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As the investment in social and health protection remained poor in India, the most vulnerable citizens lack access to existing health related government initiatives with transformational benefits due mostly to the lack of “accurate information”. The purpose of this paper is to explore and demonstrate the impact of participation of the community through a structured intervention that promotes awareness, enables the community to ensure entitlements, and enhances the utilization of government initiatives.

Through a baseline–endline study using a quasi-experimental design, this research provides empirical evidence of such intervention on awareness and utilization of health, nutrition and developmental initiatives. It involved survey of 400 households from the four study locations before and after the interventions. The pre-post estimation in the “proportion of respondents who were fully aware” was analyzed to measure changes in knowledge. Mc-Nemar test was applied to measure the statistical significance of these changes.

The results indicate that the intervention of “empowerment centers” has increased knowledge and utilization of the various government schemes, services and facilities that are routine and offer benefits all household members, in general, and women as well as children, in particular. The intervention was found to be successful in improving the local governance systems; empowering communities, linking communities and local level government systems across all sectors, as well as bringing in inter-sectoral linkages across governments systems.

Although there have been many interventions of community participation for reducing inequities across the globe, there is a dearth of documentation and evidence generation. More efforts are required to evaluate such interventions, identify which interventions work and how they can be adapted to different contexts. This also requires exploration of the social processes and contextual realities underlying these interventions.

To the best knowledge of the authors, this research is one-of-its-kind that assessed an intervention targeting cross-cutting schemes and services, beyond just health interventions. The evidence points to the success of grassroots level inter-sectoral community actions, in the form of empowerment centers, to improve awareness and utilization of government interventions through participatory governance, and points to the expanding scope of learning and adapting such interventions to different contexts and scopes.

The lived paid work experiences of two women (a European Canadian-born and a South Asian immigrant) demonstrate how low-quality leader–member exchanges and poor diversity management negatively influence employees' health, job satisfaction and retention during a period of major organizational change.

This paper combined a narrative case study with auto ethnography to examine the lived paid work experiences of the two female authors and identify common patterns of meaning within the data.

The analysis of personalized accounts demonstrate the damaging results of a failed change management initiative when leaders did not follow an organizational change model and used an authoritarian leadership style. Further, the low-quality leader–member exchanges and poor diversity management reduced authors' feelings of inclusion and negatively impacted their emotional and physical health, job satisfaction, and retention.

New knowledge gained about leader–member exchange and diversity management has implications not only for leaders, but also human service managers. The data represents the authors' two perspectives, constraining generalizability. Larger samples of employees' narratives from diverse cultural/work backgrounds would be valuable to inform organizational change.

The paper provides practical reasons for leadership training and skill development in change management models.

Given global demographic diversity, the findings are relevant to organizations, highlighting the importance of creating a climate of inclusion for workers' job satisfaction and retention and organizational success.

While the sample size (n = 2) is very small, using a combination of personal experience methods offered insights into the complexity of leader–member exchange and diversity management from workers' perspectives, and went beyond successful cases, adding value to organizational change research.

Drawing on goal-setting theory and team effectiveness theory, the study aims to examine the impact of agile taskwork and agile teamwork on team performance. In addition, it investigates the mediating effect of project commitment on the impact of agile taskwork and agile teamwork on team performance. Furthermore, the study also tests the moderating role of career level on the impact of agile taskwork and agile teamwork on team performance.

Survey data were collected from 563 employees working in 290 information technology (IT) companies in India using a self-reporting structured questionnaire. Partial least squares path modeling was used to test the hypothesized model, and the Process macro was used to test the moderating effect.

The results show that agile taskwork and agile teamwork positively affect team performance and project commitment, and project commitment positively impacts team performance. Furthermore, project commitment fully mediates the relationship between agile taskwork and team performance and partially mediates the relationship between agile teamwork and team performance. Furthermore, the career level negatively moderates the impact of agile taskwork and agile teamwork on team performance.

The study shows the importance of agile work practices and project commitment to enhance team performance. Thus, the study provides managers with two strategies to improve their team performance.

There is a scarcity of research examining the distinct effects of agile taskwork and agile teamwork on team performance and the mediating role of project commitment in these relationships. Furthermore, as per the empirical evidence, no previous research has empirically examined the moderating role of career level in the agile taskwork-team performance and agile teamwork-team performance relationships.

The ability of an organization to observe varying demands and efficiently meet them can be described as agility. Project procurement management (PPM) in the past was stable as things did not change very often and were very predictable. Due to hyper-competition, less predictable market and exponential innovation, the existing PPM becomes very unstable which marks the requirement of an agile model to manage procurement projects effectively. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

For achieving the improvements, various barriers to improving agility in PPM were identified from the literature and experts’ review, followed by obtaining quantified impacts of identified barriers from the experts using the Delphi technique. Finally, interpretive structural modeling along with Matrice d’ Impacts Croises Multiplication Appliqué an Classement analysis was used to analyze the interactions among barriers to prioritize and strategize their mitigation.

As per the analysis, the lack of top management alignment and commitment, lack of digital strategy, lack of new technology competencies and inefficiencies of financial factors were the most critical barriers that would come across while improving agility in PPM for any organization. Industries should have a stable, well-established and supportive top management that has a vision for digital transformation along with upgrading the companies’ technology layer for automating most of the manual processes to have intelligent decision-making capability.

Industries need to be agile in their operations for being more competitive and responsive to the market. PPM being the most critical part of the entire value chain needs to be agile in the first place. The strategies developed as an output of this research can be utilized by industries for improving agility in their business processes.

This paper aims to provide a study on knowledge management, facilitating new product innovation by intrapreneurial companies.

The methodology includes the empirical study which was conducted based on detailed questionnaire and data collection of 319 respondents from heavy engineering auto companies, such as Maruti, Honda and others. The data were analyzed to find the influence of knowledge management on new product development. Structural equation modeling method, critical path analysis and reliability were checked by Cronbach’s alpha.

The findings suggest that the innovation of a new product is critical for the companies. Also, it is very important for the companies to have knowledge management systems such as intelligence generation and dissemination process to facilitate information sharing among the various departments. Responsiveness to the market needs would be based on how authentic the customer data are and to what extent the company is able to share these data with research and product development departments to motivate new products for fulfilling these needs of the customers. This kind of process would enable the company to drive the next level of innovation within the company.

The present study has several implications for managers and researchers. The model proposed in the study suggests the adoption and implementation of knowledge management for product innovation. The study findings also suggest that developing better methods to share knowledge and intelligence among the employees about the customers’ data would be a very critical success factor for new product innovation.

This paper also suggests that the researchers can study this model with respect to inter-disciplinary and inter-country study to become competitive using new product innovation.

The study contributes toward development of theory on creating innovation facilitated by knowledge management for enhancing innovation.

The purpose of this study is to examine the role of contemporary consumer-brand relationships in predicting brand sacredness, brand fidelity and propensity to spread word of mouth (WOM) in the context of “halal” cosmetic brands.

The proposed research framework has been empirically tested by collecting responses from 403 Muslim respondents of diverse demographics. Structural equation modelling has been used for exploring the underlying relationships between emotions associated with halal brands.

All the proposed hypotheses were positively significant, thus confirming that brand love is significantly affected by brand trust, brand image, self-congruence and brand experience. Further, brand love acts as a significant determinant in shaping brand sacredness, brand fidelity and WOM.

The study has made a significant contribution by exploring the intensity of brand love and its effect on relationship-maintenance triad in halal cosmetic brands in India.

Marketers must understand the emotional side of brands to create synergy in their marketing efforts. Moreover, in the case of religious or faith-based brands, attainment of the highest order of brand love can play a revolutionary role for long-term growth.

In the context of halal cosmetic brands in India, this study has offered a new perspective by extending the literature on consumer-brand relationships. The use of brand fidelity and brand sacredness has enhanced the effectiveness of emotions with which consumers have been looking at brands for ages.

This paper aims to understand the impact of smart working on employees’ quality of life. The service-dominant logic indicates that key actors, including employees, are resource integrators. This empirical study contributes to the current knowledge of transformative service by expounding on smart working practices and their relationship with self-efficacy and, ultimately, quality of life of employees.

This study contends that smart working enhances employees’ self-efficacy. The current research uses conservation of resources (COR) theory as a basis in hypothesizing that self-efficacy serves as a key resource, which can stimulate workplace creativity, job satisfaction and quality of life. An onsite survey is conducted among employees who have been involved in smart working in the travel agency context.

Smart working has a positive effect on self-efficacy, which positively influences workplace creativity, job satisfaction and quality of life. Workplace creativity enhances job satisfaction but does not influence quality of life. Job satisfaction boosts quality of life, which is important to tourism services and their employees amid various crises.

Consistent with COR theory, the immediate recommendation to managers is to invest in smart working, which can lead to employees’ creativity, job satisfaction and quality of life.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this empirical study is the first to assess the viability of smart working in the travel agency context. Smart working offers positive outcomes, such as convenience for employees to work independently, improving workplace creativity, job satisfaction and quality of life. Travel agencies are mainly categorized as small and medium enterprises (SMEs). In the future, SMEs may also introduce smart working that can eventually become their competitive advantage to retain talented employees.

旅行社中的智慧办公与员工的生活质量

本文旨在了解智慧办公对员工的影响.服务主导逻辑表明, 员工等关键人物是资源整合者。本文通过实证研究揭示了智慧办公实践及其与员工自我效能和生活质量的关系, 对现有转型服务知识做出贡献。

本研究认为智慧办公可以提高员工的自我效能。基于资源守恒理论(COR), 本研究假设自我效能是激发职场创造力、工作满意度和生活质量的关键因素, 对旅行社中参与智慧办公的员工进行了现场调查。

智慧办公对自我效能有正向影响, 同时自我效能对职场创造力、工作满意度和生活质量均产生正向影响。职场创造力能够提高工作满意度, 但对员工的生活质量不起作用。另外, 工作满意度有利于提升生活质量, 这对面临各种危机的旅游企业和员工具有重要意义。

根据COR理论, 即刻建议管理者投资推行智慧办公, 从而提升员工的创造力, 工作满意度和生活质量。

这一实证研究首次尝试评估旅行社中推行智慧办公的可行性。智慧办公可带来多种积极效果, 如为员工独立工作提供便利, 提升员工的职场创造力、工作满意度和生活质量等。旅行社属于中小型企业(SMEs)。未来, 中小型企业同样可尝试引入智慧办公, 这将成为其留住优秀员工的竞争优势。

关键词：智慧办公, 公平评估, 自我效能, 创造力, 自主, 生活质量

文章类型： 研究型论文

El trabajo inteligente en las agencias de viajes y la calidad de vida de los empleados

Resumen

Este artículo tiene como objetivo entender el impacto del trabajo inteligente en la calidad de vida de los empleados. Basándose en la lógica de servicio dominante, los actores clave, incluidos los empleados, son integradores de recursos. Este estudio empírico contribuye al conocimiento actual de lo que constituye un servicio transformador al exponer prácticas laborales inteligentes y su relación con la autoeficacia y, en última instancia, la calidad de vida de los empleados.

Este estudio sostiene que el trabajo inteligente mejora la autoeficacia de los empleados. Plantea la hipótesis de que la autoeficacia sirve como un recurso clave que puede estimular la creatividad en el lugar de trabajo, la satisfacción laboral y la calidad de vida utilizando la teoría de la conservación de recursos. Se ha realizado una encuesta in situ entre los empleados que han llevado a cabo trabajo inteligente en el contexto de la agencia de viajes.

El trabajo inteligente tiene un efecto positivo en la autoeficacia que influye positivamente en la creatividad en el lugar de trabajo, la satisfacción laboral y la calidad de vida. La creatividad en el lugar de trabajo mejora la satisfacción laboral, pero no influye en la calidad de vida. La satisfacción laboral mejora la calidad de vida, lo que es importante tanto para los servicios turísticos como para sus empleados durante las crisis.

De acuerdo con la teoría de la conservación de recursos, la recomendación inmediata a los gerentes es invertir en un trabajo inteligente que pueda conducir a la creatividad, la satisfacción laboral y la calidad de vida de los empleados.

Este estudio empírico es el primero del que tengamos constancia en evaluar la viabilidad del trabajo inteligente en el contexto de la agencia de viajes. El trabajo inteligente ofrece beneficios, como la posibilidad de que los empleados trabajen de forma independiente, mejorando así la creatividad profesional, la satisfacción laboral y la calidad de vida. Las agencias de viajes se incluyen principalmente en la categoría de pequeñas y medianas empresas (pymes). En el futuro, las pymes también pueden introducir el trabajo inteligente, que puede llegar a convertirse en su ventaja competitiva para retener a los empleados con talento.

Trabajo inteligente, Equidad en las valoraciones, Autoeficacia, Creatividad, Autonomía, Calidad de vida

The purpose of this paper is to propose an economic production quantity (EPQ) inventory model considering imperfect items and probabilistic demand for a two-echelon supply chain. The production process is imperfect and the imperfect quality items are removed from the lot size. The demand rate of the inventory system is random and follows an exponential probability density function and the demand of the retailers is depending on the initiatives of the sales team.

Two approaches are examined. In the non-collaborative approach, any member of the supply chain can be the leader and takes decisions to optimize the profits, and in the collaborative system, all members make joint decisions about the production, supply, sales and inventory to optimize the profits of the supply chain members. The calculus approach is applied to find the maximum profit related to the members of the supply chain.

A numerical example is presented to illustrate the performance of the EPQ model. The results show that collaborative approach generates greater profits to the supply chain and the market’s demand represents the variable behavior and uncertainty that is generated in the replenishment of a supply chain.

The new and major contributions of this research are: the inventory model considers demand for products is random variable which follows an exponential probability distribution function and it also depends on the initiatives of sales teams, the imperfect production system generates defective items, different cycle time are considered in manufacturer and retailers and collaborative and non-collaborative approaches are also studied.

The auto ancillary industry in India has witnessed huge capacity expansion and modernization due to entry of foreign automobile manufacturers in the post liberalization era. In spite of potential benefits, the adoption of advanced IT among small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) is low in India. There are several technological, economical and organizational factors that enable or inhibit the adoption of advanced IT. The primary objective of this research is to identify and evaluate the key factors that are enabling or inhibiting adoption of advanced IT in the Indian auto ancillary SMEs.

In order to identify and evaluate the enablers and inhibitors, a detailed survey was carried out among registered Indian auto ancillary SMEs during 2010. Out of 584 registered SMEs, 110 owners/top managers of the SMEs responded to the survey. The data collected through the survey were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis and multivariate regression to evaluate the influence of enablers and inhibitors of advanced IT adoption by the auto ancillary SMEs.

The survey findings show that the level of advanced IT adoption in auto ancillaries is low with only 17 per cent of SMEs having adopted technologies. This study reveals that “perceived benefits” and “perceived competitive pressure” enable advanced IT adoption among auto ancillary SMEs in India. However, “lack of financial capacity”, “small scale operation and “lack of in‐house IT manpower” inhibit the adoption. It is also found that enablers such as “changes in business environment”, “IT experience of CEO/owner” and “increased information linkage with OEM/customer” do not have any influence on the adoption. Similarly in the case of inhibitors, “lack of IT Infrastructure” and “lack of information security” do not have significant association with IT adoption. Despite the positive external IT environment and recognition of benefits, advanced IT adoption by SMEs in the auto ancillaries is limited by lack of financial capabilities and in‐house IT human resources.

This is one of the early papers that brings out the enablers and inhibitors of advanced IT adoption by auto ancillaries in India. Further, these factors are systematically analyzed to assess the relative importance with reference to the SMEs. The findings contribute to theory of IT adoption among SMEs, but more importantly to the SMEs in the auto ancillary, and policy makers and IT service providers who are likely to facilitate increased adoption.

This paper aims to explore the ways in which religious tourism in India fosters religious tolerance.

The paper uses a conceptual apparatus derived from the basic structure of religious tourism comprising motivation, journey and destination, to understand various aspects of tolerance. Tolerance, with the implicit meaning of diversity and pluralism, is examined at two levels – intra-religion and inter-religion – using field investigations from three Hindu pilgrimage sites, namely, Vrindavan, Tuljapur, Shegaon and review of one Muslim site called Ajmer Sharif. These sites exhibit a range of combinations, sectarian traditions within Hindu and their interactions with others, including Muslims and foreigners.

Each of the sites provides different sets of opportunities for the “others” to get exposed to religious and cultural aspects. It is found that tolerance within the Hindu sects and with non-Hindus from other religious faiths is a function of their engagement with cultural performances and participation in the religious tourism economy in a pilgrimage site.

On a broader level, this paper argues that conceptualising tolerance within a social and cultural sphere helps in a better understanding of tolerance and identifying areas within religious tourism where it can be promoted. A conscious effort to promote tolerance through religious tourism will add value to religious tourism and help it thrive.