bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Developing Curricula Across Cultures
Authors: Sanzgiri Jyotsna 
Published: June 2019

In this paper, the author describes the process of developing a doctoral curriculum in Organizational Psychology involving the participation of a team comprising administrators, faculty, and students which combined seemingly opposing elements. In order to define a curriculum for the future, the members had to resolve conflicts amongst themselves at the personal, philosophic/ideological, and organizational/structural levels. At the personal level, they learned to reconcile: content and ‘hard’ quantitative skills with process and ‘soft’ personal skills short-term individualistic approaches with long-term strategic thinking monoculturalism with one dominant culture and multiculturalism with pluralistic thinking. At the philosophical levels, they learned to: combine content and process traditional and experiential approaches diversity awareness and the management of cross-cultural differences. At the organizational/structural levels, they were able to: combine hierarchical and collegial or consensus-based approaches develop an identity that is unique combined with identity of the larger university culture create resources for empirically-based and experientially-based scholarship. After these differences were reconciled, the members were able to develop synergistic approaches that allowed them to evolve from their ethnocentric biases to more multicultural approaches. They learned that multiple bases of power would allow them to influence their colleagues to accept the approaches they could potentially offer the university even though they would not have the formal authority to do so. By practising what was preached, the team was able to define a mission and a vision that was considerably broader than the one it would have if it were to work individualistically. Their mission was to: develop curricular sequences that focus on seminal works in organizational theories, values, research, and practice have an interdisciplinary focus that draws on the fields of psychology, sociology, systems thinking, experimental, and quasi-experimental design emphasize on integrating and differentiating knowledge simultaneously emphasize on theory-in-action and reflective practice.
Measuring Retail Service Quality: Examining Applicability of International Research Perspectives in India
Authors: Kaul Subhashini 
Published: June 2019

Service quality is being increasingly perceived as a tool to increase value for the consumer; and as a means of positioning in a competitive environment to ensure consumer satisfaction, retention, and patronage. Existing research indicates that consumers satisfied with the store�s service quality are most likely to remain loyal. However, despite its strategic importance, Indian retailers do not have an appropriate and established instrument to measure service quality. This study examines the Retail Service Quality Scale (RSQS) developed in the US for applicability in India. RSQS has five dimensions and six sub-dimensions and has been found appropriate in a variety of settings — across different countries such as South Africa and Singapore and across a variety of store types such as supermarkets, department stores, and hyper stores. The five dimensions — Physical Aspects, Reliability, Personal Interaction, Problem Solving, and Policy�are believed to capture distinct though correlated aspects of retail service. Each of the first three dimensions has two sub-dimensions. These six sub-dimensions, also called the first-order factors, are labelled as Appearance, Convenience, Promises, Doingit-Right, Inspiring Confidence, and Courteousness/Helpfulness. The dimensions and sub-dimensions provide strategic focus areas for retailers, enabling them to improve certain aspects of store service where performance is relatively poor. Data using a survey questionnaire from 144 adult shoppers at large format apparel stores in the city of Bangalore indicates that: The RSQS dimensions and sub-dimensions are not clearly identifiable. The dimension of �Physical Appearance� is the only one that is relatively clear. All other dimensions are ill-defined. The dimension of ‘Problem-Solving’ is hazy and all the remaining dimensions of RSQS comprise one factor. RSQS has limited diagnostic application. Consequently, retailers would find RSQS a poor instrument to help identify strategic areas requiring focus to improve service levels. The scale can, at best, be employed to assess overall service quality levels and for tracking overall improvements over a period of time. RSQS is inappropriate for application in Indian retail. Pre-test interviews of shoppers indicate that several service aspects mentioned by shoppers during interviews are not included in RSQS. Much future research is needed to develop a scale appropriate for the Indian context.
Influence of Board Size and Independence on Firm Performance: A Study of Indian Companies
Authors: Garg Ajay Kumars 
Published: June 2019

Corporate governance issues have attracted a good deal of public interest because of their apparent importance for the economic health of corporations and society in general, especially after the plethora of corporate scams and debacles in recent times. Corporate governance issues flow from the concept of accountability and governance and assume greater significance and magnitude in the case of corporate form of organization where the ownership and management of organizations are distanced. And, it is in this context that the pivotal role played by the board of directors in maintaining an effective organization assumes much importance. A major part of the debate on corporate governance centres around board composition especially board size and independence. Various committees have mandated a minimum number of independent directors and have given guidelines on board composition. However, the relationship of board characteristics such as composition, size, and independence with performance has not yet been established. This paper addresses this question: Does the board size and independence really matter in terms of influencing firm's performance? The findings suggest that: There is an inverse association between board size and firm performance. Different proportions of board independence have dissimilar impact on firm performance. The impact of board independence on firm performance is more when the board independence is between 50 and 60 per cent. Smaller boards are more efficient than the larger ones, the board size limit of six suggested as the ideal. Independent directors have so far failed to perform their monitoring role effectively and improve the performance of the firm. The guidelines on corporate governance should take into account the ‘cross-board’ phenomenon while defining the criteria for eligibility for appointment as an independent director. Lack of training to function as independent directors and ignorance of the procedures, tasks, and responsibilities expected of them could be reasons for the independent directors' non-performance. A bad performance leads to an increase in board size, which in turn, hampers performance. Guidelines are provided for future studies to include different variables to see which board composition is suitable for different companies at different stages of life cycle.
Effect of Organizational Culture on Creating Learned Helplessness Attributions in R&D Professionals: A Canonical Correlation Analysis
Authors: Saxena Sharad , Shah Hardik 
Published: June 2019

Organizations must make effective use of their resources in order to succeed in today's global marketplace. To get the most out of their human resources, organizations empower employees to allow them to work to their highest potential. In doing so, firms are attempting to make employees aware that there is a link between their efforts and subsequent performance. In other words, employers are making employees responsible for their behaviour and then rewarding those who show signs of the most appropriate behaviour; however, these strategies will not work with all employees. One specific reason, empowerment may not work, is because some individuals exhibit learned helplessness behaviours. Due to such negative impact of learned helplessness attributions on performance in organizations, it is important to understand how people develop learned helplessness attributions and what role organizational culture plays towards developing or helping to cope up with such negative way of thinking which essentially impairs the performance of individuals. Learned helplessness as a deed per se is highly influenced by the philosophical foundations, value systems, and ethos of the organization and therefore the basic premise of the study is that the organizational culture is one of the fundamental causes of creating learned helplessness attributions. In this paper, an attempt has been made to explore the relationship among different dimensions of organizational culture and learned helplessness attributions for R&D professionals of pharmaceutical industry of India. Different strategies to manage R&D professionals have been suggested based on the results. The study revealed that: the organizational culture variables were negatively related to the learned helplessness attributions the role of organizational culture was significant in order to create or remove learned helplessness the attributions played an important role in causing depression and vulnerability situations that eventually results in learned helplessness all learned helplessness attributions were quite closely related and created a well-defined dimension for representing LH attributions the outcome dimension of learned helplessness was fairly well predicted by the set of organizational culture profile variables when acting as a set learned helplessness was brought on by a handful of uncontrollable, stress-creating factors including time and performance pressures, lack of free time, the competitive and demanding nature of research projects, and lack of opportunity to socialize or engage in recreation.
Dilemma of Corporate Action: Empirical Evidences of Bonus Issue vs. Stock Split
Authors: Shirur Srinivas 
Published: June 2019

Corporate action is usually believed to offer some good news to the investors, particularly in case of amalgamation and mergers. In many cases, corporate actions do not involve any potential future positive benefits to the company as is the case with bonus issue and stock splits. Such types of actions of the companies could be called as fictitious corporate actions. It has been noticed by many empirical studies that the market react positively to the announcement of bonus shares and stock splits. This study analyses the reasons for the issue of bonus shares and stock splits on a sample of 165 companies which have issued bonus shares and 134 companies which have gone for stock splits during January 2000 to September 2006. An effort is also made to find the distinguishing conditions under which a company has to decide whether to issue bonus shares or to go for stock splits. Five variables have been considered for the study: rate of growth of sales and profit, beta and share price increase, and promoter stake. Effort has been made to explore whether there is any significant difference in these variables as applicable to stock split and bonus shares. The study reveals that top management of the companies decide to issue bonus shares when the investors undervalue the company while they go for stock split when the investors overvalue the company for a long time and promoters have to step in to correct these anomalies. This merely goes on to prove that capital markets are not inherently efficient even in the long run and promoters have to intervene to manage the prices of their stocks through corporate actions. This puts a question mark on the Market Efficiency Hypothesis and an effort has been made to test the ability of NSE to depict semi-strong and strong form of Market Efficiency Hypothesis. As far as policy implications are concerned, the author suggests that: Companies may resort to bonus shares issue if the rate of growth of share price lag behind the market index and the rate of growth of sales and profit is higher than the companies included in the index. In contrast, they may resort to stock split if the rate of growth of share price is higher than that of the index while the growth in sales and profit is less than the companies included in the index. One should also be cautious while applying this rationale. There are significant number of companies (negative companies) which may resort to fictitious corporate actions even if their rate of growth of sales or profit or both are negative in order to mislead the investors by resorting to false signaling.
SEBI's Regulation of the Indian Securities Market: A Critical Review of the Major Developments
Authors: Sabarinathan G 
Published: June 2019

Since the empowerment of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) through an Act of Parliament in 1992, SEBI has come up with a number of initiatives aimed at regulating and developing the Indian securities market and improving its safety and efficiency. These initiatives have made an impact on nearly every aspect of the market. Some of those initiatives have transformed the market fundamentally. Particularly noteworthy is the growth in the following: Market capitalization Number of listed firms Trading volumes and turnover both in the spot and futures markets. There is a growing network of financial intermediaries that operate in a highly competitive environment while being governed by a tight set of norms. India has one of the most sophisticated new equity issuance markets. Disclosure requirements and the accounting policies followed by listed companies for producing financial information are comparable to the best regimes in the world. The Indian securities market is among the safest and the most efficient trading destinations internationally. The Indian corporate governance code is compared to the Sarbanes Oxley Act of the USA. India has one of the fastest growing and well-developed asset management businesses in the world, with state-owned as well as private sector players. That said, the Indian market is often hostage to some scam or the other from time to time. Effective enforcement of compliance is cited as one of the reasons for these unsavoury episodes. The role that SEBI's initiatives have played in bringing about this transformation of the market has not been researched comprehensively so far. Literature that has analysed the efficiency and the design of the Indian securities market has examined the role of certain specific regulatory provisions on the functioning of the securities market. So also the various annual reports of SEBI discuss the regulatory and other institutional developments that took place during the year under review. However, no attempt seems to have been made to take stock of all the various initiatives of SEBI so far and assess its impact on the activity in the securities market. This paper identifies some of the major interventions of SEBI relating to each of these aspects of the market and critically examines the economic consequences of the same. Such a stock-taking will enable a well-rounded and objective review of SEBI's performance. It is also likely to suggest interesting areas for further research.
Organizational Commitment and Job Satisfaction among Teachers during Times of Burnout
Authors: Nagar Komal 
Published: June 2019

Organizations want to maximize productivity by minimizing stress, as increased levels of stress and burnout may have significant implications for organizational performance such as reduced job satisfaction and lowered organizational commitment. Also certain occupations are linked more to burnout than the others. The present exploratory study undertakes the examination of burnout among teachers in the university as they are an essential part of a successful educational system. Organizational commitment is essential for retaining and attracting well qualified workers as only satisfied and committed workers will be willing to continue their association with the organization and make considerable effort towards achieving its goals. This work is significant for two reasons: It attempts to develop and test a model for burnout and its effect on job satisfaction and the subsequent effect of job satisfaction on organizational commitment; It signifies one of the first attempts to develop a linkage among burnout, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment among teachers. This study examines three factors of burnout as potential antecedents of 153 university teacher's job satisfaction, and the effect of increased job satisfaction on commitment among employees toward their organization. Structural Equation Modeling results indicate that: All three factors of burnout namely, depersonalization, reduced personal accomplishment, and emotional exhaustion lead to decreased job satisfaction. Greater job satisfaction contributes significantly towards an increase in organizational commitment. Out of the three dimensions of burnout, female teachers score higher on emotional exhaustion and reduced personal accomplishment indicating that they could not work the way they wanted to with their students or that they have less influence on their students, whereas male teachers score higher on depersonalization. In terms of job satisfaction, females show higher levels of job satisfaction as compared to men, perhaps due to low expectations about job status among female teachers as compared to male teachers. A perceived difference in alternative employment opportunities between genders offers an explanation to the finding that women are more committed to organizations than their male counterparts The results of the study have implications for the management of educational institutions as employee burnout may have important consequences for the organization. Since teachers are a valuable resource to educational institutes, management must invest significant resources in the assessment of their working environment, both mental and physical, to maximize the quality of service delivery.
Challenges and support needs of parents and children when a parent is at end of life: A systematic review
Authors: Hanna Jeffrey R , McCaughan Eilís , Semple Cherith J 
Published: June 2019

Background: Preparing children for the death of a parent is challenging. Parents are often uncertain if and how to communicate and support their children. Many parents feel it is protecting their children by not telling them about the prognosis. Children less prepared for parental death from a terminal illness are more susceptive to later adversities. To facilitate coping and moderate for such adversities, there is a need to gain insight and understand the experience and challenges confronted by families. Aim: This review synthesised evidence on the experiences of parents and children when a parent is at end of life to discern their challenges, support needs and factors that facilitated good practice. Design: Mixed-methods systematic review. Data sources: Four electronic databases (CINAHL, PubMed, PsycINFO and Ovid MEDLINE) using MeSH terms and word searches in October 2018. Studies were not limited by year of publication, language or country. Grey literature searches were also completed on Google Scholar and OpenGrey. Results: In all, 7829 records were identified; 27 qualitative and 0 quantitative studies met the inclusion criteria. Eight descriptive themes were identified, further categorised into two broad themes: (1) barriers and facilitators in sharing the news that a parent is dying and (2) strategies to manage the changing situation. Conclusion: Lack of understanding in relation to the parent’s prognosis, denial and feeling ill-equipped were suggested as barriers for parents to share the news with their children. Engagement with social networks, including extended family relatives and peers, and maintaining routines such as attending school were suggested supportive by parents and children. Findings are limited primarily to White, middle-class two-parent families. A number of areas for future research are identified.
Lower Signal Intensity of the Anterior Talofibular Ligament is Associated with a Higher Rate of Return to Sport After ATFL Repair for Chronic Lateral Ankle Instability
Authors: Li Hong , Hua Yinghui , Feng Sijia , Li Hongyun , Chen Shiyi 
Published: June 2019

Background: The treatment strategy for anterior talofibular ligament (ATFL) injury is usually determined by the ATFL remnant condition during surgery. Preoperative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)–based signal intensity of the ATFL remnant, represented by the signal/noise ratio (SNR) value, can reveal the ATFL remnant condition. Thus far, there is a lack of evidence regarding the relationship between the ATFL remnant condition and functional outcomes. Purpose/Hypothesis: The purpose was to quantitatively evaluate whether the MRI-based ATFL ligament SNR value is related to functional outcomes after ATFL repair for ankles with chronic lateral ankle instability. The hypothesis was that a lower preoperative SNR is related to a better clinical outcome, particularly a higher rate of return to sport. Study Design: Cohort study; Level of evidence, 3. Methods: First, a preliminary study was performed to measure the ATFL SNR in preoperative MRI, the results of which suggested that a preoperative SNR >10.4 was indicative of a poor ATFL condition. Then, a cohort study was retrospectively performed with consecutive patients who underwent open repair of ATFL injuries between January 2009 and August 2014. Accordingly, the patients were divided into 2 groups: high SNR (HSNR; ≥10.4) and low SNR (LSNR; <10.4). Functional outcomes based on the American Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle Society (AOFAS) score, Karlsson Ankle Functional Score (KAFS), and Tegner Activity Scale were then compared between the HSNR group and the LSNR group. Results: Ultimately, 70 patients were available for the final follow-up: 37 in the HSNR group and 33 in the LSNR group. No significant difference was detected between the HSNR group and the LSNR group in terms of the AOFAS score, KAFS, or Tegner Activity Scale ( P > .05 for all) preoperatively. At the final follow-up, the mean ± SD AOFAS score in the LSNR group (92 ± 6) was higher than that in the HSNR group (87 ± 12), although no significant difference was detected postoperatively ( P = .16). The mean KAFS in the LSNR group (94 ± 7) was significantly higher than that in the HSNR group (88 ± 11) postoperatively ( P = .03). At follow-up, the mean Tegner score in the LSNR group (6; range, 3-7) was significantly higher than that in the HSNR group (5; range, 1-8) postoperatively ( P = .03). Patients in the LSNR group had a significantly higher percentage of sports participation than those in the HSNR group (91% vs 65%, P = .02) postoperatively. Conclusion: A lower signal intensity in the ATFL ligament based on preoperative MRI is associated with a better clinical outcome, particularly a higher rate of return to sport.