Management Arts

Entrepreneurship is the professional application of knowledge, skills and competencies and/or of monetizing a new idea, by an individual or a set of people by launching an enterprise. Given the increasing significance and visible impact of Entrepreneurship in wealth-creation and employment-generation, entrepreneurship is considered as critical to India’s growth and development (NKC-2008). This study was undertaken to explore factors that have advanced Entrepreneurship in youth of India. The paper highlights the perception of youth towards entrepreneurship as a career. The paper also points out the realities of gap between students’ learning about entrepreneurship in B-schools and ending up being entrepreneurs.

Conflict, in some forms and degrees, is part and parcel of virtually every facet of human life. Workplace conflict is varied, pervasive, and costly to the organization in many ways. Conflict management strategy has an important place in the study of organizational commitment. The commitment of the workers of an organization is a very important factor for an organization to be successful. This research examined the influence of conflict management strategies on perceived organizational commitment. Subjects for the study were 253 respondents which comprised 198 males and 55 females. Three hypotheses were tested and the findings of the study revealed that there was a joint effect of yielding and problem-solving on organizational commitment {F(2,250) = 7.857; R = .243, R2 = .059, Adj. R2 = 0.052; P < .05}. The result also showed that the joint effect of problem-solving, compromising, avoiding, forcing and yielding was significant {F(5,247) =7.514; R = .363, R2 = .132, Adj. R2 = 0.114; P < .05}. Lastly, the result also showed that there was no significant difference in the organizational commitment of male and female respondents {t(251) = 1.96; p > .05}. Based on the findings of this study, it was recommended among others that managers should develop diverse but appropriate strategies to resolve and manage conflicts as they arise before it escalates to unmanageable levels. Hence, organizations should take time to analyze the source, type and amount of conflict before making a decision on which strategy to adopt for the effective management of the conflict.

Way back in 1990s having a degree or a diploma is basically a ticket for a fresh graduate to enter the working world successfully. However the scenario has changed with the number of graduates who completes their degree has increased year after year. This research aims to study the significant of soft skill and confidence level which a graduate has in securing a job. The findings of the study will assist academicians and students to seek ways to improve soft skills and confidence abilities in students before they graduate. Questionnaires will be distributed to three hundred students who have graduated from UiTM Perlis,UiTM Kedah and UiTM P. Pinang. Samples will be controlled to eliminate inappropriate elements contained in the sampling frame.

Hotel industry is a people oriented service industry which rely on the abilities, behavior and the attitudes of the employees to stay and lead the game. However customers suggestion and feedback is one of the most key factor which would ensure the sustainability of the guest flow to the hotel itself remains. This study aims to examine the differences in consumer behavior among guest of hotels in Malaysians in terms of culture dimension, demographic factors and consumer feedback towards using suggestion box after and during their stay as a guest in the hotel. The findings of the study will provide evidence for hotel management to look into the importance of suggestion box and how it could upgrade the services rendered by the hotel to its guest. Survey method will be employed in this study. Questionnaires will be distributed to two hundred quest who stayed at three different hotels which is categotrized as a “four star hotel” located in Pulau Pinang, Kedah, and Perlis during the period of November 2010 till January 2011. Respondents will be randomly selected based on the interval of every five customers that check-in to the selected hotels. Samples will be controlled to eliminate inappropriate elements contained in the sampling frame.

This study examined the impact of fish farming on household food security and livelihoods for fish farming and non fish farming households in Siaya County. Currently fish farming remains under developed in Western Kenya where pond productivity is low and not rising, despite the effort of several players. Further, capture fish in Lake Victoria and rivers has subsequently declined. These scenarios called for the need to examine the production systems and their current performances. The objective of the study was to determine the socio-economic characteristics of fish farmers and their fish farming practices. A cross sectional survey research design was adopted for the study. Stratified random sampling was used to select fish farming and non fish farming households. Key informants were selected through purposive sampling method. Data gathering was through multiple methods; where primary and secondary data were collected. Data analysis made use of descriptive statistics, where numerical and non-numerical summary of data were used. Chi-Square was used to test the independence between variables. Findings were; fish farming in the study area is economically rewarding and profitable. It is capable of creating employment, increasing income and improving the livelihoods of the people. Fish farming in the area is male dominated, however, women are used to manage the ponds and there is less participation of youth in fish farming. Females and youths need to be encouraged to participate in fish farming in the area as a means of increasing their income and improve their standard of living. The main production level is semi-intensive where mixed sexed tilapia production system provides seed for subsequent restocking. Most of the fish farms are privately owned by individuals who have little access to finance. Therefore, government participation in fish farming should be encouraged to boost the quantity of fish available for consumption. Fish farmers should be organized into formidable groups such as self help and cooperative to realize economies of scale in the purchase of inputs and sale of their fish.

Systems simulation is growth rapidly as one of the most useful management tools today. This article tries to model and finally improve process of remittance and withdrawal from current account (ordinary and golden) of bank with use of discrete simulation methodology. For this purpose, the said process is identified and then a logical model is simulated with use of ED model (Enterprise Dynamic) for identification of the said model process and data relating to each entity is obtained with use of chronometry and then sample volume has been calculated. For validation and confirmation of the model, a comparison between results of simulation and real measurement has been made by statistical tests. In the next stage, two criteria which include output of the customers and average waiting time of the customers are selected and some suggestions were presented for improvement of remittance and withdrawal processes with regard to the obtained results.

This paper describes a research methodology which was developed to study the implementation of Hospital Autonomy Reforms in Pakistan. The research attempted to answer two questions: what happened? And why did it happen? (with regards to the implementation process of hospital autonomy reforms). The environment for this study was very political and characterized by high power distance and low rule of law. Moreover it had an aura of formality and reservation. Few respondents were willing to share information due to their status and busyness. The researcher had to develop a strategy to be flexible and innocuous to be able to accumulate relevant information. Moreover, respondents would rarely honor any official request for information about the process, so the researcher had to use personal connections to gain entry into the environment and to extract data. Main stakeholders were donors, politicians, bureaucrats and doctors. Long unstructured interviews were conducted with them. For the second question, the technique of sense making was used to find out why reform adopted the specific strategy that it took. Use of contextual historical back ground data was made in this regards.

Identifying Points of Difference (POD) is a challenging task for any brand manager. Though Points of Parity (POP) can be easily identified, research needs to be undertaken to identify distinguishing points of difference. In order to get a view of how customers perceive different brands on various parameters perceptual mapping can be used. This paper studies the use of attribute based perceptual mapping for major mobile service provider brands. Three major attributes were identified namely; Service quickness, Service friendliness and Service fairness and these attributes were used to create a perceptual map and to identify which mobile service provider brand fares better in a multidimensional space.

An increasing of chronic diseases associated with the imbalance and substantive nutrition intake on the types’ food consumed away from home witnesses the awakening concerned and awareness among the restaurant customers toward nutritional information. Customers positively perceived the important of providing nutritional information in the full service restaurant menu. Nonetheless, the restaurant operators’ willingness, constraints and obstacles in providing such information have not been widely explored. This study empirically investigates the Malaysian full service restaurant operators’ responsiveness towards providing nutritional information in the menu. Result demonstrates that the serious concerned of the customers is not in line with operators’ responsiveness particularly on certain issues. Restaurant operators are still having inadequate knowledge, understanding and awareness about nutritional information in restaurant menu compared to the processed food. Operators not seemed ready as their willingness of providing such information is subjected to the implementation of mandatory policy or legislation by the government while the unreasonable burdens costs ranging from operational to the overall reduction business financial performance are recognized as their major constraints in making nutritional information available in restaurant menu.

The Urban Cooperative Banking (UCB) system has come a long way since 1904 when the first UCB was started at Kancheepuram in Tamil Nadu. UCBs remain not-for-profit, owned and controlled by the members who use their services. With the tightening of prudential norms, the banking sector has been consistently conforming to and adopting international prudential norms and accounting practices. Such strengthening of prudential norms have resulted in increased levels of Non-Performing Assets (NPAs) for the Urban Cooperative Banking Sector. This study is an attempt to analyze the asset quality of UCBs in India. This paper also traces the return on assets of UCBs in India along with pattern of financing to different sectors.