Efficiency of Liquidity Management in Indian Tyre Industry

It is unanimously accepted that liquidity management is a very important facet of financial management in any kind of business. An overall control over liquidity of the firm can only ensure a smooth running of its business wheel. Like other manufacturing sectors in India, the Indian tyre industry has been facing fierce challenges due to intensified competition in the marketplace as a result of Liberalization, Privatization, and Globalization (LPG). In this backdrop, an attempt has been made to study the efficiency of working capital in maintaining liquidity of Indian tyre industry during the period 1998-99 to 2007-08. The data for the period from 1998-99 to 2007-08 used in this chapter have been collected from the Capitaline Corporate Database, the official of Capital Market Publishers (India) Ltd., Mumbai. While carrying out this study, suitable measures relating to financial statement analysis as well as relevant statistical tools and techniques have been applied at appropriate places. The overall findings of the study indicate that there was no proper trade-off between liquidity and profitability in the selected tyre companies during the study period.

Gap Analysis and Infrastructure Requirement for Tourism Development in the State of West Bengal

The rural tourism concept has become one of the vital issues of economic and social benefits to the society. This study identifies the problems and prospects of rural tourism in the state of West Bengal. The primary objectives of this study include an exploration of the development and emergence of rural tourism in the state of West Bengal, analysis of the tourism gap at Bishnupur, examination of the existing as well as future requirement of tourism infrastructure of Bishnupur, and the promotion and marketing of Bishnupur as an important rural tourism destination in Indian Scenario. For the fulfillment of the basic objectives, data for the study were collected through field survey. Information about the profile of tourism industry includes hotels, guest houses, number of rooms, number of persons employed, etc., as well as the profile of the tourists. The collected data has been analyzed using different statistical methods, Wilcoxon Pair Ranked Model used for Gap analysis. This study indicates how to develop and upgrade the rural tourism destinations by proper utilization of tourism infrastructural amenities in the area as well as active participation by public private initiatives and local resource utilization. This study is relevant for balancing the demand and supply of tourism infrastructural requirement indicators, which can offer service excellence.

Modern Risk Management Techniques in Banking Sector

Risk management as a very rapid emerging subject has been affected by several happenings in the world. There are many studies covering risk definition, risk types, and risk management, plus there are many contemporary approaches in order to calculate the risk incurred by the companies due to their transactions. In the modern business life, since the transactions have become very fast and their risk exposure increases, the companies, especially the financial institutions, started to use new techniques to measure the probable effects of the risks that they have taken while undertaking the transactions. In this chapter, the authors show two techniques as the contemporary approaches to risk management. These are operations research and statistics. They know that these two concepts are very detailed and sophisticated tools, which require software for better results. The banks have been investing in these solutions, and they are designing new organizations to handle these issues. Thus, the authors introduce these techniques very briefly with using some banking practices for better understanding.

International Portfolio Diversification Benefits among Developed and Emerging Markets within the Context of the Recent Global Financial Crisis

This chapter aims to examine the existence of dynamic linkages among the major emerging stock markets, namely Brazil, Hungary, China, Taiwan, Poland, and Turkey, as well as developed markets, particularly the US, the UK, and Germany during the period 2004-2013. Potential dynamic long-run interdependencies are investigated using Johansen and Juselius (1990) multivariate cointegration test and causal relationship through the Vector Error Correction Model (VECM). Moreover, to capture the impact of the recent global crisis on the cointegrating relationship among the developed and emerging markets, the sample period is divided into pre- and post-crisis sub periods. The empirical findings show that, after the crisis period, the direction of the long-run relationship varies, and furthermore, the stock market interdependence increases, supporting herding behavior of investors during the stock market crash period. Therefore, the increasing dynamic co-movements in the period after the crisis provide direct implications for the international investors due to potential limitation in the international risk diversification and the achievement of greater portfolio returns through global investment.

The Role of Performance Management Practices on Organizational Performance

This chapter introduces the framework and causal model of leadership style, organizational culture, performance management practices, and organizational performance. It argues that dimensions of leadership style, organizational culture, and performance management practices have mediated positive effect on organizational performance. Performance management practices positively mediate the relationships between leadership style and organizational performance and between organizational culture and organizational performance. Leadership style is positively correlated with organizational culture. Understanding the theoretical learning is positively beneficial for organizations aiming to increase organizational performance and achieve business goals.

Whistle-Blower Mechanism at Corporate Governance

The collapse of Enron, WorldCom, etc. made the importance of corporate governance clear to the Indian industry, the polity, and the public. In the pursuit of better corporate governance, a whistle-blowing mechanism is considered to be highly desirable. The chapter highlights whistle-blowing in corporate governance with the help of the Satyam episode.

A Resource-Based Approach to Mergers and Concentration of the Banking System in Mexico post Crisis 1994

The strength of the companies is sustained in the resources that it owns that can be considered like a barrier to the entrance for other companies. The case of the banking sector of these resources was affected by the crisis of 1994, devastated with the anti-crisis measures and the entrance of foreign competitors at the end of the 1990s. Under this environment, this chapter analyzes the acceleration of the concentration at the Mexican banking system based on the resource-based theory. To have competitive advantages in resources and a solid global expansion strategy, foreign banks were able to climb to a position in the Mexican banking system, with the subsequent generation of barriers to entry to maintain its leadership.

Working Capital Management in Select Indian Pharmaceutical Companies

The Indian pharmaceutical industry is the fifth largest pharmaceutical industry in the world in terms of volume and the fourteenth largest in value terms. There have been sevaral notable changes in the scenario of Indian pharmaceutical industry after the signing of GATT (now WTO). The mergers, acquisitions, and takeovers at both national and international levels have become a common phenomenon in this industry. In today's challenging and competitive environment, efficient management of working capital is an integral component of the overall strategy to create shareholders' wealth. So, the task of designing appropriate strategies for managing working capital in accomplishing the objective of maximizing shareholders' wealth of companies in the Indian pharmaceutical industry is of prime importance. In this backdrop, the chapter seeks to analyze the working capital management of ten selected companies in the Indian pharmaceutical industry during the period 1996-97 to 2010-11. While satisfying the objective of the study, relevant statistical tools and techniques have been applied at appropriate places.

Overview of Venture Capital Avenues for Business Process Outsourcing Companies in India

India became a prominent destination for outsourcing in the services sector in the 1990s. Outsourcing to India started with the IT industry, which has responded to the changing market requirements by increasing the scale of operations and capability to handle complexity. Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) in India has grown rapidly as compared to software services as the advantages offered by the country (low cost and abundant talent pool) were well known and tested in IT outsourcing. Most of the infrastructure required was already in place, and companies needed to set the processes right to get BPO going in India. Funding is the essence of any corporate growth story, and the Indian corporate are spreading around the globe with some remarkable takeovers. Coupled with the fact that India has highly skilled manpower with leading global tech, companies are setting their ventures, research and developmental activities in India with the help of venture capital avenues. This chapter highlights some of the venture capital avenues and government policies that have proven very beneficial in the growth of the IT/BPO industry. These favorable government policies have gone a long way in making India an outsourcing/IT hub. Finally, this chapter conceptualizes the implementation of venture capital avenues and application in IT/BPO industry. The major limitation of this chapter is conceptual in nature, which will definitely form a base to test empirically.

Export Marketing Communications of Public Sector in Promoting Tourism Destination of a Greek Island

The purpose of this chapter is to evaluate the effectiveness of marketing communications in promoting tourism on the Greek island of Myconos. The research evaluates the effectiveness of the marketing communications used by public bodies to promote Myconos in Europe. The research location was the airport at Myconos. The researchers used a probability sampling technique in the form of stratified random sampling, since the population used for the research was multinational. Four-hundred questionnaires were gathered from a research population of 8000. The percentage of arrivals pertinent to each subset (tourist population divided by nationality) was compared with the total number of tourists who arrived on Myconos from the countries constituting the sampling frame, and the number of questionnaires to be given to each of the subsets was calculated. The study shows that marketing communications had a positive effect on the overall business performance and improved it noticeably. Marketing communications used by public bodies to promote Myconos were effective as they increased tourism arrivals and influenced the majority of the tourists to visit it. In addition to this, the study shows that there are factors such as tourists' origin, age, and annual income that affect the effectiveness of marketing communications. It also identified that tourists value a marketing strategy that involves analytical information about the tourism destination, as they stated that brochures, guidebooks, and the Internet influenced them to a great extent.