as a

magnet to attract and retain their visitors. Undoubtedly,

the these communities are unable to develop a distinct

and solid business model, but the impact that they create

in spreading information in a democratic manner, offering

creative learning engagement is deep-rooted which no

one can deny. It is substantiated with growing profile

creation, time-spending patterns and nature of

information exchange in a more interactive and personal

way. Some of these virtual community sites have,

however, gone for the category extension by adding

shopping and other promotional avenues in anticipation

to make them an alternative business model in the future.

But this move doesn’t compromises with the basic nature

and character of a virtual community site.

Young consumers have imbibed online communities as an

important ingredient of their life style and behavior. The

intervention of technology creates a kind of instinct which

is acting as a key determinant and agent of changing

values, lifestyle, perception, learning, belief and patterns

of information exchange on a variety of products/service.

Indian Scenario

The virtual networks are emerging as a powerful tool to

transform a communication campaign into a religion. It is

especially true in a developing country like India which

has high computer literacy and proven capability in

software development worldwide. It is projected that by

2013, India will emerge as the third largest internet

market in the world immediately after China and USA

(IMRB survey).In this way, approximately 10 per cent of

the Indians have internet access. India is adding internet

users at the rate of almost 5-7 million a month and at the

current pace it will surpass the US, which has about 245

million users.

The profile of the users is growing rapidly, showing that

the medium has made deep penetration into small towns

and even among the less affluent

India is projected as seventh largest market for social

networking, after USA, China, Germany, Russian

Federation, Brazil and The UK (Comscore Media Metrix,

2010).The Facebook has captured the number one slot in

this category with more than 20 million visitors in 2010. It

was closely followed by Orkut with little less than 20

million users observed during the same period.

Given the fact that India will emerge as the third largest

internet user base in two years down the line, growing

popularity of social media on internet, high perceived

credibility, deep inroads even into small towns, marketers

in India are harnessing the opportunities and devising

strategies to ensure that they learn from virtual

community dialogue about their offerings. As a result,

social networks like Face book, Orkut, Twitter are being

used by more and more marketers to promote their brand

and interact with customers. A growing number of

marketers are creating linkages on various communities

where fans can post contact information, give recent

updates and most importantly provide freedom of

expression in a fair, open and democratic manner. It

provides an ability to engage consumers in exchanging

vital information on what they buy, how they buy, from

where they buy and specific experience with the brand

that they get during these stages.

Objectives of the Research

• To analyze youngster’s attitude towards online social

communities

• To understand the role of social communities as a

determinant of consumer behavior

Table 1: Projections about Internet Users in India

Year

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

No. of Internet Users (in m)

53.5

67.5

95

121

162

220*

Source: Times of India

39

Understanding Attitude and Predicting Behavior in Virtual Social Communities

Research Methodology

The survey was administered over 120 students selected

from various affiliated college and Post-Graduate

department of Delhi University. Since no sampling frame

is available for members of various virtual communities,

the sample selected, would probably have selection error

which is difficult to avoid in such process. Data was

collected using non-probability convenience sampling.

The research instrument was divided into two parts. The

first part dealt with respondent’s motivation to join social

communitiesv, opinion towards information content,

brand presence, advertising and influence on purchase

behavior w.r.t social communities. Second part of the

questionnaire was designed to capture information on

demographic and economic dimensions. A five point

Likert scale as response scale from strongly agree to

strongly disagree was employed against each variable.

Analysis of Demographic Profile

The demographic profile of the respondents found that

62 percent of them were male. Almost 85 percent were

below 25 years of age.

Membership Status on Social Networks

The data analysis reveals that Facebook is one of the most

preferred networking sites among the youngsters. It is

followed by Twitter and Orkut .A significant percent of the

respondents, however, maintained account in more than

one social networking site.

Variables

Gender

Age

Marital Status

Category

Male

Female

Below 20

21-25

26-30

Above 30

Married

Unmarried

N (120)

74

46

39

62

12

7

5

115

Percent

62

38

32.5

52.5

10

5

4

96

Table 2: Selected Descriptive Statistics

Membership Status Analysis (%)

Frequency of Visit to Social Networks

It is clear from the diagram below that almost 58 percent

of the respondents log on to social networks everyday. It

was followed by 30 percent respondents who prefer to

visit social networks in a gap of 2-3 days.

0

20

40

60

Everyday

Once in 2-3 days

Once in 3-4

During Weekends

Other

Frequency of Visit to Social Networks (%)

40

Prastuti: Vol. I, No. 1, July-December 2012

0

10

20

30

40

50

Association

No

Association

Can't Say

Respondents Association with Brand

Respondents Association with Brands/ Marketers on Social Networks

More and more brands and marketers are making

presence on social networks by creating their web pages

on it. This fact is supported by the data analysis which

observed almost 43 percent respondents who are

associated with some brands on social networks.

However, more than half of the respondents still don’t

have any association or liking with any brands on social

networks in this regard.

Perceived Impact of Advt. on Social Networks on Consumer Behavior

A large number of marketers are increasingly using social

networks for making communication with their customer.

It is being emerging as a non traditional method of making

interactive communication by engaging them in such

promotion. This fact is supported by our data analysis

where almost 40 percent respondents got influenced by

various communication made by brand in the form of

advertisement on various social networks.

0 10 20 30 40

Definitely Yes

Probably Yes

Definitely No

Probably No

Respondents Perceived Impact of Advt.on Purchase Behavior (%)

Factor Analysis

A factor analysis was conducted to analyze the motivation

and attitude of the students regarding online

communities. The identified constructs have been

developed on the basis of a content analysis study which

was conducted during the stage of questionnaire

development. Some of these constructs have been

selected from prior research conducted in this regard.

However, due modifications have been made in these

constructs according to the characteristics of Indian

consumers.

The factor analysis was conducted using principal axis

factoring with varimax rotation as an extraction method.

The reliability of the data was measured using Cronbach’s

alpha and the values were found within the acceptable

limit commonly used in such research works. The results

confirmed the suitability and validity of the data because

the alpha value ranges between the acceptable limits and

thus indicate the goodness of the data under study.

41

Understanding Attitude and Predicting Behavior in Virtual Social Communities

S.No. Factors and ConstructsRotated Factor

LoadingPercent of Variance

ExplainedCroanbach’s alpha Value

1. Information Motivation (IM)

• SNSs are the best way to collect product related information.

• I prefer to serach SNSs for whatever brand I require.

• SNSs provide upto date and latest information about various brands.

• SNSs share valuable and useful information on products.

• SNSs are a convenient source to get brand related information.

• Different brand communities may share latest information on SNSs.

13 .72

.641

.696

.781

.701

.603

.540

2. Perceived Hedonic Benefits (PHB)

• SNSs provide one of the best ways to entertain myself.

• Visiting to SNS keep me fresh.

• I never get boredom while visiting SNS.

• I feel pleasure to see, hear and read information shared on SNS.

• Visiting my SNS is the best way to pass time and get enjoyment.

• Information shared on SNSs make me laugh and has high amusement value

11 .78

.592

.658

.849

.711

.844

.692

3. Social Trustworthiness (ST)

• I strongly believe that members of a virtual community share their genuine experience, opinion, views and reviews.

9 .84

.521

42

Prastuti: Vol. I, No. 1, July-December 2012

• Organizations provide authentic and genuine information on their pages in virtual communities.

• SNSs act as a deterrent for naïve practices.

• Communicating through SNS is highly interactive and transparent method of communication.

.634

.876

.796

4. Social Motivators (SM)

• Participating in discussion and forums in virtual communities makes me an active and valued customer.

• Participation with other members t h ro u g h S N S s i m p ro ve s my acceptance in my friend circle.

• My friend circle expects me to be in touch with them through various SNSs.

• SNSs have helped me to extend my friend circle.

7 .75

.699

.704

.829

.618

5. Privacy Concern (PC)

• SNS have enough measures to prevent any threat to my privacy on internet.

• I strongly believe that information exchanged on my SNS is not subject to plagiarism.

• Often, I don’t get any anonymous data in my SNS account.

• I recommend others to use SNS.

• I have positive perception about security and privacy aspect of SNS.

5 .59

.57

.62

.66

.51

.67

Table 3Factor Analysis Result

43

Understanding Attitude and Predicting Behavior in Virtual Social Communities

The variables within factor are correlated was confirmed

by the Bartlett’s test of spherecity.The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin

(KMO) measure of sampling adequacy indicated a

practical level of common variance of 0.742, which

implies that the result obtained from factor analysis are

appropriate. Collectively all the constructs explained 45

percent variance of the data designed to analyze the

respondent’s attitude towards online social communities.

Result of Multiple Regression Analysis

Multiple regression analysis was also conducted to test

the stated hypothesis of the study. The respondents were

asked to rate virtual social communities on a scale of 1-

10.It was treated as dependent variables and 5 different

factor which have been explored in the factor analysis

were treated as predictors over respondent’s rating of

virtual social communities.

Managerial Implications & Conclusion

Social networking sites provide fabulous opportunities to

reach to young consumers today. The media is different

from the other methods of communication as it has

abilities of interactivity and mass circulation. Young

consumers have more credibil ity in kind of

communication made between various types of people in

these virtual communities. In developing positive attitude

and behavioral intentions towards virtual communities,

marketers, policy makers and researchers and others are

required to focus on trust and privacy aspects of virtual

communities. Once these issues are properly addressed,

the technology has the ability to make significant

contribution in spreading the wings of e-commerce in

India.

Marketers are required to use these platforms to share

authentic and credible information to their likes/visitors

on virtual communities in the communication world

where interactive communication is the lifeline and

necessity to keep abreast of the competition.

References

• Bickart, B. & Schindler, R. M. (2001). Internet forums

as influential sources of consumer information.

Journal of Interactive Marketing, 15, 31-40.

• Cha,J.,(2008), “ Shopping on social networking

websites; attitudes towards real vs virtual items”,

Journal of Interactive Marketing,Vol.1

• Chang, Y.P.,Zhu, d.Hong (2011), “ Understanding social

networking sites adoption in China: A comparison of

pre-adoption and post-adoption” ,Computers in

Human Behavior,Vol.27,pp.1840-1848

• Cheung, C. M. K., Lee, M. K. O. & Rabjohn, N. (2008).

The impact of electronic word of-mouth: The

adoption of online opinions in online customer

communities. Internet Research, 18, 229-247.

• Dennis,C.,Merrilees,B. & Wright,L.T. (2007), “ E-

consumer behavior ”, European Journal of

Marketing,Vol. 43,No. 9/10, pp.1121-1139

• Ellison,N.B., Stenfield, C. and Lampe,C.(2006), “

Spatially bounded online social networks and the

social capital:the role of Facebook” Available in the

Model R R-Square Adjusted

R Square

Std. Error of

the Estimate

1. .051 .003 -.006 .420

a. Predictors; (constant), Information motivation,

perceived hedonic benefits, Social trust worthiness,

Social motivators, privacy concern.

Since the value of standard error of estimate is less than

the standard deviation (i.e 0.721) of the dependent

variable, thus the proposed model for multiple

regressions is found appropriate to run.

VariableInformation Motivation

Perceived Hedonic Benefits

Social Trustworthiness

Social Motivators

Privacy Concern

Â.165

.276

.012

.566

.082

T2.974

6.251

.145

8.549

1.403

Sig..003

.000

.881

.000

.161

Hypothesis

Supported

Supported

Not Supported

Supported

Not Supported

The multiple regression model observed significant t-

statistics in three out of five independent variables in

predicting the rating of online social communities. These

are IM (ß =.165), PHB (ß = .276) and SM (ß =.566).Hence

the study accept respective hypothesis and reject ST and

PC hypothesis which is found to have strong influence on

the dependent variable.

44

Prastuti: Vol. I, No. 1, July-December 2012

proceedings of annual conference of International

Conference on System Sciences,Germany www.

msu.edu

• Goldsmith, R. E. & Horowitz, D. (2006). Measuring

motivations for online opinion seeking. Journal of

Interactive Advertising, 6, 1-16.

• Mishra,S. (2010) “Participation of youth in social

networking sites in India”, International Journal of

Business Innovation and Research,Vol.4, No.4,pp 358

275

• Shang, R., Chen, Y. & Liao, H. (2006). The value of

participation in virtual consumer communities on

brand loyalty. Internet Research, 16, 398-418.

• Somali,S.A.,Gholami,R. & Clegg,B.,(2009),“An

investigation into the acceptance of online banking in

Saudi Arabia”, Technovation 29,pp 129-141

• Wilson, E. J. & Sherrell, D.L. (1993). Sources effect in

communication and persuasion research: A Meta

analysis of effect size. Journal of Academy of

Marketing Science, 21, 101-112

45

Understanding Attitude and Predicting Behavior in Virtual Social Communities

Financial reporting is the process of preparing and distributing financial information to users of such information in various forms. In an era of increasingly stringent financial reporting requirements, timely and accurate financial information must be deliverable to anyone, anywhere, at anytime. The primary premise of financial reporting is to provide high-quality financial reporting information concerning economic entities, primarily financial in nature, useful for economic decision making. Providing high quality financial reporting information is important because it will positively influence capital providers and other stakeholders in making investment, credit, and similar resource allocation decisions enhancing overall market efficiency. The paper has scratched many of the indicators from the company’s financial reports to know the status of the corporate financial reporting in Indian scenario. The study considers quality of financial reporting as explained variable and sixteen most influencing indicators of quality such as calculation of net profit, return on average net worth, Employees Stock Option Scheme (Sweat Capital), market capitalization; monthly returns etc as explanatory variables. The objective of the paper is to explore answer to the research question “Are all these indicators reliable to measure the quality of corporate financial reporting in India?” To measure it, Cronbach Coefficient Alpha of Reliability & Item Analysis is used to identify reliable measurement, to improve existing one, and to evaluate the reliability of indicators already in use. The analysis covered the data series of ten financial years of five companies from 2001-02 to 2009-10 of whose annual reports available on their websites and also registered on SEBI, are randomly selected. The paper ends with an outcome on the reliable quality indicators of financial reporting and highlighting the limitations of the study.

Keywords: Financial reporting, Quality Indicators, Dummy variables, Reliability analysis, Cronbach alpha JEL Classification Codes: C3, M41

Reliability Analysis of Quality Determinants of Corporate Financial Reporting In India

Abstract

Reliability Analysis of Quality Determinants of Corporate Financial Reporting In India

At the core of the corporate reporting, the financial

reporting exists, consisting GAAP-compliant financial

statements and accompanying notes (price water house

coopers). Financial reporting may be defined as

communication of financial information of a business

enterprise to external world (i.e., third parties including

shareholders, creditors, customers, governmental

authorities & the public). It is the reporting of the

accounting information of an entity (individual firm,

company, government enterprise) to a user or group of

users. Financial reporting information is to facilitate the

efficient allocation of capital in the economy. It is an

indicator of how well or poor a company has performed

in a particular financial year. The main expected role of

the financial reporting is to meet the external users'

varying needs. Users of financial reports in general and

particularly investors require useful information for their

decision-making. Financial Reporting gives reader a

summary of what happened in a company based purely

on the records. These records tell the condition and

performance of a business historically, currently and

prospectively.

Present study is focused on the identification of the

perfect set of variables influencing quality of corporate

financial reporting. The paper is divided into five

sections. First section gives brief description of financial

reporting and its quality. Section two provides literature

review based on conceptual framework of corporate

financial reporting and its quality determinants. Section

three presents the brief description of research

Pramod Kumar*Hina Agarwal**

*Professor & Head Department of Accountancy and Law, Faculty of Commerce, Dayalbagh Educational Institute (Deemed University), Dayalbagh, Agra 282 110 (India),Email: pra19363@rediffmail.com, **Research Scholar

46

methodology. Section four investigate the reliable

variables influencing quality of corporate financial

reporting through descriptive analysis and reliability and

item analysis. The paper ends with fifth section by giving

concluding remarks.

Section I:Financial Reporting And Its Quality

An understanding of the conceptual bases of the

corporate financial reporting system and of the

preparation of financial statements is essential

prerequisites to be a good accountant or a financial

analyst. In this way, the primary objective of financial

reporting is to provide high-quality financial reporting

information concerning economic entities, primarily

financial in nature, useful for economic decision making.

Providing high quality financial reporting information is

important because it will positively influence capital

providers and other stakeholders in making investment,

credit, and similar resource allocation decisions

enhancing overall market efficiency (Ferdy Van Beest,

Geert Braam, Suzanne Boelens, 2009).

The very basic premise of financial reporting is to provide

a fair, complete and well-informed view of the financial

performance of a business, based on a well-defined set of

standards, which are used consistently across a whole

range of companies (Tanya Branwhite). Financial

reporting is done by every business and organization to

assess its financial performance. Currently, while internal

financial reporting incorporates both financial and

managerial accounting information, external financial

reporting is comprised primarily of financial accounting

information; hence, very little information in external

financial reports relates to the decision-making

(planning) function of management (Stanley C. W. Salvary,

Canisius College, 1998). Companies report their financial

and narrative/contextual information using a wide range

of external communication channels, including

presentations to analysts and corporate websites.

Preparers of financial information should clearly indicate

how changes in accounting have impacted their accounts,

so users of financial reports have the opportunity to strip

those changes back out (Tanya Branwhite). It is important

to report financial information in a timely fashion. The

longer a company waits to release its annual report and

accompanying financial statements, the more stale the

information is and the less useful it is.

Financial reporting affects the public interest in numerous

ways. This results a widespread adoption of financial

reporting, will produce a more efficient capital market, a

more productive economy and a more prosperous

society. (Paul B.W. Miller, April 2002)

Corporate financial report communicates economic

impact of transactions and other events on the economic

resources and the capital structure of the company. The

aim is to provide information that is relevant for economic

decision-making by investors and creditors. The

information is also used to evaluate management in its

stewardship function. It is expected that the information

in financial report should be presented in such a manner

that it is easy to comprehend and analyze. (Asish K

Bhattacharyya, 2009)

Corporate financial reporting gives an overall view of the

business performance in accordance with the business

objectives. To achieve these objectives, financial data and

related information is to be summarized into useful

reports of the company so that primary and secondary

users can use them in efficient manner. Relevant

information will be those that have affected a company’s

development, performance and position during the

financial year – as well as those likely to affect its future

development, performance and position. There are no

hard and fast rules dictating what forward-looking

information a company must provide. Companies must

decide which information to include – and which to leave

out – on the basis of their own unique business dynamics

and those of the industry sectors in which they operate.

Section II:Review Of Literature

Considerable literature has emerged in the last eighteen

years that examines the corporate financial reporting.

This section provides a review of both aspects i.e.,

conceptual framework of corporate financial reporting

and its quality determinants.

Conceptual Framework of Corporate Financial Reporting

Stanley C. W. Salvary, Canisius College (1998) examine

various theoretical issues in accounting in a historical

47

Reliability Analysis of Quality Determinants of Corporate Financial Reporting In India

setting and provides some insight on the manner in which

the accounting profession has responded to problems

and suggested that the inclusion of managerial

accounting information in financial reports would reduce

the current level of uncertainty and should lead to

increased efficiency in the setting of proper prices in the

capital markets. Birgül Caramanolis-Çötelli, Lucien

Gardiol, Rajna Gibson-Asner and Nils S. Tuchschmid

(2000) investigate the role of the quality of a firm’s

disclosure policy and of the information channeling

process by financial analysts on the stock price reaction

around the publication of the annual reports.

McDaniel, Linda; Martin, Roger D.; Maines, Laureen A.

(2002) investigate the extent to which financial experts

make judgments about financial reporting quality that

differ from those of financial literates and suggested that

financial experts' frameworks for evaluating overall

financial reporting quality for a set of financial statements

differ from those of financial literates. They also indicate

that experts and literates bring differing viewpoints to the

identification and evaluation of specific financial

reporting concerns. Stephen H. Penman (2003) questions

the quality of financial reporting against the backdrop of

the stock market bubble in 1990’s. A number of quality

features of accounting are identified. Inevitable

imperfections due to measurement difficulties are

recognized, as a quality warning to analysts and investors.

A number of failures of GAAP and financial disclosures are

identified that, if not recognized, can promote

momentum investing and stock market bubbles.

Feng Li and Nemit O. Shroff (2009) examine the relation

between financial reporting quality and economic

growth. They developed the hypothesis and apply

regression analysis. Their results show that there is no

robust relation between the quality of financial reporting

in a given country and its economic growth. Feng Chen,

Ole-Kristian Hope, Qingyuan Li, Xin Wang (2010) examine

the role of FRQ in private firms from emerging markets.

They shows that financial reporting quality (FRQ) is

positively related to investment efficiency for large U.S.

publicly traded companies.

Determinants of Corporate Financial Reporting

P.L. Joshi, Dr. Jasim Abdulla, (1993) make a critical

examination of the present accounting standard setting

process and current issues and practices of corporate

financial reporting (CFR) in an Indian context by referring

to 95 annual reports of large sized companies. It is found

that Indian accounting standards have many alternative

accounting choices which make financial statements of

companies less comparable. A review of CFR shows a

strong tendency for companies to follow strict legal

requirements in the disclosure and preparation of

financial statements, there is much diversity in voluntary

reporting practice particularly with respect to value

added accounting, reporting by segments, inflation

accounting, human resource accounting, and corporate

social performance reporting, and there has been a

tendency towards minimum disclosure. Peter B. Oyelere,

Fawzi Laswad and Richard Fisher (2000) examine the

extent of IFR by New Zealand companies and the

determinants of their WWW presence and IFR practices.

They identify the following determinants: (1) size (2)

performance (3) liquidity (4) internationalization (5)

ownership spread and (6) industry. The results of the

study indicate that firm size, efficiency and the spread of

ownership motivates the provision of IFR.

Carol Ann Frost, Elizabeth A. Gordon and Grace Pownall

(2005) examine associations between financial reporting

and disclosure quality, and access to capital in global

equity markets by 342 emerging market companies. They

examine five proxies for financial reporting and disclosure

quality: 1) the financial transparency and information

disclosure component of Standard and Poor ’s

Transparency and Disclosure (S&P T&D) index, 2)

accounting principles used in the annual report to

shareholders (home GAAP, International Accounting

Standards [IAS], reconciliation to U.S. GAAP, and U.S.

GAAP), 3) auditor (global versus domestic), 4) whether

the annual report to shareholders is available in an English

language version, and 5) a categorical variable

representing the extent to which the company provides

freely available financial and other investor-oriented

information on its website. Researchers find strong

support for the hypothesis that financial reporting and

disclosure quality is positively associated with emerging

market companies’ global capital market access, after

controlling for factors expected to influence emerging

market companies’ ability to raise capital globally.

Rodrigo S. Verdi (2006) studies the relation between

financial reporting quality and investment efficiency on a

sample of 49,543 firm-year observations between 1980

and 2003. Researcher considered payout, age, size and

48

Prastuti: Vol. I, No. 1, July-December 2012

rating constraints as determinants and concluded the

relation between financial reporting quality and

investment efficiency is stronger for firms with low quality

information environments. Ferdy van Beest, Geert Braam

and Suzanne Boelens (2009) constructed a 21- item index

in order to comprehensively measure the quality of

financial reporting in terms of the underlying

fundamental and enhancing qualitative characteristics i.e.

relevance and faithful representation, understandability,

comparability, verifiability and timeliness and contributes

to improving the quality assessment of financial reporting

information, fulfilling a request from both the FASB and

the IASB (2008) to make the qualitative characteristics

operationally measurable. Qingliang Tang (2008)

proposes a system to measure financial reporting quality

at country level. He develops quality indicators of five

dimensions of financial reporting system: loss avoidance

ratio, profit decline avoidance ratio, accruals ratio,

qualified audit opinion ratio and non-Big 4 auditor ratio.

The study calculates a financial reporting quality score

based on these indicators.

Section III : Research Methodology

The methodology used in the present study includes the

following:

Research Question: Are all these indicators reliable to

measure the quality of corporate financial reporting in

India?

Database: In order to identify the perfect set of variables

influencing quality of corporate financial reporting, it was

necessary to locate the annual reports of Indian

companies. The study is empirical in nature. Five

companies whose annual reports of ten consecutive

financial years from 2001-02 to 2009-10 available on their

websites and also registered on SEBI, were randomly

selected. These Indian companies named by (1) Bharat

Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) (the largest engineering

and manufacturing enterprise of India in the energy &

infrastructure related sectors.); (2) Grasim Industries

Limited (business in viscose staple fibre (VSF), cement,

chemicals and textiles. Its core businesses are VSF and

cement); (3) Hindalco (the leading producer of aluminium

and copper); (4) Infosys Limited (the second largest

information technology company in India); (5) Steel

Authority of India Limited (SAIL) (the leading steel-making

company in India) were selected.

Table 1:

List of Variables

S.No. Variable Name Symbol

1. Net Profit: NP

2. Return On Average Net Worth RANW

3. Employees Stock Option Scheme (Sweat Capital) ESOP

4. Market Capitalization MC

5. Monthly Returns MR

6. Contents C

7. Timeliness T

8. Economic Value Added EVA

9. Corporate Social Responsibility CSR

10. Corporate Governance CG

11. Risk Management Report RM

12. Consolidated Financial Statements CFS

13. Human Resource Accounting HRA

14. Environment Management EM

15. Related Party Disclosures RPD

16. Segment Reporting SR

49

Reliability Analysis of Quality Determinants of Corporate Financial Reporting In India

Analysis tools: Researchers have scratched many of the

variables from the company’s financial reports to know

the status of the corporate financial reporting in Indian

scenario as explained above. And, then, draw descriptive

statistics of selected variables to find their range,

minimum and maximum value, mean and standard

deviation. As the variables are dummy coded, there is no

need to calculate skewness or kurtosis. Are all these

variables reliable to measure the quality of corporate

financial reporting in India? To measure it, Cronbach

Coefficient Alpha of Reliability & Item Analysis may be

used to identify reliable measurement, to improve

existing one, and to evaluate the reliability of variables

already in use.

Variables Coding: Researchers have identified some of the

determinants (financial and non-financial) that focus on

the corporate financial reporting, with consideration of

the related literature and also from their own opinion as a

way of emphasizing the quality of corporate financial

reporting in Indian competitive environment. These

determinants are coded as 0 and 1. The dummy coding of

the variables are as follows:

Table 2:

Dummy Coding of the Variables

S.No. Variables Dummy Coding1. NP If computation of net profit in accordance with section 349 or 198 or 309 (5) of the

Companies Act, 1956 = 1; otherwise = 0

2. RANW If provided = 1; otherwise = 0

3. ESOP If employees alloted shares under ESOP scheme = 1; otherwise = 0

4. MC If market capitalization is included in the computation of The Bse-30 Sensitive Index

(Sensex), The BSE Dollex, S&P CNX Nifty Index And NASDAQ-100 Index = 1; otherwise = 0

5. MR If provided = 1; otherwise = 0

6. C If provided = 1; otherwise = 0

7. T If reports are provided on the time = 1; otherwise = 0

8. EVA If provided = 1; otherwise = 0

9. CSR If provided = 1; otherwise = 0

10. CG If provided = 1; otherwise = 0

11. RM If provided = 1; otherwise = 0

12. CFS If provided = 1; otherwise = 0

13. HRA If provided = 1; otherwise = 0

14. EM If provided = 1; otherwise = 0

15. RPD If provided = 1; otherwise = 0

16. SR If provided = 1; otherwise = 0

Section IV:Analysis And Results

This section presents results derived from descriptive

analysis and reliability and item analysis.

Descriptive Analysis

Table 3 presents descriptive statistics for the selected

explanatory variables.

50

Prastuti: Vol. I, No. 1, July-December 2012

Variables N Range Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Dev

Statistic Statistic Statistic Statistic Statistic Statistic

NP 50 1 0 1 .58 .499

RANW 50 1 0 1 .44 .501

ESOP 50 1 0 1 .18 .388

MC 50 1 0 1 .10 .303

MR 50 0 0 0 .00 .000

C 50 1 0 1 .98 .141

T 50 0 1 1 1.00 .000

EVA 50 1 0 1 .26 .443

CSR 50 1 0 1 .44 .501

CG 50 0 1 1 1.00 .000

CFS 50 1 0 1 .84 .370

HRA 50 1 0 1 .02 .141

EM 50 1 0 1 .68 .471

RPD 50 0 1 1 1.00 .000

SR 50 1 0 1 .80 .404

RM 50 1 0 1 .44 .501

Valid N (listwise) 50

Table 3:

Descriptive Statistics

The above table presented the descriptive statistics for

sixteen dummy predictor variables. All the predictor

variables for five companies are concerned of ten

financial years from FY 2001-02 to FY 2009-10. The N

column indicates that all the variables have complete

data. The valid N (listwise) is 50, which also indicates that

all the predictor variables had data for each company for

every year. The range column shows that variables are

coded as 0 or 1. The minimum column showing “0” for a

minimum and the maximum column showing “1” for a

maximum are good because they agree with the

codebook. There are four exceptional variables named

MR, T, CG and RPD do not follow the required values and

hence not showing the any deviation. All the remaining

variables show some deviation i.e., more or less, so it is

clear that these variables response to quality of financial

reporting.

Reliability and Item Analysis

From the above description of variables, it is felt that

there is a requirement to check the reliability of the

selected variables. So, researcher has devised a sixteen-

variables statement with which they hope to measure

how quality of corporate financial reporting shift in this

competitive edge in Indian complex. In order to

understand whether the variables in this statement all

reliably measure the same latent variable i.e., quality, a

Cronbach's coefficient alpha was carry on.

There are five companies who respond to variables for ten

financial years, and then compute the variance for each

item, and the variance for the sum scale. We can estimate

the proportion of 1 score variance that is captured by the

variables by comparing the sum of variable variances with

the variance of the sum quality of corporate financial

reporting. Specifically, we can compute Cronbach's

coefficient alpha ( ):

2 2a = (k / (k-1)) * [ 1-å (S ) / S ] i sum

51

Reliability Analysis of Quality Determinants of Corporate Financial Reporting In India

Cronbach Alpha Test for Quality of Corporate Financial Reporting

Statistics for Mean Variance Std Dev N of Variables

Scale: Quality of

Corporate Financial

Reporting 5.76 4.676 2.162 12

Variables Scale mean if Scale variance Corrected Item- Cronbach's Alpha

item deleted if item deleted Total Correlation if Item Deleted

NP 5.18 3.702 .378 .578

RANW 5.32 3.814 .312 .594

ESOP 5.58 4.412 .070 .638

MC 5.66 4.147 .354 .593

C 4.78 4.461 .327 .611

EVA 5.50 4.010 .265 .604

CSR 5.32 3.732 .357 .583

CFS 4.92 3.749 .551 .552

HRA 5.74 4.604 .085 .626

EM 5.08 4.851 -.191 .696

SR 4.96 3.794 .456 .566

RM 5.32 3.487 .500 .547

Reliability Coefficients for variables 12 a = .623 Standardized Item Alpha = .635

Revised Cronbach Alpha Test for Quality of Corporate Financial Reporting

Statistics for Mean Variance Std Dev N of Variables

Scale: Quality of

Corporate

Financial Reporting 5.08 4.851 2.202 11

Variables Scale mean if Scale variance Corrected Item- Cronbach's Alpha

item deleted if item deleted Total Correlation if Item Deleted

NP 4.50 3.847 .386 .668

RANW 4.64 3.827 .394 .667

ESOP 4.90 4.663 .022 .722

MC 4.98 4.183 .464 .662

C 4.10 4.663 .274 .691

EVA 4.82 3.987 .377 .669

CSR 4.64 3.786 .417 .662

CFS 4.24 4.104 .406 .666

HRA 5.06 4.751 .128 .699

SR 4.28 4.083 .370 .671

RM 4.64 3.541 .561 .631

Reliability Coefficients for variables 11 a = .696 Standardized Item Alpha = .688

52

Prastuti: Vol. I, No. 1, July-December 2012

Internal reliability of sixteen variables was assessed using

the Cronbach’s Alpha technique. Variables such as MR, T,

CG and RPD have zero variance and removed from the

determinants of quality of corporate financial reporting

scale. Now the reliability test considers only twelve

variables. The scale produced an alpha of .623.

Inspection of the table suggested that variable named EM

should be eliminated because of its low and negative

correlation with the test as a whole and the indication

that its removal would increase internal reliability. A

repeat Cronbach’s Alpha test minus variable named EM

then produced an alpha of .696, which is more acceptable

for quality of corporate financial reporting scale.

Section V :Conclusion

To provide greater clarity and granularity on critical

elements of the financial reporting, researchers have

focused on some of the key areas such as net profit, net

worth and its returns, employees stock option scheme

(sweat capital), market capitalization, monthly returns,

contents, timeliness, value added statement, corporate

social responsibility, corporate governance, consolidated

financial statement, human resource accounting,

environmental disclosures, related party disclosures,

segment reporting and risk management report that have

an effect on the corporate financial reporting in a direct or

indirect way.

From the entire analysis, researchers have concluded that

all the selected variables are true representative of

corporate financial reporting except monthly returns,

timeliness, corporate governance, related party

disclosures and environmental disclosures. Finally the

study is based on lingering eleven indicators which show

instant effect on quality of corporate financial reporting.

It was also noticed that drastic improvements have taken

place in the quality of corporate financial reporting from

the FY 2005-06 in India because many of the companies

have started to involve the new reporting aspects like

value added statement, corporate social responsibility,

human resource accounting etc in their annual reports. In

present scenario, companies give an overall view of their

business performance in accordance with their business

objectives. It helps companies to well run on the basis of

comprehensive and accurate information about all

aspects of their operations and nothing to fear from

providing forward-looking information. Even now they

have an opportunity to secure significant competitive

edge.

References

• Admin (2009, January 10). Elements and Components

of a Complete Set of Financial Statements. Retrieved

on October 30, 2011, from http://businessaccent.com

• Asish K Bhattacharyya. Complexity in Corporate

Financial Reporting. Business Standard, retrieved on

June 15, 2009, from http://business.rediff.com

• Beest, Ferdy van, Braam, Geert & Boelens, Suzanne

(2009). Quality of Financial Reporting: Measuring

Qualitative Characteristics. Nijmegen Center for

Economics (NiCE), Institute for Management

Research, Radboud University Nijmegen, NiCE

Working Paper 09-108, from http://www.ru.nl/nice/

workingpapers

• Caramanolis-Çötelli, Birgül, Gardiol, Lucien, Gibson-

Asner, Rajna & Tuchschmid, Nils S. (2000). Are

Investors Sensitive to the Quality and the Disclosure of

Financial Statements? European Finance Review 3,

131–159

• Chen, Feng, Hope, Ole-Kristian, Li, Qingyuan & Wang,

Xin (2010). Financial Reporting Quality and Investment

Efficiency of Private Firms in Emerging Markets. From

http://www.nd.edu/~carecob/Workshops/10-

11Workshops/HopePaper091010.pdf

• Corporate Reporting, Retrieved on October 30, 2011,

from http://www.pwc.com/corporatereporting

• Frost, Carol Ann, Gordon, Elizabeth A. & Pownall,

Grace (2008). Financial Reporting and Disclosure

Quality, and Emerging Market Companies' Access to

Capital in Global Markets. Working Paper Series,

available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=802824

• Frost, Carol Ann, Gordon, Elizabeth A. & Pownall,

Grace (2005). Financial Reporting Quality, Disclosure

and Emerging Market Companies’ Access to Capital in

Global Equity Markets. Working paper, School of

Accountancy, Singapore Management University

• Joshi, P.L. & Abdulla, Dr. Jasim (1993). Accounting

Standards and Corporate Financial Reporting in India.

Asian Review of Accounting, 3(2), 105 – 124.

• Li, Feng & Shroff, Nemit O. (2009). Financial Reporting

Q u a l i t y a n d E c o n o m i c G r o w t h . F r o m

http://www.isb.edu/AccountingResearchConference/

File/FinancialReporting.pdf

• McDaniel, Linda; Martin, Roger D.; Maines, Laureen A.

(2002). Evaluating Financial Reporting Quality: The

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Reliability Analysis of Quality Determinants of Corporate Financial Reporting In India

Effects of Financial Expertise vs. Financial Literacy.

Accounting Review

• Miller, Paul B.W. (2002). Quality Financial Reporting.

Journal of Accountancy

• Oyelere, Peter B., Laswad, Fawzi & Fisher, Richard

(2000). Corporate Financial Reporting: Firm

Characteristics and the Use of the Internet as a

Medium of Communication. Lincoln University,

Commerce Division, Discussion Paper No. 81.

• Salvary, Stanley C. W. (1998). Accounting and Financial

Reporting In a Changing Environment: Historical And

Theoretical Perspectives. Essays in Economic and

Business History, volume XVI 1998:307-329

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Developed And Emerging Markets Tenth. Annual

International Conference on Accounting and Business

2008, Shanghai, June 6-8

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Information. From http://www.ifac.org

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and Investment Efficiency. From

• http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/facseminars

• Statsoft electronic statistcs toolbox

• www.corporatereporting.com

54

Prastuti: Vol. I, No. 1, July-December 2012

The purpose of the study was to compare public and private cement industries in terms of organization culture and job involvement. The total sample consists of 124 employees and 61 private sector employees. Data for the study were collected through a questionnaire survey. Means and Standard Deviations were calculated for public and private sector employees. To find the significant difference with mean ratings ‘t’ values were calculated. Correlation coefficients with job involvement were computed for all the factors of organizational culture. The study reveals that there is a significant difference between private and public sector employees in terms of organization culture and job involvement.

Organization Culture and Job Involvementin Cement Industry - A Study

Abstract

Introduction

Since 1970s, the term ‘Culture’ has been increasingly

used in studies of organizational behavior because of the

growing realization among organizational scientists and

management consultants. Culture of an organization has

much influence on organizational effectiveness. This has

created interest for research on organizational culture.

Japanese firms during the late 1970s and the early 1980s

were widely considered to have superior operating

characteristics, but the firms of organizational research

dominant then emphasized formal of organizational

research dominant then emphasized formal structure

and so failed to uncover any difference between

Japanese and Western firms. As a consequence,

researchers began to examine the possibility, that

different national cultures might have penetrated

modern corporate forms, thus creating differences in

organizational culture. Several early studies gave

credence to this approach, which led to the possibility

that even within a single national culture there might be

local differences in the culture of firms.

Previously, the concept of culture was being used mostly

by sociologists and anthropologists. Sociologists, for the

most part, use culture to describe the “Ideational

aspect” of social life in order to distinguish culture from

society or social structure. The anthropological

approach, by contrast, more often take its entire subject

matter as culture. The several streams of work that have

been mostly influenced by sociologists are: the study of

myth and ritual symbolic interaction and the study of

organizations as institutions. Anthropologist, like

Radcliffe - Brown and Malinowski encourage the scholar

to consider a group or society as a whole and to see how

its practices, beliefs, and other cultural elements

Prof. K. Venkata Subbaiah*Dr. U.V. Adinarayana Rao**

*Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Andhra University, Visakhapatnam, AP, India. Email: drkvsau@yahoo.co.in**Associate Professor, GITAM Institute of Management, GITAM University, Visakhapatnam, AP, India. Email: adinarayana.uppu@gmail.com 55

function to maintain social structure. Geertz has focused

on language and symbols. Cultural descriptions,

according to Good enough required the discovery and

writing out of systematic rules or algorithms that

members of the culture implicitly use to generate

acceptable behaviour.

Now-a-days, the study of organizational culture is

dominated by behavioral scientists. When sociologists

became disenchanted with the multivariate studies of

organizational structure they simply took their

intellectual curiosity and methodologies and migrated to

the study of community structure, of occupational

structure, of the structure of health care, and so on.

Those who are employed in schools of management,

however, are rater permanently committed to the study

of business firms. As a result, they maintained their focus

on business organizations, but sought new points of view

and new techniques with which to revitalize the study of

those specific institutions. In that transition was created

to the study of organizational culture. Perhaps, it is

through culture, rather than formal structure, that large

firms can be bent to the will of their masters and rendered

predictable, “rational”.

Literature Review

Organization culture represents a common perception

shared by the organization’s members. Individuals with

different backgrounds or at different levels in the

organization tend to describe the organization’s culture in

similar terms. They perceive a unique set of

characteristics that are substantially organization specific.

Tony Modern (1993) dealt with national culture and its

impact on the culture of the organization. The nature of

national culture will have significant implications for the

organization, its management and its human resource

development within the prevailing local and

environmental context. The taking of an ethnocentric or

single-nation-oriented approach to other cultures is likely

to be inappropriate. Organizations from one national

background will need to make due allowance for the

existence and relative influence of the different national

cultures of the countries into which they enter as

international or multinational operators. Venkata

Subbaiah et al. (1994) conducted a study to explore the

effect of core job variables namely, job feedback; job

accountability, job authority; expectation of rewards and

expectation of sanctions on job outcome variables

namely job involvement, work involvement and work

motivation of bank employees. A descriptive study was

conducted by Steven (2000) to investigate the

relationships of total quality management, organizational

culture and their impact upon a learning organization.

The study investigated the attributes of a learning

organization and its influence upon employee motivation.

Greg Marshall (2004) studied on the relationship of job

involvement to demographic, job situational, and market

variables in a sales setting. Akin Aksu (2005) conducted a

study on nine organizational dimensions that enable

individual learning in hotel establishments and to note

interests of tourism professionals to the learning of

organizations subject and pure value and variance

explanation rated dimension was that of behavior of

superiors. Abraham Carmeli, (2005) study proposed and

tested a model that attempts to explain the role of

situational and personal-related factors relating to why

top executives become involved in their jobs. Su-Chao

Chang et al. (2007) investigated the relationship among

leadership, organizational culture, the operation of

learning organization and employees' job satisfaction.

The hypothesized relationship between the attitude of

job involvement and performance has received limited

support. Ooi Keng Boon et al. (2007) worked a paper to

examine the perceptions of individual employees on the

influence of eight elements of HRM/TQM (i.e. leadership,

training and development, employee participation,

reward and recognition, customer focus, empowerment,

teamwork, and communication) on employees' job

involvement in six major Malaysian semiconductor

contract manufacturing organizations. Despite extensive

research and voluminous literature on HRM/TQM, very

little empirical research has examined this scope of

investigative study. The study conducted by Paul et al.

(2007) seeks to provide another test of job involvement's

association with performance. Ayse Kuruuzum et al.

(2009) aims to determine the structural relationships

between job involvement, job satisfaction, and three

dimensions of organizational commitment (i.e. affective

commitment, normative commitment, and continuance

commitment) in the Turkish hospitality industry. Brad et

al. (2010) worked on existing critiques of workplace

spirituality and organizational culture and linked the two

by problematising definitions of workplace spirituality

that employ a “culture approach” to change, in which the

construct is limited to a set of values that gives particular

56

Prastuti: Vol. I, No. 1, July-December 2012

Organization Culture and Job Involvement in Cement Industry - A Study

57

meaning to the workplace. Remy (2010) worked on a

paper to confirm quantitatively the previous finding that

organizational characteristics influence knowledge

management, and to assess whether the national culture

of knowledge workers equally affects the management of

knowledge.

Methodology

The sample consists of 63 employees (33–Managers,

30–Supervisors) from public sector and 61 employees

(30–Managers, 31–Supervisors) from private sector. To

collect the information, a structured questionnaire was

designed and collected from each respondent. The

organization culture questionnaire developed by Purnima

Mathur et al. (1990) and job involvement questionnaire

developed by Venkata Subbaiah et al. (1994) has been

used. In the organization culture seven factors namely

support, Structure, Conflict tolerance, Performance

reward, Individual responsibility, Risk tolerance and

Individual autonomy were considered as observable

culture and four factors namely Beliefs, Group norms,

Exercise of authority and Identity were considered as

Inferable culture. All the items of observable and

inferable culture were mixed to get a clear picture of

organizational culture. As a result, the questionnaire

consisted of 53 items, out of which 40 were positive and

13 were negative. Ten questions were considered for Job

Involvement. Both questionnaires were five-point likert

scale. Every item has five point response categories from

very low to very high which carries wieghtages 1,2,3,4 and

5 respectively. The scoring is reversed for negative items.

Results and Discussions

A comparative picture of the public sector and private

sector employees on certain demographic variables is

presented in Table 1. The average age of the public sector

employees was 35 years with standard deviation of 5.41

years and private sector employees was 31 years with

standard deviation of 3.34 years. The average experience

of the public sector employees was 9.33 years with

standard deviation of 4.43 years and private sector

employees was 5.67 years with standard deviation of 3.63

years. The number of dependents was matched for the

public sector and private sector employees. The results

shows that the private sector employees were

significantly spent lesser number of years on the job. As

far as the education and number of dependents were

concerned there was no significant difference between

the employees of public and private Cement Industries.

Table 2 gives the mean, standard deviation and ‘t’ values

of the organization culture (Factor wise and overall) and

Job involvement of Public sector and Private sector

Managers, Supervisors and as a whole. The overall

organization culture is considered, then the private sector

employees and public sector employees are rated at 3.57

and 2.977 respectively. It shows the private sector

employees have high organization culture when compare

to public sector employees. There is a significant

difference (0.01 level) between the responses of public

sector and private sector employees regarding overall

organization culture. Job involvement received a mean

rating of 3.55 and 3.393 from the private and public sector

employees respectively. There is a significant difference

(0.05 level) between the responses of public & private

sector employees regarding Job involvement. The factor

wise analysis of the organization culture is considered,

there is a significant difference in the ratings for support,

conflict tolerance, Performance reward, Individual

responsibility, Individual autonomy, Beliefs, Group

norms, Exercise of authority and Identity between the

Public and Private sector employees. There is no

significant difference between the responses of public

and Private sector employees regarding structure & risk

tolerance factors.

The Mean scores and Standard Deviation’s in respect of

the managers of Public and Private sector, and ‘t’ value’s

are calculated to find out whether there is any significant

difference in the mean scores of the organization culture

(factor wise and over all) and Job involvement. The Public

sector managers have rated 2.979 and the Private sector

managers have rated 3.288 for the overall organizational

culture. From this it is clear that the private sector

managers have high organization culture than public

sector managers. There is a significant difference (0.05

level) between the managers of public and private sector

cement industries regarding the rating on overall

organization culture. Job involvement mean ratings are

3.413 and 3.306 for private and public sector managers

respectively. However no significant difference is noticed

for job involvement between the managers of Public and

Private Cement Industries. The managers of Private sector

were perceived better as compared to Public sector in all

factors of organizational culture except the factor

structure. However there is a significant difference (0.01

level) between the mean scores of Private and Public

sector managers for the organizational culture factors like

support, performance reward, Risk tolerance, Individual

autonomy, Beliefs, Group norms and Identity. There is no

significant difference between the mean scores of Private

and Public sector managers for the organizational culture

factors like structure, conflict tolerance, Individual

responsibility and Exercise of authority.

The mean scores, Standard deviations and ‘t’ values of the

organizational culture (factor wise and overall) and job

involvement of supervisors of Public and Private cement

industries. The Private sector supervisors has rated the

overall organizational culture as 3.418 in the 5 point rating

scale, but nevertheless not a very high rating. Whereas

the public sector supervisors has rated overall

organizational culture as 2.975, near to the average

rating. It shows the supervisors of Private sector have high

organizational culture than public sector. There is a

significant difference (0.01 level) between the mean

scores of overall organizational culture of Private and

Public sector supervisors. For the Job involvement of

supervisors of Private and Public sector has rated 3.594

and 3.496 respectively. There is no significant difference

between the supervisors of private and public sectors

when job involvement is considered. There is a significant

difference (0.01 level) between the responses of private

and public sector supervisors regarding the factors of

organizational culture like support, conflict tolerance,

Individual responsibility, Individual autonomy, Beliefs,

Group norms, exercise of authority and Identity. However

there is no significant differences between the ratings of

Public and Private sector supervisors for the

organizational culture factors like structure, performance

reward and risk tolerance.

Table 3 gives the correlation coefficients between

organizational culture and job involvement, factor wise as

well as overall. Also the correlation coefficients of Public

sector employee as a whole, private sector employees as

a whole. Private sector managers, Public sector

supervisors, and Private sector supervisors are shown

separately for all the factors as well as overall

organizational culture with job involvement.

Significant correlations were found between overall

Prastuti: Vol. I, No. 1, July-December 2012

58

organizational culture and job involvement (0.01 level) for

the employees of Public and Private sectors considered as

a whole, the overall correlations between job

involvement and organization culture was found to be

0.716 and 0.531 for supervisors of Public and Private

sectors respectively, which is significant at 0.01 level. The

overall correlation between organizational culture and

job involvement was found to be 0.363, which is

significant at 0.05 level for the managers of private sector

and the correlations between overall organizational

culture and job involvement was found to be insignificant

for a public sector managers.

For all the seven factors of observable culture and four

factors of inferable culture, a significant correlation (0.01

level) were found with job involvement for the public

sector employees as a whole were considered. Significant

correlations were found for all the factors except the

factor support with job involvement for the private sector

employees as a whole were considered. When public

sector managers considered separately, significant

correlations were found only for the factor conflict

tolerance, Exercise of authority and Identity. The

remaining factors correlations were found insignificant

and when private sector managers considered separately

significant correlations were found only for the factor

conflict tolerance, group norms, exercise of authority and

identity and for the remaining factors correlations were

found insignificant. Significant correlations (0.01 level)

were found for all the factors with Job involvement for the

public sector supervisors. When public sector employees

considered separately, significant correlations were also

found for all the factors. And when private sector

employees were considered, significant correlations were

found for all factors except beliefs.

Conclusions

Private sector employees have high culture than Public

sector employees if the overall organizational culture is

considered. The two dimensions namely observable

culture and inferable culture were considered in this

study for the total organizational culture. The private

sector employees have higher observable culture and

inferable culture than Public sector employees. This is

mainly due to the lack of support, structure, conflict

tolerance, rewards, Individual responsibility, risk

tolerance, Individual autonomy, beliefs, group’s norms,

exercise of authority and Identity for the Public

employees in their organization. Job involvement which is

the degree of psychological identification with one’s work

is slightly more for private sector employees than public

sector employees.

If the managers and supervisors were considered

separately, the private sector managers and supervisors

have high overall culture and more Job involvement than

Public sector managers and supervisors. The relationship

between overall organizational culture and job

involvement was found quite significant for the public

sector and Private sector employees.

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culture of the organization", Cross Cultural

Management: An International Journal, Vol. 2 Issue:

2, pp.3 – 12

• Venkata Subbaiah K., M. Sugunatha Reddy (1994),

“Job involvement, Work Involvement and Work

Motivation: A Study in Banking Industry”, Industrial

Engineering Journal, Vol. 23, No. 2, pp. 23-26

Organization Culture and Job Involvement in Cement Industry - A Study

59

Variable

Manager Supervisor Overall

Public Sector Private Sectort'

Values

Public Sector Private Sectort'

Values

Public Sector Private Sectort'

ValuesMean

SD

Mean

SD

Mean

SD

Mean

SD

Mean

SD

Mean

SD

A 3.094

0.297

3.43

0.287

4.565

2.891

0.371

3.39

0.352

5.855

3.001

0.348

3.4

0.34 6.458

B 3.03

0.922

2.932

0.49

0.534

3.213

0.808

3.28

0.335

0.421

3.114

0.876

3.11

0.44 0.032

C 3.106

0.732

3.125

0.265

0.105

2.804

0.699

3.31

0.367

3.523

2.967

0.726

3.22

0.33 2.511

D 2.842

0.456

3.213

0.296

3.863

2.993

0.352

3.206

0.611

1.675

2.911

0.418

3.18

0.447 3.453

E 3.011 0.51 3.013 0.451 0.017 2.965 0.38 3.56 0.679 4.241 2.99 0.456 3.28 0.633 2.919

F 3.099 0.346 3.576 0.321 5.676 3.131 0.531 3.34 0.346 1.815 3.114 0.441 3.2 0.425 0.064

G 2.97

0.454

3.297

0.344

3.239

2.971

0.395

3.316

0.487

3.036

2.97

0.428

3.31

0.424 4.443

H 3.127

0.317

3.42

0.354

3.448

3.041

0.34

3.517

0.274

5.984

3.103

0.328

3.45

0.323 5.935

I 2.929

0.574

3.702

0.337

6.59

2.864

0.45

3.872

0.454

8.708

2.899

0.522

3.75

0.415 10.07

J 2.646

0.498

2.978

0.878

1.822

2.786

0.543

3.267

0.38

3.996

2.71

0.524

3.04

0.681 3.017

K 2.919

0.477

3.528

0.312

6.048

2.945

0.491

3.43

0.305

4.617

2.965

0.482

3.48

0.314 7.071

L 2.979

0.248

3.288

0.258

4.836

2.975

0.263

3.418

0.166

7.838

2.977

0.255

3.57

0.311 11.59

M 3.306 0.388 3.413 0.307 1.219 3.496 0.469 3.594 0.335 0.936 3.393 0.438 3.55 0.315 2.297

Prastuti: Vol. I, No. 1, July-December 2012

60

Table 1: Mean, Standard Deviation and t values for some Demographic variables

Variable Public Sector (N1 = 63) Private Sector(N2 = 61) ‘t’ Values

Mean SD Mean S.D

Age (in years)

34.656

5.414

31.226

3.344

4.259

Education

1.984

4.336

2.523

2.998

0.807

Length of Tenure (In Years)

9.328

4.432

5.673

3.632

5.029

No. of Dependents

3.393

1.429

3.362

1.216

0.131

Table 2: Mean, Standard Deviation and‘t’ Values of Managers and Supervisors of public and private sector Employees

A - Support, B - Structure, C - Conflict Tolerance, D - Performance Reward, E - Individual Responsibility,

F - Risk Tolerance, G - Individual Autonomy, H - Beliefs, I - Group Norms, J - Exercise of Authority,

K - Identity, L - Overall, M - Job Involvement.

Organization Culture and Job Involvement in Cement Industry - A Study

61

Table 3: Correlation Coefficients between organization culture and Job involvement Factor wise as well as overall

Variable

Correlation with Job Involvement

public sector

managers

private

sector

managers

public sector

supervisors

private sector

supervisors

public

sector

as a

whole

private

sector as

a whole

Support -0.192 0.092 0.599 0.422 0.499 0.221

Structure 0.189 0.321 0.689 0.488 0.711 0.322

Conflict Tolerance -0.65 -0.731 0.566 0.431 0.504 0.296

Performance

Reward 0.105 0.188 0.78 0.693 0.643 0.44

Individual

Responsibility 0.243 0.312 0.831 0.901 0.688 0.307

Risk Tolerance 0.244 0.222 0.719 0.613 0.65 0.359

Individual

Autonomy -0.002 0.163 0.592 0.439 0.43 0.482

Beliefs 0.079 0.338 0.771 -0.231 0.673 0.423

Group Norms 0.266 -0.341 0.749 0.631 0.564 0.478

Exercise of

Authority -0.714 0.423 0.744 -0.432 0.449 0.269

Identity 0.516 0.731 0.864 0.392 0.749 0.497

Overall 0.257 0.363 0.716 0.531 0.658 0.432

The pressure of global environment is increasing the competition among organizations. This increasing competition is forcing organizations to come with something new and different. As a result innovation is becoming necessary for each and every organization. Innovation has become the success mantra for business organizations today because of this increasing competition.

Innovation refers to both to the output and the process of arriving at a technologically feasible solution to a problem which has been triggered by a technological opportunity or a customer need. The Retail sector is seen with immense opportunities these days around the world and especially in India. But for encashing this opportunity companies have worked harder and kept on continuously innovating to attract more and more customers.

Technology plays the key role when we talk of innovation in products, processes or systems. In this era of fast changing market technology has brought major transformations both in products as well as processes due to which organizations have been able to attract more customers. Technology has brought innovativeness in products, innovativeness in use of information technology, innovativeness in tools for billing, innovativeness in increasing the safety within the stores, innovativeness in merchandising, innovativeness in understanding buyer behavior, etc.

Impact of Technology inAttracting Retail Customers

Abstract

Introduction

Retailing is selling products to the final consumers

/customers. It contains business activities in selling

goods and services to the final consumers for their

personal, family or household consumption. The normal

view is that retailing involves the sale of tangible

(physical) goods. However it also includes the sale of

services. Each and every sale to the final consumer

ranging from washing machines to holiday packages to

furniture to delicious dishes at restaurants to haircut at

saloons is a part of retailing. It’s the last link in the

distribution process.

The retail sector today offers one of the best varieties of

job opportunity for ambitious and hardworking people.

Career path in this fast expanding retail sector are very

varied, exciting and lucrative. Some of the important

career areas in the retail industry are in sales, marketing

and advertising; merchandise planning and buying;

stores management; distribution, logistics and supply

chain management; & IT and E-commerce.

Entrepreneurship opportunities are also promoted by

this sector.

Retailing is a major part of world trade today. The sales

and employment opportunities in retailing are vital

economic contributors. The trends in retailing often

mirror trends in a nation’s overall economy. The retail

industry is the second largest source of jobs today after

agriculture in India and has one of the highest impacts

on the Indian Population. Retail is the largest sector in

India after agriculture, contributing over 10 percent of

the country’s GDP, and employs over 4 crore people. The

unorganized retailing accounts for 97 percent of the

total retail trade (People Democracy, 2007).

Abhaya Ranjan Srivastava*Dr. Saumya Singh**

*Assistant Professor, Department of Management, BITEC Lalpur, India**Associate Professor, Department of Management Studies, ISM Dhanbad, India

62

The increasing purchasing power of the Indian consumers

particularly the middle class is attracting more organized

retailers to India. The Asian Development Bank in its

recent report has estimated the size of the burgeoning

Indian middle class at 418 million (Sify finance, 2010). The

preference of customers today is shifting from

unorganized retail to organized retailing. Better shopping

experience, more variety, better prices, and lack of

available time with customers are some of the important

reasons behind this shift towards organized retailers. The

success of shopping malls has also supported this shift as

customers prefer one-stop-shopping.

Retailing today is at a fascinating crossroads in most part

of the world. It is having a bright future particularly in

developing countries today. In countries like India and

china the retail sector is looked with enormous potential.

A.T. Kearney, the international management consultancy

recently identified India as globally the second most

attractive retail destination from among thirty emerging

markets. The immense opportunities could be seen both

in opening new retail organizations as well as in improving

the existing ones. The leading organized retailing

organizations have outperformed the established

manufacturing giants in terms of Sales. Ex. - Sales of Wal-

Mart is ahead of General Motors or ExxonMobil.

Technology has been one of the primary drivers for the

retail sector. Whether it is organized or unorganized retail

it has given them an edge over their competitors.

Innovation has been one major source of competitive

advantage for the companies. Technology plays the key

role when we talk of innovation in products, processes or

systems. In this era of fast changing market technology

has brought major transformations both in products as

well as processes due to which organizations have been

able to attract more customers.

Need for Inovation in Retail

Let us first define innovation before moving to the need

for innovation. In his book “Technology and Innovation

for competitive environment” V.K. Narayana says that

innovation refers both to the output and the process of

arriving at a technologically feasible solution to a problem

which has been triggered by a technological opportunity

or customer need.

Process: Here the term innovation refers to the process by

which individuals or firms arrive at a technical solution.

Ex.-a new performance appraisal technique for

employees.

Output: Here the term innovation refers to a product or

service which is the output of the innovation process. Ex. -

An iPod.

Indian market is revolutionized because the citizens are

coming out from being a conservative one to the one who

are now interested in enjoying their life and ready to

spend. Today, the youth are the major source of new

ideas, the Indian women is not only confined to their

home, the families have taken the shape of nuclear

families. The number of the joint families is decreasing

every day. The increasing numbers of women in the

workforce and the Young CEO’s have increased their say in

the major decisions both at Office and Home. This trend is

signaling innovation in products and services. The

pressure of global environment on the other side is

increasing the competition among organizations.

Liberalization, globalization and privatization are opening

up the whole economy gradually (Kumar Sunil, 2012). The

retail sector has also been affected by it. This increasing

competition is forcing organizations to come with

something new and different. As a result innovation is

becoming necessary for each and every organization. But

this pressure of innovation is not only on the new

companies rather it is also on the old ones. Firms must

excel at meeting customer’s basic expectations and

offering differentiated features from the competitors if

they want to grow.

This increase in demand of organized retailing has

increased the flow of traffic in their stores. Retailers like

Big Bazaar, Bazaar Kolkata, Spencer, Reliance, Croma,

Vishal, etc. are facing heavy traffic. This increase in traffic

is welcomed by the organized retailers as their sales are

improving and are guiding them to a prosperous future.

But at the same time concern for safety and surveillance

in the stores has increased due to this heavy traffic.

Concern for fast billing procedures are also needed to

avoid queues at the billing counters. It has also raised

concern for good merchandising and proper maintenance

of stores.

63

Impact of Technology in Attracting Retail Customers

We can say that the future is promising for the retailers

but at the same time retailers are facing many challenges.

The retail sector is new due to which it lacks expertise and

management talent. The opposition of Foreign Direct

Investment by BJP, Left Parties, Trinmul Congress,

Samajwadi Party, other regional parties and many trade

associations is keeping the retail sector away from access

to good capital (The Financial Express, Sept 6, 2010). The

government is unable to provide favorable regulations for

the retail sector due to this opposition. With provision of

self-service and automated systems the Customer service

expectations are high and rising. According to a report

prepared by researchers of International Food Policy

Research Institute (IFPRI) and Michigan State University,

“Structured changes in retail will surely start affecting a

large number of some small retailers at some stage be it

after one or two decades. But experts are of opinion that

to ensure that traditional retailers do not become losers

in this revolution, innovation was needed to co-opt.”

(Source: Kirana Stores near big retailers to be hit first, The

Times of India, March 10, 2008 pg 17)

Some key challenges faced by retailer’s are:

• How to best serve our customers while earning a

reasonable profit?

• How to maintain a good position in the highly

competitive environment where consumers are

exposed to so many options?

• How to increase our business while retaining a core

of loyal customers?

These concerns are demanding the need for innovation in

the retail sector. This innovation is not only needed in

products but also in services. Some of the major trends

forcing the need for innovation in retail are the pressure

of global competition, growth in the role of women in

workforce, emergence of nuclear families, increasing role

of youth in major decisions, increasing mobility of people,

non-favorable rules and regulations for the retail sector,

changing attitude of the Indian Society, fast changes in the

taste and preferences of customers and increasing

purchasing power of customers.

Innovation has become the success mantra for business

organizations today because of this increasing

competition. And for encashing this opportunity

companies have worked harder and kept on continuously

innovating to attract and retain more and more

customers.

Role of Technology in Innovation

Innovation has been one major source of competitive

advantage for the companies. Technology has been one of

the primary drivers for business organizations. The retail

sector has also used it positively to cash its benefits.

Technology has been used in bringing innovativeness in

Retail sector in various areas of the business. Whether it is

organized or unorganized retail it has given them an edge

over their competitors. Technology plays the key role

when we talk of innovation in products, processes or

systems. In this era of fast changing market technology

has brought major transformations both in products as

well as processes due to which organizations have been

able to attract more customers.

Technology has brought innovativeness in products,

innovativeness in use of information technology,

innovativeness in tools for billing, innovativeness in

increasing the safety within the stores, innovativeness in

merchandising, innovativeness in understanding buyer

behavior, etc. Retail sector has effectively used

technology for increasing customer satisfaction through

new and improved products as well as better processes. It

has also led to more customer loyalty.

Technology has been very effectively used in creating

awareness about new products and promoting them.

Application of technology has smoothened the whole

experience of purchasing for the customers. Technology

has helped businesses in creating a better customer

relationship management which is very productive in the

longer run. Technological innovation has become a

primary driver in improving retail productivity.

Technology and Innovation in Retailing

Innovative ways have been successfully used for retaining

customers and increasing loyalty among retail customers.

Relationship marketing is one of such way which has been

used today to become successful in the market because it

is well known that – “the cost of getting a new customer is

five times the cost of retaining an existing customer”.

Membership card has been innovatively used to build

long term relationship and retain customers. It has also

been helpful in increasing loyalty of customers for the

retail stores. These all and many other ideas successful

64

Prastuti: Vol. I, No. 1, July-December 2012

implementation in retailing have made been possible

because of Technology.

Some successful applications of Technology in retailing

are:-

• Innovative Products

• Better Ambience

• Smooth Processes

• Membership Cards

• Application of Audio and visual media

• E-Commerce

• Innovative Merchandising

• Non-Store formats of Retailing

• Convenient Mode of Payment

• Connectivity among stores

• Innovative ways of Advertising

• Improved Supply Chain Management

Innovative Products

Innovativeness in product variety has been done by

companies. Companies have gone for keeping more

product assortments to increase their customer base.

Continuous increase in product lines has been a profitable

move for retailers. Some of them have gone for scrambled

marketing to attract new and more customers. We can

take the example of BATA which has increased its product

lines from Shoes and Socks to School and Office bags,

Belts, Purses, etc.

Titan is another example which has changed the meaning

of a watch from a time keeping instrument to a ‘Fashion

Accessory’. Technology has also been very used by

manufacturers in offering more variety to the customers.

Customers even have the option of designing their own

products-the website www.makemypc.com from LG is

one such example. Dell is another very successful and

classical example which have been offering this choice of

designing your own products online since a long time.

Another option is going to come from Coca Cola which has

begun beta-testing an RFID enabled drink dispenser that

the company claims will transform the soft drink

dispensing industry, by providing more than 100 drink

options from a single machine. Named Freestyle (figure

given below), the machine utilizes RFID technology to

identify 30 or more cartridges, determine the Quantity of

flavoring inside each, and transmit data back to Coca-Cola

indicating which drinks are being consumed and when.

This application of technology could be highly productive

for other companies which use vending machines for

their primary or additional sales. Companies selling hot or

cold beverages can very tactfully use them to enhance

their sales. Companies like- Nescafe, Pepsi, Unilever, etc.

could be a major customers these vending machines.

Another interesting RFID application has been in the Ice-

cream retailing. This application has been seen in the

International market but yet needs to be introduced in

the Indian market. seen Izzy’s Ice-cream chain has

successfully used RFID to update the available ice-cream

flavors on its website. A special webpage has been

launched on the company’s website that shows all

available flavors, updated regularly at an interval of three

minutes. The company has installed Impinj reader

antennas in its display cases which reads the RFID tag of

the available flavor and updates the stocks.

Better Ambience

This has been one of the important success factors of

organized retailing. Brands like Raymond, Vimal, etc. have

innovatively used a multi-channel marketing system to

sell more. They have used the Conventional channel as

well as Exclusive showroom selling to attract more

customers and create a better brand equity for

themselves. Through the better ambience in their

exclusive stores retailers have tried to attract more

customers. Technology has played an important role in

65

Impact of Technology in Attracting Retail Customers

providing this better ambience through new and better

ways of architectural designs, air conditioning systems,

power backup facilities, multistory parking, etc.

Technological Innovation has also been successfully used

by retailers to attract more competent staff for handling

their operations. They have offered a good and lucrative

environment at workplace, have offered shifts to work

and have also offered a better career path. Training in

various areas has been regularly offered to employees to

upgrade and update themselves. This has helped in

improving the moral as well as productivity of the

employees.

Smooth Processes

Technological innovation has become a primary driver in

improving retail productivity. Innovation in technology

has made the billing procedure very convenient and

faster by use of device like Optical Scanners. It has also

been helpful in enhancing the management of inventory.

RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) device has been

another important technological innovation for the big

organized retailers. It has speeded up their store

management process and at the same time increased the

safety level in their warehouses and within their retail

stores. RFID has increased the speed of receiving stores in

the warehouses. Its use in products has reduced theft in

the outlets. RFID has increased the possibility of

successfully offering wide variety of product to

customers.

Information Technology (IT) has been one of the prime

enabler in bringing smoothness in business operations. It

applies to all types of business including retailing. It is

acting as a catalyst for their success. Information

Technology ensures that the business is run on the right

economic guidelines. Use of Information Technology in

opening E-Commerce options for established retailers has

added another channel for generating sales. Use of IT to

the next level by retailers can enhance consumer

experience. As per Alok Gupta, CXO-Café Coffee Day “By

proper usage of IT we can provide our consumers the

choice to play songs and videos which they want while

having coffee”. This would definitely lead to a better and

enjoyable experience, more customer satisfaction and as

a result increased business for the seller.

Membership Cards

Membership card has been innovatively used to build

long term relationship and retain customers. The

advantage is that with the application of information

technology the same card can be used in all the stores of

that retailer regardless of the geographical location. This

helps the customer in receiving all types of benefits

applicable on the card whenever he purchases. Since the

points in his card increases the more he uses it he

automatically moves to the stores of which he is a

member. Organized retailers have joined hands to

increase the loyalty of their customers and are offering

such cards jointly which is another advantage. “Payback

card” is an example of such joint effort which can be used

in Big Bazaar, Lifestyle, HPCL Petrol pumps, etc. “Reliance

One card” is another example which is valid in all reliance

stores whether you are buying apparels or groceries or

footwear or consumer durables, etc. from any of its stores

anywhere in India. This has also been helpful in increasing

loyalty of customers for the retail stores.

Application of Audio and visual media

Audio and video technology has been innovatively used in

retail stores. It helps in knowing the preference of

customers based on which firms come to find the

following:

• Which products are demanded and in what

quantities?

• The buyer behavior of customers.

Fig.: Coca cola freestyle machine and Izzy’s Ice cream Display with RFID tag and Impinj reader.

66

Prastuti: Vol. I, No. 1, July-December 2012

The above inputs help the retailers in making those

products available and displaying the products

accordingly to increase their sales. Audi has been

effectively used for “In-Store-Promotion” by retailers.

Video has been successfully used for surveillance and

increasing the safety and security inside the stores. It has

also being used for keeping an eye on employees

operations.

Non-Store formats of Retailing

Technology has removed the necessity of physical store as

the only way of retailing. Non-store retailing formats have

also been innovatively used to be successful in business.

These formats have been used both as an additional

format of retailing or as the only format of retailing. These

non-store retailing formats are E-commerce websites,

selling through television, phone orders, mail orders, etc.

Some companies have innovatively have used E-

commerce as a successful new format of retailing and

have used this format as the only way of doing business.

Amazon.com is a live example of it which has used a non-

store format of doing retail business. This non-store

format has also led to providing more options as well as

designing their own product by customers. In the present

market situation customers value convenience and speed

over money (Agarwal, Vaishali, 2010). The format of E-

stores which has 24X7 availability has been very popular

because it offers the above benefit. This format has been

very popular among the E-generation who is internet

savvy. It has also been very much preferred by the Old-age

customers and those customers who are very busy and in

lack of time.

Television has been another technological platform for

selling products and services. It’s major advantage is its

reach and popularity in the masses. The products can be

displayed attractively and customers can be properly

educated through this channel. This medium is gaining

high acceptance particularly for branded products.

Innovative Merchandising

Innovativeness in merchandising has led to more sales.

By studying the buyer behavior through use of technology

companies have displayed their products in the right area

of the stores and at the right angle and sight of the

customers. Retailing Chains like Reliance and Big Bazaar

have merchandised low priced products of renowned

companies near their billing counters. Products like

batteries, chocolates, small plastic containers, noodles,

etc. are placed on these spots to attract the attention of

the customers during billing which has led to impulse

purchases as much decision making is not required by the

customers in such purchases.

Convenient Mode of Payment

Increasing use of plastic money (i.e. - Debit cards and

Credit cards) to make payment while purchasing has

added convenience and value to the shopping experience

and reduced the risk of carrying cash. This convenience

has not only facilitated the planned purchases of

customers but has also increased the impulse purchases

of the customers which are unplanned. These facilities

have not only facilitated convenience and safety for the

customers and but at the same time brought more

business for the retailers. Plastic money convenience has

facilitated the unplanned and impulse purchases of the

customers. This again is an example of application of

technology for making purchasing convenient for

customers and increasing sales for retailers.

Connectivity among stores

Technology has so well connected the stores of the

retailer that if we are looking for some product in a store

and that is not available then they hold the ability to check

its availability at their other store and make it available to

us. Technology has facilitated the search of goods in a

store where number of products sold are very high. Video

Kiosks or Personal Computers are available in the stores

on which we can search for the required items availability.

This type of facility is very common in a book store like

“Crossword” or a music store like “Planet M”.

Innovative ways of Advertising

Technology is today playing a very important role in

promotion of products. Text messaging has been used by

banks to promote and popularize its products and

services (Gopal, K., 2007). This mode has been faster and

very-very cheaper to reach the target consumers.

W e b s i t e s l i k e w w w . w a y s 2 s m s . c o m a n d

www.fullonsms.com have helped in achieving the above

because they are offering free service for sending SMS on

mobiles. This has been used successfully by big but small

retailers also. Mobile Banking would be the most targeted

tool in the near future by all banks because the number of

mobile connection would be soon more than our

population.

67

Impact of Technology in Attracting Retail Customers

Digital Advertising has been used by many retailers to

promote their products on the internet. Through digital

advertising they are promoting products on popular

website, online search engines, social networking sites

(like-twitter and face book). Blogs and Chat rooms have

also been used effectively for the same purpose. Blog is an

online open forum where people express their views on

different topics. Chat rooms are created by company on

their own websites where they invite people to put their

views and interact. They have been an important source

of creating awareness about products and also for taking

their feedback. One important feature of digital

advertising is its 24X7 availability on the net.

Improved Supply Chain Management

Supply chain management is another important area

where use of Information Technology can help the

retailers in identifying the right inventory and maintaining

it. Right application of Information Technology provides

real-time information which is very helpful in generating

the reports about sales and stocks for retailers. These

reports enable the retailers in taking important, timely

and immediate and decisions.

The USP of ‘Everyday Low Prices’ and its Customer

Orientation has made Wal-Mart the leading retailer of the

world today. It has grown up so much that today it is much

bigger company than many big manufacturing

corporations in terms of Sales Revenue. In 2005, Wal-

Mart was rated as one of America’s top five most admired

corporations by Fortune magazine. Wal-Mart has become

a true textbook example of how a retailer can maintain

growth without moving away from its original core values

of low overheads, the use of innovative distribution

systems, appropriate application of technology, IT tools

and customer focus- whereby employees swear to serve

the customer.

Innovative application of Software’s in supporting,

managing and monitoring business operations have been

very productive. These applications have been very

fruitful in knowing real time stocks which have helped in

replenishing the stocks on time and avoiding shortages.

Conclusion

It can be concluded that innovation has been the success

mantra in the past, it is the success mantra on which retail

organizations are growing and flourishing today and will

remain the success mantra in the future also for the

retailers. Retailers need to identify the areas in which

innovation is possible to attract customers and be

successful in their business.

Organizations are required to innovate and invest in new

products, services and technology. Technology has been

the major driver of these innovation as its application

brings new products, new services and developments in

the supporting infrastructure required to attract and

retain customers. A continuous up gradation in all the

areas is very necessary for retailers to be successful.

These areas of technological innovation could be outlined

as:

• Products

• After Sales Services

• Technologies required to improve product quality

• Technologies related to supporting process like-

Optical Scanners for billing procedures and RFID for

receiving stores which could speed up the processes

and give a positive edge over competitors

• Technologies like RFID have also increased the

possibility of successfully offering more variety of a

product. Ex-The vending machine of Coca-Cola. It

has also increased the safety level of stores

• Better ambience and merchandising

• Promotional Schemes

• Video and Audio media for communicating with

customers, data collection and surveillance

• Better working environment for employees

References

• Agrawal Vaishali, “Innovative Marketing Practices

For Evolving Customers” Indian Journal of

Marketing, August 2010.

• Gopal, K, “Text Messaging: An Emerging Marketing

Tool” Indian Journal of Marketing, November 2007.

• Kar, Malobi, “Development Potential in India:

Interview with Anuj Puri” Retail Policy Issues, The

Retail Digest, 2010.

• Evans Joel R., Berman Barry, Retail Management – A

strategic Approach, Pearson Education, 2007.

• Kotler Philip, Keller Kevin Lane, Koshy Abraham, Jha

Mithileshwar, Marketing Management, Pearson

Prentice Hall, 2009.

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Prastuti: Vol. I, No. 1, July-December 2012

• Pradhan Swapna, Retailing Management, Tata

McGraw Hill, 2011.

• Daymond Jay, Pintel Gerald, Retail Buying, Pearson

Education, 2008.

• Ramaswamy V. S., Namakumari S., Marketing

Management, Macmillan India Ltd., 2007.

• Narayanan V.K., Managing Technology and

Innovation for Competitive Environment, Pearson

Education, 2008.

• Kumar Sunil (2012). “Foreign Direct Investment In

Multi-Brand Retail: Opportunities And Threats”

Indian Journal Of Marketing, May 2012.

• Sify Finance, “Battle Ahead for Government in

Allowing Foreign Retailers”, 29th August, 2010.

• “National Policy on Regulation of Organized Retail

Sector in Retail Trade: A Proposal” People

Democracy. Vol. XXXI, No. 23, 10 June 2007.

• “Retail FDI: The Battle Hots Up.”The Hindustan

Times, 30 August, 2010.

• “The Financial Express. “BJP Opposes FDI in Retail

Sector”, 6 September, 2010.

• http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/view/4967

• http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/view/7651

• www.yum.com

• www.cocacola.com

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Impact of Technology in Attracting Retail Customers

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