Editorial
It is my pleasure to bring you the first issue of the journal for the year 2016, with its complement of articles and features.
The year 2015 has been an eventful one for the journal. The number of submissions has seen an upward trend, and our rates of rejection continue to be around 85%, with all articles clearing due review processes. IIMB Management Review (IMR) is listed as a category ‘B’ journal on the Australian Business Deans Council Journal Quality List and is listed on other international listing databases, including Scopus and Cabell’s Directory of Publishing Opportunities. The electronic version of the journal, available through ScienceDirect®, is seeing an increasing number of downloads, year on year. In 2015, our panel of Associate Editors and the Editorial Review Panel were strengthened with new faculty members joining these panels.
The annual IMR Doctoral Conference (IMRDC), organised by IIMB Management Review in partnership with the Office of the Fellow Programme in Management, IIMB, has established itself as a premier conference for doctoral students in Management and the Social Sciences. IMRDC 2015, held on December 22nd and 23rd, 2015, received around 100 abstract submissions from doctoral students in India and overseas, of which about 50 were invited to submit full papers. Finally, 13 papers covering the areas of Marketing, Organisational Behaviour & Human Resources, Economics & Social Sciences, Finance, Production & Operations Management, Corporate Strategy & Policy, and Public Policy, were selected for presentation and discussion at the conference. Senior researchers and faculty from eminent schools in India and abroad were invited as Discussants to critique the selected papers and provide feedback for enrichment. The keynote lecture was delivered by Professor Pradeep Chintagunta of the Booth School of Business, University of Chicago, and was titled, “Some Trends in Research in Marketing”. The conference also featured two workshops led by eminent scholars in their respective fields. Professor Rajan Varadarajan of Mays Business School, Texas A&M University, led the workshop titled “Crafting Manuscripts for and Publishing in Scholarly Journals in Business Disciplines: Some Guideposts”. Professor Saras D Sarasvathy of the Darden School of Business, University of Virginia, led a workshop titled “From Formulating a Research Question to Collaboration and Publication: Lessons from Effectuation Research in Entrepreneurship”.
Three awards, named after our sponsors, were awarded to the top three papers. The SBI Life Award for Best Paper, first place, went to Ms Saipriya Kamath of ISB, Hyderabad, for the paper, “Once Bitten Once Shy: Learning or Risk-Aversion after Audit Failure?”. The IIM Bangalore Award for Best Paper, second place, went jointly to Sandip Trada of IIM Indore for the paper, “The Poisoning Role of Perceived Unfairness on Channel Partners’ Opportunism”, and Kshitij Awasthi, IIM Bangalore, for the paper, “Effect of Political Directors on Profit Persistence: Evidence from India”. The Canara Bank Award for Best Paper, third place, went jointly to Tarun Jain of IIM Bangalore for the paper, “Excess Procurement Strategies under Competition”, and Pratik Goel of ISB Hyderabad for the paper “Does Greater R&D Qualitative Disclosure Provide Information about Firm Profitability?”. You will find more details about IMRDC 2015 at our website http://www.iimb.ac.in/publications/review/imr-doctoral-conference.
IIMB Management Review provides some of the papers selected for presentation at the IMR Doctoral Conference a publication opportunity in the journal. So far, four papers presented at the different editions of IMRDC have been published in the journal, after successive rounds of revision.
The March 2016 issue of IMR has a special section of papers on business analytics and intelligence, which were first presented at the Conference on Business Analytics and Intelligence (December 2013) held by IIMB’s Data Center and Analytics Lab (D-CAL). The aim of the Business Analytics and Intelligence Conference is to create a platform and facilitate knowledge sharing on advanced data analysis, business analytics and business intelligence for academicians, practitioners, and researchers across the world. The conference featured demonstration of real world applications of business analytics and business intelligence presented by academics and practitioners. We thank the Guest Editor of this section, Professor U Dinesh Kumar of IIM Bangalore, for guiding these papers through the review process, towards final publication. Four papers completed the review process successfully and are included in the special section.
In the first paper of the special section, titled “Forecasting the Price of Gold: An Error Correction Approach”, Professors Kausik Gangopadhyay, Abhishek Jangir, and Rudra Sensarma develop a model to explain and forecast gold prices in India using a vector error correction approach. The results indicate that gold prices have a long term relationship with the stock market index, exchange rate, US bond rates, oil prices and the consumer price index. Gold is a good inflation hedge; and the role of gold as a portfolio hedge dominates its use as a luxury good in India.
In the second paper of the special section, “Impact of Customer-Based Brand Equity on Operational Performance of FMCG Companies in India”, Professors Bijuna C Mohan and A H Sequeira aim to identify the various components of brand equity of fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies and to determine the possible association between brand equity (based on customers’ assessments) and operational business performance of FMCG firms. The study uses both descriptive and exploratory methods. The results indicate that it is important for managers to measure the dimensions of brand association, brand loyalty, and perceived quality, and develop them with appropriate marketing strategies for building brand equity. The results indicate that FMCG companies with greater brand equity will achieve higher operational business performance, yielding substantially greater market share.
In the third paper of the special section, “A Simple Example for the Teaching of Demand Theory: Aggregate Demand Estimation for Onions in India”, Professor Devlina Chatterjee estimates the aggregate demand for a single commodity – onions, using national level price-volume data (Agricultural Marketing Information Network (agmarknet) portal), in India. The analysis yields a demand curve with two regimes: constant consumption at low prices and constant budget or constant total expenditure at high prices.
In the fourth and last paper of the special section, “A Study and Analysis of Recommendation Systems for Location-based Social Network (LBSN) with Big Data”, Dr. Murale Narayanan and Dr. Aswani Kumar Cherukuri, qualitatively analyse the use of Big Data in recommendation systems for Location-Based Social Network (LSBN), using the Foursquare dataset. The analysis is based on a few qualitative parameters such as structured vs. unstructured data, distributed vs. centralised data, data mining, parallel processing, and multimodal interface; they suggest the use of big data due to its ability in handling unstructured, raw and complex data with huge programming flexibility.
Among our regular papers is a paper titled “Sudden Breaks in Drift-Independent Volatility Estimator based on Multiple Periods Open, High, Low and Close Prices”, by Dr. Dilip Kumar. Volatility plays an important role in financial markets as it is an important factor in evaluating financial risks, leverage effects, and in examining the impact of asymmetric shocks on markets. Volatility is applied in designing investment decisions, in portfolio rebalancing and management, in pricing derivatives securities, in quantifying risk, and in implementing trading strategies. It is important to consider the impact of sudden changes in volatility, in the model for generating more accurate forecasts of volatility. This can be helpful for fund managers and investors, regulators, policy makers and central banks. In the paper, Dr. Dilip Kumar examines the superiority of the YZ volatility estimator over the demeaned squared returns in detecting sudden breaks in volatility based on the IT-ICSS algorithm using Monte Carlo simulation experiments. Among the range based volatility estimators, the YZ estimator proposed by Yang & Zhang (2000) is based on multiple period open, high, low, and close prices; is unbiased in the continuous limit; independent of the drift; and incorporates the impact of opening price jumps. The Inclan and Tiao Iterated Cumulative Sum of Square (IT-ICSS) (1994) test has been extensively used in detecting sudden changes in the unconditional volatility of time series based on close-to-close return. The findings of this study indicate that YZ estimator exhibits more desirable size and power characteristics when applied with IT-ICSS algorithm than the demeaned square returns. Hence, this study proposes the use of the YZ estimator with IT-ICSS test to detect sudden changes in volatility. On the application side, this study detects sudden breaks in the YZ estimator and the demeaned squared returns of three major exchange rates (USD/Euro, USD/Japanese Yen and USD/GBP).
In our Interview feature, Professor P D Jose is in conversation with Mr. N R Narayana Murthy, Founder, Infosys Limited on “The Role of Business in Society”. In understanding the role of business in society, researchers have used multiple perspectives ranging from moral, legal, economic, strategic, social, and environmental, that has led to the emergence and acceptance of concepts and initiatives that include corporate social responsibility, stakeholder management, shared value, corporate citizenship, and corporate environmentalism. Mr. Narayana Murthy shares his thoughts and views on the role of business in society that includes: how corporations can respond to the changing nature of the contracts between corporations and societies; the way to promote inclusive growth while dealing with conflicting demands of different stakeholders; the motivations of pioneering sustainability reporting; the assessment and importance of leadership and personal values to corporate social performance; partnering the government in meeting societal goals; and the responsibility that corporations have to create social impact.
The issue also includes a book review of “The 10 Commandments for Family Business” by Kavil Ramachandran, reviewed by our doctoral student Ms. Rajani Singh.
I look forward to your feedback on this issue of the journal.
Nagasimha Balakrishna Kanagal
Editor-in-Chief
IIMB Management Review
India
Email address: eic@iimb.ernet.in