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

Factors Affecting Organizational Change

Change is inevitable in the life of an organization. In today’s business world, most of the organizations are facing a dynamic and changing business environment. They should either change or die, there is no third alternative. Organizations that learn and cope with change will thrive and flourish and others who fail to do so will be wiped out. The major forces which make the changes not only desirable but inevitable are technological, economic, political, social, legal, international and labor market environments. In very simple words, we can say that change means the alteration of status quo or making things different. “The term change refers to any alterations which occurs in the overall work environment of an organization. When an organizational system is disturbed by some internal or external force, change frequently occurs. Change, as a process, is simply modification of the structure or process of a system. It may be Continue reading

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Social Loafing in Organizations

Social loafing is antithesis of synergy in team-work which suggests that people working together on a common task may actually decrease their individual efforts; team-work does not necessarily spurt group efforts. A simple phenomenon of social loafing may be observed in a group assignment to students during their study. In such an assignment, students find that one or two students do not put their weight for the completion of the project. These students may be called loafers (not attaching the same connotation which is attached with the term loafer in our social phenomenon) who frequently miss the project group’s meetings, fail to perform their assigned tasks, and so on. They rely on the fact the more reliable members will complete the project without their help, and still expect to share the credit and obtain the same marks from the professor since he will be concerned with determining who worked and Continue reading

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Brand Equity – Meaning, Definition and Components

What is Brand Equity? There is no universally accepted definition of brand equity. The term means different things for different companies and products. However, there are several common characteristics of the many definitions that are used today. From the following examples it is clear that brand equity is multi-dimensional. There are several stakeholders concerned with brand equity, including the firm, the consumer, the channel, and some would even argue the financial markets. But ultimately, it is the consumer that is the most critical component in defining brand equity. Some researchers in the field of marketing have defined brand equity as follows: Lance Leuthesser (1995) writes that “… brand equity represents the value (to a consumer) of a product, above that which would result for an otherwise identical product without the brand’s name. In other words, brand equity represents the degree to which a brand’s name alone contributes value to the Continue reading

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Prescriptive and Descriptive Schools of Strategy – Similarities and Differences

Strategy is a direction and scope of an organization over the long term, which achieves advantage in changing environment through its configuration of resources and competences with the aim of fulfilling stakeholder expectations. Having strategy in an organization is very important because it helps on how to meet the goals in consideration with the organization’s situation. An organization strategy answers all questions about fundamental business whether to concentrate in single business or build a group of several businesses, either to go for a broad range of customers or to concentrate on a market niche, either to focus on a wide or narrow product line, whether to base on competitive advantage with low cost or product differentiation. An organization has to know deeply everything concerned strategic management, strategic levels, and has to reach to the level of achievement of the strategic goals. Organizations also use strategy as the most important tool Continue reading

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Leadership and Management – Differences

A manager may be a leader, a manager may not be a leader, but a leader may emerge who is not a manager. This saying shows that roles of manager and leader not to be connected at all. However, for a business to be effective, managers must learn how to become leaders by developing effective leadership skills. A leader means a person that holds a dominant or superior position within its field, and is able to exercise a high degree of control or influence over others. A leader is one who has followers. Followers follow leaders because they are influenced by the leader’s personality and share belief in the leader’s visions, goals and values. Leaders gain personal power through credibility. They can communicate their beliefs to team members, who understand that these beliefs will not alter or vary because of circumstances and will become the rock on which their working Continue reading

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Sources of Finance: Public Deposits

From the company’s point of view, public deposits are a major source of finance to meet the working capital needs. Due to the credit squeeze imposed by the Reserve Bank of India on bank loans to the corporate sector during 1970s – 1980s and also due to the recommendations of the Tandon Committee, restricting credit, many companies were not getting as much money in the 1980s as they used to get, in the past, from the banks. So, public deposits came handy as working capital fund for businesses. While to the depositor, the interest rate offered is higher than that offered by banks, the cost of deposits to the company is less than the cost of borrowings from bank. Moreover, the availability and volume of bank credit are restricted by consideration of margin, security offered, periodical submission of statements etc. The credit available to companies through public deposits is not Continue reading

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