Revitalizing the Concept of Corporate Social Responsibility with Traditional Indian Wisdom

Corporations are legal entities operating within the boundaries of society. They have social responsibility both for business and moral reasons. The responsibility encompasses economic, legal, ethical and philanthropic aspects and in the context of deterritorialised global business environment, the responsibility assumes wider ramifications especially in the context of diminishing role of governments and ascending role of corporations. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is now an offshoot of the realization that corporation is answerable for the consequences of its operations. Ethical way of doing business for social and economic sustainability is inherent in the thinking of seers of ancient India who proclaimed for universal peace and happiness. The essence of CSR can be traced to Rig Veda which pronounced that a person who enjoys himself being totally oblivious of society is taken over by sin. The sense of charity, sacrifice, dharmic way of doing business and the ideas of live and let live permeate throughout the literature of ancient India. The search for spiritual routes strengthens the convictions towards CSR and for preserving the planet for future generations. An attempt is made in this article to discuss the nature of CSR in the global perspective and try to search for the roots in the cultural milieu of ancient India and trying to integrate the ancient Indian spiritual thoughts for the modern arguments favoring corporate responsibility. The intention here is to strengthen the theoretical thought structure with spiritual inputs for better appreciation and promotion of CSR. The aim of the article is to get insights in to ancient wisdom for connecting spiritual linkage to the theoretical edifice of the CSR and hence the methodology is exploratory in nature aiming to understand the concepts in a better way.

FRBM Act- One Size Fit All: Not an Optimum Strategy A Case Study of Haryana and Punjab

The fiscal crisis in the late 1990s caused rise in public debt in most of the Indian states forcing states to go for new borrowings even to finance revenue deficit (RD). To control this situation s Fiscal responsibility and budget management (FRBM) Act was enacted. The FRBM Act does not allow variation in underlying economic factors of the states. In the present paper an endeavor is made to evaluate the usefulness of various constraints on state governments fiscal management. Evidences from Haryana and Punjab show less rigid FRBM Act framework giving flexibility to states would be better option than the existing one.

Work Deviant Behavior-Employee Engagement: An Empirical Investigation of the Role of Ethical Leadership of Indian Middle Level Managers

The paper intends to study the relationship between work deviant behavior and employee engagement as well as the moderating role of Ethical leadership on the relationship in non-western world. 200 middle level managers were surveyed to study work deviant-employee engagement relationship and the moderating role of ethical leadership on the stated relationship. The study found that both the variables i.e., work deviant behavior and ethical leadership was significantly related to employee engagement and ethical leadership moderated positively and significantly work deviant-employee engagement relationship. The present study constituted a relatively small number of regions belonging only to Delhi-NCR region. The study is novel of its kind in the sense little work has been done on these dimensions in Indian context.

Impact of Stock Splits and Rights Issue Announcements on Market Price: Evidence from India

The current paper studies the impact of two events i.e stock splits and rights issue announcement on the stock returns of companies listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange. The study consists of a sample of 90 announcements for stock splits and 29 announcements for rights issue during the period 2011-2014. Market model is used to calculate the abnormal returns of securities. Positive Average Abnormal Returns were observed for the two events on the day their announcements, however they are not statistically significant. The study concludes that the Indian stock market is efficient in its semi-strong form.

Voluntary Human Resource Disclosure Practices of Selected Listed Indian IT Firms

During the previous two decades Indian economy has shown a tremendous improvement due to emergence of various knowledge based industries. In such industries, firms recognize people as a key resource to gain competitive edge over their peers. Many firms, especially in Information Technology (IT) sector, view their employees or human capital or human resource (HR) as their most valuable assets and invest heavily on them. Many Indian IT firms voluntarily disclose much more information about their human resources than is mandatorily required by the Indian regulations so as to reduce information asymmetry between the insiders and the outsiders regarding their human resources (Jindal & Kumar, 2012). This study measures the extent of voluntary HR disclosures done by selected listed Indian IT firms in two stages. In the first stage, a 33 items voluntary HR disclosure index was developed based on a detailed review of voluntary disclosure indices used in the existing studies of HR disclosures of firms (Jindal & Kumar, 2012, Murthy & Abeysekera, 2007, Abhayawansa & Abeysekera, 2008) and also based on best practices followed by a few Indian IT firms (Infosys, Wipro etc.). In the second stage, a detailed content analysis of annual reports of twenty firms which were part of CNX IT Index as on Jan 8, 2014 was performed using a CAQDAS software to check the variability/presence or absence of all the Voluntary HR Disclosure Index code items. The results of this study shows that Indian listed IT firms (a) provide loads of information about several aspects of Training and Development programmes for Existing/New Employees (b) provide little information on such crucial matters such as Human Resource Valuation, Compliance with Employment and Labour laws, Geographical distribution of employees, Information regarding Employee Commute, Travel, Medical insurance/reimbursement and Termination Benefits.

Prayatna: A Student Led Initiative to Empower Underpriviledged Children through Education

A robust education system is the cornerstone for building a strong nation. Government of India led initiatives such as the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan, Right to Education Act are some efforts made to provide universal education to children in the age group of 6 to 14 years. However these efforts appear to have received a mixed response. Quality education still remains an elusive goal. A recent study (ASER, 2015) states that in rural India, half of the children enrolled in Grade V cannot read matter pertaining to Grade 2. Reading ability even among children enrolled in private schools in rural India is poor. Close to half of all the children lack basic skills in Math and English. Amenities such as usable toilets, availability of drinking water are lacking in rural Indian schools. The situation in the urban slums pertaining to education, is a relatively unresearched area and hence not much data is available regarding the quality and the impact. Against this backdrop, the paper describes the case of Prayatna which is a student led initiative to provide quality education to poor children living in the slum areas of Hinjewadi, Pune (Maharashtra). Since its inception in 2008, this NGO has helped 30 children. The dilemma for the NGO is to generate sustainable funding sources and motivate the beneficiaries, parents and volunteers which are accompanied by the challenges of managing varied aspirations.

Financial Leverage and its Determinants: Evidence from Indian Cement Industry

In this study an attempt has been made to examine the determinants of capital structure in companies belonging to the Cement Industry of India. The companies listed in the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and National Stock Exchange (NSE) has been used for the study. The study has been conducted for the period from 1999-2000 to 2010-2011. To study the influence of various independent variables on the capital structure, Multiple Regression Analysis has been carried out taking the ratio of average total debt to average total assets as dependent variable and seven variables, which might have some impact on the capital structure, as independent variables. These seven variables are namely business risk, size of the firm, growth rate, debt service capacity, degree of operating leverage, dividend payout, and earning rate. It is observed from the study that size of the firm, debt service capacity, business risk and growth rate are statistically significant to have an influence in taking capital structure related decisions and considered as determinants of capital structure of the listed companies belonging to the Indian Cement

Retail Store Service Quality: Insights from Indian Retail

Services have surpassed other sectors in terms of contributing to the economic growth and enhancing consumers lifestyle. Retail in particular is touching new horizons by being organised and modernized. Retail structure has undergone tremendous transformation. Retail has found a prominent place in consumers life by providing them with enriched experiences. However, the inviting retail sector is not left untouched by the powerful environmental forces. As the modern retail opens up possibilities of profit and expansion, it also carries with it the risks associated with management of complex retail operations and the ever-changing customer needs and demands. Researchers and practitioners have identified service quality as a key to gain competitive superiority and sustain effectively in the marketplace. In this background, the present paper seeks to explore the service quality perceptions across demographics in order to understand the differences among the customer segments and thereby uncover crucial service quality parameters for the retailers to empahsise upon.

Enhancing the Job Satisfaction Level through Dimensions of Employee Engagement: An Empirical Study on Private Sector Bank Managers

The purpose of the study is to analyze how the of job satisfaction level can be enhanced through employee engagement and its dimensions namely, vigour, dedication and absorption. Augmenting the job satisfaction levels can increase the employee retention in organizations. Research has proved that engaged employees can act as competitive advantage for organizations and creates quality workforce that is fully committed. The study was administered on 96 Managers who were representatives of 4 private sector banks in Delhi/NCR. Variables in the study were assessed using validated instruments. Descriptive Statistics, Correlation and Regression were used for data analysis. Indian private banking sector has undergone incredible change in the last few decades. Due to enormously competitive scenario, it is relevant to note that banks need to distinguish themselves from each other. Enough research has been on the concept of employee engagement and its vitality to employees well-being, but there is limited research on employee engagement dimensions and relation between job satisfaction. The current research is imperative in providing insights into relation between employee engagement dimensions and its impact on job satisfaction levels.

Case Study: Management by Fear: Some Things Never Really Change

Sandeep Sharma waited eagerly for his friend to drop in to the restaurant. It was 6:30 pm in a Friday evening and he had taken a short break from his busy schedule. He had some urgent work to be completed, before he left for the day. The day after, a meeting for parents was scheduled at his kids school. He wanted to take one day leave for the same, since it was the first meeting of the year. His son started going to school just a month back. He had discussed the same with his Regional Sales Manager Varun, but it was not clear whether he really understood the matter or not. Sandeep was a bit worried. Was Varun upset with the way I asked for a leave? Why didnt he give a proper reply to me? Why did he hang up the phone so fast? There were no critical functions for the next day, but then this new task given by Varun kept him occupied. He wanted to finish the task as early as possible and get his leave approved.