Adoption of Mobile Telephony in Rural India: An Empirical Study

Mobile telephony has become one of the major factors driving the social and economic development of a country. The objective of this article is to identify factors affecting the adoption of mobile telephony in rural India and examine their impact on its adoption. An explanatory empirical methodology with sequential design was used for this purpose, and new factors that affect users’ decisions to adopt mobile telephony in rural India were identified. We extended the technology acceptance model by integrating new factors for a developing nation. This study found that ensuring service transparency and identifying opinion leaders in the local community are key requirements for increasing the speed of adoption in the rural India. The findings of this study will provide insights for service providers and policy makers to develop strategies and policies that will enhance mobile telephony adoption in rural India.     

Open sourced organizational learning: implications and challenges of crowdsourcing for human resource development (HRD) practitioners

As the value of organizational learning as a source of competitive advantage has become increasingly evident, human resource development (HRD) practitioners may face stronger demands to develop training more quickly and efficiently and increase rates of training transfer. One approach is to externally source organizational learning. In using this approach, it may be important for HRD practitioners to both develop training to engage external participants while utilizing organization development solutions to help internal employees adjust to the change. By examining the impact of open sourced and crowdsourced organizational learning on HRD practitioners, it is hoped that HRD practitioners may engage in informed workplace learning practice, even as the nature of the employment contract changes.     

Addition of runs to a two-level supersaturated design

The purpose of this article is to introduce a new class of extended E(s²)-optimal two level supersaturated designs obtained by adding runs to an existing E(s²)-optimal two level supersaturated design. The extended design is a union of two optimal SSDs belonging to different classes. New lower bound to E(s²) has been obtained for the extended supersaturated designs. Some examples and a small catalogue of E(s²)-optimal SSDs are also included.     

The Impact of Worker and Establishment‐level Characteristics on Male–Female Wage Differentials: Evidence from Danish Matched Employee–Employer Data

Abstract. This paper uses matched employer–employee data from Denmark to examine how gender segregation at the level of occupation, industry, establishment, and job‐cell impacts the gender wage differential of full‐time, private‐sector salaried and manual workers. Wage effects of gender segregation at the above four levels are estimated through fixed effects or through controls for the proportion females within these structures. We find that occupation has a much larger role than industry or establishment in accounting for the gender gap for salaried but not manual workers, and that for both groups there is a significant within‐job‐cell gender wage differential.     

On improvement in estimating the population mean in simple random sampling

Kadilar and Cingi [Ratio estimators in simple random sampling, Appl. Math. Comput. 151 (3) (2004), pp. 893–902] introduced some ratio-type estimators of finite population mean under simple random sampling. Recently, Kadilar and Cingi [New ratio estimators using correlation coefficient, Interstat 4 (2006), pp. 1–11] have suggested another form of ratio-type estimators by modifying the estimator developed by Singh and Tailor [Use of known correlation coefficient in estimating the finite population mean, Stat. Transit. 6 (2003), pp. 655–560]. Kadilar and Cingi [Improvement in estimating the population mean in simple random sampling, Appl. Math. Lett. 19 (1) (2006), pp. 75–79] have suggested yet another class of ratio-type estimators by taking a weighted average of the two known classes of estimators referenced above. In this article, we propose an alternative form of ratio-type estimators which are better than the competing ratio, regression, and other ratio-type estimators considered here. The results are also supported by the analysis of three real data sets that were considered by Kadilar and Cingi.     

Surgical Suites' Operations Management

Surgical suites are a key driver of a hospital's costs, revenues, and utilization of postoperative resources such as beds. This article describes some commonly occurring operations management problems faced by the managers of surgical suites. For three of these problems, the article also provides preliminary models and possible solution approaches. Its goal is to identify open challenges to spur further research by the operations management community on an important class of problems that have not received adequate attention in the literature, despite their economic importance.     

Psychosocial effects of war experiences among displaced children in southern Darfur

This study focused on assessing the psychosocial effects of the long standing, high intensity, and guerrilla-style of warfare among displaced children in Southern Darfur. The goal was to better understand the etiology, prognosis, and treatment implications for traumatic reactions, depression, and grief symptoms in this population. Three hundred thirty-one children aged 6-17 from three IDP Camps were selected using a quota sampling approach and were administered a Demographic Questionnaire, Child Post Traumatic Stress Reaction Index, Child Depression Inventory, and the Expanded Grief Inventory. Forty-three percent were girls and 57% were boys. The mean age of the children was 12 years. Results found that children were exposed to a very large number of war experiences with no significant differences between genders for types of exposure, including rape, but with older children (13-17 years) facing a larger number of exposures than younger children (6-12 years). Out of the 16 possible war experiences, the mean number was 8.94 (SD = 3.27). Seventy-five percent of the children met the DSM-IV criteria for PTSD, and 38% exhibited clinical symptoms of depression. The percentage of children endorsing significant levels of grief symptoms was 20%. Increased exposure to war experiences led to higher levels of: (1) traumatic reactions; (2) depression; and (3) grief symptoms. Of the 16 war experiences, abduction, hiding to protect oneself, being raped, and being forced to kill or hurt family members were most predictive of traumatic reactions. Being raped, seeing others raped, the death of a parent/s, being forced to fight, and having to hide to protect oneself were the strongest predictors of depressive symptoms. War experiences such as abduction, death of one's parent/s, being forced to fight, and having to hide to protect oneself were the most associated with the child's experience of grief. In addition to Total Grief, Traumatic Grief, Existential Grief, and Continuing Bonds were measured in these children. Although trauma, depression, and grief often exist as co-morbid disorders, the mechanisms and pathways of these is less understood. In this study we used Structural Equation Modeling to better understand the complex interaction and trajectories of these three symptoms evolving from war exposure and loss. This study is the first of its kind to assess the psychosocial effects of war experiences among children currently living in war zone areas within Sudan. It identifies some of the most prevalent war-related atrocities and their varying impact on the children's psychological well-being and overall adjustment. Implications for planning mental health interventions are discussed.     

A class of asymmetrical orthogonal resolution-IV designs

The concept of d-resolvability of orthogonal arrays of strength (d+1) is introduced. This is used to construct orthogonal resolution-IV plans of the type $\text{nt·n·2}{}^{\mathrm{n(m?1)}}\text{mn}{}^2\text{t}$. These plans are minimal and a large number of these plans are new.     

Re-designing bank service systems for effective marketing

Financial institutions are undergoing fundamental changes due to increased competitiveness and greater consumer awareness. These changes call for a re-examination of their design strategies. This article discusses three strategies— namely, marketing, operations and organizational design. The discussion is based on empirical data collected by means of a survey of bank consumers.