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Vol. - III, Issue - I, July 2010 - December 2010

Sinhgad Business Review

ISSN : 0974-0597

01

11

21

28

36

42

49

55

60

65

Editorial Board

SINHGAD BUSINESS REVIEW

CONTENT

RESEARCH PAPERS

1. Evaluation of Internet Banking Services Quality Based on Customer Satisfaction

and Expectation - A Study of Indian Banks - Poolad Daneshvar, H. N. Ramesh .........................................01

2. Ethical Practices in Higher Education Sector with Special Reference to Kolhapur District

- Manisha N. Paliwal ............................................................................................................................................11

3. The Diffusion Of Online Banking Among Indian Consumers: An Empirical Study

- Neha Dixit, Saroj Kumar Datta ..........................................................................................................................21

4. Human Capital Development: A Study of Tourism Industry in Jammu

- Jaya Bhasin .........................................................................................................................................................28

5. The Role of Psychological Contract in Retention Management

- Babita Agarwal, Kshama Ganjiwale ..................................................................................................................36

6. Retail Environment: Strategic linkage of store choice influencers, customer experience touch

points and customer total retail experience at national level organized retail chain stores

- Pravin Patil..........................................................................................................................................................42

7. Case Study- On Value Methodology for Engineering Business

- Shyamkant V. Shrigiriwar ..................................................................................................................................49

ABSTRACTS

8. Framework for Evaluation and Selection of the Software Packages: A Hybrid Knowledge

Based System Approach - Anil Jadhav , Rajendra Sonar ...................................................................................55

9. Implications of Future Vehicular Traffic and Its Management: A Study of Pune City for the

Next Decade - Rupali Jain , V. G. Vedak ...........................................................................................................60

BOOK REVIEW

10. Book Review of "Toyota Talent - developing your people the Toyota Way" by Jeffrey K. Liker

& David P. Meier (Tata McGraw-Hill Edition)

- S. U. Gawade , Aparna Ghaisas ..........................................................................................................................65

We are pleased to present Sinhgad Business Review (SBR), a peer-reviewed Research Journal of Sinhgad Institute of Management, Pune. The journal is multidisciplinary in nature and encompasses wide range of areas such as Management, Economics, Law, Computers and Banking. Research is a powerful driver for change and a tool-cum strategy for offering solutions to problems and challenges.

“In God we trust; all others bring data" said Dr. J. M. Juran. This issue focuses on the offbeat areas to ensure that our research readers are thought-provoked to create insights in learning anew what is already known. This endeavor has been set-up to encourage authentic attempts to leverage competent work place efforts by way of quantifiable and qualitative findings through researched contributions. Researching has no boundaries but only those conditioned by criteria which help one to upgrade. At the very outset, we express our gratitude to all the members of the editorial board and contributors of this issue.

The editorial team will continue to bring out the relevant and application oriented research through the platform of SBR.

Issac Asimov once mentioned that “Writing to me, is simply thinking through my fingers”. We, the editorial team of SBR strongly believe in this quote and our future issues of SBR will keep on reflecting the same.

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Constructive feedback is awaited to propel continuous improvement. Wish each one of you a thoughtful reading.

-SBR Editorial Team

From The Editor's Desk

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Copyright

Vol. - III, Issue - I, July 2010 - Dec 2010

Sinhgad Business Review ISSN : 0974-0597

bstract:

This paper deals with the concept of service quality and has demonstrated the model of service quality gaps; it aims to measure customers' gap between satisfaction levels of interpretation of services and their preferences of the interpretive service in internet banking at Indian commercial banks. The research questions are utilized to measure the gap between expectation and satisfaction levels of customers about quality of internet banking. For this purpose a questionnaire with five-point Likert scale is applied to measure customers expectation as well as satisfaction. Data was obtained from 102 respondents and analyzed using SPSS 12 software by employing factor analysis and multiple regressions. Results indicate that there are significant differences between overall expectations and satisfaction levels of customers. For practitioners, it is worth noting that customers are exclusively concerned with the "Sufficient menu for transaction"," Variety of services readily accessible", "Availability for business" and "Have a user-friendly system", as important factors for them to apply internet banking. The paper contains material relevant to the internet banking industry, and implications are discussed and recommendations are offered for improving internet banking services.

Key Words: Satisfaction, Expectation, Gap model of Service Quality

Introduction:

The digital revolution has certainly changed almost every aspect of daily life as we step into the twenty-first century. One of the technologies which really brought information

revolution in society is internet technology and it is rightly regarded as the third wave of revolution after the agricultural and industrial revolutions. Internet allows banks to conduct transactions from anywhere, anytime and is used for transactions, payments, etc. The rapid diffusion of the Internet, in particular, has revolutionised the delivery channels used by the financial services industry.

A major force behind these growths is technology, which is breaching geographical, industrial and regulatory barriers, creating new products, services and market opportunities and developing more information- and systems-oriented business and management processes.

Numerous factors such as competitive cost, customer service, increase in education and income level of customers, etc. influence banks to evaluate their technology and assess their electronic commerce and internet banking (i-banking) strategies. The significance of the Internet in today's competitive and increasingly global banking environment has been widely acknowledged (Thorton and White, 2001, 2000)

In India, commercial banks have been quick to realize the importance of this factor to competitive advantage. The banking industry has been a witness for the last decade to several regulatory changes that have resulted in a heightened level of competition among the banks. The entry of private sector banks and foreign banks, subsequent to the recommendation of the Narasimhan committee, has increased the expectations of the customers in all areas relating to customer service (Thampy and Madanmohan, 1999). Since 1990s, they have incessantly innovated, through technology-superior products and services, such as multi-function automatic teller machines (ATMs), electronic share application, tele-banking, electronic transfers, electronic cash cards, and Internet-based e-banking.

i-banking in India is a new delivery channel for banks in India. Ravi et al (2007) declared i-banking channel as both, an informative and a transactional medium. However, i-banking has not become popular in India as expected. Banks with lower market share also identify i-banking technology as a means to increase the market share by attracting more and more customers through this new channel of delivery of banking services.

Applications of information technology in the service industry

A

Evaluation of Internet Banking Services Quality Based on Customer Satisfaction and Expectation - A Study of Indian Banks

1. Research Scholar, B.N.Bahadur Institute of

Management Science,

DOS in Business Administration,

University of Mysore,India

E-Mail: [email protected]

2. MBA, Ph.D.

Director Kuvempu University,

PG Center, Kadur , Karnataka ,India

E-Mail: [email protected]

Poolad Daneshvar Dr. H. N. Ramesh1 2,

are now prevalent, and i-banking is one of the prominent examples. For Internet users, online banking is convenient and time-saving compared with traditional retail banking. Nowadays, superior service quality has entered the picture as a differentiating strategy (Zeithaml, Parasuraman and Malhotra, 2002). The complex nature of services, attached with the growing prominence of the services sector has also increased the need for better service quality. Therefore, the topic of service quality is increasingly recognized as being one of the key strategic values of organizations in both the manufacturing and service sectors (Lewis, 1990). Service quality allows the companies to differentiate itself from its competitors by increasing sales and market shares, it results in the satisfaction and retention of customers, it leads to enhanced post purchase behaviour and brand loyalty and moreover, new customers are attracted through positive word-of-mouth, (Newman, 2001; Wang et al., 2003)

On the other hand, service quality has been linked with customer satisfaction within the banking industry (Avkiran, 1994) and has been recognised as a key strategic issue for organizations operating in service sectors (Lewis and Mitchell, 1990). Thus, Organisations achieving higher levels of service quality, have high levels of customer satisfaction and an antecedent of sustainable competitive advantage (Lewis and Mitchell, 1990).

Literature review:

The available literatures relating to the subject under study were scanned. These include the previous research on customer satisfaction, customer perception, electronic delivery of services and on the measurement of i-banking service quality.

i-banking service quality attributes:

Over the past few decades, service organisations, including retail banks, have been forced by such key trends as innovation in technology and deregulation to focus greater attention on their distribution channel strategies (Bauer et al., 2005). Liu and Arnett (2000) recognized five important dimensions of online service quality in relation to customer satisfaction on the website. Among these, the quality of information that is relevant, accurate, timely, customised and complete are given priority for the customer satisfaction in the online service. Joseph et al. (1999) investigated the influence of the internet on the delivery of banking services. They found six underlying dimensions of i-banking service quality, such as convenience and accuracy, feedback and complaint management, efficiency, queue management, accessibility and customisation.

Customer satisfaction and service quality:

Service quality represents the difference between customer expectations of what a firm should provide and perceived

service performance, if expectations are greater than performance, then perceived quality is less than satisfactory and hence customer dissatisfaction occurs (Lewis and Mitchell, 1990). In another word, service quality can thus be defined as the difference between customer expectations of service and perceived service.

Zeithaml and Bitner (2000) defined customer satisfaction as the "customers' evaluation of a product or service in terms of whether that product or service has met their needs and expectations". On the other hand, Oliver (1997) defined satisfaction as "the consumer's fulfillment response, the degree to which the level of fulfillment is pleasant or unpleasant".

Customer satisfaction is the leading criterion for determining the quality that is actually delivered to customers through the product/ service and by the accompanying servicing (Vavra, 1997). Customer satisfaction and service quality are two distinct, though highly correlated, constructs (Bansal and Taylor, 1997; Dabholkar et al., 2000).

Therefore understanding customer expectations is a prerequisite for delivering superior service (Parasuraman et al., 1991). Achieving customer satisfaction is a vital target for most service firms today (Jones and Sasser, 1995) as it leads to improved profits, word-of-mouth and less marketing expenditure (Yeung et al., 2002). In case of competitive marketplace, where businesses compete for customers, customer satisfaction and service quality are seen as a key differentiator and has increasingly become a key element of business strategy and critical success factor for organisations to build their competitive advantage and enhance their competitiveness. Competitive advantage refers to capabilities that differentiate an organization from its competitors and enable it to create a defensible position over its competitors (Porter. M.E., 1985). Competitive capabilities consist of price/cost, quality, delivery, flexibility (Handfield.R.B, et al, 1995), and time based competition (Kessler.E et al, 1996). Service quality based differentiation is another barrier to entry, develops reputation for the organization and is an intangible asset creating most of corporate growth and shareholder value.

Sureshchandar et al. (2003) looked at service quality in public, private and foreign banks in India and Yavas et al. (1997) studied about the relationship between service quality, customer satisfaction, complaint behavior and commitment in the banking industry of India. They found positive relationships between service quality and customer satisfaction with customer behavioral intentions (Anderson and Sullivan, 1993; Parasuraman et al., 1988) as well as financial performance (Yeung et al., 2002). Noel Yee-Man Siu et al, (2005) studied about measuring service quality in i-banking in Hong Kong. They attempted to examine customers' service quality perceptions in i-banking, as well as the impact of these perceptions on customer satisfaction.

Rodand et al (2009) investigated about the relationships

2 Evaluation Gap of Internet Banking Service Quality by Using SERVQUAL Approach ? Poolad Daneshvar ? Dr. H. N. Ramesh

among three dimensions of service quality that influences overall internet banking service quality and its subsequent effect on customer satisfaction in a New Zealand banking context. The results showed significant relationships among online customer service quality, online information system quality, banking service product quality, overall internet banking service quality and customer satisfaction.

Kirti Dutta and Anil Dutta (2009) conducted research about expectations and perceptions of the consumers across the three banking sectors in India. They further described the factors affecting the quality perception of the customers in the banking sector. They found that in the banking sector it is the foreign banks which are perceived to be offering better quality of services followed by the private and then public banks. They also found that these perceptions are reflected in the financial performances of the banks. With the increasing competition amongst banks, the findings could act as a strategic tool to achieve competitive advantage and customer satisfaction.

Perceptions Vs Satisfaction:

Customer satisfaction could be satisfaction with the quality of product/service, the nature of relationship, the price/performance ratio of a product/service, and the ability of the product/service to meet customer's expectations (Brown.C,1998). While perception of service quality is considered more long-term (Parasuraman.A et al,1988), satisfaction is more transaction-specific and transitory, and service quality is considered a predecessor of satisfaction (Dick. et al,1994).

Therefore, it is clear that perceived service quality and satisfaction are closely related. However, the difference between the two can be seen by the fact that a consumer can be satisfied with a specific service, but at the same time may not feel that the range of services was of high quality. Using a similar example, Storbacka et al (1994) explored this aspect as: "a customer could, therefore, respond on a questionnaire that a particular bank is of high quality, even if this did not mean this customer was satisfied with using the bank. It might have too high interest rates on loans or it might not fit the customer's preferences for some other reason". Sohail.M.S et al (2008) measured the quality of service from customers' perspective. With an enormous growth in i-banking, they discussed how banks can be competitive by providing quality services. Results were based on a factor analysis identifying three factors that influence users' evaluation of service quality of internet banking services. These factors were labeled as "efficiency and security", "fulfillment" and "responsiveness".

Gaps Model of Service Quality (SERVQUAL):

The widespread adoption of service quality concept and the close attention of the service firm managers to this concept motivate the researchers to explore more solid methods for service quality measurements and the evaluation of it

(Parasuraman et al., 1988; Dabholkar et al. 1996; Brady and Cronin, 2001). For this aim, gap theory is the most accepted model in the service literature, although some criticisms about its validity are also discussed by researchers (Teas 1993). Zhu et al. (2002) explored the impact of information technology (IT) on service quality in a large consumer bank. Their results showed that IT based services have a direct impact on the SERVQUAL dimensions and an indirect impact on customers' perceived service quality and customer satisfaction.

The gaps model positions the key concepts, strategies and decisions in services marketing in a manner that begins with the customer and builds the organization. Tasks around what is needed to close the gap between customer expectations and perceptions should be identified (Zeithaml and Bitner, 1996). Not knowing what customers expect (Gap1), not selecting the right service designs and standards (Gap 2), not delivering to service standards (Gap 3), and not matching performance to promises (Gap4), are the underlying causes behind the customer gap, etc. (see Figure 1). Among these service quality gaps, the customer gap is the most vital point to consider. The major aim of the gaps model in this study is to analyze the difference between customer expectations and perceptions. To increase customer satisfaction, firms first need appropriate measurement techniques for measuring and evaluating the gap between expectations and perceptions. After receiving the service, customers compare the performance of the service provider with their expectations which are mainly influenced by word of mouth, personal needs and past experiences. In most of the service settings, however, customers may not get the service level they expected before the service experience. The performance of the service provider falls either below customers’ expectations or above them. When expectations are high, service is perceived to be of exceptional quality and also to be a pleasant surprise. When expectations are not met, service quality is deemed unacceptable. When expectations are confirmed by perceived service, quality is satisfactory. However, quality, which falls short of expectations, has a greater effect on customer satisfaction than quality which exceeds satisfaction (Zeithaml and Bitner, 1996). In the services sector, being different has a special advantage among rivals who offer similar goods and services. Parasuraman et al (1988), argue that, with minor modification, SERVQUAL can be adapted to any service organization. They further argue that information on service quality gaps can help managers diagnose where performance improvement can best be targeted. The largest negative gaps, combined with assessment of where expectations are highest, facilitate prioritization of performance improvement. Equally, if gap scores in some aspects of service do turn out to be positive, implying expectations are actually not just being met but exceeded, then this allows managers to review whether they may be "over-supplying" this particular feature of the service and whether there is potential for re-deployment of resources into features which are underperforming.

Sinhgad Business Review ? ISSN : 0974-0597 ? Vol. - III, Issue - I, July 2010 - December 2010 3

Objectives of the Study:

The main objective of this study is to evaluate customers' gap between their perception and expectation levels of interpreting i-banking services and predicting the key factors of the customer perceived i-banking service quality in Indian banks. Specifically, this study attempts to examine the effectiveness of interpretation services and to determine if the interpretive services provided by the Indian banks meet the needs of the general public.

Methodology used:

Sample:

A survey was conducted to evaluate customers' gap between their perception and expectation levels according to the SERVQUAL model at Indian commercial banks. Out of a total of 118 customers 102 correctly completed the questionnaires received. They were obtained from all categories of customers from different sectors (public, private and foreign) who used i- banking facilities in October 2009 to January 2010.

The survey was conducted over a 6-weeks period at different branches and at ATMs. Distribution of questionnaires was carried out only during the official time between 11 A.M. to 4 P.M.

In this study, judgmental sampling method was employed from customers who represented each banking sector i.e. public, private and foreign banks and desired range of demographic characteristics (sex, age, profession etc.) were considered. Data was collected by personally contacting the respondents and explaining in detail about the survey. To ensure that the instrument reached the target, a screening question was asked at the beginning of the questionnaire as to whether respondents had performed a banking transaction on the internet.

The tools used:

The primary data used for the current study has been collected through the survey method by using the self-structured questionnaire, which consists of three sections: First section deals with customers' expectations and satisfaction of i-banking attributes. In this section of the questionnaire, the


Figure 1. Model Service Quality Gaps (Parasuraman et al., 1985; Curry, 1999; Luk and Layton 2002)

respondents were asked to indicate the level of perceptions based on a Likert scale from one (strongly Disagree) to five (Strongly agree). The second section of the questionnaire deals with frequency of customers' usage of i-banking channel. Finally, the third section contains the questions related to socio-demographic profiles of respondents. SPSS 12.0 for windows was employed in order to access the particular results required for the scale measurement. Descriptive analysis such as means, standard deviation and frequencies were calculated. Reliability of the scale was tested, dimensionality of the scale was confirmed through an exploratory factor analysis and regression analysis.

Hypotheses:

1. There is no significant difference between customers' expectations and satisfaction toward i-banking interpretation services.

2. There is no correlation between overall customers' satisfaction and attributes.

3. Few factors best predict overall satisfaction of the customers' satisfaction.

Analysis, Discussion and Results:


Table 1 :Respondents' Demographic Profile

DemographicCharacteristics

Gender Male 63 Female 37

Age Less than 25 10 25-35 53 35-45 22 45-55 10 Above 55 5

Education Below Graduation 7 Graduation 39 Post graduation 48 Others 6

Profession Professional 18 Salaried 33 Business 45 Others 4

Household Under Rs 10000 7 Monthly Rs 10000 -20000 37 Income Rs 20000-35000 41

Over Rs 35000 15

Internet usage Every day 48 frequency 4-6 times per week 19

1-3 times per week 28 3 times in a month or more seldom 5

Percentage

Demographic Characteristics of the Respondents:

The demographic characteristics of the respondents are shown in Table 1. The gender distribution of the respondents was quite even, with 37% female respondents and 63% male respondents. The dominant age group of the respondents was 25 to 35 years (53%), followed by 35 to 45 years (22%), less than 25 years (10%), and 45 to 55 (10%), whereas above 55 years made up the smallest group, representing 5% of the respondents.

In terms of the level of education, almost 48% of the respondents had post graduate education, 39% of the respondents had graduate level education; and 7% of the respondents had secondary school education. The result shows the relatively high educational attainment of the respondents. With regard to occupation, the most often mentioned occupations were "Business" (45%) followed by "Salaried" (33%), "Professional" (18%) and "Others" (4%).

With regard to respondents' monthly income, the largest group included those with monthly household income of Rs 20,000-35,000 (41%), 37% of the respondents had monthly household income of Rs 10,000 -20,000 , 15% of the respondents had monthly household income of over Rs 35,000, and 7% of the respondents had monthly household income of under Rs 10,000.

In case of internet usage frequency, almost 48% of the respondents used internet every day, 28% of the respondents used 1-3 times per week, 19% of the respondents used 4-6 times per week and 5% used internet 3 times in a month or more seldom (see Table 1).

Expectation and Perception Gaps by Underlying Dimensions:

The concept of measuring the difference between expectations and perceptions in the form of the SERVQUAL gap score proved very useful for assessing levels of service quality (Shahin A, 2005). Table 2 shows that the average ratings for expectations are higher than the average perception ratings in almost all of the attributes. The results of the quantitative application of the SERVQUAL model in i-banking show that the overall expectations of customers are higher than their perception. This proves the existence of a negative SERVQUAL gap (-0.40).

In order to measure the gaps between the expected and perceived service levels (Gap 5), 15 major i-banking service dimensions were grouped. Then, to assess the significant difference of the arithmetic means for each dimension, pair wise t-tests were performed between expectation and perception scores at 95 per cent confidence level. According to the results, mean differences between the expected and perceived service levels regarding all of the 15 dimensions, 12 dimensions were statistically significant (see Table 2). This demonstrated to us that there were service quality gaps in 12 service categories. Further study of the paired differences in

Table 2: Descriptive Statistics on Customer' Expectation, Perception and Gap Mean of Service Quality In internet

banking (N=102)

N Dimension Expectation Perception Gap t Sig.o Mean S.D Mean S.D Mean (2tailed)

(P-E)

1 have up-to-date equipment 4.06 0.85 3.86 0.89 -0.20 1.36 0.18 Accept

2 performing the service right the first time 4.47 0.63 4.14 0.73 -0.33 2.59 0.01 Reject

3 The speed of service delivery 4.26 0.63 4.06 0.76 -0.20 1.62 0.11 Accept

4 Availability for business. 3.59 0.88 3.93 0.69 0.34 -2.36 0.02 Reject

5 Wide variety of services readily accessible. 4.00 0.56 4.03 0.68 0.03 -0.30 0.77 Accept

6 Have a user-friendly system 4.07 0.35 3.56 0.85 -0.51 4.98 0.00 Reject

7 Easy to use 3.87 0.72 3.73 0.83 -0.14 1.11 0.27 Accept

8 Sufficient menu for transaction 4.39 0.52 3.96 0.82 -0.43 3.44 0.00 Reject

9 Provision of accurate information 3.89 0.69 3.47 0.74 -0.41 5.17 0.00 Reject

10 Feeling safe 4.14 0.75 3.31 0.88 -0.83 5.94 0.00 Reject

11 Easy access to necessary information 4.14 0.64 3.80 0.71 -0.34 2.81 0.01 Reject

12 Availability in the understanding languages 3.66 0.80 3.91 0.74 0.26 -2.03 0.05 Reject

13 Personalization of the web site 4.39 0.60 3.44 0.96 -0.94 6.43 0.00 Reject

14 Knowledge of administration 4.14 0.67 3.89 0.79 -0.26 2.12 0.04 Reject

15 Customer service 4.24 0.71 3.60 0.79 -0.64 5.12 0.00 Reject

16 Overall 4.44 0.56 4.04 0.75 -0.40 3.45 0.00 Reject

Results

Note:1. Gap mean is defined as perception mean-expectation mean;

2. A negative gap indicates that guests perceived that service delivery did not meet their expectation' a positive gap indicates that customers perceived that service delivery exceeded their expectation;

3. Denotes that there is a significant difference between (E) and (P) at 95 per cent confidence level.


overall satisfaction and nine factors were positive and significant at the 0.01 and 0.05 levels. For example, the correlation between overall satisfaction and "Have up-to-date equipment" (Factor 1) was 0.270 (p=0.024); the correlation between overall satisfaction and "Performing the service right the first time" (Factor 2) was 0.307 (p=0.010); the correlation between overall satisfaction and "Availability for business" (Factor 3) was 0.652 (p=0.000); the correlation between overall satisfaction and "Variety of services readily accessible" (Factor 4) was 0.650 (p=0.000); the correlation between overall satisfaction and "Sufficient menu for transaction" (Factor 5) was 0.706 (p=0.000); the correlation between overall satisfaction and "Easy access to necessary information" (Factor 6) was 0.287 (p=0.016); the correlation between overall satisfaction and the "Availability in the understanding languages" (Factor 7) was 0.295 (p=0.013); the correlation between overall satisfaction and "Personalization of the web site" (Factor 8) was 0.417 (p=0.000); the correlation between overall satisfaction and "Knowledge of administration" (Factor 9) was 0.497 (p=0.000). Therefore, the study indicated that the correlations between overall satisfaction and "Sufficient menu for transaction" and "Availability for business" factors were higher than that between overall satisfaction and other factors.

Table 2 also showed that the widest negative gap was in the "Personalizatiom of the web site", followed by the "Feeling safe" and "Customer Feedback Service". On the other hand there was the widest positive gap in the "Availability for business", followed by the "Variety of services readily accessible".

These results revealed reject of first hypothesis that there is a difference between customers' expectation and satisfaction of the selected i-banking services attributes.

Correlation Analysis :

A correlation coefficient measured the strength between two variables. In the study, a correlation coefficient measured the strength between the overall satisfaction of the respondents and nine factors (Have up-to-date equipment, Performing the service right the first time, Availability for business, Variety of services readily accessible, Sufficient menu for transaction, Easy access to necessary information, Availability in the understanding languages, Personalization of the web site and Knowledge of administration). The correlations between

Table 3 : Correlations Between E-banking Attributes and Overall customers' Satisfaction

Dimension Overall Satisfaction Result

have up-to-date equipment Pearson Correlation 0.270* Reject

Significant Level 0.024

performing the service right the first time Pearson Correlation 0.307** Reject


Availability for business. Pearson Correlation 0.652** Reject


Variety of services readily accessible. Pearson Correlation 0.650** Reject


Sufficient menu for transaction Pearson Correlation 0.706** Reject


Easy access to necessary information Pearson Correlation 0.287* Reject


Availability in the understanding languages Pearson Correlation 0.295* Reject


Personalization of the web site Pearson Correlation 0.417** Reject


Knowledge of administration Pearson Correlation 0.497** Reject



These results indicate reject for second hypothesis that there is correlation between overall satisfaction and the selected i-banking services attributes.

Stepwise Multiple Regression:

In Model 1 (see Table 4), when a single independent variable (X1 = Sufficient menu for transaction) was used to calculate the regression equation for predicting the dependent variable, overall customers satisfaction (Y), the correlation coefficient R was 0.706, representing 70.6% degree of association of Y and X1. The coefficient of determination (R2) indicates the percentage of total variation of Y explained by X1. Using the value of X1 reduces the error of predicting the dependent variable by 49.8%. The standard error of estimate represents the standard deviation of the actual dependent values around the regression lines. The standard error was 53.6. With the addition of another dependent variable into the model, "Variety of services readily accessible" (X2) increased R, and R2 (0.815 and 0.664), respectively. Model 3 further added another variable called "Availability for business" (X3) into the equation which further improved the capability of the model to explain the variation in Y, "Availability for business" (X3) increased R, and R2 (0.863 and 0.745), respectively. In addition, model 4 further added another variable called "Have a user-friendly system" (X4) into the equation which further improved the capability of the model to explain the variation in Y, "Have a user-friendly system" (X4) increased R, and R2 (0.874 and 0.764), respectively.

The adjusted R-square (0.750) in Table 4 tells us that the

model accounts for 75.0% of variance in the friendliness of system usage. In other words this model can predict service quality almost 75.0% correctly.

As a result "Sufficient menu for transaction" factor (R=0.706) has 49.1% contribution, further "Variety of services readily accessible" , "Availability for business" and "Have a user-friendly system" factors along with "Sufficient menu for transaction factor have 65.4 %, 73.4 % and 75.0% contribution to improve the i-banking service quality of Indian bank industry, respectively.

In addition, 25.0 % of improving factors are unaccounted and unexplained for recognition of customer satisfaction dimensions. These factors can relate to other banking policies, in terms of, interest rate of deposit, interest rate of loan, penalty rates, amount of minimum balance for saving account, several types of charges, employee's manner and marketing strategy.

These results revealed support for the third hypothesis that there are few factors best predict overall satisfaction of the customers' satisfaction.

A four-dimension model using regression analysis is developed for measuring the overall service quality of i-banking. For this purpose, in case of i- banking, Indian commercial banks should pay attention to four factors - Sufficient menu for transaction, Variety of services readily accessible, Availability for business and Have a user-friendly system - to enhance the internet service quality in banking industry in India. Concerning Table 4, the mentioned factors

Table 4 : Regression Analysis of the Factors Affecting the Existence of Service Quality in i-banking industry in India

Model Dimension R R Square Adjusted R

Square the Estimate

1 Sufficient menu for transaction 0.706a 0.498 0.491 0.536

2 Variety of services readily accessible. 0.815b 0.664 0.654 0.441

3 Availability for business. 0.863c 0.745 0.734 0.387

4 Have a user-friendly system 0.874d 0.764 0.750 0.376

a. Predictors: (Constant), Sufficient menu for transaction

b. Predictors: (Constant), Sufficient menu for transaction, Wide variety of services readily accessible.

c. Predictors: (Constant), Sufficient menu for transaction, Wide variety of services readily accessible, Availability for business.

d. Predictors: (Constant), Sufficient menu for transaction, Wide variety of services readily accessible, Availability for business., Have a user-friendly system

Std. Error of


contribute 75.0% to improvement of quality of i-banking service; on the other hand banks should conduct research to know about customer's expectation level about i-banking services and establish a proper feedback system to evaluate the customer's expectation and perception regarding i-banking services.

Conclusions:

Success in i-banking business depends on understanding the key factors in determining customer satisfaction as well as service quality. This has become even more critical in view of the increasingly global nature of competition in the banking and financial services sector, and the increasing presence of powerful foreign players in the domestic banking markets. On the other hand, in the competition within the corporate banking market, banks are increasingly aware of the importance of service quality in contributing to the development of good bank-corporate relationships. Improving such relationships should increase bank profitability and accrue other benefits such as: commitment (Perrien and Ricard, 1995) and co-operation (Zineldin, 1995).

This paper develops a measure of service quality gap in i-banking market through the SERVQUAL model and contributes towards understanding the relationship among overall customer satisfaction, and service quality attributes.

The statistical analysis shows that there exists a gap between the overall customer expectations and perceptions in the banking sector. The largest discrepancy between the customers' expectations and perceptions is in terms of "Personalization of the web site" and "Feeling safe" factors which include bank's website design and i-banking security. The insight gained in this study may offer a foundation for

future research on self-service technology, and provide useful recommendations for improving i-banking services at Indian commercial banks.

The results of the present study have a number of practical implications for the Indian commercial banks' managers who are seeking to identify the customers' satisfaction level of international as well as domestic customers. First, banks should provide reliable services in order to achieve high levels of customer satisfaction, an antecedent of sustainable competitive advantage. In the present competitive banking environment, most of the banks offer the same or similar products around the world and service quality is a vital means to differentiate them in the market place.

Second, meeting customer expectations alone is no longer enough. So, bank managers should delight their customers by exceeding their expectations to improve customer satisfaction.

It is observed that customers are satisfied with the reliability of the services provided by the banks but are not very much satisfied with the dimension of 'Feeling safe'. So, they could be applied to technology-based service encounters such as those in i-banking. Security has long been considered one of the most essential issues for i-banking users (Black et al. 2001). In this case, which involves guarding users from the risk of fraud and financial loss; it has been another important issue in safe use of the internet when conducting financial transactions. This obviously requires commitment to invest in relevant emerging technologies, particularly those with significant prospects for enhancing the convenience and accuracy of i-banking service delivery. Furthermore, to enhance "Availability for business" factor, banks can meet customer's


satisfaction through increasing and extending i-banking network centric terms like delay and bandwidth through investment to establish electronic infrastructures.

On the other hand, Indian bank managers should ensure that employees are well trained and understand the level of service in case of solving customers' technical problems. In another word, employees should be able to show adequate personal attention to customers. Ensuring that employees are well trained, and giving attention to other factors that are required for the provision of a high level of service quality, it might incur increased costs, but will provide improved customer satisfaction. They also should give customers the opportunity to talk about both their positive as well as negative experiences by improving Electronic Customer Relationship Management (e-CRM).The allocation of financial resources for the human resource applications will equip employees with a better understanding of excellence. As a result, the findings of this study show that we can reduce the service quality gap up to 75.0% percent (see table 4).Importantly, there are also unknown factors that are affecting customer satisfaction, which we suggest may relate to the absence of human interaction, interest rate of deposit and loan, penalty rates, amount of minimum balance for saving accounts, several types of charges, and marketing strategy of Indian commercial banks. This approach will assist banks in assessing their individual performance in relation to internet service quality, and provide a basis for researchers to further investigate alternative methods of customer interaction that will assist in improving customer satisfaction, loyalty and retention on banking.

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bstract:

The higher education system is seen to make a fundamental contribution to the future of any Country and plays a vital role in Country's intellectual, economic, cultural and social development. Ethics is a set of values and principles that we strongly believe and follow. It is learning what is right or wrong, and then doing the right thing.

The present study has been undertaken in two phases. The first phase includes review of relevant literature and experts' opinion to evaluate the role of ethics in Higher Education Sector, whereas the second phase involved primary data collection from the various stakeholders of Higher Education Institutions (broadly Governing Body Members, Teachers, Administrative Staff, and students). Forty-one ethical/unethical dimensions were identified and the elicited opinion of the respondents were analyzed. The model was tested with KS test for the relationship between Higher Education Management and Ethical Practices and found to be dependent on each other. The present study explores few unethical practices being followed in the Higher Education Sector. The author has suggested measures which would help resolving ethical dilemmas and which ultimately would help in minimizing the unethical practices in the Higher Education Sector.

Key Words: Ethics, Education, Management Education, Codes of Ethics.

Introduction:

Recently, there has been an increasing awareness, and more importantly increasing interest in the field of Business Ethics. This is indeed a very welcome trend! Ethics in Latin language is called 'Ethicus' and in Greek, it is called 'Ethicos'. In fact, this word has originated from "ethos" meaning character or manners. Ethics is thus said to be the source of morals. The character of a man is expressed in terms of his conduct. Ethics thus can be considered as the source of character of a person expressed as right or wrong conduct or action.

A

Associate Professor

Sinhgad Institute of Management, Pune-41

E-mail:[email protected]

Mrs. Manisha N. Paliwal

Ethical Practices in Higher Education Sector with Special Reference to Kolhapur District

Business ethics defines how a company integrates core values - such as honesty, trust, respect, and fairness into its policies, practices and decision-making. Business ethics also involves a company's compliance with legal standards and adherence to internal rules and regulations. Business ethics has come to be considered a management discipline, especially since the birth of the social responsibility movement in the 1960s. An increasing number of people asserted that because businesses were making a profit from using our country's resources, these businesses owe it to our country to work to improve society. All businesses exist and operate within society therefore they should contribute to welfare of society.

Review of Literature:

Fenner(1999) suggested that though teachers may not teach ethics or values as a part of the curriculum, they do so through daily modeling, helping students make choices, helping children learn to socialize and reinforcing those behaviors that are successful and those that should be avoided. David Carr(2000) emphasizes on Philosophy of education and its ethics. With the help of a case study Deni Elliott (1995) explores the role of ethics in education. Carlton Mitchell (1989) contributed towards ethical education with various terms such as medical ethics, Hippocratic Oath, ethics in management , legal ethics, critical legal studies, normative ethics,& metaethics. Kevin Coupe (2006) recalls the era when executives at Enron and Worldcom have defined on the front pages of the US' newspapers the essence of greed and mismanagement, and how ethical lapses can have far-ranging implications that destroy not just companies, but the lives of thousands of people.

A Research paper by Samuel V Bruton (2004) describes a way of teaching the golden rule through a series of business-oriented examples intended to bring out its strengths and weaknesses. The method described also introduces students to some basic moral reasoning skills and acquaints them with a wide range of moral issues that arise in business. Kant's formula of humanity is discussed in the final section as a principle that overcomes at least some of the golden rule's defects. The Research conducted by Marilynn P Fleckenstein (1997) suggests that the traditional way of integrating ethics in education into required functional courses actually results in a decline in moral reasoning. It is suggested that ethics in education needs to be personalized based on the individual

student. An appropriate goal for business ethics courses would be to make students aware of the ethical and social dimensions of the business decision-making process. A Research paper Sarah Pitts & Rob Kamery (2002) examines the growing emphasis colleges and business firms are placing on business ethics, as well as how it informs the lives of those who practice it. Current views and legislation have only enhanced the significance of ethics codes, making them a crucial part of the corporate landscape. The increasing relevance of the costs of disregarding ethics in business is noted. Emphasis is placed on the importance of stressing business ethics in society, and on effective methods of teaching the concepts to students so that they will carry a strong ethical sense into the business world.

Ethics in Higher Education:

Colleges and universities are custodians of knowledge. The possession of knowledge is the source of power. Colleges and Universities create and disseminate knowledge within a particular society. They are institutions with moral responsibilities to maintain the well-being of the Society.

The higher education system is seen to make a fundamental contribution to the future of any country and plays a vital role in country's intellectual, economic, cultural and social development. The higher education sector educates our future professional workforce, creates future leaders, provides jobs, drives much of our economic and regional success, and facilitates cultural and trade links with other countries. The sector plays a key role in the growing knowledge and innovation based economic health. It enriches our social and environmental landscape and promotes tolerance debates which underpin society.

Work in academic life, like any other kind of work, is laden with values and has a moral dimension that emerges from the ethical reflection characteristic of institutional self-scrutiny. Ultimately professorial knowledge is not proprietary but communal, dedicated to the welfare of society through the transmission and extension of knowledge. The role of the scholar can be conceived in four phases: teaching, discovery, application, and integration, each of which has its own ethical assumptions and problems. Often the competing needs of these roles cause conflicts for the scholar teacher/researcher. Leadership in higher education continues to be under intense pressure to respond to societal issues resulting from trends in demographics and enrollment and economic and social forces that bring both possible disruption and/or opportunity. The use of values expressed by the mission statement and ethical reflection as resources in decision making can positively affect the institution's ability to respond to complex decisions about funding and budget. Students on today's campuses encounter a variety of complex situations for which they are often ill-prepared by experience or individual development. The relationship between students' attitudes and values and the environment that supports or challenges them stands as a dynamic dialectic of confirmation and rejection that affects

the ethical positions and choices of both the individual and the institution. The distinctive nature of the institutional ethos affects the values and interests manifested in the campus climate and the overall effect of the college experience on the student.

Issues facing higher education, such as racism, sexism, homophobia, substance abuse, and academic dishonesty, argue for the pursuit of an ethical environment that consistently asserts the importance of human dignity, nourishes growth and achievement, and insists on respect in interpersonal communication and relations.

Research Methodology:

The study was carried in two different phases; the first phase has involved identifying the various dimensions of ethical practices in Higher Education Sector. These parameters were derived based on literature available on ethical practices in Education Sector and were further shown to academic experts. The researchers also took the viewpoints of the stakeholders on the selected dimensions through unstructured discussions.

The second phase of the study has been completed using Field Survey at Institute of Higher Education in Kolhapur. There are around total 103 Institute of Higher Education in Kolhapur District. In the field survey method the researchers had approached directly to the governing body members, teachers, administrative staff and students of all the selected institutes and relevant data had been solicited from such respondents. Prior to this field survey a pilot survey was carried out. Based on the feedback of the pilot survey, the questionnaire was suitably amended and administered. The typology of research here is an exploratory research.

Objectives:

In order to comply with present research endeavor entitled above, the following objectives have been considered-

1. To explore various ethical practices followed by Higher Education Services.

2. To examine the Education services provided by the educational institutes, faculty members, & administrative staff from ethical point of view.

3. To evaluate the ethics of the students.

4. To suggest ethical measures in order to minimize the unethical practices in Higher Education sector.

Hypothesis:

Considering the nature of the study the author has laid down statement of hypothesis to start with research inquiry as- "Higher Education Management and ethical practices are independent of each other."The study is based on Primary data collected from various stakeholders of Higher Education services. The primary data

Ethical Practices in Higher Education Sector with Special Reference to Kolhapur District ? Mrs. Manisha N. Paliwal 12

constituted of information gathered through formal and informal discussions, structured and unstructured interviews, and administration of questionnaire, which had been amended and modified after a pilot test. The data has been collected from four stakeholders of the educational institutes such as:

Part A - Ethical Practices of Institutions of Higher Learning: To assess & identify the ethical/unethical practices carried out by the Institutes opinion of Teachers Administrative staff and students of the same institute was elicited.

Part B - Ethical Practices of Teachers of Institutions of Higher Learning: To assess & identify the ethical/unethical practices carried out by teachers' opinion of Governing body members, administrative staff, and students of the same Institute was elicited.

Part C- Ethical Practices of Administrative Staff of Institutions of Higher Learning: To assess & identify the ethical/unethical practices carried out by Administrative staff, opinion of Governing body members, teachers, and students of the same Institute was elicited.

Part D - Ethical Practices of students of Institutions of Higher Learning: To assess & identify the ethical/unethical practices carried out by students, opinion of Governing body members, teachers, and administrative staff of the same Institute was elicited.

The researchers have formulated four different set of questionnaires for the above mentioned four phases. Each questionnaire has consisted of ten, different Likert - type items and the last statement common in each questionnaire. Each of the Likert-type statement consisted of a declarative statement and a seven- category "strongly agree to "strongly disagree" rating scale; only the end points of the rating scale were labeled. Scale categories were labeled numerically from 1 to 7. As mentioned above broadly four stakeholders of Education sector have been considered such as - Governing body members, Teachers, Administrative Staff, and Students. A cross-examining method was followed. For example to assess & identify the ethical/unethical practices carried out by Administrative staff, opinion of Governing body members, teachers, and students of the same Institute was elicited.

Sample: The Stratified Quota Convenience Sampling method was used. A wide variety of higher education units are in existence in Kolhapur district. Here, the researcher identified two strata such as - Conventional colleges and professional institutes. Again, in professional institutes further, there are segments like-Engineering college, Management Institute, Law College, Medical College. In all 20 Institutes have been selected: 4 conventional colleges, and 16 professional institutes (4 institute from each segment). Here in Education sector about 40% faculty, 75% of administration staff and 15% students were approached to investigate the Ethical /Unethical practices in Higher

Education sector. A cross-examining method was followed. For example to assess & identify the ethical/unethical practices carried out by administration staff, opinion of principal, faculty and students of the same institute were elicited. The researcher had investigated 280 respondents and as each respondent filled up three questionnaires, therefore in total the researcher administered 840 questionnaires. The detailed structure is displayed in the table below:

Table 1 (Sample Design)

Type of the Respondent Number No. ofof the Questionnaires

Respondents Filled in

a) Governing Body Members 20 20*3=60

b) Faculty Members 60 60*3=180

c) Administrative Staff 100 100*3=300

d) Students 100 100*3=300

Total 280 840

The present study was confined to the ethical/unethical practices in the Education industry and only Higher Education Sector was taken into consideration. The geographical scope of the study was Kolhapur district. The periodical scope extends to the existing situation when the empirical data was collected.

The statistical methods adopted for the present are as follows-

?The data has been processed with SPSS software.?The Kolmogorov- Smirnov (K-S) test has been applied to

test the hypotheses( K-S test it is non-parametric and distribution free, Test of the goodness of fit between the observed distribution and the expected distribution using ordinal data).

Data Analysis:

The researcher has elicited opinions of respondents by offering various statements in the form of questionnaire consisted of Likert-type items. Each of the items consisted of a declarative statement and a seven- category "strongly agree to "strongly disagree" rating scale; only the end points of the rating scale was labeled. Scale categories were labeled numerically from 1 to 7. The 7 points rating scale reduces ambiguity and minimizes prejudices and gives a wider scope for expression of opinions.

The data analysis has been divided into four sections as explained in the research methodology:

1. Ethical Practices of Institutions of Higher Learning.2. Ethical Practices of Teachers in Institutions of Higher

Learning.3. Ethical Practices of Administrative Staff in Institutions of


Higher Learning.

4. Ethical Practices of Students in Institutions of Higher Learning.

Statement about Ethical Practices Agreement Level Mean Score

Strongly 2 3 4 5 6 Strongly Disagree 1 Agree 7

1 The transparency is maintained in the admission process. 2 21 33 25 42 57 80 5.21

2 Education is considered as more or less money making services. 28 31 25 36 30 59 51 4.5

3 Colleges maintain the quality of education. 12 43 37 34 50 35 49 4.41

4 The concept of support services, including professional counseling of Students is very Uncommon in higher Education Institutions 7 19 27 48 36 65 58 4.97

5 Recruitment of teaching & non teaching staff is purely as per norms. 6 14 42 52 34 71 41 4.81

6 Colleges are much influenced by Politics. 18 54 40 49 22 47 30 4.01

7 Promotional activities of the various courses offered by the colleges are quite unethical. 10 13 62 55 39 43 38 4.46

8 Teachers are paid as per norms. 36 32 16 31 65 38 42 4.30

9 The management allows more candidates for admissions than capacity to accommodate. 28 28 49 65 26 30 34 3.99

10 Colleges are quite insensitive towards the social responsibility. 26 40 36 41 22 38 57 4.28

No.Item

Source: Survey Data

The following observations are made from the table 2 regarding ethical practices in Institutions of Higher Learning: The statement 1 showing the transparency is maintained in the admission process has elicited mean score of 5.21. Around 25% of the respondents are showing some negative attitude regarding the admission procedures. The statement 2 refers that Education is considered as moneymaking services, which has evoked positive responses of 64% of the respondents. This commercialization of Education sector is reducing the importance of the higher education degrees. The statement 3 about quality of education shows 63% agreement level of the respondents. The statement 4 talks about the support services, including professional counseling of Students in higher Education Institutions has returned into a mean sore of 4.97,

with 71% of respondent's agreement level. The statement 5 speaks of a very crucial and sensitive issue related to Recruitment of the teaching & non-teaching staff as per norms which returned with a positive remark of around 66% from respondents. The statement 6 explains about the impact of politics on education - 52% of respondents are agreeing that higher education sector is very much influenced by Politics. Whether the promotional campaign carried out for the educational institutions are ethical - 69% of the respondents are strongly agreeing with the same. Statement 8 about the fair remuneration paid to the teachers has evoked a mean score of 4.30, with 67% of respondents positively agreeing that teachers are fairly paid. The statement 9 explores a very unethical aspects regarding the actual admissions occurred in


Table 2 -Part A: Ethical Practices of Institutions of Higher Learning

The following four tables present the various ethical dimension on which the opinion of the various stake holder have been taken-

the colleges with comparisons to the capacity to accommodate. It has elicited a mean score of 3.99 with more than half of the respondent's agreement level. Statement 10 states about the sensitive attitude of institutes towards Social



1 Teachers seek to make professional growth continuous through study and research. 4 7 16 15 71 62 45 5.30

2 Teachers perform their duties in theform of teaching, tutorial, practical and seminar work with full dedication. 0 12 21 32 66 48 41 5.09

3 Teachers maintain active membership of professional organizations and strive to improve education and profession through them. 4 6 35 54 47 39 35 4.77

4 Teachers deal partially with the students regardless of their religion, caste, political, economic, social and physical characteristics. 20 39 34 32 23 44 28 4.10

5 Teachers occasionally make themselves available to the students even beyond their class hours and help & guide the students without any monetary rewards. 5 27 26 59 25 40 38 4.56

6 Teachers hesitate in discharging their professional responsibilities according to the existing rules and adhere to the procedures consistent with their profession. 4 24 46 41 54 32 19 4.31

7 Teachers involve themselves in undertaking other employment and commitment including private tuitions and coaching classes. 22 20 28 16 38 41 55 4.68

8 Teachers adhere to the conditions of the job contract. 9 26 46 29 26 46 38 4.48

9 Teachers show less cooperation with the authorities for the betterment of the institutions keeping in view the interest & conformity with dignity of the profession. 21 22 36 32 45 49 15 4.20

10 Teachers try to keep public informed of the educational programmes which are being provided. 0 38 15 38 48 36 45 4.74

No.Item

Source: Survey Data


Table 3 - Ethical Practices of Teachers of Institutions of Higher Learning

Responsibility, has evoked a mean score of 4.28, with 67% of respondents feels that Colleges are quite insensitive towards Social responsibility.

The following observations are made from the table 3 regarding ethical practices of Teachers in Institutions of Higher Learning :Statement 1 explores that teachers seek to make professional growth continuous through study and research which has elicited mean score of 5.30 with a positive response from three quarters of the respondents. The dedications of teachers as well as their attitude towards quality education (statement 2 & statement 3) have elicited positive response from the respondents. Statement 4 Teachers deal partially with the students regardless of their religion, caste, political, economic, social and physical characteristics returned into an average mean score of 4.10. As it is seen that teachers occasionally make themselves available to help & guide the students without any monetary rewards. Statement 5 is exploring the same with the mean score of 4.56. Statement 6



1 Administrative Staff have required qualification. 53 52 13 24 12 10 16 2.91

2 Administrative Staff show lethargic attitude towards work. 0 0 8 37 53 44 38 5.04

3 Administrative Staff expect from teaching staff to complete their assigned work. 6 5 13 36 18 54 48 5.27

4 Administrative Staff take less responsibility of their job. 10 6 6 19 38 56 45 5.316

5 Administrative Staff never cooperate with teaching staff and students. 11 26 40 22 24 25 32 4.25

6 Administrative Staff purposely delay the work. 12 26 20 24 41 31 26 4.40

7 Administrative Staff keep the records up to date. 34 25 39 35 18 15 14 3.43

8 Administrative Staff generally have conflicts with teaching staff. 12 24 57 33 30 12 12 3.716

9 Dedication & commitment to work are less seen in Administrative Staff. 16 10 4 14 49 45 42 5.07

10 Administrative Staff expect bribe from the students at the completion of work (eg. T.C., Migration certificate etc.) 18 8 6 41 29 46 32 4.78

No.Item

Source: Survey Data


Table 4: Ethical Practices of Administrative Staff of Institutions of Higher Learning

has explored that teachers hesitate in discharging their professional responsibilities according to the existing rules and adhere to the procedures consistent with their profession.

Statement 7 focuses on teachers' involvement in undertaking other employment and commitment including private tuitions and coaching classes, rendered a mean score of 4.68. Probably the unethical and unfair salary structure of many institute lead to this behavior of teachers. The goodwill of the institute depends more on the quality of the teachers and their services. The last two statements 9 and 10 have explored the information about the commitments of teachers and their role in the publicity of the institute. Both the statements end up with the mean score of 4.20 and 4.74 respectively.

The following observations are made from the table 4 regarding ethical practices of Administrative Staff in Institutions of Higher Learning. Statement 1 "Administrative Staff have required qualification" has elicited a mean score of 2.91 and positive agreement of approx 41% of respondent. Really, it is a common observation that the clerical staff is poor in the required knowledge and hence accuracy & efficiency is not found in the institutional work.

Statement 2 & 3 explain about how Administrative Staff, because of their lethargic attitude expect from teaching staff to complete their assigned work. Almost ¾ th of the respondent are agreeing with this attitude of staff. Administrative Staff take less responsibility of their job. The statement 4 has secured a mean score of 5.31, explores that the administrative staff sometimes do not cooperate with the teaching staff- 62% of the respondents are admitting they often purposely delay the work.

Statement 7 explores the record keeping updation of the staff, which has returned into a mean score of 3.43. It is difficult to relay on the administrative staff, looking at the qualifications and attitudes towards their work, they would keep timely and

No.Item

Source: Survey Data



1 Students are very conscious about their career. 34 36 45 12 26 23 4 3.25

2 Students follow rules, regulations & codes of conduct. 12 13 37 30 43 21 24 4.32

3 Students give due respect to teachers. 31 39 8 45 26 19 12 3.56

4 Students adopt some unethical practices to get through the exams. 4 20 17 26 48 30 35 4.8

5 Students never think about their teachers' convenience. 1 18 42 34 29 35 21 4.45

6 Students never give correct picture of their performance to their parents. 0 7 19 18 29 65 42 5.4

7 Poor attendance is common factor in all colleges. 0 2 6 17 48 56 51 5.68

8 College is considered as a place of outing for some students. 0 5 17 54 18 45 41 5.13

9 Dedication & commitment to studies are less seen in students. 10 22 19 40 35 25 29 4.43

10 Students involve politics into education. 5 11 22 42 36 29 35 4.77


Table-5 Ethical Practices of Students of Higher Education

proper records. Statement 8 has elicited a mean score of 3.716 with 53% of respondents strongly saying that administrative staff generally has conflicts with teaching staff.

Statement 9 explains about dedication & commitment in administrative staff. It has returned with a mean score of 5.07, and agreement level of 72% of the respondents. Statement 10 explores the very unethical & sensitive issue about the expectation of bribe from the students at the completion of work by administrative staff, which has elicited a mean score of 4.78 and agreement level 68% of the respondent.

The following observations are made from the table 5 regarding ethical practices of Students in Higher Education. The statement 1 "The Students are very conscious about their career" has a mean score of 3.25 and 46% of the respondents agreement level related to the same. Nowadays, it is common remark that students are taking higher educational degrees very casually. When things come to the rules, regulations, code of conduct, ethics, and respect followed by today's students, only 50-60% of respondents have shown their agreement towards it.

Statement 4 explains about students adopting some unethical practices to get through the exams. This has mean score of 4.8, with 68% of respondent's level of agreement. It seems to be pathetic, in today's education scenario, with money, Degrees can be bought. Teacher-student relationship is considered to be the most pure and holy relationship, but the survey reveals that 63% of the respondents are positively agreeing, saying that students are not concerned about teachers convenience as shown in statement 5. It is the prime responsibility of the students to be fully transparent as far as their performance is concerned with their parents, but Statement 6 talks " Students never give correct picture of their performance to their parents " and has brought a mean score of 5.4, with a very high score of 77% level of agreement. Statement 7 "Poor attendance is common factor in all colleges" has secured the highest level of agreement (81%) of respondent with a mean score of 5.68. Some drastic regulatory reforms are required to change this scenario of poor attendance. Statement 8 has elicited that college is considered as a place of outing for some students with a mean score of 5.31. Looking at the overall behavior of the students, it was found that the dedication & commitment of the students towards studies is also poor. Statement 10 has a mean score of 4.77 with 68% level of agreement of respondents, saying that students involve politics into

Agreement Level Institutions Teachers Adm. staff Students Total

Highly Ethical 7 43 22 19 2 86 6 51 39 36 12 138 5 60 75 45 18 198 4 69 28 48 47 192 3 18 34 15 35 102 2 11 12 3 36 62Highly Unethical 1 8 10 14 30 62Total 260 220 180 180 840

Source: Survey DataHypothesis testing using KS test:Ho: Higher Education Management and ethical practices are independent of each other.

Table 7: Hypothesis testing using KS test

Opinion Observed Observed Observed Null Null AbsoluteNumber Proportion Cumulative Proportion Cumulative Difference

Proportion Proportion observed and nullHighlyEthical 7 86 0.1023 0.1023 0.413 0.413 0.3107 6 138 0.1642 0.2665 0.413 0.286 0.0195 5 198 0.2357 0.5022 0.413 0.429 0.0732 4 192 0.2285 0.7307 0.413 0.572 0.1587 3 102 0.1214 0.8521 0.413 0.715 0.1371 2 62 0.0738 0.9259 0.413 0.858 0.0679Highly Une-thical 1 62 0.0738 0.9997 0.413 1.001 0.0013

Source: Survey Data

Table 6 Opinions regarding Ethics of Education


education.

Hypotheses Testing: The last question was kept same in each type of questionnaire stating as - General opinion about the ethical practices being adopted in higher education services is:

Highly HighlyUnethical Ethical 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

The responses for the above-mentioned statement are as follows:

From the table it is found that the largest absolute different is 0.3107 which is the value of Kolmogorov- Smirnov2 D value. Here the critical value for a sample of 280 at an alpha of 0.05 is 1.36/ n that is, D= 1.36/ 280 =0.08127. As the calculated D exceeds the critical value of 0.3107, the null hypothesis that Higher Education Management and ethical practices are independent of each other is rejected and hence we establish an alternative hypothesis such as Higher Education Management and ethical practices are dependent of each other.

Recommendations and Conclusion:

The study on ethical practices in higher education sector helps us to know the various ethical issues and unethical practices which exist in education sector. It is noted that service provider as well as service consumers both were involved in some of the unethical practices. Therefore, to establish ethical practices in institutions of higher learning, joint responsibilities from both sides have to be discharged.

Ethics should be a main concern when a teacher is deciding how to teach and what he/she plans on teaching. Ethical aspects of education should be strengthening. Indian academia needs to think outside the box and learn from the experience of other countries. Massive expansion of institutions of higher learning, equity and excellence, better governance, greater autonomy is urgently required. There must be an independent Regulatory Authority for Higher Education, which would work to end licence-permit in higher education. Expansion of education with ethics and quality can expand India's global opportunity. As education should give the learners not only intellectual simulation, but a purpose and this would happen only if ethics would be incorporated into education. Therefore, our education system must find the guiding principles, codes of ethics in the aims of the social order for which it prepares and which, in the nature of civilization, it hopes to build.

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Bloom B. S. (Ed.) (1956), "Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals", Susan Fauer Company, Inc pp. 201-207.

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Education Fund Raising" Published by JHU Press.

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Hodgkinson M., Kelly M. (2007), "Quality Management and Enhancement Process in UK Business Schools: A Review", Quality Assurance in Education, Vol. 15, No. 1.

Jha B. K., Gupta S. L., Bahadur S.(2007), "Quality Education and Competitive Advantage in Indian B-Schools" ICFAI Journal of Higher Education.

Marilynn P. (1997), "Service Learning in Business Ethics", Journal of Business Ethics. Dordrecht. Vol. 16, Iss. 12/13; pg. 1347, 5 pgs.

Mitchell C. T. (1989) "Values in Teaching and Professional Ethics" Published by Mercer University Press.

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Annual Reports ,University Grants Commission 2006-07.

Business Today (2006), "Ranking B-Schools", BT-AC Neilson ORG Marg Survey polled 526 Indian B-Schools stakeholders across 11 cities to rank a top 30 institutes.'

Web References:

http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/oct2007/bs20071025_096141.htm A speech :(Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics,institute's recent report, Shaping Tomorrows Business Leaders: Principles and Practices for a Model Business Ethics Program.

www.aicte.ernet.in

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www.iift.edu

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www.iimcal.ac.in

www.iiml.ac.in

www.indianbschools.com

www.mdi.ac.in

www.nitie.edu

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www.xlri.ac.in

http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/1962/Ethics.html#ixzz0S6GZi8N4




bstract:

Online banking is a form of self-service technology in the recent past. This paper analyzes characteristics which influence the rate of adoption of online banking in India; two of these characteristics, namely Accuracy & Security are new in the literature. The results in the paper shows that adopters of online banking perceive the service as more suited to those customers who are comfortable with PC and internet; Adopters were also found to be more financially innovative. The analysis of data shows that whether consumers are adopter or non-adopter, they are very much concerned about security and accuracy regarding online banking in India. Throughout this paper the importance of user's attitude and their characteristics towards online banking has been shown.

Keywords: Diffusion of innovation, Online banking, User attitude, Innovation characteristics, India.

Introduction :

The infusion of technology into consumer's daily lives has become remarkably visible (Bitner et. al., 2000). Today's banking takes place increasingly online, financial institutions deliver their services via various electronic channels and the importance of a traditional branch network has declined (Suoranta and Mattila, 2003). The rapid growth of high-tech communication media has pushed many service providers including financial institution to explore new ways of delivering services to their customers. Online banking is among the newest electronic delivery channels to be offered by banks. Electronic banking is a high-order construct

consisting of several distribution channels: internet, mobile phone, telephone & ATM banking (Daniel, 1999). Hence online banking is a subset of electronic banking which utilizes internet technology. Innovative technology saves cost, improve customer experiences at service encounters (Bitner et. al., 2000; Keeney, 1999) and enable effective customer relationship management for service providers (Ghose and Dou, 1998; Kopf, 2000). On the other hand, service experiences delivered using the internet are quite unique, often raising public concerns about privacy and security. Consumers' adoption rate of online banking warrants special research attention (Retail Delivery News, 2000). In his seminal categorization, Rogers (1995) suggested that adoption of new products/services takes place over time and that adopters can be categorized into early adopters, early majority, late majority and laggards. For a new technology based product or service at an early stage of diffusion, it is likely that only a small subset of consumers have adopted it and non adopters still comprise the majority of target population. The relative success of online banking to date can be gauged by identifying the number of current and anticipated registered users (Barto, 1999). Academics are keen, amongst other things, to model the adoption process by identifying all relevant characteristics and by determining where and to what extent adopter view these characteristics in a different way to non-adopters. Most of the research, which has investigated the diffusion of self-service technologies in banking, has been conducted in developed countries. Far less is known about the same subject matter in those countries which have not been given developed status (Gerrard and Chnningham, 2003). While India is such a country, and its people do not possess many features of developed countries.

The Purpose of this paper is to gain an understanding of the diffusion of online banking in an Indian market. The characteristics of innovations, as found in past adoption research, are initially identified and appraised and feedback from questionnaires, which sought to identify other characteristics are identified. Few studies, to date have sought to develop characteristics which are specific to measuring the adoption of Internet banking. This study aims to address this relative vacuum and, in so doing, adds to the more traditional characteristics, as identified by Rogers (1962) and Ostlund (1974). The perceptions of those consumers who have adopted online banking are more innovative than non-adopters. To enable readers to view the findings of this study in the context

A

The Diffusion Of Online Banking Among Indian Consumers: An Empirical Study

1. Junior Research Fellow

Faculty of Management Studies

Mody Institute of Technology and Science

Lakshmangarh (District: Sikar), Rajasthan - 332311

E-mail: [email protected],

[email protected]

2. Professor and Dean

Faculty of Management Studies

Mody Institute of Technology and Science

Lakshmangarh-332311,Rajasthan,India

E-mail: [email protected]

1 2Neha Dixit , Prof. Saroj Kumar Datta

of Indian retail market, a brief overview of this market is provided immediately below.

Literature Review :

Diffusion of innovation:

The theoretical framework of this paper is based on the traditional innovation diffusion research. Scott Frame White (2009) reviewed the literature on technological change, financial innovation and diffusion in banking since 1980. This quarter century has been a period of substantial change in terms of bank services and production technologies, but much less so with respect to organizational form. Diffusion as the adoption of innovation 'overtime by the given social system'; as a consequence diffusion processes result in the acceptance or penetration of a new idea, behaviour, or physical innovation (Rogers, 1995). Diffusion research mainly focuses on describing and explaining the adoption process as a process of innovation diffusion at the aggregate level. In marketing, Diffusion research is the Bass model which focuses on how information is communicated in media and interpersonally and how the two mechanisms of communication result in an S-shaped aggregate adoption rate often observed in studies of innovation diffusion (Bass et. al., 1980). The study conducted on South Korean e-finance customers concludes that the factors of e-finance i.e., perceived efficiency, system reliability, customer service, and personal characteristics have a significant positive explanation towards the degree of e-finance usage. But the technical aspect and user interface factors of the e-finance system are not considered important by the customers when they try to intensify the e-finance usages (Cha et. al., 2005). International delphi study on diffusion of online banking has considered key factors that are driving banks to adopt online banking are the adoption by other banks, competitive forces, consumer demand and the availability of technology. This study identified the drivers and inhibitors of banks' adoption and innovation of online banking (Bradley and Stewart, 2003). This paper is concerned with the identification of the acceptance and usage factors for users and non-users of internet banking. The paper focuses on the educated consumers (high school and above), who have access to the internet on regular basis.

Online banking adaptation:

Marketing literature has studied the phenomenon of online banking from various perspectives. Some studies, have analyzed the adoption and growth of online banking, while others, describe the benefits to be gained from the internet, as far as the organization is concerned. In India, private and foreign banks have been early adopters, while the public banks are the followers. De and Padmanabhan, (2002) According to that late 1995: ICICI Bank adopted online banking and after that in 1999: Citibank, Indus Ind Bank and HDFC Bank adopt online banking. As in all forms of technology innovations, PSU banks have remained laggards

in the race for adopting internet practices. Nationalized banks like State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Allahabad Bank, Syndicate Bank and Bank of India, were the pioneering PSU banks to offer internet banking. Some other like Union Bank of India, Canara Bank and Punjab National Bank had followed these banks. SBI's Internet Banking initiative, launched in July 2001, is in fact doing quite well. But despite such positive news, PSU banks will still have a lot of catching up to do on the internet banking services front. Internet is not only a distribution channel but also a "driver of comprehensive industrial change" (Hensmans et. al., 2001). Internet provides to banks more opportunity to increase their market coverage and to better track the target customers. It also provides the possibility of the information and price transparency as well as '24/7' accessibility to the customers (Mols et. al., 1999).

The limited number of adoption studies, which have been conducted on self-service technology (namely ATMs, telephone banking, mobile banking, internet banking) made available by banks, is summarized as follows. Marr and Prendergast (1993); Rugimbana and Iversen (1994) and Rugimbana (1995) investigated the adoption of ATMs, while Al-Ashban and Burney (2001); and Locket and Litter (1997) studied the adoption of telephone banking and Souranta and Mattlla (2003); Laukkanen and Pasanen (2007) studied adoption pattern of mobile banking. Some studies investigated various issues relating to adoption of online banking. Tan and Teo (2000) found that the influence of social norms on an individual's intention to adopt internet banking was insignificant. Polatoglu and Ekin (2001) measured the relative satisfaction and loyalty towards online banking. Black et al., (2001) describe the characteristics appropriate for measuring the adoption of online banking. Howcraft et. al., (2002), studied the principle factors that inhibit online banking adaptation. After that Rexha et. al., (2003), conclude that trust and satisfaction influence online banking adaptation. Lee et. al., (2005), segments the non-adopter category and explains the diffusion process of online banking. Flavian et. al., (2006) consider demographic factors that influence the customers adoption behaviour to work with the same bank via internet. Laukkanen and Pasanen (2007) studied that mobile banking adopters are more different from online banking adopters.

The characteristics of Innovation:

Rogers (1995) identified four main characteristics of innovations: relative advantages compatibility, complexity, and risk. Researchers have found different perception about these characteristics in between adopters and non adopters. The given four characteristics should not be considered as creating an exhaustive list (Gerrard and Cunningham, 2003) but ones which have commonly been found in a wide range of studies (Rogers, 1995). Let us, with this point in mind, appraise the five main characteristics of innovations.

Relative advantages:

Barnett (1953) and Rogers (1995) noted that the

The Diffusion Of Online Banking Among Indian Consumers : An Empirical Study ? Neha Dixit ? Prof. Saroj Kumar Datta 22

characteristics of new idea, as opposed to an old idea, are important determinants of individuals' acceptance or rejection of new idea. In other words, if a consumer perceives relative advantages of an innovation compared to old ways of doing business, he/she is more likely to adopt the innovation (Rogers, 1995). Convenience has also been found to be a measure of relative advantage in some innovation studies. Consumers' perception of the relative advantages in service attributes of online banking is therefore, the major determinant of their intention of using the self-service technology (Polatoglu and Ekin (2001). Internet bank users, at all times, remain in full control of what they are doing through the commands they enter via their PC's keywords (Black et. al., 2001).

Compatibility:

Compatibility is defined as "the degree to which an innovation is perceived as being consistent with existing values, past experiences and the needs of potential adopters" (Gerrard and Cunningham, 2003). Black et. al., (2001) conclude that past experience and values of consumers in the UK appear to have a significant impact on their willingness to adopt online banking. Those who indicated they were comfortable with the Internet were more positive about online banking. In Turkey, due to low levels of e-mail usage and a preference for using over-the-counter delivery at bank branch, respondents viewed online banking as being far less compatible (Polatoglu and Ekin ,2001).

Complexity:

Complexity is the "the degree to which an innovation is perceived as difficult to understand and use". Complexity has been measured in relation to perception about the purpose of the respective innovation, its intended use and the ease with which it can be used (Gerrard and Cunningham, 2003). Those people who are well familiar and educated with the internet and e-mail, should not find online banking complex (Polatoglu and Ekin, 2001). E-banking requires a certain minimum level of technical experience and competence, irrespective of whether this relates to the use of a computer or internet (Hewer and Howcroft, 1999). Black et. al., (2001) found that complexity in conducting financial transactions over the internet was inversely related to a consumer's experience with computers.

Risk :

Ostlund (1974), in a non-banking context, appears to have been the first to identify that perception about risk was a characteristic which influences the rate of adoption. Perceived risk was one of the major factors affecting consumer adoption, as well as customer satisfaction, of online banking services (Polatoglu and Ekin, 2001). Perceived risk usually arises from uncertainty. Howcroft et. al., (2002) the principal characteristics that inhibit online banking adoption are security and accuracy. Furthermore, Thorton Consulting

(1996), which concludes that perceived lack of security, is one of the main obstacles of growth in the number of online banking users.

Research Methodology :

The key intention of this paper is to evaluate those factors that manipulate the diffusion of online banking and their growing tendency towards the online financial institutions. We constructed several questions in the questionnaire based on the objectives of the research. A total of 20 questions were used to measure the characteristics relating to the adoption of online banking and one question was used to measure non-adopter. From this study, respondents were considered to be adopters if they had applied to become an online banking customer and their bank had accepted the application. To be an adopter in this study, a respondent did not have to have a minimum usage pattern.

Sample :

Convenience sampling method was used. It is a type of non-probability sampling which involves the sample being drawn from that part of the population which is close to hand. That is, a sample population selected because it is readily available and convenient. The reasons of using this sampling type are twofold. First, it offers an easy way to obtain the raw data for the further analysis. Second, it saves times and costs. The survey instrument used in this study was a structured questionnaire for the empirical study. The questionnaire was made up the dimension which measures the rate the adoption of e-banking. The variables were measures using multiple items. All of the scale items represented in the survey instrument utilizing a five-point categorical rating scale. The anchors used included: a) 1= strongly disagree, b) 2= disagree, c) 3= neither agree nor disagree, d) 4= agree, e) 5= strongly agree. The data was collected from adults employed in the town area. The total number of usable responses was 127. Out of 127 responses - 52 were from adopters and 75 from non-adopters.

Formulation of hypothesis:

Past research suggests that there is generally a positive relationship between adoption and the various characteristics of innovations, except those characteristics relating to security and accuracy issues, where the expected relationship is negative. The following hypotheses were formulated:

H1. Adopters and non-adopters differ on the basis of their perception on accuracy in online banking.

H2. Adopters and non-adopters differ on the basis of their perception on innovativeness in online banking.

H3. Adopters and non-adopters differ on the basis of their perception on economic benefits in online banking.


H4. Adopters and non-adopters differ on the basis of their perception on security in online banking.

Findings and Discussion :

Development of the adoption characteristics:

We first perform the factor analysis for the four multi-item measures by utilizing principal component extraction process with varimax rotation. A suggested measure of the factor loading of 0.5 or greater is adopted as a criterion to examine the item reliabilities of all measures (Hair et. al., 1995). As shown in Table 1, the measurement items are classified into four factors. These factors were labelled accuracy, social benefits, innovativeness, security.

There is also a need to comment about what has previously been labelled as risk (Ostland, 1974). In this study, risk decomposed into security and accuracy. These measures of risk appear to be characteristics not identified in prior research which has investigated the adoption of online banking. Security arises because consumers feel that, by being an

internet bank customer, somehow, details of their financial statement and financial make up may not remain private. In regard to accuracy, it is true to say that Suganthi et. al., (2001) labelled one of their characteristics with the same name but they viewed accuracy in terms of financial transaction. This study viewed accuracy in relation to the more to date information and error free transaction. The characteristics of security and accuracy, as defined above, is considered to be new to the literature.

Internal consistency tests were conducted using Cronbach alpha tests (Cronbach, 1946), with the alpha values ranging from 0.86 to 0.73. The four statement used to measure innovativeness were subject to a Cronbach alpha test for which a figure of 0.86 resulted. These alphas are considered to be reasonable or better (Sekaran, 1992) and the groupings were retained for further analysis. Furthermore, the KMO and Bartlett's sphericity were used to test the sample appropriateness. This reveals that the variables load properly on these four factors.

Table 1. Dimensions which influence the adoption of e-banking and the attributes which represents them

F1 F2 F3 F4AccuracyAll communications with my main bank's website are restricted to the web site and me. .844Online financial transaction does not deduct any extra amount from my personal a/c. .842Online bank provides me more upto date and useful information. .836Online banking more secure in comparison to offline banking. .817All my online financial transactions are free from error. .805Inadequate PC skills discourage e-bank usage. .726I do all my financial transaction through internet. .716I am much friendly with online banking. .612

InnovativenessI expect my use of e-banking to increase in near future. .829I intend to use e-banking in near future. .804I like to use e-banking in case of financial transaction. .756I always recommend to others that they use e-banking .755

Economic BenefitOnline bank charge lower transaction fees. .710I can easily perform all transaction through internet. .677Online bank charge lower rate of commission. .669Online banking services are too easy to use comfortably. .477

SecurityOnline bank provide insufficient protection of my account details. .817Third parties may track my bank usage patterns. .788Much time is required to complete an online transaction. .659Online bank pay higher interest. .548

Eigenvalues 6.55 4.36 1.64 1.23% of variance 32.75 21.82 8.21 6.15Cumulative variance 32.75 54.58 62.7968.94Cronbach Alphas 0.81 0.86 0.73 0.77


Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis. Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization.

Table 2. The Dimensions which influence the adoption of online banking: a comparison of adopters and non adopters.

AN n= 127 Adopters n= 52 Non-adopters n= 75

Adoption Mean Sd Mean Sd Mean Sd t

Accuracy 2.88 1.19 0.35 0.90 0.24 0.99 3.46*

Economic benefits 3.45 0.92 0.01 0.92 0.01 1.05 0.19

Security 3.51 1.16 0.13 0.82 0.09 1.10 0.06

Innovativeness 3.53 0.93 0.02 0.83 0.01 1.11 -1.23

*Significant at p<0.01 and p<0.05

Accuracy:

It was hypothesized that adopters and non-adopters differ on the basis of their perception on accuracy in online banking. Data was subjected to the Independent Sample t-test. The Levene's Test for Equality of Variances was applied to test if the spread of the group differed (F-Statistic). If the observed significance level for this test is less than 0.05, The separate variance t-test is used. A review of the results in the Table 2 indicated that resulting t-statistic was 3.46 (P<.05 & .01). Mean value of the adopter was higher (0.35) than the non-adopter (0.24). As far as these constructs are concerned, that adopters and non-adopters differ on the basis of their perception on accuracy in online banking. So H1 was accepted.

Respondents finding seemed more positive about accuracy because they perceived that online banking provides more accurate and to date information to the users and it also give error free transaction.

Economic Benefits:

It was hypothesized that adopters and non-adopters differ on the basis of their perception on economic benefits in online banking. The results in the Table 2 indicates that resulting t-statistic was 0.19 (P<.05 & .01). Mean value of the economic benefits factor was same for adopters (.01) and non-adopters (.01) in the online banking, as far as these constructs are concerned, that adopters and non-adopters differ on the basis of their perception on economic benefits in online banking. So H3 was rejected. This finding may have arisen because many customers pay no fees to their banks. By becoming online banking adopters they do not feel that they will benefit financially.

Security:

It was hypothesized that adopters and non-adopters differ on the basis of their perception on security in online banking. Adopters and non-adopters indicated that they were concerned about matters pertaining to security. Data was subjected to the Independent Sample t-test. A review of the

results in the Table 2 indicated that resulting t-statistic was 0.06 (P<.05 & .01). Mean value of the economic benefits factor for adopters was higher (.13) than non-adopters (.09) in the online banking, as far as these constructs are concerned, that the responses were different as between adopters and non-adopters on security. Hence H4 was rejected. Customers were of the opinion that banks may be tracking the type of banking service they use and their frequency of usage. Non-adopters of online banking are very much concerned about security because they fear that some third party may track their account, financial statement etc.

Innovativeness:

It was hypothesized that adopters and non-adopters differ on the basis of their perception on innovativeness in online banking. A review of the results in the Table 2 indicated that resulting t-statistic was 1.23 (P<.05 & .01). Mean value of the innovativeness factor was same for adopters (.02) and non-adopters (.01) in the online banking, as far as these constructs are concerned, that the responses were different as between adopters and non-adopters on innovativeness. Hence H2 was rejected. This finding is consistent with many other adoption studies. It suggests that those customers who are strongly innovative are more likely to adopt a new financial product after its launch.

Implications:

There are mainly four characteristics that come out i.e. accuracy, innovativeness, security and economic benefits. The empirical findings of the current study and the findings of Suganthi et. al., (2001) suggest that further research need to be conducted in a variety of settings in order to determine an appropriate range of characteristics which model the adoption of online banking.

Bank managers, based on the results of the current study, would see that the respondents appeared to be more positive about internet banking than neutral/negative irrespective of whether they were adopters or non-adopters.

Banks need to reconsider what they have said and done to date


in explaining the level of security which support the bank's computer system and that third party instructions into an internet account are impossible. Bank need to emphasize that customers, when creating their PIN/password, should use one which is easy for them to remember, and thus make it unnecessary for it to be recorded anywhere.

The result about innovativeness suggests that banks should maintain records of those who are amongst the first to use a new product or services and then specifically target them when other products are introduced. If such campaign is successful, the take off point on the typical "S"-shaped adoption curve (see Rogers, 1995, p. 106) could be accelerated and banks would be able to quickly recover the costs they have incurred in developing and introducing online banking.

Conclusion, Limitation and Future studies:

Conclusion:

In this paper, we study Indian customers who are adopters and non-adopters of online banking. The Knowledge about diffusion of online banking is somewhat in a nascent stage, in concurrence with comment made by Black et. al., (2001), The diffusion model of Rogers (1962) is seen as a good starting point in any study which investigates the adoption of internet banking. The results of the present study and similar study of Suganthi et. al., (2001) suggest that the findings of empirical research may not be consistent in the number of ways with the concepts proposed by Rogers (1962) and Ostlund (1974). The way respondents rated the various characteristics can be viewed both on a comparative basis and on an absolute basis. In comparative terms, accuracy, security, innovativeness and economic benefits were viewed differently by adopters and non-adopters. In absolute terms, respondents perceived that online banking offered high level of accuracy as defined in the study, was a major concern. The result suggests that, whether consumers are adopters or non-adopters, both are very much concerned about security and accuracy issues related to online banking. This study adds to the growing knowledge about the adoption of the self-service technology used in the banking sector.

Limitation and Future studies:

This study provides information about the perceptions that adopters and non-adopters have about online banking. There would be some benefit interviewing a number of non-adopters in order to identify the barriers which are slowing down the adoption of online banking and their relative strength and or what would encourage non-adopters to become internet customers. Traditional over the counter banking is strongly challenged by self-service techniques. This means that consumers have a number of ways of accessing banking services. What influence their choice of technique for accessing certain services and how? Studies, which answer such questions, would provide a broader picture about how consumers view the relative importance of

various types of self-service technology. Such studies would also show the extent to which the various forms are likely to influence the way consumers will source specific bank service in future.

The result showed that advantages did not remain single characteristics but split into separate measures, all of which appeared in the text of Rogers (1962). Relative advantages were found to split into economic benefits and innovativeness. Risk also split into security and accuracy. Further research may confirm, or otherwise, that these dimensions are distinct as opposed to being generically labelled as relative advantage or risk.

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bstract:

The concept of Human Resource Development deals with the improvement of human quality in general and development of human skills, standards, comprehension and application in the production and service enterprise in particular. Tourism Industry, which is one of the largest service industry, plays a key role in achieving the socio-economic goals of the development plans of any nation. It is an important service industry which has made rapid strides globally in terms of gross revenue and foreign exchange earnings.

The present study has been conducted for J&K State. The study is conducted on the senior, middle and the lower level of management of the Tourism Department i.e. the Directorate and the Tourism Development Corporation. The data has been collected by using a structured and validated questionnaire, from 60 participants, taken randomly from all the levels of the employees from the Tourism department in J&K during the workshop conducted by the J&K Institute of Management, Public Administration and Rural Development. The analysis of the primary data collected shows the need for human capital development and need based training programmes for all the three levels. Also, the participants have strongly recommended conduct of familiarization tours for all the employees and special regular training programmes for the operational staff in specific areas at premier hospitality institutes. The paper suggests an integrated model with strategic human development interventions for Tourism Industry. Human Capital Development:

Human Resource is the most valuable asset to the organization and its contribution is cardinal to the successful achievement of organizational objectives. The development of human resources is necessary for its efficient and effective working. The concept of Human Resource Development deals with the improvement of human quality in general and development of human skills, standards, comprehension and application in the production and service enterprise in particular. Human Capital or Resource theory is a recent

addition to economic thought. Human Capital theory implies that human beings also posses the same traits as that of structures, equipments and inventories. The main inputs of human capital revolution are knowledge and education. The output in this system is the organizational effectiveness. The earlier thought states that the people working in the organizations can be motivated by comforts and salary, and so attention was focused on rationalizing these. But, now, human capital is recognized as different to other resources of the organization. This is due to the fact that the contribution of "People" to the organization is much more than that of any other resources being used.

It is "People" in the organizations who strive for optimum utilization of other resources. The right attitude of human beings decides the future growth and stability of the organization. This right attitude can be developed if human capital is considered as a resource and not just an item of income. The theory of Human Resource Development involves two sub concepts. First, people are resource and so are valuable to the organization and second, they to be treated as human beings and not like other material resources. This resource has to be recognized and appreciated as it is a great asset for the organizations progress towards reaching its unlimited potential. Managing human resources in a human way is the key to success of any organization. It is now a firm belief that enterprises can improve their effectiveness and their productivity provided their human resources are developed. (Pareek and Rao, 1988)

The research studies show that human resource development is about creating an environment or more specifically a culture, where people can develop their full potential, lead productive and creative life in accordance with their individual and institutional needs and interests.

Human Resource Development is a process through which employees in an organization are assisted to realize their full potential for their present and future jobs. It is primarily concerned with the development of employees through mechanisms like training, feedback, counseling, career planning, performance and potential appraisal, organizational development techniques, employee welfare schemes and rewards.

Colbert, B. (2004) has proposed an integrated framework for Strategic Human Resource Management (Fig. 1) by demonstrating the concepts from complexity align well with

A

Human Capital Development: A Study of Tourism Industry in Jammu

Assistant Professor, The Business School,

University of Jammu, Jammu


Dr. Jaya Bhasin

Key Features

Creativity/adaptivity

Complexity and ambiguity

Disequilibrium, dynamism and path dependence

System level resources

RBV

Competitive advantage grows from latent Creative potential embedded in a firm's resources

Inability arises from social complexity and causal ambiguity

Complex relationships build over time and are historically dependent; disequilibrium is creative state; dynamism and process issues are paramount

Some key strategic resources are intangible and exist only at the system level, in relationships

Complexity

Complex adaptive Systems learn and create new responses to their contextual environment

Living systems are composed of complex interrelationships that are nonlinear non deterministic and unpredictable

Systems thrive and create at far and equilibrium leads to stagnation, decline and death. Path unfold irreversibly through time

Some elements only exist at the system level, in the dynamic relationships between things


Figure 1: Complex RBV: Critical but difficult Features of the RBV and the Key Features of Complex System

Source: The Complex Resource Based View: Implications for Theory and Practice In Strategic Human Resource Management, Colbert, B., Academy of Management Review, 2004, Vol.29, No.3, 341-358.

the Resource Based-View (RBV). Several aspects like causal ambiguity, social complexity and system level resources explicitly invite a more complex, less reductive view of organizations. This allows reframing the RBV in a way that admits some of its more important strategic aspects.

Schuler and Jackson developed a set of "needed role behaviors" for each strategy. Sparrow and Hiltrop (1994) stipulated a set of hypotheses about the personnel and industrial relations practices and identified the most

important Human Resource Management practices about which strategic decisions had to be made. They have suggested logical alternatives that could be applied in competitive environment. According to HRD/ Organizational Alignment Model, "Human Resource Management could be seen as a menu of strategic choices to be made by Human Resource executives intended to promote the most effective role behaviors that are consistent with the organization strategy and are aligned with each other.”

Organization Mission/ Organizational Level Function Goals

Human Resources HR Level FunctionFunction

HRD PhilosophyHRD Policy HRD Level FunctionHRD Goals

Figure 2: Organization Alignment Model

Source: Marjorie L. Budd, "U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Training Needs Assessment Handbook: A Guide for conducting a Multilevel Needs Assessment, HRDG Document 024( Washington, DC,1994).

The Organization Alignment Model as shown in figure 2 is based on a "top-down" approach. This approach facilitates the following outcomes:

?Linkage of HRD to a broader HR and Organization Framework.

?A framework in which to plan and manage agency HRD activities

?Awareness of HRD as a key management tool?Assessment of the effectiveness of HRD within the

context of organizational effectiveness.

Human Capital Development in Tourism Industry:

Tourism is motivated by the natural urge of every human being for new experiences, adventures, education, knowledge and entertainment. Tourism has resulted in development of many tourist and infrastructure facilities, in order to understand each other's cultures and values as well as to cater several other social, religious and business interests. This, along with the capital formation taking place globally, especially of airways and waterways, has encouraged people to venture out to foreign lands. It has facilitated trade and commerce, exchange of human resources, between different regions of a country and between the different countries. As a result, over the years, it has acquired the status of a service industry.

Tourism can be called as one of the largest industry. This service industry plays a key role in achieving the socio-economic goals of the development plans of any nation. It is an important service industry which has made rapid strides globally in terms of gross revenue and foreign exchange earnings. It is a composite of human resources, both public and private, including travel agents and tour operators; air, rail and sea transportation operators; tour guides; entrepreneurs: owners of hotels, guest houses and inns, restaurants and shops; etc. They are involved in meeting the diverse interests and requirements of the domestic and international tourists. Tourism industry provides incentives to foster the economic growth of a nation, by generating more employment opportunities (particularly in remote and backward areas, for

less technical and less educated human resource) as well as helps in capital formation in the form of infrastructural development.

Human Resource Development acquires special meaning in the Hospitality Industry due to a variety of factors such as Hospitality Industry is a labor intensive industry, labor turnover of the employees is high, job security is low, and the compensation patterns are low. Besides this, the quality of services and the objective in achieving its socio economic goals are highly dependant on the employees who deliver the services. Also, the service delivery mechanism is based on the satisfaction of the external customer. Thus, the task of HRD, is central in Hospitality Industry and any neglect of human resource development will destroy the very fabric of the hospitality industry.

The importance of Hospitality and Tourism Industry in a developing country like India can be clearly outlined. Liberalization, Privatization and Globalization have made Indian economy vibrant. Economic liberalization in India has given a big push to Indian Tourism. Tourism is today projected as an engine of economic growth and an instrument for eliminating poverty, curbing unemployment problems, opening up new fields of activity and upliftment of the downtrodden sections of society.

The Tourism industry has a great potential of growth (see Table 1) as the number of world travelers would go up to 1600 million by the year 2010 (WTTC). Table 1: WTTC Report (World Travel and Tourism Council)

Travel and Tourism Demand, 2005-14

Rank Country % Annualized Real Growth 1. Montenegro 10.3 2. India 8.8 3. China 8.7 4. Vietnam 8.3 5. Angola 8.2

According to the WTTC, growth in the Americas and Europe are expected to fall below the world average of 2.1 percent, but Asia Pacific and other emerging markets including the Middle East can look forward to an increased business and leisure travel. The WTTC added that even in countries where economic growth slows, there is likely to be a demand and switch from international to greater interest in domestic, regional tourism.(Sulaiman, Yusof, World Travel and Tourism Council, Apr 07, 2008.)

In this line tourism and hospitality industry in J&K can bring a boost to the state's economy as it has been hit by militancy for a long period and the revival of economy can be brought about by developing tourism industry. J&K is endowed with the scenic beauty of Snow clad Mountains, bubbling streams, sparkling lakes and rare fauna and number of historic sites of

Human Capital Development: A Study of Tourism Industry in Jammu ? Dr. Jaya Bhasin30

pilgrimage. The secondary data from India Statistics on the domestic and foreign tourist inflow in J&K shows that there had been a decline in the tourist flow in the state till 2003. The main factor responsible for this decline can be attributed to militancy. The figures show an alarming decline of foreign tourist in J&K. India achieved a significant growth in terms of foreign tourist arrival in the last two years. A record growth of 26.8% foreign tourist arrivals was achieved in 2004 while the growth was 13.2% in 2005. Taking India's tourist arrivals from 2.73 million in 2003 to 3.92 million in 2005 indicate a robust growth of 43.6% in the period 2003-2005. Tourism has increased the foreign exchange earnings from US$ 3.5 billion in 2003 to US$ 5.7 billion in 2005.The domestic flow of tourists to Vaishno Devi and Amar Nath Cave has increased in the last five years. After revival of tourism and increase in the religious tourism in the state, especially in the Jammu province shows the importance of developing the human capital in the tourism and hospitality industry in the state. As the Human Resource Development would lead to the exploration of new tourism areas and also help in advertising the tourism industry in a way to give a boost to the industry and help in the overall development of the economy.

The Tourism Department in the State, Civil Secretariat, comprises of Secretary, Additional Secretary and Director at the Higher Level of Management, Deputy Director, Under Secretary and Law Officer at the Middle Level and Section Officers and Ministerial Staff at the Lower Level. The Directorate of Tourism for the promotion of tourism in the State is set up at Jammu and Kashmir regions separately, which comprises of the Director, Joint Director, and service specific Deputy Directors, Assistant Deputy Directors, Tourist Officers and Receptionists. The Jammu and Kashmir Tourism Development Corporation has been set up for further promotion and development of tourism in the State, which is headed by the Managing Director to whom Area & Service specific General Managers, Deputy General Managers and Senior Managers, Managers , Deputy Mangers, Assistant

Managers and the Operational Staff report.

The Directorate Head Office in J&K also works in coordination with the Tourist Reception Centres established at Railway Station, Airport, Lakhanpur, Mansar, Rajouri, Shivkhori, Kud ,Patnitop, Batote, Sanasar, Ramban, Banihal, Kishtwar, Doda, Bhaderwah and Udhampur. Tourism Development Authorities have been constituted as a major initiative to ensure speedy development of the areas of importance. The nineteen tourism development authority (TDA) have been constituted and headed by the Chief Executive Officer at Patnitop, Kishtwar, Bhaderwah, Poonch, Rajouri,Lakhanpur- Sarthal, Mansar- Sunisar. The Seven Development Authorities (Jammu Division) have been strengthened by the staff of Executive engineer, Accounts Officer, Landscape Architect, and other ministerial Staff, in all twenty one personnel for each Development Authority.

The analysis of the Central and State sponsored schemes for the State shows that there has been no dearth of economic resources for the development of tourism in the State. Human capital development is the only requirement for the Tourism Industry in Jammu province. The primary data has been collected from 60 participants from all the three levels during the Workshops conducted by the J&K Institute of Management, Public Administration and Rural Development, Jammu for understanding the Human Capital Development in The Tourism Industry in Jammu region. The sample is proportionately representative of all the three levels of management. The SWOT analysis for the tourism development in the State has been conducted along with the preparation of the road map for the development of human capital for the tourism industry of the state. The Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat facing Jammu and Kashmir Tourism which came out as an outcome of the workshops conducted for the higher and middle level management levels of the Directorate of Tourism, Jammu can be outlined as:

Strengths:?Splendid natural attractions ?Religious attraction?Distinct and Unique Culture?Diverse colourful festivals, fairs?Quality handicrafts and handloom?Easy communication and approach

Opportunities :?Growth of domestic tourism?Expansion of regional tourism (Punjab, Himachal Pradesh)

?New trends of educational, religious & medical tourism?Growth of international tourism?Improvement of Transportation (Rail Network in valley

and remote areas of Jammu)?Improvement in Infrastructure?Prevalence of Peace?Community recognition of tourism?Higher Central Assistance

Weaknesses :

??Militancy?Inadequate information and publicity?Poor accessibility to some areas?Poor infrastructure in remote areas?Poor quality of tourism services ?Non availability of trained manpower?Weak land use, planning and environment

protection

Threats :

?Militancy?Negative Media Reports?Cheating and extortions

Negative image of security and safety

Figure3: SWOT Analysis of Tourism Industry in J & K


Figure 3 clearly shows that the natural and religious attractions of the State are unparallel and make the destination relatively an important destination. Equally important strength of the State is the handloom and handicraft industry. The distinctive culture need to be projected and publicized. The new opportunities which are emerging before the State to take the advantage of the tourism economy primarily include the growth of domestic tourism and expansion of regional tourism. At present, militancy is under control and the State's economy is now growing. This is a welcome change and needs to be supported by community integration and for the development of tourism. The main weakness is non development of the potential tourist destinations and the major threat is militancy.

It is essential to publicize the tourist destinations in Jammu region as Kashmir is a well known name, but the potential tourist destinations in Jammu have still not been developed and publicized. Also, the infrastructural development in the Jammu region is not as per the government policy. Therefore, further measures have to be evolved to improve capacity utilization and services of the existing tourism destinations and to promote the potential tourist destinations in the Jammu region. It is necessary to ensure that the future selection and implementation of the tourism development projects have to be based on well defined criteria and guidelines and the capacity enhancement of the manpower needs to be done on priority basis.

S. No. Variables % below average Mean Std. Deviation Variance

1 Self Knowledge and Skills 43% 2.2500 .93201 .869

2 Other Employees Knowledge and Skills 52% 1.8167 .70089 .491

3 Satisfied with Training 57% 1.0667 .93640 .877

4 Requisite Knowledge about Destinations 38% 2.3667 .75838 .575

5 Adequate Govt. Policies 0% 4.0000 .71307 .508

6 Human Capital Lacks required capacities 51% 1.8833 .64022 .410

7 Operational Staff requires training 50% 1.4333 .96316 .928

8 Satisfied with HRD efforts taken by govt. 55% 1.6667 1.12997 1.277

9 Training will help in better utilization of potential 60% 1.1667 .37582 .141

10 Sensitization programmes for local population 55% 1.6500 .95358 .909

Table 2: Descriptive Statistics

Findings:

The present study has been carried out in Jammu Province with an assumption that the Tourism and Hospitality industry in a region can grow with the development of the human resources. The main objective of the study therefore can be stated as to determine the training needs of the human resources working in the hospitality and tourism industry in Jammu Province. Keeping this objective in mind a series of workshop were conducted by the Apex Training Institute at

Jammu. The sample for data collection was taken randomly representing all the three i.e. upper, middle and lower level of management, from the Directorate of Tourism, Jammu. The data has been collected by administering a self designed questionnaire with high reliability (Chronbach alpha= 0.726)

Table 2 provides description statistics of collected data The analysis of the primary data shows that more than 50% of the participants have outlined various shortcomings in the human capital development efforts of the Directorate of tourism in J&K. The main shortcomings are lack of proper knowledge dissemination at the reception desks, no internet facilities, lack of pre paid mobiles (due to security reasons), defective billing method and inadequate information services. The participants also agree that the general maintenance of the tourist huts and hotels is not up to mark. The fittings and fixtures of the hotels are also not of international standard. The personnel also agree to the point that the rates and tariffs of the government huts and hotels are higher and not competitive with the private hotels. At the same time, the facilities are also not competitive to the international standards. Regarding the F&B Services and food production also, the service standards of most of the restaurants are not satisfactory. 98% of the participants have mentioned in other comments that the meals provided are dull and the menu is of limited range. They agree to the statement that proper hygiene conditions are lacking in the food production areas.

The test results (see Table 3) show a significant difference and thus determine the need of human capital development for the Tourism Industry in J&K .The J&K Tourism Department is making efforts for promoting tourism in the State and a number of innovative steps have been taken for its revival. The State Government has created fifteen new Tourism Development Authorities besides four old authorities, to cover more areas with tourist potential. Eight of the new development authorities are being funded under Prime Minister's Reconstruction Plan with the financial assistance of Rs.20 crores each over a period of five years and the remaining

Human Capital Development: A Case of Tourism Industry in Jammu ? Dr. Jaya Bhasin32

Table 3: T Test

VAR00001

t dt Sig. (2-tailed) Mean Differnce

95% Confidence Interval of the Difference

Lower Upper

7.286 9 .000 1.93001 1.3308 2.5293

seven under the State Plan. The four old development authorities are also being funded under Prime Minister Reconstruction Plan. The Ministry of Tourism has sanctioned twenty-eight Tourism Development Projects (TDP) and released Rs.51.81 crores in the last two years (Directorate of Tourism, 2006-07).

The Directorate of Tourism has taken many steps to revive adventure tourism in the State. Special emphasis has been laid on aquatic sports such as White Water Rafting, Kayaking, Water Skiing, Canoeing, Ice Skating, Ice Hockey, and Revival of Trekking and Mountaineering Expedition. The Directorate of Tourism has also laid emphasis on the development of special events like fairs, car rallies, paragliding and other sports activities. The Ministry of Tourism has also identified areas for development as Tourist Villages (Directorate of Tourism, 2006).

Conclusion and Suggestions:

The efforts of the Centre and the State government to boost tourism call for the development of the human resources. The Directorate of tourism has identified the following functions for the development of tourism industry in the State:

?Preparing an action plan for the overall development of the tourist destinations.

?Marketing of the Tourist destinations of the State at the National and international level by publicity, fairs, festivals, exhibitions, advertisements, travel marts, conferences, seminars, etc.

?Registration and enforcement of Tourist Trade Acts in the tourism industry

?Implementation of the government policies to promote tourism.

The J&K State Tourism Policy deals with the various facets of activities for the promotion of tourism, but it does not specify the development of the manpower. The outcome of the workshops clearly reflects specific training needs for the Higher, middle and lower level of management. The participants have clearly identified the need for both short term and long term training programmes and have envisaged the need to conduct tour for the staff members. The J&K Institute of Management, Public Administration and Rural Development conduct area specific training programmes for the middle management. But the specialized training programmes are not conducted in the State and only a few

employees are sent for training in specialized institutes. The frequency of such participants as calculated from the questionnaire for the middle level management is below 30%. The development of human resources is of crucial importance in a service industry like tourism, as it is an activity dealing with people and catering to their specific needs. It is essential to create a special experience for every tourist and this can be done by the well developed human capital, who can create a ambience that would not only satisfy the customer but also would attract them. Knowledge is not enough in such industry, skills and attitude makes a big difference. This can be done by Capacity enhancement of Human Capital.

It is interesting to note that although the State Government is actively pursuing the concept of tourism promotion, but still the State does not have any specialized Training Institute. Although, manpower is selected with the required qualifications, but the state government needs to initiate measures to set up a Crafts Institute and start conducting refresher courses in areas like front office, food and beverage, housekeeping, tour assistants, information assistants, etc. It is also very important to conduct special communication training packages for the taxi drivers and conductors who come in direct contact with the tourists.

The suggested Integrated Framework for Human Capital Development includes identified capacity enhancement at each level of management. The participants have identified that there is a need to provide knowledge of legislation in J&K tourism, SRO and financial code. The participants agree to the statement that the apex training institute of the State should prepare a training module with latest information on SRO, Legislation and Financial Code. Also, familiarization tours can help the participants in selling the tourist destinations in a proper way.

The Integrated framework (see Figure 4) shows that the objectives of the training programme need to be set for the institutional arrangement for growth and development of human resource in the hospitality industry. The thrust should be on increasing professional standards, improving services, increase visitor satisfaction and making a career in tourism more satisfying and acceptable. These objectives could be achieved only through training of the people related to the sector - current and potential officers and staff in the Directorate of Tourism. The following types of trainings can be recommended:

?Tourism Awareness Programmes for creating a favourable view of the general public, students and the local population for developing Tourism Industry


Training Programmes for Lower Levels

?

?Effective Communication

?Tourism in J&K

?Office Procedures and Management

?Hospitality Administration

?Managerial and Behavioral Skills

Personality Development

Training Programmes for Middle Level

?

?Use of Information Technology in Tourism Organization

?Contemporary Issues in Tourism Development and Promotion

?Human Resource Management in Tourism

?Communication and Behavioral Skills for Organizations

?Public Private Partnership in Tourism

?Managing Environmental Impact of Tourism

?E Tourism

?Eco tourism and Sustainable development

Tourism Marketing Techniques

Training Programmes for Senior Level

?Information Technology

?Public Private Partnership

?Contemporary Issues in Tourism Development and Promotion

?Project Management and Logistics Planning for Tourism Development in J&K State.

Training Interventions

??Promotion of existing circuits and development of new circuits

?Infrastructural up gradation and knowledge to use these

?Private Participation.

Critical Success Factors- Developing Core Competencies

Organisational Objectives

Figure 4: Suggested Integrated Framework for Human Capital Development

Professional Training

?for improving the service delivery

?Regular Training in different tourism related trades to provide trained manpower for the tourism industry

The Human Capital Development entails community involvement and participation at each stage. Attaining effectiveness in Tourism Industry requires a development of an integrated framework for human capital development - from need identification to implementation; and taking

Skill development programmes for the operational Staff

Human Capital Development: A Study of Tourism Industry in Jammu ? Dr. Jaya Bhasin34

?awareness among the local population to start a tourism enterprise by delivering a set of attitudes, skills and behaviors. Encourage a set of people having high motivation to become entrepreneurs in tourism

?Tourism facilitation programmes to generate awareness among the employees to develop tourism destinations

?Management Development Programmes for the Senior and Middle Level Managers on the Issues Identified

Entrepreneurship Development Programmes to create

feedback at each stage. This would not only enhance human capital but also help in the revival of the economy of the State.

References:

Colbert, B. (2004) The Complex Resource Based View: Implications for theory and Practice in Strategic Human Resource Management, Academy of Management Review, Vol.29, No.3, pp 341-358

Rohmetra, Neelu (19980, HRD in Commercial Banks in India, Ashgate Publishing, England,pp. 6-8

Pareek, U. and Rao, T. V. (1988), Designing and Managing Human Resource System, Oxford and IBH Publishing Co., New Delhi; pp 1-12.

Human Development Report (2001, Oxford University Press, New York; pp 8-9.

Sparrow, P. and Hiltrop J.-M. (1994) European Human Resource Management in Transition, Prentice Hall.

Tichy, N.M., Fomburn, C.J. and Devanna, M.A. (1982) "Strategic human resource management", Sloan Management Review, 23(2), pp 47-61.

Schuler, R.S. and S. E. Jackson (1987) (1999) Linking competitive strategies with human resource management practices, Academy of Management Executive, 1(3), pp 209-13

Marjorie L. Budd, (1994) "U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Training Needs Assessment Handbook: A Guide for conducting a Multilevel Needs Assessment, HRDG Document 024 Washington, DC.

Sulaiman, Yusof, (2008) World Travel and Tourism Council Report, Apr 07, 2008.




bstract:

Today's growing "war for talent" is making it more and more difficult for organizations to keep current employees and to find qualified replacements. This study examines the challenges that organizations face with employee retention in an increasingly competitive labor market.

This article examines employees' views on the factors affecting employee retention. This is done by integrating findings from literature on retention management with the theoretical framework of the psychological contract. In this study, respondents from a diverse group of private organizations described the factors they believed affected employee retention and the retention practices set up in their organization. Employees were asked to report on the importance attached to four types of employer inducements commonly regarded as retention factors. They also evaluated their employers' delivery of these inducements and provided information on their loyalty; intentions to stay and job search behaviors. The results of the study are discussed and implications for HR managers are highlighted.

Introduction :

Both researchers and human resource (HR) practitioners agree that the employment relationship is undergoing fundamental changes that have implications for the attraction, motivation and retention of talented employees (Horwitz, Heng, & Quazi, 2003: Roehling, Cavanaugh, Moyhihan & Boswell, 2000; Turnley & Feldman, 2000). Over the past decades, the economic environment has changed dramatically. Due to on-going evolutions towards international competition and globalization of markets, organizations are required to be more flexible and increase their productivity. This has reduced the job security of employees at all levels in the organization (King, 2000) but at

the same time HR managers are pressed to attract and retain talented employees who have competencies that are critical for organizational survival (Horwitz et al., 2003; Mitchell, Holtom & Lee, 2001; Roehling et al., 2000; Steel, Griffeth & Hom, 2002). Often, however, exactly these employees are difficult to retain due to their tendency to attach more importance to making out their own career path, than to organizational loyalty; a tendency which results in increased rates of voluntary turnover (Cappelli, 2001). Within the HRM literature, retention management has become a popular concept to examine the portfolio of HR practices put into place by organizations in order to reduce voluntary turnover rates (e.g. Cappelli, 2001; Mitchell et al., 2001; Steel et al., 2002).

Another concept that has gained interest as a construct relevant for understanding and managing contemporary employment relationships is the psychological contract, which refers to employees' subjective interpretations and evaluations of their deal with the organization (Rousseau, 1996; 2001; Turnley & Feldman, 1998). Researchers in this field argue that in order for retention management to be effective, the creation of an optimal portfolio of HR practices is not sufficient and that it is important to manage employees' expectations relating to these practices. Only in this way HR managers can be confident to create a deal that is mutually understood by both the organization and its employees (Rousseau, 1996). Review of Literature :

In view of the large costs associated with employee turnover, even in a Global Economic Downturn, characterized by downsizing and layoffs, HR managers still need to work out HR practices that enable them to retain their talented employees (Horwitz et al., 2003; Steel et al., 2002). These practices are often bundled under the term "retention management". Retention management is defined as "the ability to hold onto those employees you want to keep, for longer than your competitors" (Johnson, 2000). In the literature numerous factors are put forward as important in affecting employee retention, varying from purely financial inducements to so-called "new-age" benefits. These inducements can be grouped into four major categories of retention factors, namely (1) financial incentives, (2) career development opportunities, (3) job content, (4) social atmosphere, and work-life balance (e.g. Horwich et al., 2003; Roehling et al., 2000; Ulrich, 1998).

A

The Role of Psychological Contract in Retention Management

Dr. Babita Agarwal , Prof. Kshama Ganjiwale1 2

1. Reader, Shri Vaishnav Institute of Management,

Scheme No. 71, Gumasta Nagar, Indore, India

Email : [email protected]

2. Lecturer, Shri Vaishnav Institute of Management,

Scheme No.71, Gumasta Nagar, Indore, India

Email: [email protected]

First, financial rewards, or the provision of an attractive remuneration package, are one of the most widely discussed retention factors, since they not only fulfill financial and material needs, but also have a social meaning. Salary level provides an indication of the employee's relative position of power and status within the organization. However, research shows that there is much inter-individual variability in the importance of financial rewards for employee retention (Pfeffer, 1998; Woodruffe, 1999). For instance, a study conducted by the "Institute for Employment Studies" (Bevan, 1997) reveals that only ten percent of people who had left their employer gave dissatisfaction with pay as the main reason for leaving. However, despite the fact that many studies show financial rewards to be a poor motivating factor, it remains a tactic used by many organizations to commit their employees to the organization by means of remuneration packages (Cappelli, 2001; Mitchell et al., 2001; Woodruffe, 1999). For instance, in a recent study Horwitz et al. (2003) found that the most popular retention strategies reported by HR managers of knowledge firms still related to compensation.

Second, opportunities for career development are considered as one of the most important factors affecting employee retention. It is suggested that a company that wants to strengthen its bond with its employees must invest in the development of these employees (Hall & Moss, 1998; Hsu, Jiang, Klein & Tang, 2003; Steel et al., 2002; Woodruffe, 1999). Other factors relating to career development are the provision of mentoring or coaching to employees , the organization of career management workshops and the set up of competency management programs (Roehling et al., 2000). For instance, in a recent study Allen, Shore & Griffeth (2003) found that employees 'perceptions of growth opportunities offered by their employer reduced turnover intentions. Steel et al. (2002) also report empirical data showing that lack of training and promotional opportunities were the most frequently cited reason for high-performers to leave the company.

The third category of retention factors relates to employees' job content, more specifically the provision of challenging and meaningful work. It builds on the assumption that people do not just work for the money but also to create purpose and satisfaction in their life (Mitchell et al., 2001; Pfeffer, 1998). According to Woodruffe (1999) employees, in addition to a strong need to deliver excellent results, also want to take on difficult challenges that are relevant for the organization. However, when their work mainly consists of the routine-based performance of tasks, the likelihood of de-motivation and turnover is relatively high. By thinking carefully about which tasks to include in which jobs, companies can affect their retention rates (Steel et al., 2002). The social atmosphere, i.e. the work environment and the social ties within this environment, is the fourth retention factor considered by many researchers. Cappelli (2001) states that loyalty to the organization is a thing of the past, but loyalty to one's colleagues acts as an effective means of retention. When an employee decides to leave the organization, this also means the loss of a social network. Some research suggests

that social contacts between colleagues and department are an important factor for retaining talent. Organizations can contribute to the creation of a positive social atmosphere by stimulating interaction and mutual cooperation among colleagues and through open and honest communication between management and employees (Roehling et al., 2000). The conflict between work and career on the one hand and private life on the other is currently assuming large proportions in our society. There is an increasing demand for more flexible forms of work, which would positively affect the reduction of the work-family conflict and employee satisfaction in general (Anderson et al., 2002; Kossek & Ozeki, 1998). HR policies addressing work-life balance are assumed to be important because the current generation of employees attaches much importance to quality of life, as a result of the ever increasing work pressure (Cappelli, 2001; Mitchell et al., 2001). Research suggests that policies aimed at improving the work-life balance are successful if they are implemented in a supportive context that truly allows employees to make meaningful and useful choices (Anderson et al., 2002: Kossek & Ozeki, 1998).

Many researchers argue that the psychological contract plays an important role in helping to define and understand the contemporary employment relationship (Rousseau, 2001; Shore & Coyle-Shapiro, 2003; Turnley & Feldman, 1998). Psychological contracts consist of individuals' beliefs regarding the terms and conditions of the exchange agreement between themselves and their organizations (Rousseau, 1996).

They emerge when individuals believe that their organization has promised to provide them with certain inducements in return for the contributions they make to the organization (Turnley & Feldman, 2000). The growing body of literature on the psychological contract reflects accumulating evidence for its influence on diverse work-related outcomes. These studies show that employees evaluate the inducements they receive from their organization in view of previously made promises and that this evaluation leads to a feeling of psychological contract fulfillment or breach (Turnley & Feldman, 1998). In turn, a feeling of contract breach has a negative impact on employees' willingness to contribute to the organization and on their intentions to stay with the organization (e.g. Coyle-Shapiro, 2002; Robinson, 1996; Robinson, Kraatz & Rousseau; Turnley & Feldman, 1998; 2000). Other studies have found a positive correlation with actual turnover (e.g. Guzzo, Noonan & Elron, 1994; Robinson, 1996). Together these results suggest that the psychological contract is a construct of both scientific and practical importance and that it is especially relevant for HR managers concerned with the retention of their employees.

Existing research indicates that employees are rather pessimistic about the extent to which their organization lives up to its promises. For example, Turnley & Feldman (1998) found that approximately twenty-five percent of their sample of employees felt that they had received less (or much less) than they had been promised. This was most strongly the case


for promises relating to job security, amount of input into important decisions, opportunities for advancement, health care benefits, and responsibility and power. Robinson et al. (1994) found that fifty-five percent of their sample reported contract violations by their employer two years after organizational entry. Together, this empirical work demonstrates that psychological contract violation is relatively common and that this could explain the difficulties organizations are currently experiencing in retaining their employees. Since the psychological contract encompasses employees' subjective interpretations and evaluations of their employment deal, the retention factors discussed in the practitioner and scientific literature will only turn out to be effective for employee retention if they are in line with employees' subjective views and expectations.


?To suggest ways to retain talents for development of the organization

?To provide tools to create a positive social atmosphere by stimulating interaction and mutual cooperation among the employees

?To measure the factors of retaining the employees

?To devise the ways and means to enhance the employee skills and competencies

Research Methodology:

Design and Sample of the Present Study:The sample of the present study consists of 80 employees from Private Organizations. Simple random technique was used for data collection. The research was carried out through survey method with the help of self-developed structured, non-disguised questionnaire. It consists of statements based on 5 point Likert scale. Employees were asked to give their

opinion for the questions given in the questionnaire. This evaluation was related to employees' loyalty, their intentions to leave the company and their job search behaviors.

The 25 variables of the questionnaire, refer to five retention factors discussed in the theoretical part of this paper: financial rewards (e.g. "an attractive pay and benefits package"), career development (e.g. "opportunities for promotion"), job content (e.g. "a job with responsibilities"), social atmosphere (e.g. "good mutual cooperation") and work-life balance (e.g. "respect for your personal situation"). Each dimension was assessed by five items.

Analysis, Results and Discussion:

After reliability checks and the construction of scales, mean scores and intercorrelations for all variables in the study were calculated. Hierarchical regression analysis was done to examine the relationship between psychological contract evaluations and intention to leave, job search behaviors and loyalty.

Reasons for voluntary turnover versus retention. As can be seen from Table 1, the two most frequently cited reasons for voluntary turnover are remuneration (62%), and a lack of career opportunities (46%). Concerning the most important reasons to stay with the company, work atmosphere and a good relationship with colleagues (50%), job content (42%), remuneration (42%), and career opportunities (42%) were cited most frequently.

It has been also mentioned in the same table the reasons for leaving versus staying do not fully overlap one another. For instance, while social atmosphere is mentioned as the most important reason why employees stay, it is not considered as a major reason for leaving the organization. Inversely, while work-life balance appears in the left column (reason for leaving), it does not occur among the ten most frequently cited reasons for staying.

Reasons for leaving Reasons for staying Retention practices

1. Remuneration (62%) 1. Work atmosphere / colleagues (50%) 1. Training (59%)

2. Career opportunities (46%) 2. Job content (42%) 2. Career management (48%)

3. Work pressure / stress (19%) 3. Remuneration (42%) 3. High potential management (41%)

4. Job content (19%) 4. Career opportunities (42%) 4. Internal mobility (38%)

5. Mobility (19%) 5. Job security (22%) 5 . Remuneration (27%)

6. Headhunting (17%) 6. Training (17%) 6. Benchmarking promotions (24%)

7. The management (16%) 7. Company image (16%) 7. Bonus system (18%)

8. Work-life balance (14%) 8. Company culture (14%) 8. Performance management (18%)

9. Labor shortage (11%) 9. The management (8%) 9. Benefits (14%)

10. Opportunities elsewhere (9%) 10. International opportunities (9%) 10. Communication (11%)

38 The Role of Psychological Contract in Retention Management ? Dr. Babita Agarwal ? Prof. Kshama Ganjiwale

Table 1: Ranking of Most Frequently Cited Reasons for Leaving, Reasons for Staying, and Retention Practices byHR managers (n = 80) (First Research Phase)*.

Table 2: Correlations and Reliabilities for Scales Included in the Study (Second Research Phase)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

1. Importance career development (.79)2. Importance job content 0.54 (.71)3. Importance social atmosphere 0.19 0.30 (.87)4. Importance financial rewards 0.38 0.31 0.18 (.80)5. Importance work-life balance 0.13 0.23 0.34 0.40 (.76)6. Fulfillment career development 0.03 0.06 -0.04 -0.02 -0.02 (.89)7. Fulfillment job content 0.00 0.14 -0.03 -0.01 -0.02 0.71 (.85)8. Fulfillment social atmosphere 0.00 0.00 0.13 -0.02 0.00 0.44 0.47 (.91)9. Fulfillment financial reward -0.01 0.00 -0.01 0.04 0.01 0.62 0.52 0.37 (.87)10. Fulfillment work life balance 0.00 0.00 0.01 -0.03 0.12 0.45 0.45 0.44 0.50 (.83)11. Intentions to leave 0.08 -0.01 0.03 0.00 -0.01 -0.34 -0.30 -0.22 -0.19 -0.19 (.91)12. Job search behavior 0.14 0.22 0.01 0.03 0.00 -0.24 -0.21-0.15 -0.14 -0.12 0.49(.84)13. Loyalty 0.08 0.13 0.03 -0.00 -0.08 0.39 0.38 0.32 0.29 0.25 -0.39 -0.28(.81)

Alpha reliabilities are represented between bracketsCorrelations > .03, p < .05, correlations > .04, p < .01, correlations > 05, p < .001

Table 3 presents respondents' mean scores on each of the five dimensions of the psychological contract. As can be seen from the table, the employees in our sample attach most importance to employer inducements relating to the social atmosphere and work life balance (mean score 3.9, standard deviation 5.2), followed by career development (mean score 2.9, standard deviation 7.2), and job content (mean score 2.7 , standard deviation 3.8). They attach relatively less importance to financial rewards (mean score 2.2, standard deviation 4.2). With respect to the fulfillment of employer promises relating to each of these inducements, employees are most positive about the fulfillment of promises to their job content and the social atmosphere and about financial rewards are perceived to be least fulfilled.

Table-3 Mean scores for importance and evaluation of employer inducements

Variables Mean score S. D Fulfillment

Social atmosphere & work life balance 3.9 5.2 3.07

Career development 2.9 7.2 2.04

Job content 2.7 3.8 2.01

Financial rewards 2.2 4.2 1.09

Comparing the importance employees attach five types of

inducements with their evaluation of promise fulfillment, the results are positive for those two inducements that are mostimportant for employees, i.e. social atmosphere and work life balance (3.07) and career development(2.04). These two types of inducements are considered as the most important by the employees and they also obtain the highest scores in terms of their fulfillment. Even though promises about job content are not considered to be very important, they obtain the most negative evaluation (2.01) but the largest gap exists for financial rewards (1.09), as this is a very important inducement to the respondents, they make up a negative evaluation of the fulfillment of the promises their employer has made to them .

Managerial Implications :

Why an employee stays with the organization is a strategic issue for HR managers as well as a major concern for the individual. Having insight into those factors most important in determining employee retention is important for HR managers in order to work out retention policies and practices that are effective both at the individual and the organizational level. Taken together, the results of our employee survey indicate that career development is the most important retention factor since offering good opportunities for career development not only prevents employees from leaving the company, but it also contributes in a positive way to their loyalty to the firm. If we assume that the aim of retention policies is not only to retain employees but also to retain employees who are loyal and committed, then HR managers must also put more efforts in


* These are the ten most frequently cited reasons or practices based on the number of responses. Between brackets the proportion of respondents citing this item in their "top 3" is given.

Table 2 contains the inter correlations between all variables

included in the study. Given the large sample size, correlations of .03 or more are already statistically significant at the 5% level. Therefore, we consider only those correlations exceeding .10 as being of practical significance.

retention policies relating to the social atmosphere and job content. Both factors are important predictors of employee loyalty and they also significantly prevent employees from leaving their organization. On the other hand, the results relating to work-life balance and financial rewards, two factors that can be considered more as extrinsic rather than intrinsic rewards, suggest that retention policies focusing only on these factors might be less effective. Employees' evaluations of organizational inducements about work-life balance consistently have no significant impact on their loyalty, intentions to stay or job search behaviors and thus should not be considered as important retention factors.

The main message we derive from this study is that HR managers should take into account what their employees value and how they evaluate their organization's efforts towards retention management, if they are to contribute in a cost-efficient way to the strategic objectives of the organization. The psychological contract hereby provides a practical and useful framework to manage employees' expectations and to engage in an open process of communication and negotiation about the employment deal (Herriot & Pemberton, 1996). If HR managers are to be effective in their retention management this means that they should take into account this subjectivity instead of departing from generally agreed-upon views on what's important to employees in general. This, in turn, should contribute to their role in the company as a strategic partner given that the attraction and retention of talented employees will stay an important factor of competitive advantage for organizations, both in terms of economic downturn and upheaval.

Conclusions:

Earlier studies have depicted that both practitioners and researchers in the field of retention management agree that creating a retention policy that works is not an easy task. One of the first and necessary steps in working out a retention policy for HR is to assess the retention factors which are important to their workforce (Steel et al., 2002). The collection of targeted data on reasons for quitting and staying, segmented by employee groups (e.g. male versus female, blue collar versus white collar) is an important means for obtaining this information. For example, while social atmosphere is mentioned as a major reason for staying, it is not considered to be an important reason for voluntary turnover. Inversely, inducements relating to work-life balance are cited as a reason for voluntary turnover but not as a reason for staying.

In general, it appears that retention practices are more focused on the factors which are believed to cause employee turnover rather than on those believed to affect employee retention.

Although compensation matters, employees are more concerned with the level of fulfillment they get from their jobs. They also feel that working with an understanding supervisor or manager in a cooperative and trusting work environment is important. Organizations should focus on making sure that the people they hire are a good match for the

job and the work culture.

The evaluation of promises about career opportunities appears to be most predictive of employees' intentions to leave and of their job search behaviors and they are also strongly predictive of employee loyalty. This finding is in line with HR managers' views that career development is an important factor affecting both voluntary employee turnover and retention and it supports their efforts to work out retention policies focusing on career development.

An employee's relationship with his or her supervisor or manager and work-life balance are the most important determinants for staying with an organization. Senior leaders should be encouraged to have succession plan which is another tool to motivate employees to keep developing. Management teams need to be educated in succession planning concepts and can be motivated by having a succession planning included as a performance criterion. Failure to develop successors may prevent them achieving higher career objectives themselves.

Employers need to anticipate what will be the expectations of the employees in the future to ensure that they create a realistic job description. Organizations must also focus on employee engagement to ensure that their workforce is committed to the long-term success of their organization and want to stay with the organization to honor this commitment.

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bstract:

This paper deals with customers total retail experience. Organized retailing is a sun rise industry in India. Retailers need to plan carefully positioning strategy to create favorable store image in the target market. Store image attracts customers and increases traffic flow to store. This paper primarily focuses on impact of factors such as store choice influencers, retail marketing mix factors, customers' touch-point experiences, and customer total retail experience and customer relationship management. Research paper covers store choice influencing factors linkage with visit to a particular store. Retailer's objective is to increase time spent by customers inside the store. Impact of atmospherics and visual merchandise on customers shopping experience and in turn their preference to a particular retailer is assessed. Various factors such as store design, layout, store exterior and interior, atmospherics i.e. light, temperature, colors, music, and fragrance all effect together plays significant role in developing store ambience. Store ambience enhances customer's mood. Thus, store ambience influences shopping pattern. Retailers have started successfully promoting various themes and festive specials to get pull effect. Shoptainment i.e. "Providing entertainment while shopping' concept needs to be brought in by retailers, in order to increase sales volume and to sustain relationship with customers. This paper also focuses on understanding the difference in customer total retail experience and customer relationship management practices implemented across national level organized food and grocery retail chain stores of Pune city.

Key words: Store image, Store Choice Influencers, Customer Experience Touch Points, Customer Total Retail Experience and Customer Relationship Management

Introduction:

Organized retail is a sun rise sector in India. This paper studies differences in customer total retail experience and customer relationship management across national level organized food and grocery retail chain stores of Pune city. Store choice influencers, retail marketing mix factors, customer

experience touch points have strategic linkage with customer's total retail experience. Review of literature shows that store image and traffic flow is linked. Customers shopping pattern is influenced due to store exterior, interior, store layout design, atmospherics and visual merchandise. It enables retailers to achieve high sales volume objective. In modern retail, concepts like visual audit and visual communication strategy plays a significant role in positioning retail store in customers mind. Understanding culture, local tastes and capturing price sensitiveness of the target market proves beneficial to retailers. Environment created by visual merchandise, atmospherics and customer touch points service achieve its critical function i.e. to make shopping a fun and excitement activity. Store ambience creates participatory environment. Thus involves customer in shopping process.

Review of Literature:

Mehrabian and Russel (1974) affect model suggests the linkage between atmospherics and its impact on the retail patronage decision, specially the effects of two retail atmosphere factors namely ambient cues ( lighting and music) and social cues ( number/friendliness of employees) on respondents pleasure, arousal and willingness to buy.

Music is capable of evoking affective and behavioral response in consumers (Bruner1990). Background music tends to be soothing, which creates a pleasurable atmosphere (Milliman 1982, 1983). The relationship between designed environments and their desired effect upon users is extremely complex to understand. Kotler (1973) coined the term atmospheres to describe ´the conscious planning of atmospheres to contribute to the buyers' purchasing propensity. Donaram and Rossiter (1982) subsequently tested in retail settings the 'Mehrabian-Russel model', which had been developed within the discipline of environmental psychology. They found two emotional states, namely pleasure and arousal, to be significant mediators between environmental stimuli and consumer responses. Research shows three reasons regarding why it is especially difficult to measure effects of store atmosphere.

- Such effects are basically emotional states and thus difficult to verbalize

- They are transient and therefore difficult to recall- They influence behavior within the store, rather than

external behavior, such as store choice

A

Faculty-IBS Pune,

Email- [email protected]

Retail Environment: Strategic linkage of Store Choice Influencers, Customer Experience Touch Points and Customer Total Retail Experience at National Level

organized Retail Chain Stores

Pravin Patil

Source: L.W. Turley and Jean- Charles Chebat, 2002

The atmosphere, through the use of atmospheric variables such as colors, layout, music, floorings, and lighting and merchandise arrangements creates a package surrounding the merchandise which can create a unique shopping experience. The merchandise carried by competitive retailers, is perceived as similar by consumers. Then probably it becomes even more important and creating a unique environment even more necessary. Therefore, finding a unique and effective atmosphere design should be a primary concern for retailers in this type of competitive situation. According to Turley and Milliman (2000), this complex environment can be divided into five categories of atmospheric cues. The exterior includes cues such as the building size and shape, the marquee, exterior windows, parking availability and the surrounding area. The general interior includes atmospheric variables like lighting, music, interior colors, ambiance, temperature and general cleanliness of the store. Layout and design variables are comprised of variables such as merchandise groupings, traffic flow and aisle placements, department locations, racks and fixtures, and placements of cash registers. Point-of-purchase and decoration variables are composed of atmospheric elements like point-of-purchase displays, signs and cards, product displays and interactive displays and kiosks. Human variables in the environment include dimensions such as employee characteristics, employee uniforms and retail crowding and density. The elements associated with these five categories of the retail environment should not be developed separately but rather to accomplish the goals associated with a chosen retail strategy.

Although not often discussed in the academic literature associated with retail atmospherics, modern consumers often expect shopping to be more than simply the purchase of products. For many consumers, particularly those who are state directed (Babin and Darden 1995), shopping is an experience which should be a "fun" activity. These consumers seek excitement and arousal from the environment of a retail store and spend more money in these types of environments (Babin and Darden 1995). At least some retail chains are responding to this desire to be entertained while shopping. In a recent newsletter senior vice chairman of Wal-Mart,

acknowledged the need to entertain consumers. We are all still kids needing a sandbox to play in, but as we get bigger our sandboxes need to get bigger as well, and Wal-Mart makes the biggest 'sandbox' round" (Soderquist 2000). Atmospheric elements which can be used to entertain consumers include music, in-store televisions, interactive displays and kiosks, live performances by a variety of artists, product use demonstrations and seminars and in-store restaurants. Most of these attempts at entertaining customers recognize that keeping shoppers in stores longer is likely to result in increased browsing behavior, which in turn is likely to cause increased impulse purchasing (Beatty and Ferrell 1998). Also, keeping customers in one's store longer may also decrease the time available to shop in a competitor's store making this good defensive weapon for retailers.

The accumulated studies of the retail environment pertaining to atmospherics can best be described as being both eclectic and diverse. The most impressive from Turley and Milliman article was that each of the 60 studies they reviewed found some significant relationship between atmospheric manipulation and shopping behavior indicating that consumers do, in fact respond to stimuli found in these environments. The basic method of displaying goods is to use shelving, whether on walls or gondolas. Product shelving has an important influence on consumer behavior. Height at which the products are displayed and number of rows in the store can influence the sales of products. A product needs to be given enough shelf space to attract buyer's attention. It is said that more than 50% of purchases by supermarket shoppers are pre-planned and the remainder largely stimulated by the display in the store. Product should be accessible to the customer: there is frequently quoted saying that "the merchandise handled is merchandising half sold". Review of literature shows that music element such as tempo, volume, type of music impacts consumer preferences and consumer spending patterns. Research provides evidence that the background music not only induces positive feeling in shoppers, but also plays an important role as an intrinsic element of the store atmospherics and retail branding.

Retail Environment key factors:

I) Store Choice Influencers (SCI):

Retailers need to understand factors, those influences customers for visiting particular retail store. SCI factors such as media, informativeness of advertising, location and distance from home, recommendations from friends, relatives influence customers to visit particular store. Retailer's strategies on SCI factors would impact customers and may help retailers to optimize on their resources. SCI factors such as retailer's name and image in the market are also crucial. Positive image and goodwill of retailer would likely to impact more footfalls in store. Retailers can have distinct competitive advantage due to its positive market image and goodwill. Retailers focus on these areas would prove beneficial to improve their business in this competitive market.


II) Retail Marketing Mix Factors (RMMF):

With the advancement of organized retail and technology, researchers and practitioners suggests new areas of inclusion in marketing mix, coined as RMMF. RMMF encompasses critical areas such as merchandise assortment, store atmospheric, pricing. Atmospheric variables include areas such as color, layout, music, floorings, and lighting areas. Exterior and interior design alongwith visual merchandise, RMMF creates store ambience. Store ambience affects customer shopping process.

III) Customer Experience Touch Points (CETP):

CETP are critial in entire customer retail experience and relationship process. Typically retail store has touch points like courteous and knowledgeable staff, customer care desk, billing counters, entry/exit points, home delivery, web site and parking facility. Retailer need to ensure higher service quality standards at these touch points. Customers expect speedy and accurate billing process, knowledgeable and courteous employees providing information and help to customers. Warm greetings at store entry, trolley handling service till parking lot especially for senior citizens will enhance store image. Presently retailers provide normal service quality at Customer Touch Points. However, retailers need to improve service quality at these touch points.

Fig 2: Customer Experience Touch Points at Retail Store

IV) Customer Total Retail Experience (CTRE):

Retail marketing mix factors (RMMF) and customer touch points experience (CTPE) conceptually equals to customer total retail experince. Retailer need to focus on RMMF and CTPE in order to provide overall better experience to shoppers. Retailers need to understand that, better the

customers' total retail experience, higher will be store loyalty.

Research Objectives, Key Pointers, Hypothesis and Study under Objective and Hypothesis

Objective 1: To understand the linkage of store choice influencing factors on visit to the particular retail store.

Hypothesis H1: There is association between store choice influencing factors and visit to particular organized retail store

Key Pointers:

a) Media choice and Impactb) Convenience Factorc) Retailers Image and Spread of goodwill

Study areas under key pointers:

1. The type of media, selection and adoptiona. Media such as Internet, Newspaper, TVb. Frequency of mediac. Usefulness of media in conveying message to target

audience

2. Significance of time to reach and distance aspecta. Whether store is convenientb. Distance of store from home

3. Reputation in market and referral/recommendation anglea. Retailers name and imageb. Reference by another customer/friend/neighbor/relative

Objective 2: To assess and understand the difference in customer total retail experience across national level organized food and grocery (F & G) retail chain stores.

Hypothesis H2: There is significant difference in total customer retail experience across various national level organized food and grocery retail chain stores

Key Pointers:

a. Store Managementb. Service Quality

Study areas under key pointers

1. The store ambience and facilities a. Visual appeal of store exterior, interior and layout of storeb. Ease of navigation within store, music and shelf

arrangementc. Store color/light, drinking water and toilet facility

2. Merchandising and Pricing aspectsa. Variety /range and display of merchandiseb. Quality and availability of loose merchandisec. Facility of refrigerationd. Merchandise pricing

Retail Environment ? Pravin Patil 44

3. Ease of Payment and customer orientationa. Major credit/debit card and coupon acceptance b. Customer care desk, baggage keeping facility c. Facility of parking d. Welcome at entry, exit, billing counter

4. Service quality and processes at touch-pointsa. Friendly service and knowledgeable staffb. Billing counters - Speed and Accuracyc. Handling of complaintsd. Returning of goods

Objective 3: To understand the differences in CRM practices implementation across retail stores.

Hypothesis H3: There is a significant difference between CRM practices implementation across retail stores.

Key Pointers:

Service Level Gap :

Study areas under key pointers1. Financial Rewardsa) Money saving due to reward point schemeb) Attractive prices,schemes

2. Loyalty Programsa. Loyalty cardb. Reward points

3. Relationship development programsa. Newsletter, Special lettersb. Anniversary/Birthday greeting cardc. Special promotion scheme- Email/SMSd. Customer feedback form response

4. Value Added Service (VAS)a. Phone/Web shopping facilityb. Gift wrapping facilityc. Free home deliveryd. Call center/Toll free helpline

5. Social/Community development programsa. Community/Participatory activities for kids

b. Community/Participatory activities for womenc. Social/Charitable events/programs

Research design:

The Research was conducted in the months of October and November 2009. Questionnaire is designed keeping the urban customers profile in mind; those visit organized food and grocery retail stores. National level organized chain retail stores like Big Bazar, More, Reliance Fresh and Spencers are taken as a source of sample.

The survey questionnaire is scrutinized by research guide and expert statisticians. Interaction with few customers was made to make the questionnaire to date and relevant. The sample size is of 40 customers. The selection of customers is done on purposive convenience sampling basis. The statistical measures such as Chi-Square tests, ANOVA, Fisher test are used for testing the hypotheses.

Data analysis and hypothesis testing:

Testing of Hypothesis 1: There is association between store choice influencer and visit to the particular organized retail store.

To check whether there is any association between store choice influencers and visit to the particular organized retail store .Researcher applied chi square test. But as sample size is small (40) and there are more than 94% cells have expected count less than 5 therefore chi square test becomes invalid. To overcome this problem researcher further applied Fisher Exact test and Monte Carlo Simulation methods to yield trustworthy result. p value for Fisher exact test (0.591) and Monte Carlo simulation methods (0.685) are greater than 0.05. Table no 1 & 2 shows statistical test results. We accept the null hypothesis "there is no association between store choice influencer and visit to the particular organized retail store "at 5% level of significance. Therefore the hypothesis" "there is association between store choice influencer and visit to the particular organized retail store" is rejected. Researcher concludes that test shows no evidence that there is association between store choice influence and visit to the particular organized retail format.

Table 1: Chi- Square Tests - Store Choice Influencers

Value df Asymp. Sig (2- sided) Exact Sig. (2 sided)

Pearson Chi-Square 35.191 39 .644 .689

Likelihood Ratio 33.338 39 .725 .684

Fisher's Exact Test 40.750 .591

N of Valid cases 40


Table 2: Chi- Square Tests - Store Choice Influencers

Value df Asymp. Sig (2- sided) Monte Carlo Sig. (2-sided)

99% Confidence level

Sig Lower Bound Upper Bound

Pearson Chi-Square 35.191a 39 .644 .685b .673 .697

Likelihood Ratio 33.338 39 .725 .678b .666 .690

Fisher's Exact Test 40.750 .585b .573 .598

N of Valid cases 40

Testing of Hypothesis 2: There is significance difference in total customer retail experience in various national level organized food and grocery retail chain.

To check the mean score of total customer retail experience in between various retail stores (food bazaar, more, reliance fresh, spencers), researcher applied one way analysis of variance. There is no significant difference at 5% level of significance in total customer retail experience (As p value is greater than 0.05). Table 3 shows mean scores and standard deviations of retail marketing mix factors (RMMF) and customer touch point expereince (CTPE). Table 4 shows the

Table 3 : Mean Scores and Std.Deviations of Retail Marketing Mix Factors and Customer Touch Points Experience

N Mean Std. Deviation

Retail Food Bazar 18 78.89 7.435

More 6 77.00 2.966

Marketing Reliance Fresh 7 81.00 4.041

Spencers 9 79.44 4.035

Mix Factors (RMMF) Total 40 79.10 5.697

Customer Food Bazar 18 32.22 3.639

More 6 27.67 3.615

Touch Reliance Fresh 7 25.71 5.707

Spencers 9 30.33 5.657

Point Total 40 29.98 5.046

Customer Total Retail Experience Food Bazar 18 127.44 7.801

(CTRE) = Retail Marketing Mix More 6 120.67 5.125

factors + Customer Touch Reliance Fresh 7 123.00 7.439

Points Expereince Spencers 9 125.89 8.085

Total Score Total 40 125.30 7.633

results of one way ANOVA test.

Statistics infer that Total retail experience is same in all retail stores. On the other hand it has been observed that there is significant difference in customer touch point experience as p value is less than 0.05. Researcher wants to conclude that customer touch point experience is differenent in various retail stores. Further it is observed that in a hierchary Food Bazar is at first position followed by Spencer, More and Reliance Fresh.


Table 4 : Results of One way ANOVA Analysis - Retail Marketing Mix Factors and Customer Touch Points Experience

Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.

Retail Between Groups 53.6000 3 17.867 .531 .664

Marketing Within Groups 1212.000 36 33.667

Mix Factors (RMMF)

Score Total 1265.600 39

Customer Between Groups 251.102 3 83.701 4.062 .014

Touch

Points Experience (CTPE) Within Groups 741.873 36 20.608

Score Total 992.975 39

Customer Total Retail Between Groups 251.733 3 83.911 1.495 .232

Experience (CTRE) =

Retail Marketing Mix Within Groups 2020.667 36 56.130

factors + Customer

Touch Points Total 2272.400 39

Experience

Testing of hypothesis 3 : Similar CRM practices get implemented at various national levels organized food and grocery retail chain.

To check the mean score of CRM practices in between various retail stores (Food Bazaar, More, Reliance Fresh, Spencers), researcher has applied one way analysis of variance. There is no significant difference in CRM practices at 5% level of significance. Table 5 shows mean scores and standard deviations. Table 6 shows the results of one way ANOVA test. Since p value is 0.182 (greater than 0.05) there is no significant difference in CRM practices at various organized retail stores. Researcher concludes that similar CRM practices get implemented at various organized retail stores.

Table 5: Mean Scores and Std.Deviations - Customer Relationship Management Practices

Retailers N Mean Std. Deviation

Food Bazar 18 35.94 3.386

More 6 35.67 1.966

Reliance Fresh 7 36.57 3.047

Spencers 9 38.56 2.789

Total 40 36.60 3.120

Table 6: Results of One way ANOVA Analysis - Customer Relationship Management Practices

Sum of Squares

.Between Groups 47.386 3 15.795 1.712 .182

Within Groups 332.214 36 9.228

Total 379.600 39

Conclusion and Implications for Retailers:

The study shows that there is no linkage between store choice influencers (SCI) and visit to particular retail store. Review of literature clearly shows that location and distance influence and impacts visit to a particular retail store. However, researcher view that sample size of 40 customers is inadequate to draw conclusion on SCI and visit to a particular store. The data analysis reveals that there is no difference in retail marketing mix factors (RMMF) across retailers. Retailers need to improve RMMF in order to differentiate themselves from the competitors. Customer experience touch points (CETP) reflects service quality. The better the service quality, higher the customer total retail experience. Another objective of this study was to understand the difference in CRM implementation across retail stores. This study shows that similar CRM practices are implemented across retail stores. In this competitive era, better relationship with customers makes

Df Mean Square F Sig


sense.

In near future, giant retailers like Wal-Mart, Carrefore and Tesco would enter Indian market. Their entry would pose a threat to Indian retailers. Well planned and executed CRM practices would help Indian retailers to retain their existing customer base. The research shows that the retail marketing mix factors influence customer's mind and their shopping pattern. Easy access to each merchandise item proves frequently said quote that "the merchandise handled is merchandising half sold" is absolutely true. Retailers must bring Indianess in retail by implementation of think global, act local strategy successfully. Thrust on visual communication coupled with right grouping of merchandise would work well. Study shows customer experience at touch point makes it crucial for deciding customer's preference towards particular store. Customers total retail experience will impact intangible factors like store image and retailers brand name. Due to growing competition in organized retail, especially in food and grocery segment, retailers should be more focused in improving quality of service especially at Customer Touch points. In general retailer needs to adapt and implement strategies especially shoptainment i.e. providing entertainment for shoppers with greater vigour. Benefits of such strategies include more footfalls and growing loyal customer base. With growing competition, retailers need to differentiate themselves. Therefore, retailers need to improve customer's service quality expereince and implement better CRM practices in order to attract new set of customers and retain existing customer base.

References:

Brune, 1990 - Cited in Julie Baker, Michael Levy, Dhruv Grewal, 2000, Án experimental approach to making retail store environmental decisions, Journal of Retailing, Vol.68, No.4, winter 1992, pp.445-460

Babin and Darden 1995 - cited in L.W.Turley, Jean-Charles chebat, ´Linking Retail Strategy, atmospheric design and shopping behavior, ?Journal of Marketing Management, 2002, 18, pp.125-144

Beatty and Ferrell 1998 - cited in L.W.Turley, Jean-Charles chebat, ´Linking Retail Strategy, atmospheric design and shopping behavior, ?Journal of Marketing Management, 2002, 18, pp.125-144

Donaram and Rossiter, 1982 - cited in Julie Baker, Michael Levy, Dhruv Grewal, 2000, ́ An experimental approach to making retail store environmental decisions, Journal of Retailing, Vol.68, No.4, winter 1992, pp.445-460

Irena vida, claude obadia, michelle kunz, ´The effects of background music on consumer responses in a high end supermarket, ?Int.Rev.of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research, Vol.17, No.5, pp 469-482, Dec.2007

Julie Baker, Michael Levy, Dhruv Grewal, 2000, Án

experimental approach to making retail store environmental decisions, Journal of Retailing, Vol.68, No.4, winter 1992, pp.445-460

K.Douglas Hoffman, L.W.Turley, 2002, Átmospherics, service encounters and consumer decision making: integrative perspectives, Journal of Marketing, summer 2002, pp.33-47

Kotler, 1973 -cited in L.W.Turley, Jean-Charles chebat, ´Linking Retail Strategy, atmospheric design and shopping behavior, ?Journal of Marketing Management, 2002, 18, pp.125-144

L.W.Turley, Jean-Charles chebat, ´Linking Retail Strategy, atmospheric design and shopping behavior, ?Journal of Marketing Management, 2002, 18, pp.125- 144

Mehrabian and Russel, 1974 - cited in Donaram and Rossiter,

1982 (Julie Baker, Michael Levy, Dhruv Grewal, 2000, Án experimental approach to making retail store environmental decisions, Journal of Retailing, Vol.68, No.4, winter 1992, pp.445-460

Milliman 1982, 1983 - cited in Donaram and Rossiter, 1982 (Julie Baker, Michael Levy, Dhruv Grewal, 2000, Án experimental approach to making retail Store environmental decisions, Journal of Retailing, Vol.68, No.4, winter 1992,pp.445-460

Sorderquist 2000 -cited in L.W.Turley, Jean-Charles chebat, ´Linking Retail Strategy, atmospheric design and shopping behavior, Journal of Marketing Management, 2002, 18, pp.125-144

Turley and Milliman, 2000 -cited in K.Douglas Hoffman, L.W.Turley, 2002, Átmospherics, service encounters and consumer decision making: an integrative perspective, Journal of Marketing, summer 2002, pp.33-47

Turley and Milliman, 2000 -cited inL.W.Turley, Jean-Charles chebat, ´Linking Retail Strategy, atmospheric design and shopping behavior, ?Journal of Marketing Management, 2002, 18, pp.125-144




bstract:

A driver of Globalization has sharpened competition, Powerful factors are driving globalization: falling trade barriers; fast-paced technological advances; declining communications and transport costs; international migration; and highly mobile investment. The main challenge firms facing are how to take advantage of new resources and markets while dealing with intense and growing global competition. This paper addresses how Value Methodology (VM) can help in achieving an edge over competitors.

In today's market, Value Methodology (VM) is important improvement tool to improve quality and reduce cost. Application of VM resulted in typically by 15 to 25 percent reduction of manufacturing cost, investment cost, customer warranty cost, and procurement costs. Value Methodology is practiced by some Industries to its Customer and for Business promotion. However, Value Methodology is not immune to Globalization and increasing competitive pressures, technology up gradation or obsolescence.

Introduction:

To keep pace with intensifying global competition, business organizations are always looking for new management techniques and best practices to enhance their product /service quality and profitability. But some times an old technique proves to be the best; one of such technique is Value Methodology. Value Methodology has emerged as highly effective and practical management techniques of the world. It can be defined that Value Methodology technique is a combination of Value Analysis and Value Engineering. Value Analysis is used for the existing products or services and value engineering applied for new product or service development. Most successful organization of the world uses VM technique for continuous improvement of its product and service quality, market share, innovation and profitability.Value methodology facilitates in enhancing customer value by reducing cost, making use of various improvement tools like lean technology which in turn facilitates in enhancing customer value by reducing cost and improving delivery

speed by eliminating non-value added activities (waste). This paper describes how the VM technique is used for gaining customer satisfaction by suggesting improvements in products or services.

Conceptual Framework:

During the design stage of product / service, a significant amount of information is gathered and analyzed in order to support the decision making process that leads to successful products. Various techniques have been used to collect, organize, analyze, synthesize, and display the information used in the design process. In this study following techniques were used to achieve the result.

Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is a "method to transform user demands into design quality, to deploy the functions forming quality”

Value Analysis / Value Engineering (VE) - is a systematic method to improve the "value" of goods or products and services. Value is defined as the ratio of function to cost.

8D Analysis, 5W 2H analysis, Failure Mode Effect Analysis (FMEA) and Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DFMA) are some of the aspects of these techniques. Each one of them represents a formal methodology aimed at accomplishing particular objectives. For Successful application of these tools needs an administrative system to ensure proper deployment. To introduce these tools as a part of a business philosophy that requires extensive training, multidisciplinary team collaboration, expert guidance and long work sessions.. The lack of any of these elements, or an attitude, can significantly affect the effectiveness of these tools. Experience shows that each tool presents particular strengths and weaknesses.

In the following case study we consider the problems of customer about sunroof provided to cars. Problems and reasons are as shown in below the table

A

Dr. Shyamkant V. Shrigiriwar

Sinhgad Institute of Management, Pune


Case Study- On Value Methodology for Engineering Business

Customer's Problems

Case -1

1) I have just taken my Car back to the dealers due to a leaking sunroof. There is obviously a design problem.

2) The owner said that the sunroof only leaked when washed with a high pressure spray

3) In trying to trace a significant water leak from my sunroof, I saw that the water appeared to be getting into the greased 'tracks' that guide the sunroof backwards and forwards and then into the 'guttering' that runs around the outside of the mechanism, hence to the bottom of the plastic corner pieces of the gutter. It seemed a little odd as it was leaking from both sides

Case - 2

Owner finds that aluminium section broken (Estuation section)

Case - 3

Sliding mechanism get jam (not operate properly Case - 4

That sounds pretty bad and quite worrying, hope you get it sorted

Description

Project originated in sales depa r tmen t based on customer feedback

Pro jec t o r ig ina ted in Engineering Dept

Pro jec t o r ig ina ted in Engineering Dept.

Pro jec t o r ig ina ted in Engineering Dept.

Reasons

Drain Holes and TubesFactory fitted sunroof the 'seal' is not to meant to be a perfect seal and the gutter should carry away the water to the four sunroof drains at the front and rear corners of the sunroof pan. If these do not drain, chances are the drain is blocked or the hose is kinked.

Worn Sunroof Seal GuardOver the period the sealing ring around the sunroof's edge becomes worn and frayed, allowing water to leak in regardless of how the roof is seated. The seal can also slip off the edge of the sunroof panel, allowing a path for water to flood i

Leakage trough estuation section due to vibration and through the cracks

Defective sliding system-Due to Sliding wear and tear were higher

Due to rubbing action, rattling effect generated. Noise is on Higher side.

To solve the problems sequence of techniques is used in which QFD, VE and DFMA were applied to the different cases in this work. This sequence was established based on an analysis of the characteristics of each tool and experience in their application. The researcher tried to identify the gaps and overlaps through information at design stage. A brief description of each of these tools is as follows.

The Quality Function Deployment methodology (QFD) is designed to drive a product development process from conception to manufacture. The House of Quality (HOQ) is a graphic tool that is closely associated with QFD and is used to display the outcome of the analysis at the design stage:

Value Methodology (VM) is a process in which a product is analyzed in terms of functions it performs. Costs are also analyzed function wise. Functions are analyzed in order of their importance.

Functions are classified as basic (what the product must do) and support functions. Function importance vs. function cost graphs can be used to display disparity of value.

Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DFMA) methodology is a technique that focuses on product redesign for minimizing manufacturing and assembly costs. The technique provides a ranking system that allows comparison of competing designs in terms of their ease of assembly and the component's manufacturing costs.

Methodology used for case studies:

The proposed methodology was applied in different degrees to four cases.For case no -1, Only QFD and DFMA were applied.Case no 2, 3 4-, only VE and DFMA were applied.

It is essential to form a team of experts. Accordingly Multidisciplinary teams made up of 3-5 members were formed to analyze and recommend modifications. Test cases were selected from a list of candidate products that were proposed by the team. All necessary information, including cost data, engineering information, and market conditions were made available by the companies that owned the products. All of these companies are transnational, and their

Case Study- On Value Methodology for Engineering Business ? Dr. Shyamkant V. Shrigiriwar50

names have been omitted for obvious reasons. As part of their competency development, teams were trained to use the tools that are particular to each technique: Quality function deployment (QFD), Function Analysis System Technique (FAST) diagram and Disparity Charts; and the Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DFMA.)

Throughout the project the following factors were monitored:

?team member attitudes towards the use of each tool ?flow of the information generated and sorted through the

process?results of the analysis at each step

Projects were conducted over a number of weeks period. Each team member worked approximately 40 hours per week in the project. Basic information of product is as follows.

Sunroof Assembly:

An automotive sunroof is a fixed or operable (venting or sliding) opening in an automobile roof which allows light and/or fresh air to enter the passenger compartment. Sunroofs may be manually operated or motor driven, and are available in many shapes, sizes and styles. Sunroof systems may be manual or electric, manual sunroofs may be lever actuated.

A sunroof has become a popular automotive option simply because it's so good at triggering our emotions.. The question is which type of sunroof to choose.

There are the simple, economical pop-up designs. They feature a glass panel that can be tilted open to vent some hot air or removed for even more airflow.

Most factory sunroofs are designed for the driver and front passenger. But it is possible to install one of these stylish air fresheners for back seat passengers in a van or CAR. Since they feature a glass panel, sunroofs will even provide additional light for passengers who want to read or play games while someone else does the driving.

The sunroofs on car top are raised and lowered by two lifting arms at the rear edge of the roof the lifting arms are operated by plastic gears (one for each lifting arm mechanism). The plastic gears have a small set of teeth which operate the lifting arms. They also have a large set of teeth which are driven by a flexible cable. The cable is driven by the sunroof motor. Operation of sunroof shown in below pictures.

Picture-01.

Picture-02.

Picture-03.

Analysis and solutions of the Cases :

Case -1 (Glass Panel Assembly with Rubber Beading)

This case is originated from a sales department. To analyze this case QFD & DFMA techniques are used.

First we checked drawings of components along with specifications. It is observed that components were as per specification.

Secondly, we checked fitment of glass panel assembly with rubber beading, it is observed that due to joint at corners of panel fitment is not proper and that developed a gap, through this gap water leakage observed.

Solution- To overcome this problem thin plastic covers/seal should be introduced which will cover the gap as well as fill the gap.

Result- It is essential to clarify and justify the analysis. After discussion with management, a modification that met the customer's request was prepared. A few prototypes were built and tested in the field. The new design was well accepted by the users. No customers complained about failure of the product after modifications.

Case 2 - Owner finds that aluminium section broken (Estuation section).

This case originated from engineering department

First, Value Methodology (VM) team checked functions of the components. It is observed that functions are not properly operated because estuation section used for making a frame have a collar. At the time of fitment extra part has to be removed due to uneven level components arenot function


Modified Design

Project Name

Glass Panel Assembly with Rubber Beading

Description

Project originated in sales department based on customer feedback

Objective

Increased market share by adding distinguishing design characteristic ,product acceptance

Results

Design was implemented. Cost was slightly increased. as new components added

QFD VM DFMA

Component weight reduction.

Project originated in Engineering Dept.

Design was simplified 150gms component Wt. reduction. Machining Operation time reduced.Cost was reduced.Under study for implementation

Reduce costReduce weight

reduction were also possible. Proposal was approved by the management.

Cases 3 and 4- lifting arms retract to the "released" position for removal but will not rise to the "locked" position (Components from Sliding Arm of Opening Mechanism & Components from Sliding Mechanism)

Case is originated in engineering section primarily with the purpose of reducing noise, reducing costs.

Under VM and DFMA technique, team first checked specification and drawing, it is observed that specification and drawing are correct.

Secondly it is observed that at the time of operation smoothness was not observed. Due to friction wear and tear is more, particularly alunimium materials get faster wear generates a gap between two sliding components, at the time of sliding noise observed.


properly,

Secondly under the DFMA (design for Manufacturing and Assembling) Techniques, six inch collar should be considered for fitment.

Solution - To overcome this problem it is suggested that to modify the drawing of exstuation section. In the modified drawing, collar should be illuminated and required size bracket should be fitted to the section (as required length as per modified drawing). Due to illumination of unwanted portion, weight and cost can be reduced as well as time for cutting work can be saved hence level can be maintained & Leakage problem can be sorted out.

Result - Before discussion to management, proposed modifications done by the team was shown to the designers and quality engineers, for the scrutiny after getting ok remarks . Then Modified design was presented to the management, for approval. In the simplified design 150gms component Wt. reduction was possible .Due to weight reduction, cost

focused on improving performance of specific features which may be relevant to specific populations. Solutions were designed and implemented without any further filtering and as a result, to meet the costumer's expectations. VE is an engineering driven process, as shown in Cases 2, 3 and 4. During the construction of the FAST diagrams, basic functions were easily identified by each team.

One of the strengths of the VE process is that modifications that are not constrained by the product's original composition, which is a more natural course of action in the QFD. The DFMA methodology is straightforward, and the modifications that it recommends are very specific. In principle, the methodology is not constrained by the particular characteristics of the product, other than the obvious fact that the product needs.

Conclusions

This Value Methodology (the integration of QFD, VE and DFMA) in a design process shows that:

?QFD is capable of identifying functions that need improvement in a given product.

?Relevant data about the product/function or component is immediately required for further processing in the VE stage.

?Information from the QFD makes the VE process more focused and manageable.

?Regarding the identification of potential projects is reached more easily.

Project Name Description


Objective

Reducing NoiseReducing assembly cost

Results

Design was simplified. Contradicting characteristics achievedCost were reduced.Mechanism operating noise reduced

QFD VM DFMA

Components from Sliding Arm of Opening Mechanism

Components fromSliding Mechanism

Reducing NoiseReducing assembly cost

Design was simplified. Contradicting characteristics achievedCost were reduced.Mechanism operating noise reduced



Solution -To avoid above problem design was simplified the number of parts was reduced, resulting in reduced assembly and service costs. However, proposals were halted as manufacturing costs would be increase due to the need to buy new tooling. But both products are readily available in the market and the costs of tooling are virtually zero at this stage of their life cycle.

Design was simplified. Due to simplification and reduction in numbers of components contradicting characteristics achieved. Due to reduction in weight as well as reduction in number of components gives smooth operation. Also due to less wear and tear noise reduced.

Result- For to check the performance of modified components, prototype model were prepared and taken a trials and it is observed that performance found up to the mark the proposal was submitted to management after discussion and replying the queries , proposal were approved

Findings about the Integration Method:

The study showed that some of the elements that was difficult to account for in other VE processes, as seen in Cases 2, 3 and 4. After the QFD stage in Case- 1, The analysis could then focus on a specific component as opposed to the whole product.

Another outcome of the QFD process was that relevant information was readily available: requests were ranked in order of importance and measurable characteristics of product, In these cases, information was sought and displayed just in case it might be needed, and there was no particular procedure or format for organizing or displaying this information. The study also showed that the results of the QFD process were not necessarily balanced, because requests

?are also more balanced.

?DFMA can be used to optimize the design proposals and the information from the QFD/VE processes can be used to evaluate the impact.

?The case study shows that the methodology is better suited to products that are still in early stages of their life cycle. A benefit of the integrated methodology is the fact that after each step, the information is summarized, classified and displayed clearly. This allows the teams to have evidence of the project's evolution. Communication is greatly enhanced and information flow is streamlined.

References :

Miles, Lawrence D. (1972) Techniques of Value Analysis and Engineering - 2nd Editions, McGraw Hill, New York

Fallon, Carlos (1965) Practical Use of Decision Theory in Value Engineering, pgs. 45-49, Journal of Value Engineering

Fallon, Carlos (1965) Value and Decision, RCA MonographDe Marle, David (1992) Value - Its Measurement, Design &

Management, Wiley, New York

Saaty, T.L. (1980) The Analytical Hierarchical Process, McGraw Hill, New York

Von Winterfeldt, D. and Edwards, W. (1986), Decision Analysis and Behavioral Research, Cambridge University Press, New York

U.S. Dept. of Transportation, FHWA (1990), Memorandum - Purpose and Need in Environmental Documents

Fowler, Theodore C. (1990), Value Analysis in Design, Nostrand Reinhold, New York

Stewart, Robert B. & Hunter, George (2001), Moving Beyond the Cost Savings Paradigm - The Evaluation and Measurement of Project Performance, AASHTO Value Engineering Conference Proceedings

Kaufman, J. J. (1994) The Principles and Applications of FAST, J.J. Kaufman & Associates, Inc.

Stewart, Robert B., Fundamentals of Value Methodology, Xlibris, 2005, pp. 153

Kaufman, J. Jerry; Value Management, Crisp Publications, Inc., 1998, pp. 77

L. Delbecq and A. H Van de Ven, "A Group Process Model for Problem Identification and Program Planning, Journal Of Applied Behavioral Science VII (July/August, 1971), pp. 466-91

VE allows for more solutions than the QFD alone. They A. L. Delbecq, A. H. Van deVen,and D. H. Gustafson, Group Techniques for Program Planners (Glenview, Illinois, Scott Foresman and Company, 1975).




Introduction:

Information technology (IT) is changing at an unprecedented rate. This change is increasing number of IT products and services, especially software packages, entering in the marketplace. Accessing applicably of such a wide array of IT products and services to the business needs of the organization becomes complex task. Evaluation and selection of the software packages involves simultaneous consideration of multiple, usually conflicting factors, to rank the available alternatives and select the best one. Multi criteria decision making (MCDM) problem refers to making preference decision over the available alternatives by considering multiple factors [Triantaphyllou, 2000]. Therefore, evaluation and selection of the software packages can be considered as MCDM problem. Inappropriate selection of the software package can turn out to be costly and adversely affects business processes and functioning of the organization. For example, there are number of solutions in an ERP market and every solution has different features. As ERP costs hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars, purchasing an ERP solution is a high expenditure activity that consumes significant portion of companies' capital budget [Verville & Hallingten, 2002]. Therefore, selecting a software package that meets organization requirements needs careful examination of many conflicting factors.

Research motivation:

Decision making in software selection has become more complex due to: large number of software products available in the market; continual advancements and improvements in information technology; existence of incompatibilities between various hardware and software; difficulty in accessing functional dissimilarities of various software packages; lack of structured description of features of the software package and user requirements of that package; consideration of several factors while choosing the best option; user requirement of the software package keeps on changing [Lin et al., 2006] [Mohamed et al. 2004]. The task of software selection is often assigned under schedules pressure and decision makers may not have time or experience to plan

the selection process in detail. Therefore they may not use the most appropriate method or criteria for evaluation and selection of the software packages [Kontio, 1996].

Review of the literature on evaluation and selection of the software packages shows that analytics hierarchy process (AHP) has widely been used for evaluation of the software packages. Another common approach used for evaluation of the software packages is weighted scoring method (WSM). Both AHP and WSM technique has its own strengths and weaknesses. AHP assists decision makers to structure a decision making problem into hierarchy, helping them to understand and simplify the problem. However, AHP technique has some weaknesses such as (i) it is difficult to use as its calculation model involves very large number of pair-wise comparisons (ii) decision makers need to re-evaluate alternatives when user needs of the software package changes or the number of alternatives to be evaluated increases/decreases or evaluation criteria changes (iii) adding an alternative may cause a rank reversal (reversal in ranking) problem.

WSM is easy to use and understand but this method works only with the numeric scale. Another problem with WSM is that it produces real numbers as results; these results can easily be interpreted as if they represent true differences between the alternatives. In actual fact, the resulting scores only represents relative ranking of the alternatives and differences in their value but does not give any indication of their relative superiority [Kontio, 1996].

Both AHP and WSM produce relative ranking of the alternatives but lack in indicating how well each alternative meets user requirements of that software package. Another problem with both AHP and WSM is that these techniques do not adopt requirement-driven approach and are inadequate for software selection [Ncube & Dean, 2002]. Therefore, there is a need of new technique for evaluation and selection of the software packages that overcomes the problems of AHP and WSM. The review of Literature [Jadhav & Sonar, 2009] also shows that (i) there is a little work done on developing generic methodology describing issues and factors that needs to be taken into consideration during the process of software selection (ii) many literature provides criteria for evaluation of specific software package such as ERP, CRM. However, there is lack of research on developing a generic list (taxonomy) of evaluation criteria along with its meaning and associated measures that could be used for evaluation of any software

1 2Dr. Anil Jadhav , Dr. Rajendra Sonar

1. Sinhgad Institute of Management, Pune.

2. IIT Bombay, Mumbai.

Framework for Evaluation and Selection of the Software Packages: A Hybrid Knowledge Based System Approach

package.

Formal and precise description of the software packages is usually not available. A reasonable approach is to augment the available documentation with the knowledge derived from the literature, practices and experience of the expert. Knowledge based system (KBS) provides a way to organize the knowledge and deliver a tool that assists decision makers in evaluation and selection of the software packages [Bandini et al., 2001]. Evaluation and selection of the software packages is knowledge intensive process [Mohamed et al., 2004]. The decision makers lack the technical expertise in establishing software evaluation criteria, defining its meaning and associated measures, and testing procedures for performance assessment and to conduct actual evaluation [Ncube and Dean, 2002]. Therefore, selecting right software package requires robust decision support system/tool supported by well established knowledge base. KBS has a potential to play significant role in evaluation and selection of the software packages. Existing systems/tools provides a little support in various software evaluation activities such as flexibility in changing evaluation criteria and user needs of the package, collecting online vendor responses to the RFP, determining the fit between software package and user needs of that package, reusing knowledge/ experience.

Objectives of the study:

The objective of this study is to provide a basis to improve the process software selection and propose a generic framework to assist decision makers in evaluation and selection of any software package. This can be further refined into following sub-objectives:

?propose a generic methodology for selection of the software packages

?propose a generic list (taxonomy) of software evaluation criteria along with its meaning and associated measures that are essential for assessment of the candidate software packages

?propose a hybrid knowledge based system (HKBS) having inbuilt knowledge of software evaluation criteria and evaluation technique to assist decision makers not only in evaluation and selection but also reduce the time and efforts required for evaluation and selection of the software packages

Research approach:

Keeping objectives of the research study in mind, initially framework for evaluation and selection of the software packages has been developed on the basis of thorough literature review. The framework comprises of (i) generic methodology for software selection, (ii) taxonomy of software evaluation criteria along with its meaning and associated measures (iii) HKBS to assist decision makers in evaluation and selection of the software packages. Literature

associated with the evaluation and selection of the software packages were reviewed thoroughly to (i) develop a generic methodology for selection of the software packages, and (ii) investigate generic criteria along with its meaning and associated measures that could be used for evaluation of any software package. The literatures associated with the knowledge based systems were also reviewed to understand KBS and its applicability, especially, for evaluation and selection of the software packages.

After developing framework next step was to illustrate the applicability of HKBS for evaluation and selection of the software packages. The applicability of HKBS for software selection has been illustrated by developing and using HKBS for evaluation and selection of the i) customer relationship management (CRM) packages ii) enterprise resource planning (ERP) packages iii) business intelligence (BI) software packages and iv) campus management system (CMS) software for educational institutes. Evaluation criteria investigated on the basis of thorough literature review have been used for evaluation of these packages. For the functional criteria and data (software features and feature values) about the software packages to be evaluated, we rely on the secondary data collected from various websites, products leaflets & brochures. A real-world data provided by one of the engineering company has been used in the CRM case study.

After illustrating applicability of HKBS for evaluation and selection of the software packages, next step was to perform usability test to verify functionality, efficiency, effectiveness and convenience of the HKBS approach for software selection. To conduct this experiment questionnaire was designed to take feedback from experts having knowledge/experience of evaluating and selecting software packages. Experts were first given training on how to make use of the system for software selection and then they were asked to make use of the system. Feedback was then taken from the experts to test functionality, efficiency, effectiveness and convenience of the HKBS approach for evaluation and selection of the software packages.

After performing usability test the next step was to compare AHP, WSM and HKBS. The comparison has been done by using each of these techniques for evaluation and selection of the software component.

Framework for evaluation and selection of the software packages:

The framework proposed for evaluation and selection of the software packages comprises of (1) Methodology for selection of the software package (2) taxonomy of software evaluation criteria along with its meaning and associated measures that are essential for assessment of the candidate software packages (3) HKBS to assist decision makers for evaluation and selection of the software packages.

Methodology for software selection:

Framework for Evaluation and Selection of the Software Packages ? Dr. Anil Jadhav ? Dr. Rajendra Sonar56

The methodology for selection of the software packages consists of various stages describing issues and factors that need to be taken into consideration during the process of software selection and deliverable at each stage. Methodology is not intended as rigid structure, it is intended as guideline and aid that can be adapted according to requirements of the individual organization. A generic methodology for selection of the software packages is developed on the basis of thorough literature review and stages in the methodology are: Requirement definition; preliminary investigation; creating shortlist of packages; establishing evaluation criteria; evaluation, and final selection.

Taxonomy of software evaluation criteria:

Many literature concerning evaluation and selection of the software packages provides software evaluation criteria to evaluate specific software package such as Data Mining, CRM, ERP, etc. However, focus of these literatures is not on providing a generic list of criteria that could be used for evaluation of any software package. It has also been observed that meaning of evaluation criteria is not clearly defined and it is open to evaluators own interpretation. Sometimes terminology used by one author for a criterion in one literature is different than terminology used by another author for the same criterion, which might confuse evaluator. Some literature describes only functional and quality criteria but do not focus on the important criteria related to the vendor, cost and benefits, technical (hardware and software) requirements, opinion and output related characteristics of the software package.

The taxonomy of software evaluation criteria along with its meaning and associated measures is developed on the basis of thorough literature review. The evaluation criteria are broadly categorized into seven different groups namely: functional, technical, quality, vendor, output, cost and benefits, and opinion related characteristics.

HKBS approach for evaluation and selection of the software packages:

The HKBS for evaluation and selection of the software packages employs an integrated rule based and case based reasoning techniques. So far, HKBS approach for evaluation and selection of the software packages has not been used in any of the reviewed literature. Rule based system, a deductive reasoning approach, is reasoning system which mimics the problem solving behavior of the human experts. Case based reasoning, an inductive reasoning approach, is problem solving approach that solves problem by adapting solution of more similar cases that has been solved in the past. A new problem is matched against cases in the case base and one or more similar cases are retrieved. Solution suggested by matching cases is then reused and tested for the success [Aamodt and Plaza, 1994]. A HKBS approach eliminates drawbacks of both pure inductive and deductive reasoning and solves problem in more intelligent way.

HKBS has been developed using an enterprise intelligent system development and solution framework described by Sonar [2004]. The solution framework supports to develop, deploy, and run web based applications and decision support systems backed by an integrated architecture of rule based reasoning, case based reasoning, neural network, and genetic algorithm. Only rule based reasoning and case based reasoning components of the solution framework have been used for development of the HKBS. Rule based reasoning component of the HKBS stores domain knowledge i.e. knowledge about the software evaluation criteria. It assists decision makers to: (1) choose criteria which he/she wish to consider for evaluation of the software packages (2) capture users requirements of the software package through a simple or knowledge driven sequence of form (3) formulate a problem case. Rule based expert system also helps in controlling execution of the CBR.

Once user needs of the software package are captured, next step is submitting these requirements as input to the CBR system. CBR system is then used to: (1) retrieve candidate software packages stored as cases in case base of the system (2) compare user requirements of the software package with description of the candidate software packages (3) rank the candidate software packages in descending order of the similarity score. Similarity score indicates how well each candidate software package meets user requirements of that package. Case base of the system is made up of detailed description of the candidate software packages. Each software package is described using well defined set of features and feature values. Features used to describe candidate software packages have same vocabulary as that of criteria used for evaluation of the software packages.

HKBS produce results in the form of ranking of candidate software packages. The ranking is done in descending order of the similarity score which indicates how well each candidate package meets user requirements of that package. In addition to evaluation and ranking of the candidate software packages, HKBS also facilitates to set weight and cutoff for each criteria category. Weight represents importance of each criteria category in software selection process, and cutoff represents user requirement of minimum similarity score for each criteria category. HKBS also facilitates to collect vendor responses to the request for proposal (RFP) online. It assists vendors of the software packages to describe their software packages in predefined format using the forms generated by the system. The form consists of predefined set of features and feature values of the software package. The forms used to collect vendor responses are similar to the forms used to gather user requirements of the software package during the process of software selection. The advantages of using online approach for collecting vendor responses are: it brings uniformity in describing software packages of the different vendors; it brings not only standardization but also transparency in the process of software selection.

The applicability of HKBS for software selection has been illustrated by developing and using HKBS for evaluation and


selection of the (1) CRM packages (2) BI packages (2) ERP packages and (4) Campus Management System (CMS) software for educational institute. Only functional criteria for evaluation of these software packages are different whereas criteria related to the quality, cost and benefits, technical, vendor, opinion, and output related characteristics of the software package are common and can be used for evaluation of any software package.

Evaluation of HKBS approach:

Usability test is performed to verify functionality, efficiency, effectiveness and convenience of the HKBS approach for evaluation and selection of the software packages. The experts (testers) having knowledge/experience of evaluation and selection of the software packages were involved in the experiment. Testers found that HKBS is easy to use and specify user needs of the software package. It assists decision makers to determine the fit between software package and user needs of that package. They also mentioned that the results (ranking of candidate software packages) produced by the system in the form of percentage case matching (similarity between capabilities of software package and user needs of that package) are impressive. Overall, testers were satisfied with the system developed for evaluation and selection of the software packages.

Comparison of AHP, WSM and HKBS:

As HKBS is new approach proposed in this study for evaluation and selection of the software packages there was need to compare AHP, WSM and HKBS. The comparison is done on the basis of the following parameters by applying each of these techniques for evaluation and selection of the software component.

?Does evaluation technique supports qualitative criteria?

?Does evaluation technique supports quantitative criteria?

?Is evaluation technique simple and easy to use when (i) number of alternatives to be evaluated and number of criteria considered for evaluation are large in number (ii) number of alternatives to be evaluated changes (iii) number of evaluation criteria changes (iv) user needs of the software package changes

?Does evaluation technique support knowledge/experience reuse?

?Does evaluation technique support to capture/change user requirements of the software package?

?Does evaluation technique cause rank reversal (reversal in ranking) problem, if new alternative is added?

?Does evaluation technique produce result indicating how well each package meet user requirements?

Contribution of the study:

Academic perspective: This study carried out an extensive literature review. The classification and contribution of the reviewed literature in the field of evaluation and selection of the software packages should be of value both to the academicians and researchers those who are interested in state-of-the-art of the software package evaluation and selection. This study also provides conceptual understanding of every aspect related to the software selection such as i) stage based methodology describing issues and factors that needs to be taken into consideration during the process of software selection ii) deliverables at each stage ii) evaluation criteria along with its meaning and associated measures that are essential for assessment of the candidate software packages.

Practitioner's perspective: Decision makers need to follow certain procedure during the process of software selection. This study proposed a stage-based methodology describing tasks to be performed at each stage and deliverables at each stage. Decision makers can use the methodology as a guideline or an aid for software selection. Identifying criteria for evaluation of the software packages is tedious and time consuming job for the decision makers. This study proposed a comprehensive list (taxonomy) of software evaluation criteria that are common and can be used for evaluation of any software package. Meaning of each evaluation criteria is also defined along with its associated measures (metrics) that are essential for assessment of the candidate software packages.

HKBS as a tool:

HKBS proposed in this study can be used by decision makers as a tool for software selection as it supports various software evaluation activities such as specifying and changing user requirements of the software package, choosing criteria for evaluation, determining the fit between software package and user requirements of that package, reusing knowledge / experience.

Limitations of the study:

The methodology for selection of the software packages and criteria for evaluation of the software packages proposed in the study are investigated only on the basis of thorough literature review.

Views of limited number of experts/ practitioners have been taken into consideration for evaluation of HKBS approach

Future work:

As information technology advances different user needs in terms of quality characteristics of the software package will emerge that needs to be addressed by enhancing the decision making framework. The framework can be enhanced further by adding new evaluation criteria along with its meaning and associated measures/metrics.

Framework for Evaluation and Selection of the Software Packages ? Dr. Anil Jadhav ? Dr. Rajendra Sonar58

More case studies with the larger scope can also be conducted to further test the functionality, efficiency, effectiveness and convenience of the HKBS approach.

Extend functionality of the HKBS to assist decision makers in finding the best solution when system is to be developed by integrating components from different vendors.

References:

Aamodt, E. Plaza, Case based reasoning foundational issues, methodical variations and system approaches, AI communications, vol-7 No.1, 1994, pp. 39-59.

S. Bandini, F. Paoli, S. Manzoni, P. Mereghetti, A support system to COTS-based software development for business services, SEKE'02 ACM 2001, pp. 307-314.

S. Jadhav, R. M. Sonar, Evaluating and selecting software packages: A review, Information and software technology 51 (2009), pp. 555-563.

J. Kontio, A case study in applying systematic method for COTS selection, Proceedings of ICSE-18, IEEE, 1996, pp. 201-209.

H.-Y. Lin, P.-Y. Hsu, G.-J. Sheen, A fuzzy-based decision making procedure for data warehouse system selection, Expert systems with applications, 2006.

Mohamed, T. Wanyama, G. Ruhe, A. Eberlein, B. Far, COTS evaluation supported by knowledge bases, Springer-Verlag, LSO 2004, LNCS 3096, pp. 43-54.

Ncube, J. C. Dean, The limitations of current decision making techniques in the procurement of COTS software components, proceedings of the first international conference on COTS-based software system, Orlando, pp. 176-187, Feb 2002.

R. M. Sonar, A web-based hybrid intelligent system framework, Proceedings of sixth IASTED international conference on intelligent systems and control, ISC 2004, Aug. 2004, Honolulu, USA.

E. Triantaphyllou, Multi-Criteria Decision making Methods: A Comparative Study, Springer, 2000.

J. Verville, A. Hallingten, An investigation of the decision process for selecting an ERP software: the case of ESC, Management Decision, Vol. 40 No.3, 2002, pp.206-216.




bstract:

Objectives of this study were to analyse trends in vehicle population, road accidents and air pollution in Pune city. This is studied by using secondary data of vehicle population, road accidents and air pollution. A Trend was studied for personal vehicles (two-wheelers, four-wheelers) as well as for autos and buses. Similarly, roadwise, time-slot-wise, vehicle-wise, month-wise accident patterns were also analysed. Also problems faced while travelling by bus as well as by personal vehicle were found out by a primary survey. Expectations of the people to shift from personal vehicles to public transport was carried out, based on which, suggestions for improvement are given. The relationship between vehicle population and number of accidents has been worked out. The expected human population and the number of buses required for them is also worked out.


1. To study the trends in motor vehicle population in Pune city.

2. To study the trends in road accidents in Pune city.

3. To study the air pollution scenario in Pune city.

4. To identify travel patterns and problems encountered while availing public transport services in Pune City.

5. To study the problems faced by two-wheeler and four-wheeler users while travelling daily (to their work/study place) and their expectations from Pune's public transport for availing it.

6. To study the relationship between vehicle population and number of road accidents.

7. To estimate the number of two-wheelers, four-wheelers and total vehicle population for the next decade in Pune city.

8. To forecast the population of Pune city in order to estimate the requirement of buses (public transport) for Pune city for the next decade.

Hypothesis of the Study:

1. Safe and separate cycle routes will increase the use of the cycle.

2. If reliable bus services are provided, people will use public transport.

3. For good services bus travelers are ready for an increase in bus fare.

4. By encouraging the use of public transport (buses) road accidents and air pollution can be minimized.

Background of the Study:

In the twenty-first century, a large number of rural people migrated to the cities. These ever expanding cities have generated a tremendous demand for transportation. Between 1951 and 2001 the number of vehicles has increased 158 times. Much of the growth is in personalized modes like two-wheelers, cars and jeeps. Such a rapid growth threatens the sustainability of city by creating local, national and global problems: rising congestion, increased air pollution, increased oil consumption and high rates of road accidents are some of the challenges associated with motorization.

Pune city is an important urban center in Maharashtra. It is one of the rapidly growing metropolitan cities of the country. Over a period of time, the city has started experiencing problems in safe and easy movement of people and goods. Pune city on an average registers about 8 accidents every day. The worsening traffic situation and increasing travel demand in Pune city has propelled the need to study the transport scenario and its effects in detail.

Research Design:

This study has adopted the following design to study the above cited objectives and test the hypothesis.Data and Data Sources:

The study was based on primary data as well as secondary data. Secondary data has been used to understand the past, that

A

1 2Dr. Rupali Jain , Dr. V. G. Vedak

1. Sinhgad Institute of Management, Pune

2. Dr. D. Y. Patil Institute of MCA, Akurdi, Pune

Implications of Future Vehicular Traffic and Its Management:A Study of Pune city for the next decade

is, to know the trends in road accidents, air pollution measures, human population etc. while primary data has been used to understand problems faced by bus travelers, personal vehicle users and to know their expectations from public transport.

Secondary Data:

1. Motor vehicle population: Data of motor vehicle population has been collected from the Road Transport Office, Pune for 1993 to 2007.

2. Road accident data: Road accident data for Pune city has been collected from the Pune Traffic Police Department for the period 1997 to 2007.

3. Air pollution data : Air quality status, has been collected from Pune Municipal Corporation, Environment Department, Air Quality Management cell, as well as from Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB).

Primary Data:

Primary data has been collected for two purposes.

1. To know the travel patterns as well as problems encountered by travelers while travelling by public transport. Data has been collected from bus commuters for this purpose. Sample size - 561 bus travelers, Sampling method - Purposive sampling

2. To understand the travel experience of two-wheeler and four-wheeler users and what their expectations are in order to shift to public transport. Data has been collected from two-wheeler users and four-wheeler users for this purpose. Sample size - 585 personal vehicle users , Sampling method - Purposive sampling

Methods and Instrument of Data Collection:

The survey method was chosen for collecting data from the respondents. Two sets of structured and comprehensive questionnaires, one for bus users and one for two-wheeler and four-wheeler users were designed.

Statistical Tools:

The secondary data and primary data was analyzed with the help of software like Microsoft Excel, SPSS version 14 and Curve Expert software for fitting trends. Percentages, graphs, averages, cross tabulation, correlation and regression, trend analysis and hypothesis testing techniques were used.

Findings and Suggestions:

Objective 1: To study the trends in motor vehicles population in Pune city.

1. In the last decade, population of Pune city shows 47

percent increase causing 3 fold increase in number of total vehicles. (Total number of vehicles in Pune city has increased from 3,13,327 to 9,29,825 during 1993 to 2007)

2. The major growth is in personalized vehicles. Two-wheelers and four-wheelers together constitute to 85 percent of total vehicles while buses constitute only 1 percent of total vehicles. Share of Auto and Goods vehicles is around 7 percent.

Objective 2: To Study the trends in road accidents in Pune city.

Motor accidents in Pune City :

1. Number of fatal accidents and serious accidents are increasing every year. Proportion of fatal accident in total accidents have consistently increased from 11 percent in 1997 to 17 percent in 2007.

2. Maximum number of serious accidents has taken place in 2007 which is as high as 406.

3. Number of minor accidents more or less remained constant throughout the years.

Victims in road accidents in Pune city and accident severity index:

1. Number of deaths in fatal accidents shows 50 percent increase from 282 in 2001 to 412 in 2007.

2. Accident severity index has reached to 17.64 in 2007 from 11.91 in 1997. That is 48 percent increase in 10 years.

Vehicle wise fatal accidents, serious accidents and minor accidents: 1. Vehicle wise accident analysis shows that fatal accidents

by trucks and other heavy vehicles is highest followed by two-wheelers and cars and jeeps, that is personalized vehicles.

2. Share of personalized vehicle is highest in serious accidents (55 to 60 percent) and serious accidents by motorcycle and car and jeep shows two fold and four fold increases from 2003 to 2007 respectively.

Classification of accidents by way of victim's vehicle:

1. It is seen that maximum victims of fatalities are pedestrian (38percent) and cyclist (11percent). Pedestrian and cyclist are the most vulnerable for accident.

2. Share of two-wheelers users in fatalities and in serious accidents is 44percent and 48 percent respectively in 2007, which is equally high.

Road-wise, Time-slot-wise, Month-wise fatal accidents,


serious accidents, minor accidents (2004-2007):

1. It is observed that fatal and serious accidents are highest on Pune-Mumbai road followed by Solapur road and Satara Road.

2. Severity of road accident shows Solapur road is most badly affected.

Time-slot wise as road accidents :

1. Time slot wise analysis shows that one third of the accident, take place at night during 9 pm to 7 am, 10 to 15 percent accident take place in the evening rush hours 7 pm. to 9 pm. and around 10 percent in the morning 9 am. to 11 am.

2. It is observed that during 11 to 1 in the morning and 5 to 7 in the evening accident number is quite high (on an average 9 to 10 percent.) in the last 4 years.

Month wise road accidents:

Month wise analysis was done to find out whether accident follows certain pattern according to season, (that is more accidents on rainy season etc.) but no such pattern was observed.

Objective 3: To study air pollution scenario in Pune city:

1. From 2007 - 2008 air pollution data it can be inferred that with respect to SO2 and NOx and SPM at all testing areas (Navi Peth, Mandai, Oasis, Nalstop and Swargate) no pollution problem exists.

2. Annual RSPM level in 2007 was within acceptable limits but in 2008 at Navipeth and Mandai the measure was more than the prescribed limit.

3. Concentration of air pollutants (at Swargate & Nalstop) shows a declining trend from 2003 to 2007. NOx level has reduced in every month (due to replacement of old buses) RSPM levels have reduced below those of 2005-2006.

Objective 4: To identify travel patterns and problems encountered while availing public transport services in Pune city.

1. 75 % people use buses to commute to the office or for education purposes either daily or 3 to 4 days in a week

2. 30, 58 and 12 % travelers are in the age group of 11 - 20, 21-40 and above 40 respectively.

3. While commuting 57 percent people need to change 1 or 2 buses to reach their destination.

4. For short distances people prefer not to use buses (21% for less than 5 kms).

5. Waiting time at bus stops is high (60 percent of the time it is more than 15 minutes).

6. On an average 12 minutes is the walking time taken to reach a bus stop.

7. Crowded buses, not keeping to time table and a lot of waiting time on bus stop are major problems. Less frequency of buses, cleanliness, safety, discipline by travellers are some another problems bus travelers face.

Objective 5: To study problems faced by two-wheeler and four-wheeler users while traveling daily for work/study place and their expectations from Pune's public transport for availing it.

1. The average distance travelled - 12 km. (by two-wheelers) and 18 km. (by four-wheelers).

2. No sharing of vehicle (car pooling) -76 % two-wheeler users travel alone. 13 %, 20% four-wheeler and two- wheeler users use it to full capacity.

3. 30%, 39%, 31% possess one vehicle, two vehicles, and more than two vehicles respectively.

4. A traffic jam is a daily affair in Pune city. (75 percent people get stuck in a traffic jam daily either 1 to 3 times or more than 3 times)

5. 60 % people spend more than 15 minutes daily in a traffic jam.

6. Reliability, good and clean condition of buses, place for sitting and comfortable entry exit.

7. Nonstop, luxury or air conditioned buses have the last priority in the list of expectations

Objective 6: To Study relationship between vehicle population and road accidents.

1. There is a very high (more than 0.9) correlation between the population of total vehicles and fatal accidents as well as the population of total vehicles and serious accidents. ( 0.7)

2. There is a very high relationship between the two-wheeler population and fatal, serious accidents (0.933, 0.689), as well as four-wheeler population and fatal, serious accidents, (0.924, 0.58)

Objective 7: To estimate total two - wheelers, four-wheelers and total vehicle population in Pune city for next decade.

1. In 2020 Two-wheelers -11 lakh to 14 lakh

2. Four-wheelers - 2 to 2.3 lakhs,

Implications of Future Vehicular Traffic and Its Management ? Dr. Rupali Jain ? Dr. V. G. Vedak 62

3. Total number of vehicles - 15 to 18 lakhs

Objective 8: To forecast population of Pune city in order to estimate requirement of buses (public transport) for Pune city for the next decade.

1. It can be seen that the expected population of Pune city in 2020 will be almost 50,00,000. It can be worked out that a minimum of 2200 buses are essential for Pune city's population. An optimistic approach (that is people will shift to buses) suggests approximately 3300 buses will be needed.

Hypothesis Testing:

Hypothesis1: Safe and separate cycle routes will increase use of cycles.

By using one proportion z-test hypothesis is tested and accepted.

Hypothesis 2: If Reliable bus services are provided, people will use public transport.

By using one proportion z-test hypothesis is tested and accepted.

Hypothesis 3: For good services people are ready for an increase in bus fair.

By using one proportion z test hypothesis is tested and rejected.

Hypothesis 4: By Encouraging Use of Public transport Road accidents and Air pollution can be minimized.:

By using t test hypothesis is tested and accepted :

Suggestions:

Efficient and reliable public transport is the key solution :

1. Reduce overcrowding in a bus by increasing frequency of buses. Strict monitoring and controlling by a higher authority combined with disciplinary action for not sticking to the time.

2. Separate and segregated bus lanes, policies like one-way roads and no personal vehicles can be useful.

Demand Management Strategies:

Increase parking charges, Increase road taxes for personal vehicles ,'No personal vehicle zone' area, Bus priority lanes, Multiple taxes for possession of an extra vehicle, A policy of even numbered vehicles on even days and odd numbered vehicles on odd days can help to reduce vehicles on the road.

These strategies can be implemented only after there is a

reasonable improvement in the current bus system following which both approaches should be adopted simultaneously. Pedestrian friendly paths together with separate lanes for bicycles must be designed. Limitations of the Study:

For forecasting of two-wheeler, four-wheeler and total vehicle population, past data has been used and the assumption made is that current trends will continue.

Scope for Future Research:

More research can be done on current traffic control system, as well as on road design.

References :

Black, A., (1995), "Urban Mass Transportation Planning", Published by Tata McGraw-Hill.

Moavenzadeh, F., Markov, M., (2007), "Moving Millions, Transport strategies for sustainable development in mega cities", Published by Springer.

Paul Barter, Tamim Raad, (2000), "Taking Steps: A Community Action Guide to People-Centered, Equitable and Sustainable Urban Transport", Published by the Sustainable Transport Action Network for Asia and the Pacific (the SUSTRAN Network).

EMBARQ, (2006), A Solution for Mexico, Sustainable Mobility, Washington DC, USA.

Gijre, V., (2002), Public transport and road safety a case of Pune city, IJTM, Vol. 26, No. 4.

Gupta, S., (2001), Economic approaches for addressing vehicular pollution : Issues and prospects for India, Proceedings of research papers presented at a workshop on Transportation, Land use and Environment, CIRT, Pune.

Joglekar, A., (2006), Pune caught in a whirlpool: Can a modern public transport system rescue it - A review.

Litman, T., (2005), Land use impact on Transport -How Land use Factors affect Travel Behaviour , Victoria transport policy Institute, British Colombia.

Litman, T., (2006), Transportation Market Distortions, Berkeley Planning Journal, Volume 19.

Luc Nadal, (2007), Bike Sharing at Paris -Bike sharing sweeps Paris off its fleet, Sustainable Transport, No.19.

Mohan, D., (2001), Planning for public transport : Integrating safety, environment and economic issues, Proceedings of research papers presented at workshop on transportation, Land use and Environment, CIRT, Pune.


OECD Conference on Environmentally Sustainable Transport, (2000), EST futures, strategies and best practices. Vienna, Austria.

Padam, S., (2000), Public Transport: The case of defending the obvious, IJTM, Vol. 24, No.10.

PSUTA Studies, (2005), Partnership for Sustainable Urban Transport in Asia. Sustainable Urban Transport in Asia-Making the Vision a Reality A CAI- Asia Program.

Pucher, J., et al, (2005), Urban transport crisis in India, Transport Policy 12, Elsevier Publication.

Sustainable Transport, (2007), Sustainable Transport Award Winner: London.

Tiwari, G., (2007), Urban Transportation Planning, TRIPP, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.

Implications of Future Vehicular Traffic and Its Management ? Dr. Rupali Jain ? Dr. V. G. Vedak 64



The book starts with a Chinese proverb "If you want one year prosperity, grow seeds. If you want 10 years prosperity grow trees. But if you want 100 years of prosperity grow people.”

The Toyota Production Systems is available for 30 years now. We find a host of companies trying to follow the footsteps of Toyota, but still nobody is able to duplicate the results that Toyota is getting.

The secret of Toyota success is great people supported by system that mandates need for talented people. Others are just imitating Toyota, but the fact remains that one can copy system, but talent needs to be cultivated & developed. Toyota rose from a small rural based company to a global powerhouse because of exceptional talent. Toyota believes that only 10% of the talent is inborn & 90% can be developed.

Authors have effectively explained with examples, the Toyota's philosophy of developing people, in total 16 chapters. The philosophy can be briefly summarized as

a. Base management decisions on long term philosophy even at the expense of short term goals.

b. Standardize processes for continuous improvements.

c. Grow leaders who thoroughly understand work, live philosophy & teach to others.

d. Develop exceptional people & team who will follow your company's philosophy.

e. Respect your suppliers by challenging them & helping them to improve.

f. Become a learning organization, through relentless reflection & continuous improvement.

The authors have noticed that many organizations get trapped in a vicious cycle as they overlook the long term aspect of training & rather emphasize on short term matters. To break this cycle authors have suggested the Toyota way of

(1) Defining critical knowledge (2) Transferring it &(3) Follow up.

In chapter 2 , the authors have further explained about Toyota training like how Toyota believed in developing capable masses of multiskilled labors, (a) how Toyota selects people who have capacity & desire to learn, (b) have problem solving capacity, teamwork ability, & those who are suitable to Toyota's learning environment & (c)how Toyota uses equal balance between reward & punishment to encourage desired behavior.

Toyota has three regional training centers called 'Global Production Centers' one in Thailand, one in England & one in Kentucky.

It focuses on development of human value system by (a) Attracting potential employees & selecting most appropriate ones (b) Properly orienting them & familiarizing them with job roles (c) on the job development & training & encouraging individual team initiative, work simplification & caring supervision (d) Focusing on career development & inclusion of family, community also.

Toyota believes development is about learning & then teaching others. Few fundamental skills accounts for major activities of shop. These job elements are broken down into small portions so that they can be easily learned. Crucial movements are practiced relentlessly to master them.

The authors further highlight that the secret of Toyota lies in getting extraordinary results from ordinary people. Toyota's technology for developing people is not extraordinary but it's commitment of doing it everyday, consistently at high level, is rare & remarkable.

Chapter 3 - deals with 'training within industry’

Toyota training originated from US programme called 'Training within Industry'. This technique was developed by Charles Allen in World War I, in ship building.TWI technique contains primary modules like

1. Job Instruction step by step breakup & teaching any process.

2. Job methods eliminate unnecessary activities, steps,

1 2Dr. S. U. Gawade , Prof. Aparna Ghaisas



Book Review of "Toyota Talent - developing your people the Toyota Way" by Jeffrey K. Liker & David P. Meier (Tata McGraw-Hill Edition)

wastes & overcomes resistance to change

3. Job relation - handles employee motivation

4. Programme development - for specific training needs. Here Deming's PDCA cycle is closely followed

First three modules are rigorously followed by Toyota.

TWI is based on following assumptions

1. People learn gradually in small chunks & step by step.

2. Beyond learning pieces, learning whole takes additional time & requires ongoing coaching.

3. Pieces should be standardized processes for easy & effective training.

4. Training & development is ongoing process & requires harmonious relationship between the coach & the worker.

5. Key role of supervisor is to be a teacher & a coach.

6. Due to long term training & development the resultant is quality & productivity.

Toyota Talent Development Process comprises:

1. Preparing the organization2. Identifying critical knowledge3. Transferring knowledge by Job Instruction method4. Verifying learning & success

Chapter 4- deals with how to prepare the organization

1. First step is to define where you are i.e. current situation & then one can decide where & how one can reach. Toyota spends major time in planning so as to avoid hardship in correcting mistakes later.

2. After accessing the need, one has to determine the resources necessary to accomplish objectives, like one qualified person is required to do job instruction for ten people. The trainee should have inborn qualities like intuitive abilities, willingness to teach & learn, adaptability & flexibility, caring nature, concern for others, patience & persistence, confidence, leadership qualities along with learnable qualities like observation, job analysis ability, effective communication skills, knowledge of job etc.

The authors have specifically mentioned here that the coach should not take undue advantage of the weak area of the students. They have quoted that in the book "Break all the rules", Marcus Buckingham & Curt Ciffmon have emphasized that instead of indentifying weak points in employees & attacking them, a good training programme should identify strong points of employees & link them with

their jobs.

For developing talented people the following processes are repeated continuously in Toyota

a. Identify critical knowledge - i.e. identify 20% of total content that makes up 60% of the work content but for this the work needs to be standardized.

b. Transfer knowledge using job instruction- i.e. trainer will tell, show & illustrate with the use of gestures, voice inflection etc.

c. Verifying learning & success - here studies are related with work.

Chapter 5 - deals with defining critical requirements of work, in detail. Work can be & need to be standardized, may it be manufacturing or services, production or planning. But at the same time care should be taken to avoid overgeneralization. Charles Parrow had classified work into four categories on the basis of task variety & task analyzability. The categories are routine work, technical work, craftwork & non-routine work. Authors have suggested different types of staff development for above four types, for example for routine work, skill of vigilance, intuitive ability & ability to detect deviations need to be developed but for non-routine work staff development becomes a tough job & needs to be done on the job & with the help of mentors.

Authors have made it clear that the key concept in any training is to begin with simple & then to advance to more complicated jobs.

Chapter 6 - deals with standardization of work & job evaluation methods.

Toyota people believe that one can standardize & go on improving anything. In-depth understanding about job is the remarkable feature of Toyota.

Toyota practices standardization which is intentional mindfulness & 'monozukuri' i.e. art of making things & not a mindless conformity. Toyota people, like an artist, continuously challenge current methods & then go on improving the standard methods. According to 'Teruyuki Minoura' Sr M.D., Toyota, Toyota doesn't follow 'Toyota Production System (TPS) but it is essentially a 'Thinking Production System'. They manage the challenging job of allowing creativity, change, but at the same time being consistent.

Toyota people believe in identifying most critical & commonly repeated aspects of every job, learning how to perform them flawlessly, documenting the practices & diligently training people to follow standard procedures.

Both standardization of work & Job Instruction go hand in hand.

Book Review of "Toyota Talent - developing your people the Toyota Way" ? Dr. S. U. Gawade ? Prof. Aparna Ghaisas 66

Standardization of work includes various tools & documents like standardized worksheets, work compilation sheet, process capability sheet, operation work instruction etc. But authors have emphasized that while preparing these, main focus is always on what is the purpose behind all this task, otherwise people get trapped in only standardization.

Chapter 7 - deals with how to analyze job like separating core consistent elements from inconsistent ancillary tasks, then preparing standard worksheets, breaking down each category further & then defining how to do processes. Job Instruction method is used to transfer the knowledge.

Toyota emphasizes on total system efficiency rather than individual efficiency, in detailed craftsmanship & on critical elements rather than total task.

Chapter 8 - deals with breaking the job down in such a way that it will be easy to teach. This is done through slicing the job into individual tasks, grouping them according to characteristics & then dicing it into definable standard methods suitable for training.

Chapter 9 - deals with identifying key points & reasons thereof. The points which are critical to the success of job are key points. Key points can be ensuring safety to workers, quality of product, productivity rate, and control of costs.

Here the authors have emphasized on explaining the trainees why things are important, rather than telling them just to do a thing in a particular way.

Chapter 10 - Authors have explained nicely with the examples of bumper modeling job, health care, the most commonly committed errors in job breakdown & then how to rectify them.

Chapter 11 - deals with 'preparation for training i.e. creating 'Multifunctional Worker Training Plan'.

In MFWTT, job tasks in work area are identified, people in the work area are listed, each person's capability for each area are identified, the gaps in capabilities are found out & then how to bridge the gaps is planned out.

Here trainer should meet each person & determine any specific need, create overall development plan & review it with the candidate, prepare work area, allow adequate time for training & then prepare job breakdown.

Chapter 12 - the authors have elaborated how to present the operations in training sessions. Here the trainer has to first worm up the students, put them at ease, and tell them the job name in order to develop sense of ownership, find out what the students know about the job, get them interested in the job & put the situation in correct position to avoid errors like mirroring.

While presenting the operation, the trainer must tell, show &

demonstrate the job.

Chapter 13 - the authors have explained the important step in training i.e. 'try out the performance'. If the student performs the job correctly, the training is effective, if not, then the trainer should reflect, make adjustments & correct problems.

Chapter 14 - explains how to handle challenging situation like what if work needs to be completed along with learning & earning proficiency, when the time is limited, when job requires specific skills, when the task to be taught is infrequently performed etc.

Chapter 15 - the authors have explained how to verify learning & success. Authors have quoted Samual Smiles view that 'we often learn wisdom from failures much more than the success. We often discover what will do by finding out what will not do & probably he who never made a mistake, never made a discovery.’

The authors have mentioned here that the trainer should always motivate the students to be self-reliant but at the same time, it is always the trainer, who is ultimately responsible. He should always support the student, check the progress frequently, encourage questions & then gradually reduce coaching & followup.

Authors have stated that Toyota uses cascading audit methods for verification i.e. each one evaluates the situation one level below a specific leader. Each team-leader is expected to audit standard work of at least one employee daily, the group leader is expected to audit one job weekly & assistant manager one operation, per group weekly.

Chapter 16 - authors have beautifully explained how to develop structure for implementation. No one size fits all. The steps to be followed here are, to develop initial focus area with the help of external master trainers, then improve upon what you did in first area & select additional work area & repeat the process, develop internal JI instructors & trainers, further develop internal trainer resources in parallel deployment areas & continue to develop workplace trainers & leaders. The authors have specifically noted two main reasons for Toyota's success. They are (a) 'developing ability to do 'hensui' i.e. reflection to become independent learner',' & (b) developing resources by going deep & then wide i.e. acquiring deep knowledge & then practicing it across.

The book will definitely be a guidepost for shop floor, routine activities. But at the same time, Toyota training techniques could be thoughtfully applied across the organization, be it the shop floor or any service department, be it repetitive routine activity or critical non-repetitive process. There is lot to learn from how Toyota is been able to yield fantastic results, year after year, by aiming at repeated improvements, strengthening the organization by developing full capability of every member. Toyota has truely proved that investment in people yields much more than the cost of investment.

67Sinhgad Business Review ? ISSN : 0974-0597 ? Vol. - I, Issue - I, July 2009 - June 2010

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