bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Erhardt+Leimer India Limited: Strategic Transformation through ERP
Authors: Madhavan S Kaushika 
Published: January 2017

Erhardt+Leimer India Limited (ELIL), in the business of textile and related equipment manufacturing, is facing increased competition, stagnation in revenue, and eroded profitability. ELIL's parent company in Germany had implemented Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions to enhance its effectiveness and had offered ELIL some licences free of cost. Mr S Rajaram, Vice-President (Operations) of ELIL, though excited about the possibility of adopting ERP solutions is also concerned about implementation issues. They are: inadequate computing infrastructure, need for substantial investment, need to improve process orientation, data discipline, the prevailing organizational culture, and the high rate of failure in ERP implementation. Considering that he has to make a recommendation to the Board on ERP implementation, he is wondering whether ELIL is prepared for this change. Readers are invited to send their responses on the case to Vikalpa office.
On Challenges and Opportunities of Designing Integrated IT Platforms for Supporting Knowledge Works in Organizations
Authors: Laha Arijit 
Published: January 2017

In an ideal Knowledge Management environment in an organization, two objectives need to be achieved. Firstly, knowledge workers should have customized informational support for their respective works and secondly, workers across the organization should be able to easily understand and utilize information produced from myriads of knowledge works. Unfortunately, in current KM research and practices, these two goals are rarely addressed together. In fact, most of the KM practices subscribe either to the task-based KM approaches or to the generic/universalistic KM approaches. Typically, each of them is either unable to cater to the need of the other category or provide some ad hoc measures. This paper examines the major issues from a very basic level to understand the problems and attempts to present a solution that systematically covers both the objectives of KM. In the process, it develops a theory, the Task-oriented Organizational Knowledge Management (TOKM), within which the problems are analysed and a viable solution is identified. TOKM gives us a set of design principles for building a new class of IT-based support systems which can serve as a major component of organizational KM. TOKM focuses on information usage in knowledge works and the scope of technology intervention in the related processes. In this paper, the Task-oriented Organizational Knowledge Management is presented as an Information System Design Theory (ISDT) for building integrated IT platforms for supporting organizational KM. In developing the design, the information requirements of knowledge workers in light of an information usage model of knowledge works is studied. Then the model is extended to study possibilities of more advanced IT support and formulate them in the form of a set of meta-requirements. Following the IS design theory paradigm, a set of artifacts are hypothesized to meet the requirements. Finally, a design method, as a possible approach of building an IT-based integrated platform, the Knowledge-work Support Platform (KwSP), is outlined to realize the artifacts in order to meet the requirements. KwSP is a powerful platform for building and maintaining a number of task-type specific Knowledge-work Support Systems (KwSS) on a common sharable platform. Each KwSS, for the task-type supported by it, can be easily designed to provide extensive and sophisticated support to individual as well as group of knowledge workers in performing their respective knowledge work instances.
Restructuring State-owned Enterprises of a State Government of India: Problems, Prospects, and Lessons Learnt
Authors: Bose Suvendu 
Published: January 2017

Poor performance has become a regular feature of the state-owned manufacturing enterprises in spite of their having experienced workforce, old brand reputation, etc. Most of them have fallen into a vicious cycle due to their prolonged poor performance. The problem starts with the poor working capital position, leading to high raw material cost and uncompetitive final product pricing. This leads to the generation of a very low investible surplus. Not having investible surplus has forced the state-owned manufacturing companies to a financial situation where they are facing severe dearth of capital. The age-old plant and machineries coupled with outdated technology used for production face severe problem under the dearth of capital condition and the manufacturing units become incapable of generating sufficient investible surplus. Lack of modernization of machinery and upgradation of people skills lead to constraints in producing value-added product which have both market demand as well as the potential for greater contribution than the regular product. Therefore, the manufacturing companies continue to perform poorly, without any product-mix diversification. The poor operational performance also gets reflected in their financial performance. Despite having positive contribution at operating margin before direct labour, most of the state-owned manufacturing companies are incurring losses at Earning Before Interest, Tax, Depreciation and Amortisation (EBITDA) level, even under the best-case scenario, mainly because of huge amount of employee cost. This paper suggests two solutions for these manufacturing companies — restructuring and disinvestments. The financial restructuring of the state-owned enterprises has become a unique programme in the country having the following key features: Broad political consensus has been arrived at on the financial restructuring programme. Unique and extensive stakeholder consultation process has been adopted to facilitate buy-in of staff associations and unions on restructuring proposals Innovative framework and principles have been established for: categorization of enterprises early retirement scheme for employees Social Safety Net programme financial restructuring transparent and competitive bidding process with in-built safeguard A Public Enterprises Cell has been created for guiding the restructuring efforts. Impact of government's budgetary resources is seen in reduction of the State loan exposure to the tune of around Rs.344 crore, primarily through conversion of loans to equity. Impact on performance of enterprises identified for restructuring is reflected in the reduction in aggregate net loss to the tune of around Rs. 67.5 crore. Further improvement of the state-owned enterprises has been recommended based on the lessons learnt during the process of financial restructuring. It is believed that opportunities do exist for widening the scope of the programme.
The Role of Cognitive Appraisal in Work-Family Experiences of Indian IT Employees
Authors: Padhi Mousumi , Pattnaik Snigdha 
Published: January 2017

Demographic changes have had a catalytic effect on the number of people participating in multiple roles and juggling them as they go through various life functions. Two of the major domains where these roles are based are work and family. This study draws on Person-environment fit theory to understand to what extent congruence between an individual and her⁄his environment affects her⁄his experience of work-family interface. Through this, the study seeks to capture the cognitive appraisal process by which work and family experiences can exacerbate work-family conflict (WFC) and enhance work-family enrichment (WFE). This study is an attempt to respond to calls by researchers to look at the process of cognitive appraisal and congruence which have largely been ignored in work-family literature. These processes could help understand why given the same situation and environmental contexts, individuals might differ in their work-family experiences. Congruence, measured at two levels — congruence and incongruence — has been taken as the independent variable in the study. The different measures of work-family conflict and work-family enrichment have been taken as the dependent variables. Responses in the study were drawn from software professionals working in IT organizations. It was found that the incongruent individuals reported significantly higher levels of work-family conflict on all the dimensions of conflict as compared to the congruent individuals. In contrast, when it came to work-family enrichment, congruent individuals reported significantly higher levels of enrichment on all the dimensions as compared to incongruent individuals. By capturing the role of cognitive appraisal on work-family interface, the study contributes theoretically and empirically to the extant literature on work and family. As organizations across sectors are taking steps to promote work-life harmony, the finding that congruence leads to greater work-family enrichment and incongruence leads to greater work-family conflict has important practical implications for the formulation of work-family policies.
Factors Affecting the Work Attitudes of Indian Re-entry Women in the IT Sector
Authors: Ravindran Bharathi , Baral Rupashree 
Published: January 2017

India has witnessed increased participation of women in all sectors of the labour market. However, the career path of Indian women is not a continuous one. Despite the overflowing career prospects, women continue to quit their jobs. Some re-enter after taking a break, while others are forever lost to the labour markets. Those women, who re-enter the workforce find difficulty in gaining back their career momentum because of the demands they face at work and home. Organizations are increasingly valuing these re-entry women's talent and are therefore taking initiatives to bring them back to workforce and retain them by providing several workplace support systems such as flexible timings and work-from-home options. Consequently, a number of studies have empirically examined the relationships between such organizational supports and job attitudes of employees. But, there are very few studies that have analysed the moderating role of perceived work and family demands in these relationships particularly for re-entry women. Although there are a few studies on re-entry women in other socio-cultural contexts, hardly any study is found in the Indian context. Barely anything is known about the main reasons for career exit and career re-entry and the factors, challenges, barriers, and opportunities at the individual, family, and organizational levels for women who decide to join back employment after a career break. Further, lack of qualitative research prevents the emergence of new ideas regarding re-entry women. Studies on examining the jobrelated attitudes of re-entry women are also limited. The current study aims at examining the effect of organizational factors like policy support, diversity climate, work-family culture, and organizational justice on the attitudes of re-entry women like career satisfaction, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and career commitment. Responses were collected from the re-entry women in Indian IT organizations through a survey questionnaire. Findings indicate that the career outcomes and attitudes of Indian re-entry women are directly related to organizational factors. Organizations are therefore suggested to provide the right kind of support to these women by revising their policies and making the workplace environment and culture more supportive and inclusive for women returners.
Three-Factor Model of Employee Passion: An Empirical Study in the Indian Context
Authors: Gaan Niharika , Mohanty Kalyani 
Published: January 2017

Although the passion that people demonstrate at work would appear to be a topic of considerable interest and importance to organizational scholars and practitioners, the extant literature scarcely discusses the construct of it without further investigation. The study of Vallerand et al. (2003) pertaining to the area of passion has made profound theoretical contribution confirming the precepts of positive psychology (Seligman, 2002). However, the behavioural outcomes such as working on holidays, or out-of-work outcomes such as constantly thinking about work when not at work (work rumination) sharing a nomological network with the construct, has not been examined by them, as argued by Perrewe et al., (2014). Further, the comprehensive work shown by Zigarmi et al. (2011) in defining the Work Passion (WP) construct suffers from methodological lacunae. Given that the extant literature on work passion calls for further examination, the pertinent study aims to investigate the validity and reliability of Passion scales based on the model proposed by Zigarmi et al. (2011). Four dimensions of a process model constituting work cognition, work affect, job wellbeing, and work intention along with work rumination as an integral part of work passion were examined. Questionnaires were administered to a sample of corporate professionals heralding spectrum of industries to validate the passion scale. The principal component analysis was performed which extracted four factors (work cognition, work affect, job well-being & work rumination) out of five factors to validate the construct. However, in order to confirm the validity of the scale, the structural equation modeling analysis was adopted which further indicated that the three-factor structure of work passion (work cognition, work affect, and work rumination) was the best fit model in comparison to the four-factor models. Incidentally, the emergence of work rumination as an important dimension of WP construct has confirmed the dualistic nature of the passion construct as stated by Vallerand et al. (2003) through its dualistic status as positive and negative work rumination. The triadic nature of WP can be prospective as well as retrospective in nature; where people tend to think about issues that have occurred in the past or anticipatively ruminate about issues and demands that may arise at work (Cropley & Zijlstra, 2011). The intriguing nature of the present study suggesting cognitions (work cognition), affects (work affects), and behaviours (work rumination) to be preceding the formation of dualistic status of passion (harmonious and obsessive passion) provides a good basis for future investigation.
Loudness, Annoyance and dBA in Evaluating Low Frequency Sounds
Authors: Persson Kerstin , Björkman Martin , Rylander Ragnar 
Published: January 2017

The study reported here was undertaken to evaluate annoyance and loudness of low frequency sounds, to establish a reason for the discrepancy between the dB(A) unit and annoyance after exposure to low frequency sounds. Annoyance was evaluated by 98 test subjects who were exposed for 4 × 30 minute periods while studying. Four continuous fan noises centred at 80, 250, 500 and 1000 Hz were used as exposure noises. The relative annoyance of a low frequency noise and reference, noises were evaluated at the same dB(A) level using category scales. Noise levels betwen 40 and 70 dB(A) were included. Loudness estimates for pure tones at 63, 80, 250 and 1000 Hz were made by 12 subjects using magnitude estimation. Equal loudness contours were obtained at 45, 60 and 75 dB SPL. The loudness functions and contours derived were largely in agreement with ISO R/226, 1961. The estimations of loudness were higher than the degree of annoyance for these exposure noises. This effect became less pronounced towards the lower frequencies. The relation of the annoyance contours and the dB(A) demonstrates that the dB(A) weighting underestimates annoyance for frequencies below about 200 Hz.
The Effects of Vertical Mechanical Vibration on Standing Man
Authors: Herterich J. , Schnauber H. 
Published: January 2017

The evaluation of vibrations affecting the whole body of man marks an area in which a number of aspects will have to be investigated further. Among those especially important are effects of vibrations on standing man and also the question of the effects of impulsive vibrations. In the scope of the performed experiments the relation between exposure to and strain on the standing man have been investigated concerning sinusoidal as well as impulsive vibrations. For the aforementioned case an appropriate evaluation pattern will be presented Also in the field of impulsive vibrations, supplementary results were gained The basis of these tests were field investigations on working systems under impulsive vibrations which will also be described.
Energy Absorption of Vibration in the Hand for Higher Frequencies
Authors: SöRensson Anna , Burström Lage 
Published: January 2017

The aim of this study has been to develop a measurement method to study the absorption of vibration energy on exposure to high frequency vibrations. The developed measurement method consists of specially constructed equipment for measurement and analysis of the subject's absorption of vibration energy. In this study the energy absorption from the exposure to white noise vibration within the frequency-range 20 to 5000 Hz has been studied. Five female and five male subjects were involved in this study. The results show that the developed method of measurement works satisfactorily and gives reliable results for the energy absorption within the frequency-range 20 to 4000 Hz. Furthermore, the results show that the subjects absorb vibration energy even for frequencies above 1000 Hz. The results also show that the energy absorption is dependent upon factors such as gender, the level of the vibration and the frequency.
Some Surface Properties of Activated Carbons Prepared by Gasification with Different Gases
Authors: Attia Amina A. 
Published: January 2017

A non-activated carbon ‘D’ was obtained by carbonizing date pits at 773 K in a limited supply of air. Activated carbons were obtained by gasifying portions of ‘D’ with air at 773 K, carbon dioxide at 1123 K, or steam at 1173 K, all to different burn-offs between 15% and 60%. The adsorption of nitrogen at 77 K and of carbon dioxide at 298 K was investigated using a volumetric adsorption apparatus of a conventional type. The adsorption of water vapour at 298 K and the chemisorption of pyridine at 423 K was followed by means of quartz spring balances. Gasification with oxidizing gases increased the surface area and total pore volume, as measured by nitrogen or carbon dioxide adsorption. In most cases, comparable surface areas were measured by nitrogen and carbon dioxide. The adsorption of water vapour depended on the percentage burn-off and the gasification conditions. Chemisorption of pyridine at 423 K was found to be related to the chemistry of the surface rather than to the surface area or total pore volume.
A Radiochemical Study of the Kinetics and Mechanism of Caesium Ion Adsorption on Potassium Copper Nickel Hexacyanoferrate(II)
Authors: Ishfaq Malik Muhammad , Safdar M. 
Published: January 2017

The adsorption of caesium ions on potassium copper nickel hexacyanoferrate(II) (KCNF) was carried out under optimum conditions to ascertain whether such adsorption occurred via an ion-exchange process. The results show that the adsorption takes place by means of a pure caesium-potassium ion-exchange reaction. Batch kinetic studies of the replacement of potassium ions on KCNF by caesium ions were carried out in aqueous solution at a pH value of 4.0 over the temperature range 293–333 K at a caesium ion concentration of 7.5 × 10−3 mol/l. From the various thermodynamic quantities calculated, it was deduced that the ion-exchange process was endothermic. Kinetic studies of caesium adsorption on KCNF were carried out as a function of the particle size of KCNF and of the temperature. The data obtained at a caesium ion concentration of 7.5 × 10−7 mol/l fitted the film diffusion model. Different physical parameters such as the effective diffusion coefficient and the activation energy were calculated. From an Arrhenius plot at a caesium ion concentration of 7.5 × 10−7 mol/l, the activation energy was evaluated as 19.3 kJ/mol, thereby confirming the film diffusion nature of the process. However, the data obtained at the higher caesium ion concentration of 7.5 × 10−3 mol/l could not be interpreted via the particle diffusion model but rather by a fast chemical reaction model. At this concentration, the reaction followed shell progressive reaction kinetics as confirmed by the linear Arrhenius plot obtained. This plot gave an activation energy of 68.5 kJ/mol for the process, thereby confirming the applicability of shell progressive reaction kinetics under these circumstances.
Rural end-of-life care from the experiences and perspectives of patients and family caregivers: A systematic literature review
Authors: Rainsford Suzanne , MacLeod Roderick D , Glasgow Nicholas J , Phillips Christine B , Wiles Robert B , Wilson Donna M 
Published: January 2017

Background: End-of-life care must be relevant to the dying person and their family caregiver regardless of where they live. Rural areas are distinct and need special consideration. Gaining end-of-life care experiences and perspectives of rural patients and their family caregivers is needed to ensure optimal rural care. Aims: To describe end-of-life care experiences and perspectives of rural patients and their family caregivers, to identify facilitators and barriers to receiving end-of-life care in rural/remote settings and to describe the influence of rural place and culture on end-of-life care experiences. Design: A systematic literature review utilising the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. Data sources: Four databases (PubMed, CINAHL, Scopus and Web of Science) were searched in January 2016, using a date filter of January 2006 through January 2016; handsearching of included article references and six relevant journals; one author contacted; pre-defined search terms and inclusion criteria; and quality assessment by at least two authors. Results: A total of 27 articles (22 rural/remote studies) from developed and developing countries were included, reporting rural end-of-life care experiences and perspectives of patients and family caregivers. Greatest needs were informational (developed countries) and medications (developing countries). Influence of rural location included distances, inaccessibility to end-of-life care services, strong community support and importance of home and ‘country’. Conclusion: Articulation of the rural voice is increasing; however, there still remain limited published rural studies reporting on patient and family caregivers’ experiences and perspectives on rural end-of-life care. Further research is encouraged, especially through national and international collaborative work.