Abstracts of Papers Selected

1. Bargaining Order and Delays in Multilateral Bargaining with Asymmetric Sellers

Amit Kumar Maurya, Doctoral Scholar, IGIDR, Mumbai; Prof Shubhro Sarkar , IGIDR, Mumbai.

Discussant: Professor Atanu Sinha, University of Colorado

In a multilateral bargaining problem with one buyer and two heterogeneous sellers owning perfectly complementary units, we find that there exists an equilibrium which leads to inefficient delays when the buyer negotiates with the higher-valuation seller first and where players are extremely impatient. We also find that the buyer prefers to negotiate with the lower valuation seller first, except in an equilibrium where both the buyer and the lower-valuation seller choose to play strategies that lead negotiations between them to hold out.

2. Moderating Effect of Credibility on eWord of Mouth via Social Media

Payal S. Kapoor, Doctoral Scholar, IIM Indore; Prof Jayasimha K R, IIM Indore; Prof Ashish Sadh, IIM Indore

Discussant: Professor Sreelata Jonnalagedda, IIM Bangalore

With the popularity of social media, users indulge in 'electronic-word-of-mouth' (eWOM) behaviour thereby diffusing the brand-related discussions to a much larger audience. Researchers have found eWOM on social media to be capable of influencing, both, consumption-related behaviour and brand equity.  This study, with the help of two factorial design experiments, understands all the aspects of credibility over moderating the influence capacity of social media eWOM. Results of our study confirm the moderating role of credibility and also suggests that social scores (social media credibility cues) may be able to compensate for legitimate expertise of source and believability of message over the social media platform. The study suggests a strong need for caution to marketers while selecting online influencers to operationalise an induced eWOM campaign.

3. Role of Retail Investor Participation in Developing Secondary Market Liquidity for Indian IPOs

Arnab Bhattacharya, Doctoral Scholar, IIM Calcutta; Prof Binay Bhushan Chakrabarti, IIM Calcutta

Discussant: Professor Venkatesh Panchapagesan, IIM Bangalore

Using a sample of 66 Indian IPOs during May 2010 and November 2011, we examine the evolution of BSE limit order book during first 20 days of aftermarket trading. We find that order imbalance is significantly negative immediately after listing, and limit order book liquidity follows U-shaped intraday pattern. We also find that initial two weeks of IPO aftermarket explains most of the variation in limit order book characteristics. Our results suggest that retail investor demand significantly explains limit order book liquidity in IPO aftermarket. However, we do not find similar effect of institutional investor demand on IPO aftermarket liquidity.

4. Employment Intensity and Job Market Dynamics of Female Workers under Trade Liberalisation: Analysis of Indian Manufacturing

Purna Banerjee, Doctoral Scholar, IGIDR, Mumbai; Prof C. Veeramani, IGIDR, Mumbai

Discussant: Professor Ajay Bhaskarabhatla, Erasmus University.

Trade liberalisation leads to technology and product mix changes in an economy which can have differential impacts for male and female workers. We analyse the impact of different channels of trade liberalisation on female employment outcomes both in terms of levels as well as dynamics. Using ASI plant level panel data job creation, job destruction and job reallocation rates for women across different industries is measured. We find that women face greater job reallocation than men across all industrial classifications. We also find that increased export orientation and global production sharing are positively associated with female employment intensity. However, increased competition in our importing sectors leads to lower female employment intensity. A similar asymmetry is also noted in the case of differential job reallocation.

5. Female Labour Force Participation and Child Education in India: Evidence from the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme

Soham Sahoo, Doctoral Scholar, Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi; Prof Farzana Afridi, Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi; Prof Abhiroop Mukhopadhyay, Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi

Discussant: Professor Arnab Mukherji, IIM Bangalore

We exploit the implementation of India's National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme to identify exogenous shifts in mothers' labour force participation and its impact on their children's educational outcomes. Using child level panel data, we find that mother's participation in the labour force results in almost two additional months of attendance in a school year by her children and reduces the gap between a child's actual and ideal grade by more than a quarter. These effects are robust for less landed households and for girls. We find evidence of greater household decision-making power of working mothers as an explanation of our results.

6. Fiscal Policy in an Emerging Market Business Cycle Model

Pawan Gopalakrishnan, Doctoral Scholar, Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi; Prof Chetan Ghate, Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi; Prof Suchismita Tarafdar, Shiv Nadar University, UP.

Discussant: Professor Chetan Subramanian, IIM Bangalore

We propose a model of the Indian business cycle that captures some of its key stylised facts. To do this, we write out a small open economy (SOE) real business cycle model along the lines of Neumeyer and Perri (2005) with one crucial addition: we augment their framework by incorporating .scal policy. Our model suggests that incorporating .scal policy into an otherwise standard emerging market business cycle model enables us to qualitatively replicate most of the features of the Indian business cycles and the business cycles of some other emerging market economies.

7. Mechanism Design over Matroids

Abdul Quadir, Doctoral Scholar, Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi

Discussant: Professor Shubhro Sarkar, IGIDR-Mumbai.

We consider a mechanism design problem over a matroid and connected graph in quasi-linear and private value environment where we endow the alternatives set with some structure. We show that if a mechanism is anonymous in utility, individually rational and monotone, then it is efficient mechanism. We also show different applications of our general result of matroid in many auction formats and queuing problem.

8. Sensitivity analysis of the newsboy model

Avijit Khanra, Doctoral Scholar, IIM Ahmedabad; Prof Chetan Soman, IIM Ahmedabad

Discussant: Professor Dinesh Kumar, IIM Bangalore

Sensitivity analysis is an integral part of inventory optimisation models due to uncertainty associated with estimates of model parameters. Though the newsboy problem is one of the most researched inventory problems, very little is known about its robustness. We study sensitivity of expected demand-supply mismatch cost to sub-optimal ordering decisions in the newsboy model. Conditions for symmetry (skewness) of cost deviation have been identified and magnitude of cost deviation is demonstrated for normal demand distribution. We found the newsboy model to be sensitive to sub-optimal ordering decisions, much more sensitive than the economic order quantity model.

9. Information Security in Practice: Two Case Studies from Germany

Abhishek Narain Singh, Doctoral Scholar, IIT Delhi; Prof Johann Kranz, University of Goettingen, Goettingen, Germany ; Prof Arnold Picot, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich, Germany; Prof M P Gupta, IIT Delhi

Discussant: Professor Shankar Venkatagiri, IIM Bangalore

While modern day organisations are adopting emerging IT/ICT mediums to conduct businesses in a more productive and efficient way, securing business information and organisational information assets have remained a persistent challenge for them. One plausible reason for this is considering information security as a technical issue and applying various tools/techniques at operational level to deal with this challenge, while ignoring its core strategic and tactical aspects. This paper aims to investigate various Information Security Management (ISM) practices in two medium-size German IT-software development and services companies. Using multi-case study design, the study adopts qualitative research approach by conducting semi-structured interviews across the hierarchy in the selected companies. Learning derived from the cases could have implications for managing information security in organisations.

10. Small World of Inter-firm Network - A Case of India

Shreya Biswas, Doctoral Scholar, IGIDR, Mumbai

Discussant: Professor Sai Yayavaram, IIM Bangalore

This paper empirically attempts to understand the small world feature of underlying inter-firm network formed by interlocking directorates in India and whether ownership structure can play a role in determining the network structure. It finds that standalone firms are more likely to constitute isolated nodes in the network vis-a-vis group firms. The study also highlights the role of availability of network information and diversity of non market information given by network properties of average path length and clustering coefficient respectively in a firm's decision to acquire. It finds a negative relation between average path length and probability of acquisition, while clustering only appears to be negatively related for group firms in India.

11. Role of Firm Ownership and Financial Leverage in Determining Information Technology Impact on Organisational Outcomes

Gaurav Dixit, Doctoral Scholar, IIM Indore; Prof Prabin Panigrahi, IIM Indore

Discussant: Professor Pranav Garg, IIM Bangalore

This study seeks to extend our understanding of research in business value of Information Technology (IT) by adopting contingency theory perspective. We conducted an empirical study using data of 459 Indian firms over a period of 2007-2010. Results of our study revealed that IT investments enable firms in reducing their cost of operations, without contingencies related to firm ownership and financial leverage. However, impact of IT investment in improving profit is contingent on firm ownership such that the impact decreases for POEs, FIEs and SOEs in that particular order. This study contributes by examining firm ownership and financial leverage as contingent contextual factors and reveals that impact of IT is either contingent or non-contingent subject to the specific organisational outcome under consideration.

12. An Empirical analysis of Impact of Corporate Characteristics on the Extent of Human Resource Related Disclosures in Annual Reports of Indian Companies

Surinder Kaur, Doctoral Scholar, FMS, Delhi University; Prof A. VenkataRaman, FMS, Delhi University, Prof. Monica Singhania, FMS, Delhi University

Discussant: Professor Sourav Mukherji, IIM Bangalore

Human resource disclosures are mostly voluntary in nature resulting in discrepancy in the HR disclosure practices across companies and industries. The paper seeks to examine the extent of HR disclosures in annual reports of Indian listed companies and identify their determinants in a three stage analysis. The study reveals that there is high variation among sample companies as regards HRDI (Human Resource Disclosure Index). The results of descriptive analysis, correlation analysis and multivariate regression analysis established that Government's participation in ownership and market capitalisation has positive significant effect on the HRDI at 1%. Though contrary to expectations, other variables - leverage, ownership concentration, type of auditor, age, complexity of business structure and  industry affiliation - are found to have moderate though insignificant influence on HRDI.

13. A Construal Level Perspective of Conflict Management Styles

Divya Upadhyay, Doctoral Scholar, IIM Bangalore; Prof Kanchan Mukherjee, IIM Bangalore

Discussant: Professor Krishna Savani, NUS Singapore

Construal Level Theory suggests that adopting a distal versus proximal psychological perspective changes the way people think and behave. Psychological proximity induces low level, concrete and contextualised mental construals while psychological distance induces high level, abstract and stable construals. This article shows the systematic effect of construal level thinking on preferred routes to conflict management. We find systematic correlations between construal thinking and co-operative vs. competitive approaches to conflict management. Three studies explore the psychological processes that lead to preferences in conflict management styles, mediated by two distinct processes. Relationship between construal levels and cooperative conflict management styles was found to be mediated by perspective taking and empathic concerns while relationship between construal levels and competitive management styles was mediated by impulsivity and aggression.