Case Study on Entrepreneurship: Larry Page

Business Analysis

The Boundaryless Career: Modern Contemperory Perspective on Career

Human Resource Management

Concepts of Throughput Accounting and Theory of Constraints

Financial Management

Gantt Charts – Tool for Project Planning and Scheduling

Project Management

Kaizen – Understanding the Japanese Business Philosophy of Continuous Improvement

Operations Management

Case study- “Merger of HDFC Bank and Times Bank”

In November 1999, when Deepak Parekh and S M Data, Chairman of new private sector banks shook hands, they created a history of sorts. It is the first ever mega merger of Indian banks.  It signaled that Indian banking sector has finally joined the MBA bandwagon. There is no denying the fact that there have been mergers in the Indian banking sector before, but they were essentially attempts by the government to bailout the weak public sector banks that made the stronger partners feeble.   Now, the paradigm shifts lies in the fact that while the earlier mergers took place at the behest of the government, the market forces drove the merger of HDFC BANK and Times Bank. Any talk of M&A in the Indian banking sector would have been pointless a few years ago.   And any suggestion of merger of banks would be regarded as nothing short of Continue reading

Abey Francis

Five Sources of Power Used by a Leader

A leader is a person who can influence the behavior of others without using force. Leadership also means that the process of influencing a group to achieve goals. There are three main types of leadership style, they are autocratic, democratic and laissez faire. Besides the three main types of leadership styles, there are also five sources of power that used by a leader, they are coercive, reward, legitimate, expert and referent. First, the autocratic style of leadership, it is also called the leader centered style. This type of style described a leader who tended to centralize authority, make unilateral decisions and limit employee participation. An autocratic leader always tells the people that what should be done, the employees have to perform the work without changing any of the orders. There are three main characteristics of autocratic leadership style, they are formal relations, centralized authorities and single man decision. Formal relations Continue reading

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Job Production – Meaning, Characteristics and Importance

Job production is characterized by the manufacture of one or few numbers of a single product designed and manufactured strictly to customer’s specifications, within, the given period and wit/tin the price fixed prior to tile contract. Some typical examples of industries engaged in jobbing production are: general repair shops; special purpose machine tool manufacturers; workshops to manufacture jigs and fixtures for other units; building contractors; tailoring shops manufacturing made-to-measure suite of clothes; manufacturers of ships, cranes, furnaces, turbo-generators, pressure vessels; and others manufacturing articles made to customers orders. Characteristics of Job Production Job production plays a crucial role in meeting the demands of customers who seek personalized, high quality products that cannot be mass produced. By focusing on customization and attention to detail, businesses engaged in job production can differentiate themselves in the market and cater to niche markets that value exclusivity and uniqueness. Job production also allows for greater Continue reading

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Stress and Personality

Stress is very personal as it depends on how you perceive events.   One of the factors that influences your perceptions is your personality.   Depending on your personality you may be more vulnerable to stress than some of your friends or colleagues.   It is important to understand this as many people wrongly think they are weak or at fault in some way because they feel stressed by something others appear to take in their stride. There are in fact individuals who psychologists have termed ‘hardy’, because of their higher level of tolerance to stress.   A ‘hardy’ person has a particularly strong belief in their ability to control events, even when in reality they have limited control.   They also tend to believe that stability is unusual in life and that constant change is normal.   Having these kind of beliefs makes the ‘hardy’ individual more able to Continue reading

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Audit Quality – Meaning and Factors Affecting It

The major accounting scandals occurred worldwide has brought the focus of public to the audit profession and the audit quality. Enron and WorldCom cases in United States and Parmalat case in Europe are the example of major scandals as a result of the failure of audit services. These examples of corporate and accounting scandals that happened worldwide have indicated that the audit quality of the audit profession is not at an appropriate and acceptable level. Over years, the audit quality issue has been discussed and debated globally. Several actions have been taken by international and domestic authorized agencies to address the audit quality issue. For example, the government of United States has introduced and enacted the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002 as a response to the audit failure in big major corporations, such as Enron and World Com. In addition, the Center for Audit Quality has been established in United States Continue reading

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Global Compensation Practices

For many companies, maintaining a domestic compensation program  that supports the strategic goals of the organization and meets the needs of  employees is a difficult challenge. This challenge is intensified when a similar  program must be designed to operate in multiple countries with different  cultures. For organizations competing in a global marketplace, managing compensation requires a through understanding of the taxation of compensation  and benefits, differing state social systems, differences in living standards and  employee values and expectations. Some of the most challenging questions in  compensation practices are following: How does a company pay expatriates from difference home countries  brought together to work on a project? What about compensation packages for same country nationals sent to different  regions of the world? Traditional compensation systems for expatriates, such as the balance  sheet approach and going  rate approach, may not be adequate for the company  or expatriate in facilitating an case of Continue reading

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