Complying with voluntary codes of conduct: Corporate strategies for the Valdez Principles

The Valdez Principles is the latest of a series of voluntary codes of conduct that have been enunciated by various advocacy groups to guide the behavior of business enterprises. These principles provide guidelines on corporate conduct towards the environment and present a corporation with critical choices. This study suggests alternative strategies that firms may adopt to cope with this new code. Experience with the Sullivan and MacBride Principles is analyzed to serve as the basis to predict corporate response to the Valdez Principles.     

Job stress,coping process and intentions to leave: A study of information technology professionals working in India

This study examined the levels of job stress amongst the information technology professionals, and the ways that they had found to deal with it. It also throws some light on the intentions of the professionals regarding leaving their organizations in a sample of 26 professionals working in three different companies. The sample included professionals working full time, with varying demographic details. Qualitative methods were used to collect the data from 26 in-depth interviews. Findings show that IT professionals are facing a huge amount of work stress mainly caused by heavy work load, inadequate staff along with role ambiguity affecting their family life. It was found that the IT professionals had own ways to cope with their stress. However, it was also seen that intentions to leave their organizations were not purely due to stress problems.     

Analyzing Social Media Engagement and its Effect on Online Product Purchase Decision Behavior

The continuous progress of society in using online resources has given opportunity to many business executives to utilize social media for their brand promotion or recognition. Organizations utilize social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flicker, Google Plus, and YouTube to promote their product, service, or brand worldwide. Increase of consumer engagement in online social activities has forced companies to integrate social media factors into their marketing strategy. The objective of this study is to find the important factors on which the online purchasing decision depends, based on the personality types of consumers and their attitude toward social media with brand perception.     

The Strategic Role of Third‐Party Marketplaces in Retailing

Retailers are increasingly adopting a dual‐format model. In addition to acting as traditional merchants (buying and reselling goods), these retailers provide a platform for third‐party (3P) sellers to access and compete for the same customers. We investigate the strategic rationale for a retailer to introduce a 3P marketplace. Our analysis provides insights into the growing prevalence of 3P marketplaces. We show that by committing to having an active 3P marketplace, the retailer creates an “outside option” that improves its bargaining position in negotiations with the manufacturer. This can explain the increasing prevalence of such marketplaces. On the other hand, the manufacturer would prefer to eliminate the retailer's outside option and should seek to limit or prevent sales through 3P marketplaces. This is consistent with actions that several manufacturers have taken to limit such sales. Interestingly, if the manufacturer fails to eliminate sales of competing products through the 3P marketplace, then the best strategy for the manufacturer is to allow the retailer to dictate the terms of their contract. This is because a powerful retailer will rely less on its outside option in generating profit, and therefore it will increase the fees charged to 3P sellers and soften the competition between 3P sellers and the manufacturer. The decrease in competition will lead to an increase in the value of outside option of the manufacturer and improve its profit. Additionally, we find that the presence of a 3P marketplace benefits consumers, but this benefit diminishes as the retailer becomes more powerful.     

Human Personality Behavior Based on Family Structure Using a Thematic Apperception Test

This study focuses on analyzing the relationship between the ways an individual projects a story from a picture shown to him or her with the past and the family background of the individual. We have taken the sample of 30 students heterogeneous with respect to gender and age. Each respondent was shown three pictures and wrote one story per picture; the stories were then analyzed on the basis of a thematic apperception test (TAT). A human personality has many aspects and dimensions. We will be trying to throw some light on the impact that the family structure and the bringing up of an individual has on the development of his or her personality.     

Living with a developmentally disabled child: attitude of family members in India

This study sought to create an in-depth understanding of the experiences of living with a family member suffering from developmental disabilities from the social as well as personal point of view through qualitative research. The study used phenomenological methodology. Sixteen participants were recruited through purposive and snowball method. Data were collected via an open-ended narrative inviting the informants to focus on the experiences of living with a family member suffering from the disorder and analyzed thematically. The issue of personal context emerged as a key theme in understanding perceptions of the respondents. Another important theme was that from the social context. This study explores the emotional sufferings faced by family members of the sufferer. It also provides insights into the Indian social culture and its impact on the family.     

A study of subjective visual disturbances in jewellery manufacturing

Subjective Visual Disturbances are silent adversaries that appear over a period of continued exposure and arise when the visual demands of the tasks exceed the visual abilities of the user. Jewellery manufacturing activity involves precision designs, setting the metal and stones, polishing and filing which requires higher visual demand. Therefore, it is expected that the jewellery manufacturing workers may experience subjective visual disturbances. This study was taken up with the following objectives 1) To study the presence of subjective visual disturbances among jewellery manufacturing workers and compare the same with VDT operators 2) To study the effect of work exposures on subjective visual disturbances and 3) to ascertain whether subjective visual disturbances have any permanent vision related problems. The study was carried out on jewellery manufacturing workers, VDT operators and on graduate students. The symptoms of subjective visual disturbances were identified using a questionnaire developed by Sheedy (2003). Viewing distances were measured and visual angles were calculated. The eye check--ups were also carried out. The subjective visual disturbances were higher in jewellery manufacturing workers. The findings suggest that work exposure has an impact on the causation of subjective visual disturbances. No pathological conditions of the eyes were observed.     

Trimmed Mean Isotonic Regression

The trimmed mean is well‐known in literature for being more robust and for having better efficiency than the sample mean when data is generated from heavy‐tailed distributions. In this article, the trimmed mean in the isotonic regression setup is proposed, and the asymptotic as well as the robustness properties of the estimator are studied. The usefulness of the proposed estimator is illustrated using different real and simulated data. Further, the performance of the estimator is compared with that of the mean and the median isotonic regression estimators.