Editorial
It is my pleasure to bring you the third issue of the year, with its regular complement of articles and features. This issue also contains a notification of the ninth IMR Doctoral Conference (IMRDC) scheduled on January 3rd and 4th, 2018. I look forward to your participation in IMRDC 2018.
In their paper “Institutional Discourses and Ascribed Disability Identities”, Professors Mukta Kulkarni, K. V. Gopakumar, and Devi Vijay ask the question: How do institutional discourses, as represented in mass media such as newspapers, confer identities upon a traditionally marginalised collective? Their focus is on persons with a disability in India. The authors draw upon critical discourse theory and disability research in their study, both of which have noted the importance of media framing which reflects institutional sociolinguistic practices in the creation of identities of traditionally marginalised people, such as those with a disability. To understand ascribed identities, the authors studied newspaper articles dealing with disability from 2001 to 2010 from the Times of India, a leading daily English language newspaper. The data indicates four specific collective identities: those portrayed as recipients of governmental welfare schemes; those with human rights; as vulnerable institutional subjects; and as miscreants who create nuisance in society.
In identifying ascribed identities the study infers that (i) components of discourse ascribe certain identities on to a collective; identities are ascribed through the “othering” of certain groups through use of language; media discourse can particularly signal self-other differences and discursively position collectives; (ii) related to social positioning, data allude to the creation of institutional subject positions as identities are signalled; (iii) certain institutional subject positions or roles can be sticky.
The present observations of the study offer theoretical implications for institutional design. They indicate that identities of a collective can be governed by institutional discourse, that those “labelled” can reinforce institutionally ascribed identities, and that as institutional discourses confer identities onto the marginalised, they simultaneously also signal who the relatively more powerful institutional actors are. The authors believe that examining imprecisely defined or evolving institutional concepts such as disability and disability identity and what underlies them has the potential to shape policy as well as experiences of persons with a disability.
Unlike the trend in other emerging markets, debt ratios of firms in India, have been declining since the economic liberalisation in the early 1990s, both in the manufacturing sector and the non-manufacturing sector. In the paper, “Corporate Financing and Deleveraging of Firms in India”, Professor Gaurav Singh Chauhan investigates the extent to which debt ratios and their decline are explained i) by firm-specific factors, (ii) by institutional and macroeconomic factors responsible for the development of capital markets; the paper also investigates the possible implications of declining debt ratios to the firms and to the macro-economy.
Various theoretical frameworks attempting to describe attributes affecting debt ratios of a firm consider firm-specific attributes (debt ratio, size, profitability, asset tangibility, growth) related to tax related benefits, agency costs, and bankruptcy costs associated with debt financing. Empirical studies indicate an important role for institutional determinants of corporate leverage, key among them being factors associated with availability and substitutability of debt, macroeconomic factors and industry-specific factors.
This study considers data from all available non-financial firms in Centre for Monitoring of Indian Economy (CMIE) database from 1992 to 2012. The final sample consists of 8081 firms, each having different total number of observations, constituting the unbalanced panel data for further analysis. The methodology makes use of fixed effect panel data model, which could have greater utility for unbalanced panel data, to estimate the influence of subject variables on debt ratios.
The empirical findings suggest that probable causes of the decline in debt ratios cannot be systematically attributed to firm-specific determinants of corporate leverage; their trend over time does not explain the declining trend in debt ratios for firms in India. On the contrary, these factors signify an increase in the corporate leverage in India, consistent with the findings of the effect in other emerging markets. Institutional deficiencies in the form of underdeveloped bond markets and decline in corporate investments were found to be significant in explaining the decline. The results suggest that firms could be credit rationed and hence losing value on account of such deficiencies.
While Indian IT services sourcing companies have been focussing on recruitment, development, and retention of talent, one of their central challenges is in identifying and retaining skilled employees. Female employees are considered to be a key talent pool and there is an increasing percentage of women at the IT workplace in India. In the paper “The Role of Gender in Building Organisational Commitment in India’s Services Sourcing Industry”, Professor Wolfgang Messner aims to analyse and understand the relationships between organisational climate (operationalised as perceived organisational climate – POC), employee climate (climate between employees at the intra-team level, operationalised as perceived employee climate – PEC) and organisational commitment (operationalised as three factors; affective commitment – AC, normative commitment – NC, and continuance commitment – CC), using gender as a dichotomous moderator.
Data were collected from employees of IT service providers via online questionnaire between 2012 and 2014, the sample consisting of 330 numbers (243 male, 74%, and 87 female, 26%), and the relationships were analysed using correlation coefficients and structural equation modelling. The results show that female employees appear to have a higher level of organisational commitment than their male counterparts; however, they are not motivated by organisational climate and employee climate in the same way. While organisational climate and employee climate are moderately correlated with each other for both genders, the employee climate seems to have no influence on the commitment of female employees. The study concludes that in order to successfully motivate Indian employees, it may be necessary to define climate change measures separately and specifically targetted at female and male employees. This would help to empower leaders in India’s IT services sourcing industry to take better and more targetted decisions when managing workplace commitment.
Management research, education, and practice in India are entering an exciting phase. At this juncture, valid and rigorous management research can lay a strong foundation for excellence in management education and practice in India. In their paper, “Commonly Observed Shortcomings in Manuscripts Submitted to Management Journals”, Professors Naresh Khatri, Arup Varma and Pawan Budhwar, well published and eminent researchers in their fields, offer practical advice and broad suggestions to help improve the quality of manuscripts submitted to management journals by Indian scholars. With the objective “to mitigate disillusionment and reduce the time and trials in the review process by doctoral students and junior faculty in the field of management”, the authors first delineate the common shortcomings they observe in manuscripts submitted to management journals. Next, borrowing from their experiences and from the writings of the editors of top tier journals, they give suggestions on how to craft each section of the manuscript from introduction to conclusion, and finally, they offer broader suggestions that may help in improving the quality of manuscripts.
The Round Table article by Dr. Rachna Arora, Dr. Katharina Paterok, Dr. Abhijit Banerjee and Dr. Manjeet Singh Saluja of Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH considers the “Potential and Relevance of Urban Mining in the context of Sustainable Cities”. Urban mining refers to the safeguarding of the environment and the promotion of resource conservation through reuse, recycling, and recovery of secondary resources from waste.
The first part of the article is a review of the urban mining concept, its relevance, and the Indian and international framework of urban mining as a source of secondary raw material. The review includes the composition of urban mines, the policies and governance mechanisms, the enabling frameworks, the challenges of urban mining including the city planning and support infrastructure. The second part of the article consists of a panel discussion on “Implementation for Sustainable Cities”. Dr. Miranda Schreurs, of Freie Universität Berlin, speaks of the implementation of sustainable cities; Dr. Frank Samol of GIZ GmbH, Germany, speaks on inclusive cities partnerships projects; Dr. Detlef Schreiber, also of GIZ GmbH, Germany, speaks of one specific aspect of the issue of sustainable urban development, that is integration of cities into national strategies for climate protection or low-carbon development through Vertically Integrated Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs); Dr. Rachna Arora, GIZ, GmbH, India, speaks on urban waste and urban mining governance; and elaborating on this theme, Mr. T. S. Krishnan of IIM Bangalore speaks of the research in IIMB in this area. The discussion touches on several of the challenges of urban mining and the designing and implementation aspects of sustainable cities.
This issue carries a book review by Professor Rishikesha T Krishnan, of “Crony Capitalism in India – Establishing Robust Counteractive Institutional Frameworks”, Edited by Naresh Khatri and Abhoy K Ojha, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.
With best wishes,
Nagasimha Balakrishna Kanagal
Editor-in-Chief
IIMB Management Review
India