Company-Cause-Customer: Interaction Architecture

Implementing Flexible Systems in Doctoral Viva Defense Through Virtual Mechanism

Year 2020 has cultivated new arena in education. Covid-19 has not only reformed the world but also revived the process of operations. One among them is academics. Never in history of education was a lecture delivered without the physical presence of lecturers, in an academic environment. Even in present wildest innovative decade, the idea of eliminating the academia was not an option. However, after the pandemic encounter, it happened. These are not mere changes, but it is a transformation. While this phenomenon is getting acceptable gradually by takers, the mammoth turnaround is happening in Ph.D. final viva voce defenses too. Practice of online defense is approved by leading Universities so as to avoid stagnation of researchers in final stage. Question is, will it be appropriate to accept final defenses in online stream? and has the institutions developed rubrics to assess the researches which are presented online? Finally, if this is the only choice then how best we can use the technology to generalize it as a system? This research was executed through Delphi technique method from academia, research aspirants and policy-makers. Partial least square is used to quantify the data after interpreting qualitative data. Thirteen homogeneous University's respondents were used as sample. Focus of this paper remains to substantiate the benefits of emerging technology and developing a scheme for virtual streaming, rather identifying reasons to avoid them.

Modified total interpretive structural modelling (TISM) of asymmetric motives and its drivers in Indian bilateral CBJV

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the elements of asymmetric motives, i.e., initial cross-border joint venture (CBJV) conditions and relative partner characteristics in emerging nations. The two main objectives of the present research are to identify the elements affecting asymmetric motives in Indian bilateral CBJV and to construct modified total interpretive structural modelling (TISM) for the identified elements of asymmetric motives.

Design/methodology/approach

For the current study, the qualitative technique named total interpretive structural modelling was used. The TISM (Sushil, 2012) is a novel extension of interpretive structural modelling (ISM) where ISM helps to understand the “what” and “how” of research (Warfield, 1974) and TISM answers the third question, i.e., “why” in the form of TISM; further checks for the correctness of TISM are given in Sushil (2016). TISM provides a hierarchical model of the elements selected for study and the interpretation of each element by iterative process and also a digraph that systematically depicts the relationship among various elements. TISM is an innovative modelling technique used by researchers in varied fields (Srivastava and Sushil, 2013; Wasuja et al., 2012; Nasim, 2011; Prasad and Suri, 2011). Steps involved in TISM are shown in Figure 1. It uses reachability matrix and partitioning of elements similar to ISM. Also, along with traditional TISM, the modified TISM process was also used where both paired comparisons and transitivity checks were done simultaneously which helped in minimising the redundant comparisons being made in the original process. Furthermore, for identifying the elements of study, SDC Platinum database was used, which was taken from research papers of major journals namely British Journal of Management, Administrative Science Quarterly, Strategic Management Journal, Management Science, Academy of Management Journal and Organization Science (Schilling, 2009). The database included all joint ventures that were formed in India, having India as one of the partner firms during fiscal year April 2000 and March 2010. From these, 361 CBJVs and 76 domestic joint ventures were identified. Although 54 CBJVs were excluded from these, a total number of 307 CBJVs were studied in the current research. Among these 307 CBJVs, 201 were from super-advanced nations (G7), 40 CBJVs from developing nations and 66 CBJVs from other developed nations. As 65 per cent of the CBJVs came from G7 nations (France, Italy, Japan, Canada, Germany, USA and UK), in the current study, we tried to examine Indian CBJVs with G7 partners only for a period of ten years as mentioned above.

Findings

The results of the study indicate that asymmetric motives are directly affected by critical activity alignment and interdependency. Thus, we can conclude that critical activity alignment of partners in CBJV is an antecedent of CBJV motive and thereby minimises the number of asymmetric motives. Bottom level variables such as culture difference and relative capital structure are considered as strong drivers of asymmetric motives. Diversification, resource heterogeneity and inter-partner conflict are middle level elements. Effect of these elements on asymmetric motives can only be improved and enhanced when improvement in bottom level variables is found. It has been believed that as the relative capital structure among firm increases, CBJVs’ asymmetric motives also increase, the reason being that as the difference in capital structure occurs, gradual change in bargaining power will also occur.

Originality/value

TISM used in the present study provides valuable insights into the interrelationship between identified elements through a systematic framework. The methodology of TISM used has its implications for researchers, academicians as well for practitioners. Further study also examines driver-dependent relationship among elements of interest, i.e., relative partner characteristics and initial CBJV conditions by using MICMAC analysis, which can be viewed as a significant step in research related to bilateral CBJV.

A study on the influence of factors associated with organizational readiness for change in healthcare organizations using TISM

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to identify, analyze and develop a model to measure the interactions among different factors of organizational readiness for change in service sector specific to healthcare organization. The total interpretive structural modeling (TISM)-based readiness for change is to build a theoretical framework to understand the mutual interactions among the factors and to identify the driving and dependence power of these factors.

Design/methodology/approach

TISM is used to identify factors that contribute to analyze the readiness state before starting a change implementation process in healthcare. Matrice d’Impacts croises-multiplication applique´ a classement analysis is used to find the driving and dependent factors of change in healthcare.

Findings

This paper identified 12 factors of readiness for change from literature review followed by expert interview to understand the inner connection of factors and study inner relationships. The result says that state of affairs, recent trends in healthcare sector, technology advancement and interdependence among departments are key factors for readiness of change.

Research limitations/implications

This research mainly focused on readiness factors for change in the healthcare sector.

Practical implications

This study will be useful for researcher and practitioners to understand the readiness factors for change.

Originality/value

In this research work, TISM-based readiness for the change framework structural model has been proposed for healthcare organizations which is a new effort in the area of organizational change management in this sector.