Search results

It is unfortunate yet true that in India, research starts and ends with a Ph.D. The steady decline in the quality of doctoral research has been an articulated concern among Indian academics at a time when research and innovation should be a priority. One of the feasible ways of resurrecting or reconstructing Indian research is to open up to examine contemporary international trends. Against this backdrop, the study aimed to make a comparative analysis of doctoral research in education in top-ranking international and top-ranking Indian universities.

Adopting a comparative education methodology, this paper examines 100 doctoral dissertations from the top 10 international universities as per Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) ranking and 100 doctoral theses from the top 10 Indian universities following National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) submitted in the past decade. Four significant issues were investigated during the comparison – topic, procedure, presentation, and dissemination – based on the premeditated Research Quality Relevance Metrics (RQRM) designed by the authors for quality improvement of research.

Findings revealed stark differences between two trends in all four domains. The top international universities focus on the contemporariness scattered across diverse issues while Indian studies continue to engage on a few archetypal conventional issues with dreary reiterations. The newness of thought is rare in Indian research, while the interdisciplinary mixing of methods and practices had been the hallmark of its international comportment. Practice orientation has been a unique research attribute found in the top 10 international universities. The methods applied have attempted to reduce the age-old gap between educational research and practice. Methodological innovativeness, structural orientation, readability, and dissemination of research were also exemplary in those international theses, whereas Indian theses are still reeling under orthodox surveys with hesitant reporting.

This study put an exclusive mirror in front of Indian doctoral research on its current state in respect of international standards. At the same time, it upholds a framework to promote research quality and impact. Dimensions of research quality relevance matrices and recommendations for effective doctoral research are two vibrant contributions to the intelligentsia in general for bringing Indian research out of its cocoon to make it internationally comparable.

It reports a study conducted by the researchers and the write-up is based on the empirical findings only.

The higher education system has been entrusted globally to provide quality education, especially to the youth, and equip them with required skills and capabilities. The visionaries and policymakers of the countries around the world have been working relentlessly to improve the standard of the higher education system by establishing national and global accreditation and ranking bodies and expecting measuring performance through setting up accreditation and ranking parameters. This paper focuses on the review of Indian university accreditation and ranking system and determining its efficacy in improving academic quality for achieving good position in global quality accreditation and ranking.

The study employed exploratory research approach to know about the accreditation and ranking issues of Indian higher education institutions to overcome the challenges for being globally competitive. The accreditation and ranking parameters and score of leading Indian universities was collected from secondary data sources. Similarly, the global ranking parameters and scores of these Indian universities with top global universities was explored. The performance gaps of Indian university in global academic quality parameter is assessed by comparing it with scores of global top universities. Further, each domestic and global accreditation and ranking parameters have been taken up for discussion.

The study identified teaching and learning, research and industry collaboration as common parameter in the accreditation and ranking by Indian and global accreditation and ranking body. Furthermore, the study revealed that Indian accreditation and ranking body assess leniently on parameters and award high scores as compared to rigorous global accreditation and ranking practice. The study revealed that “research” and “citations” are important parameters for securing prestigious position in global ranking, this is the reason Indian universities are trailing. The study exposed that Indian academic fraternity lack prominence in research, publication and citations as per need of global accreditation and ranking standards.

The limitation of this study is that it focused only on few Indian and global accreditation and ranking bodies. The future implication of this study will be the use of methodology designed in this study for comparing accreditation and ranking bodies’ parameters of different continents and countries in different economic development stages i.e. emerging and developed economies to know the disparity and shortcomings in their higher education system.

The article is a review and comparison of national and global accreditation and ranking parameters. The article explored the important criteria and key indicators of accreditation and ranking that would provide an important and meaningful insight to academic institutions of the emerging economies of the world to develop its competitiveness. The study contributed to the literature on identifying benchmark for improving academic and higher education institution quality. This study would be further helpful in fostering new ideas toward setting up of contemporary globally viable and acceptable academic quality standard.

This is possibly the first study conducted with novel methodology of comparing the Indian and global accreditation and ranking parameters to identify the academic quality performance gap and suggesting ways to attain academic benchmark through continuous improvement activity and process for global competitiveness.

The present study aims to trace out the science research output of top Indian universities from 2015 to 2019, as reflected in the Web of Science (WOS) database.

The present study has selected the Science Citation Index (SCI) of WOS core collection for selecting top Indian universities in terms of total publications in the last five years (2015–2019). The University of Delhi (DU), Banaras Hindu University (BHU), Anna University (AU), Jadavpur University (JU) and Punjab University (PU) have been selected. The study identified the most prolific authors, collaborating countries, collaborating institutions and the impact of their output in terms of citations per paper (CPP) and relative citation impact (RCI). For visualizing purposes, VOSviewer was used. The study also identified frequently used keywords and channels used for communicating research results.

The authors retrieved 26,173 documents consisting of journal articles, review papers and proceeding papers. The consistent growth of science research output has been observed. The University of Delhi (DU) has the maximum science publications. The study reflects that multi-authored papers have more research impact in terms of citation received. The USA, South Korea and Germany are the most collaborating countries. The top Indian Universities have a major collaboration with Anna University, Indian Institute of Technology, Center for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) of India.

The present study reveals how the science research output of top Indian universities has grown in the last few years. The findings of the study can be used for identifying specific science research areas where special attention can be given.

This study aims to examine if there exists a relation between scholarly output and institutional ranking based on National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) of India. This paper also aims to analyze and compare the parameters of NIRF with those of leading world ranking university rankings.

The data for the study were collected through Web content analysis. The major parts of data were collected from the official websites of NIRF, Times Higher Education World University Rankings and QS World University rankings.

The study found that the parameters fixed for the assessment of Indian institutions under NIRF are par with those of other world university ranking agencies. Scholarly output of a university is one of the major parameters of university ranking schemes. Indian universities who scored high for research productivity came top in NIRF. These universities were also figured in world university rankings. Universities from South India excel in NIRF and there is a close relationship between scholarly productivity and institutional ranking.

Correlation between h-index and scholarly productivity has been dealt with in several studies. This paper is the first attempt to find the relationship between scholarly productivity and ranking of universities in India based on NIRF.

This study aims to investigate the research productivity in terms of publications count of the top four premiers Indian Institute of Management (IIM) institutions and to explore the current research trends.

Bibliometric techniques were employed to assess the performance in terms of research productivity of authors affiliated with IIMs. The Elsevier Scopus database was selected as a tool to extract the prospective publications data limiting the time frame for 2010–2021. The IIM-Ahmedabad, IIM-Bangalore, IIM-Calcutta and IIM-Lucknow have been selected for the study. The harvested data were analyzed by using the standard bibliometric indicators and scientometric parameters to measure the research landscape such as average growth rate, compound average growth rate, relative growth rate, doubling time, degree of collaboration, collaborative index, collaborative coefficient and modified collaborative coefficient. VOSviewer 1.6.17, BibExcel and Microsoft Excel were used for data analysis and visualization.

The research productivity of selected four IIMs has shown an upward trend during the study period from 2010–2021 and accrued 4,397 publications with an average of 366 publications per year. The authorship patterns demonstrate the collaborative trends as most of the publications were produced by the multiple-authors (81.03%). IIM-Ahmedabad has produced the maximum number of publications (32.20%). The research productivity of IIMs has come out in collaboration with the 125 nations across the world and the USA, the UK, Canada, Germany and China are the front runners with IIMs in the collaborative network. The high magnitude and density of collaboration are evident from the calculated mean values of the degree of collaboration (0.82). The mean values of the collaborative index (2.64), collaborative coefficient (0.51) and modified collaborative coefficient (0.51) demonstrated a positive trend, but indicate the fluctuation in the collaborative pattern as time proceeds.

The study is limited to the publications data indexed in the Scopus database, therefore the outcome may not be generalized across other databases available in the public domain like Web of Science (WoS), PubMed, Dimensions and Google Scholars.

The findings of the study may aid academics and library professionals in identifying research trends, collaboration networks and evaluating other academic and research institutions by using the current advancement in data analysis.

The present study is the first effort to evaluate the research productivity of IIMs. The expanding literature will make an important contribution to identifying patterns and evaluating current research trends on a worldwide scale.

Cool has been studied mostly in consumer samples drawn from Western countries. This study was inspired by paucity of literature on “cool” in an Indian context. There is certainty that “cool” adds value and bestows desirability but there is uncertainty about what “cool” means. Since “cool” is a cultural phenomenon, the purpose of this paper is to explore its meaning in the Indian context.

The data were obtained on an open-ended questionnaire followed by depth probes on a sample of young consumers. The obtained scripts were coded and classified into semantic categories based on the grounded theory.

The study found that cool is indicated by seven facets, including being oneself, living life to the fullest, sense of humor and socially networked, and calm disposition. Unlike Western notions, in India, cool is not being deviant and hedonistic. The cultural and religious imprints are palpable in what is construed as cool in India.

Transplanting the Western notions of cool for brand building is likely to be a risky proposition. It may not resonate with the inner cords of the Indian youth. The implication of this study is that it reveals possible ways in which cool can be incorporated in brand identity.

Cool is valued because it bestows distinction in subtle ways. Brands can gain traction among consumers by incorporating cool symbolism in their identity.

This study expands the understanding of cool in the context of an emerging market. This is one of the first studies to have probed the concept of “cool” in India.

In this paper, the authors contribute with insights on competition and cooperation in multinational enterprises with a focus on challenges related to these governance mechanisms in a knowledge development context. The mechanisms have been widely recognized as important for developing knowledge, but their contradicting nature implies considerable complexity when it comes to governance. The complexity is further increased as a result of the headquarters-subsidiary relationships. The aim of this paper is to contribute with theoretical and empirical insights on these aspects by focusing on the research question: How and why does competition and cooperation in an MNE emerge over time?

A manufacturing MNE with headquarters (HQ) in Sweden is analyzed on both HQ and subsidiary levels. Interviews with 24 managers in Sweden and India have been performed.

The study illustrates that competition and cooperation are integral aspects in HQ-subsidiary relationships. The results show that both competition and cooperation depend on environmental, organizational and object-related conditions and that these conditions influence the dynamics of the interplay. The importance of including a subsidiary perspective and the interdependencies in an MNE setting are emphasized.

The authors add to the discussion on the interplay between competition and cooperation as they play an important role for knowledge development in MNEs. The results indicate that they do not take place simultaneously, and therefore, the authors suggest that the dynamic can be better understood by focusing on the interplay and analyze the concepts separately.

The purpose of this paper is to examine influence of past environment-friendly behaviour, peer influence and green apparel knowledge in the context of organic clothing purchase behaviour.

Data were collected by means of a survey carried out in three major metropolitan cities and a sample of total 889 respondents was collected who were college students in India.

Past environment-friendly behaviour influenced Indian youth’s organic clothing purchase behaviour. Green apparel knowledge and peer influence, interestingly, had no impact on organic clothing purchase behaviour.

The sample was limited to students who had past experience with green products. This was deliberately done as the objective was to examine the influence of past environment-friendly behaviour and green apparel knowledge on organic clothing purchase behaviour. Youth with limited awareness about organic clothing were not contacted. This restricted the findings to a specific youth segment. Further, the study was limited to Indian youth and did not examine the purchase behaviour of other consumer segments. Demographic variables were not used for analysis as only purchase behaviour of young people as a consumer segment was studied.

The findings can be used by organic apparel manufacturers in marketing organic clothing brands to the Indian youth. Organic clothing can be positioned to emphasise green values and distinct lifestyle for environment-conscious youths. Initiatives like celebrity talk-shows, organic clothing exhibitions, and launch of organic clothing designer brands can be used to promote organic apparel. College students can be used as opinion leaders to communicate benefits of organic clothing and inculcate green values among larger population.

Organic products and brands are becoming popular among Indian consumers. There has been limited research on the subject of youths’ purchase behaviour of organic clothing to date. Companies trying to launch organic clothing brands in the country may find the results helpful in understanding green buying behaviour.

This paper seeks to address two research questions: first, to what extent do highly skilled migrants intend to make personal business and financial investments in their home countries, and second, what factors influence them to invest in their home countries?

The results are based on face‐to‐face and telephone interviews which took place between September, 2008 and March, 2009 with 64 highly skilled British migrants working in Vancouver, Canada. Respondents were asked a combination of open‐ and closed‐ended questions.

The results of this study find that the vast majority of respondents are not investing in or intending to return to their home country, which indicates that they contributing to brain circulation in a limited extent.

The paper argues that governments and organisations in the home country can play an important role in facilitating brain circulation in Europe.

Much of the academic literature suggests that the brain drain has now transformed into brain gain. The findings of this study do not support this shift because most of the sample of British expatriates in Vancouver are not intending to invest in or return to Europe. This is significant because highly skilled migrants could be better utilised as resources by European governments and organisations.