Management Arts

Capacity enhancement has been defined in multiple ways; its ultimate purpose is to leave behind better skilled and oriented individuals, more responsive and effective institutions, and a better policy environment for pursuing development goals. Enhancing the capabilities of people in the organization is the most inevitable change expected in the era of globalization and liberalization. People capability enhancement induces better knowledge, skill and aptitude and it develop better business opportunities during global change. To accelerate with new technology, new manufacturing and development process, new ways of meeting the needs of customers, of course, are in need of better capacities and capabilities of people at work. This paper tries to focus on the person's capability assessment, enhancement and its return to better business opportunities and organizational development.

The present study is aimed to investigate the detailed financial assistance sanctioned by a specialized financial institution which worked as a nodal agency of the Government of India to cater the financial needs of tourism industry i.e. Tourism Finance Corporation of India Limited (TFCI). This analysis is achieved by an in-depth study of various financial reports of the corporation and ‘Report on Development Banking in India’ published by IDBI time to time. The time period taken for the study is last fifteen years. The study is carried out to satisfy the objectives like (i) To analyse the detailed (purpose-wise, scheme-wise, sector-wise, state-wise and industry-wise) promotional assistance provided by TFCI to tourism and tourism related projects during the last fifteen years, (ii) To comment on Investment catalysts and employment opportunities provided by TFCI, and (iii) To examine the Factors which are responsible for operational and developmental activities of TFCI. The results of the study will be helpful for the TFCI in exploring the areas in which they are lagging behind the market and in which they should invest more in terms of financial assistance.

Business Anthropology has been in use for quite a while. While anthropology is being used extensively across different functions of business management, it is not yet recognized as a specialized branch of anthropology. The objective of this article is to introduce the concept of Managerial Anthropology and how Anthropology is used in every aspect of management functions.

In corporate governance, the executive compensation appears to be the controversial issue among the stakeholders as well as the shareholders. This study is to find the relationship between executive compensation and the company performance, size and managerial controls in Sarawak. Using all 22 public listed companies in Sarawak, data in annual reports from 2004 to 2006 were gathered. The result showed that there is a weak positive relationship between executive compensation with the company performance (ROS) and size (sales), while no relationship was found between the executive compensation and the managerial control.

The issue on branding has been always the talks of the large-sized companies. This has been addressed in many literatures. But, these literatures little or never discussed about branding for small-medium enterprises (SMEs). Many view that branding is not the subject of SMEs around the world. The SMEs play a significant role in the development of economy especially the developing economies around the world. Hence it’s very important for every economy to focus and develop the SMEs. Effective branding is a key factor for the success of the SMEs. Effective brand development takes time. Once successful, similar, if not greater effort is required to sustain and enhance the position of the brand and the brand has to grow to remain strong. Our literature review suggests that the factors that affect branding of SMEs are the number of brands, brand equity, brand mix, consistency in brand communication, positive brand experience, brand differentiation, brand passion, push and pull brand campaign and secondary brand association.

The higher the position of manager in management level, the more his complex decisions frequency and the broader the scope and intensity of positive or negative effects. Management laboratory is a tool for development of managers’ decision making skills in simulated or virtual space which allows provision of rapid, scientific and instructive feedback while allowing making different decisions without worry about its consequences. Use of this method in the well known faculties of management in the world (especially Harvard Commercial School) is expanding. The present research studies functions and patterns of management laboratory. In study of functions, effect of management laboratory shows reinforcement of public section in Johari window through education and feedback and self openness. In Webber Theory, manager’s power source reinforces three legal, reward and punishment and specialized sources of managers and provides tools for realizing meritocracy and manager election in ideal bureaucracy pattern. In patterns section, five patterns of physical simulation, virtual simulation, physical games, computer games and temporary organizational rotation have been studied and case study of three successful global experiences and two Iranians experiences has been done. All of these studies show increasing application of management laboratory in the world and necessity of performing more researches on its requirements and challenges.

During past decades, the management scholars have took various surveys to find a satisfactory structure for organizations. They supposed that, through studying the relation between features of a structure and operation, they can come to the best type of the structure and, consequently, guarantee the higher levels of organizational operations. Experimental studies illustrated that what is useful in an organization, may be useless for another. Such findings led to the emergence of 'contingency theory'. This theory claims that the amount or the degree of the relations changes between two variables, taking structure and operation for instance, and other consisting elements of an organization such as technology and workplace. The traditional organization used to possess hierarchical structures; while nowadays, coming across a more dynamic context, organizations experience novel types of organizational structure. Commonly, by elimination of hierarchy in decision making, organizations are able to response rapidly to the fast contextual variations. We believe that, in coming years, the organizational structures will move toward dynamic models to let the organizations get out of the bureaucratic state and pace in adhocratic structures.

Management citizenship behaviors result in emerging staffs' citizenship behaviors and increase the efficiency of the workplace. Mutuality, trust, legitimacy and organizational justice are regarded among the norms based on which the managers must behave. Some influential factors in management citizenship behavior include marketing factors, organizational factors, the features of the staffs' market and the career. Management citizenship behavior has also some consequences such as staffs' citizenship behavior, conflict between managers and the staffs, and the working groups division. This article indicates the encouraging policies in terms of citizenship behavior in which the manager's encouragement is regarded as one of the management citizenship behaviors.

Information processing model developed for management and psychological literature were from the basis of four general models, which provide a guiding framework for research. These models were term as rational, limited capacity, expert, and cybernetic models of information processing and behavior. Previous researcher argued that each model provides a different explanation of processing in several theoretical domains and has different methodological implications. However, the findings of the present study advanced and tested using structural equation modelling on the data collected from a sample of 118 Malaysian companies suggest that integrated information processing model is more appropriate in explaining extent of environmental scanning and information processing capacity and having a significant bearing on the quality of the decision made.

In Accra (Ghana), it is estimated that, plastic waste takes about 16.5% of the waste stream. In the past two decades, plastics have become the most favoured materials in the food and water packaging industry, contributing to an increase in their proportions in the waste stream in the region. Much earlier in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the use of paper in conventional packaging gave way most especially to polyethylene (low density, linear low density and high density polyethylene) film bags and other plastics as stringent quality standards were required in food and water packaging industries so as to minimize the incidence of food and water related epidemics. In recent years the use of plastics packaging for water and food has become favorable and very convenient. The public has therefore developed a strong desire for the use of plastics since it is less expensive, portable and can easily be carried from one place to another. After using the content, these plastics are indiscriminately discarded, littering the whole environment. These plastics however constitute a major proportion of the waste generated throughout the country, replacing leaves, glass and metals as a cheaper and more efficient means of packaging. In addition plastics collect around the city, choking gutters and drainages, threatening small animals in rivers and streams, affecting soil fertility and polluting beaches and other water bodies since resources available for the management of this waste and, for that matter plastic waste, are inadequate making it difficult to effectively and efficiently manage the waste generated.