singapore management journal 2017 ebook... · 2017-04-26 · academic research and writing can,...

SingaporeManagement Journal

Vol. 5 No. 2, 2016

I

The Singapore Management Journal is published by the East Asia Institute of Management (EASBTM), 9 Ah Hood Road, Singapore 329975.

The first issue of the Journal was published in January, 2012.

Copyright © 2016 East Asia Institute of Management (EASBTM). All rights reserved worldwide. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publisher.

For subscriptions and enquiries, please email: [email protected].

ISSN 2251-239X

MICA (P) 174/01/2012

III

Editorial Board

EDITOR-IN-CHIEFDr Tan Jing Hee

EDITORIAL BOARDMr James ChuaMr Chan Chee SengMr Reinaldo WongMr Eric LimMs Pearl Wong

EDITORS Dr Lim Cheng HwaDr George NgDr Preston DevasiaDr Chen Sheng

INTERNATIONAL PANEL OF ADVISORSProfessor Zari Karimi, California State University, Fresno Professor Richard Kerley, Former Vice Principal and QMU Professor Mr Theo Koukouravas, Deputy Dean, Cardiff Metropolitan University/ Prifysgol Fetropolitan CaerdyddMs Jayne Stocks, Principal Lecturer, Sheffield Hallam UniversityProfessor Ken Stott, Former Provost, University of Southern QueenslandProfessor Paul Watson, Head of Built Environment, Sheffield Hallam University Professor Er Meng Joo, Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University

III

IV

Editorial Comment

Academic research and writing can, controversially, be considered as a genre of writing, where intellectuals (humans who think and do research) tell one another stories of how things in the world we live in worked. Their academic writings produced knowledge claims, theories, and propositions which can become guides to behaviour. To the extent they adopt the ‘scientific method’, their recommendations, if believed in and applied, direct human actions on the basis of prediction and control.

Social science research accounts are typically structured in positivist or postpositive frames. In the area of business research, applying the empirical approach of data collection amounts to giving primacy to the practical, which directly or indirectly link past actions, behaviours and events and can help us decide how to cope with the changes and challenges of the future economy. It is about the management of change and mutations (the current buzz word is disruptive innovation) in the direction of business growth, survival and sustainability.

Paraphrasing the German thinker, Heidegger, research is a hermeneutical exercise, involving interpretation. It is the process of describing phenomena from observation and data analysis. Hence, readers of the papers in this issue can interact reflectively with the authors as an extension of the hermeneutical circle and take away a richer, more informed and holistic view of their issues, concerns and interests. The authors can be contacted through their emails listed in the end sections of the journal pages.

Table of Contents

Topic PageEditorial Board

Editorial Comment

An Empirical Study of Factors Affecting WebsiteSuccess in Singaporean Enterprises

Challenges of Inclusion of ERP in B-School Curriculum: The B-Schools Students’ Perspectives

Entrepreneurship Research: Motivation and Management Innovation

Crafting Conformity at Work: Traversing Ethically for Workplace Transformation

Pharmaceutical Retail Store Characteristics And Trade Promotion

About the Authors

Guide for Authors Submitting Articles to Singapore Management Journal

III

IV

7

31

43

73

91

106

110

V

6 An Empirical Study of Factors Affecting Website Success in Singaporean Enterprises

“The Internet is becoming the town square for the global village of tomorrow.”

– Bill Gates

7 Singapore Management Journal Vol. 5 No. 2, 2016

An Empirical Study of FactorsAffecting Website Success inSingaporean Enterprises

AbstractThis research is a study of the factors affecting the website success of Singaporean

enterprises. This research aims to support the website design and development needs of Singaporean enterprises to seize the current and future e-commerce growth opportunities locally and globally.

The hypothesised research model adopted for this research is adapted from DeLone and McLean (D&M) information system (IS) success and the updated model (1992, 2002, 2003 & 2004), the Molla and Licker (2001) e-commerce success model, website research study of Palmer (2002) and other previous researches. Nine hypotheses, three research objectives and three research questions were formulated for this research.

The results showed that there is a statistically significant correlation between the independent and dependent variable of all hypotheses except the relationship between trust attributes and website satisfaction. This finding deviates from D&M model (1992, 2002, 2003 & 2004) and Molla and Licker (2001) e-commerce success model. The difference supports the notion of D&M (2003) that the context of research must be clearly defined. The multiple regression results also showed that the group impact of the independent variables on the dependent variables of all models is statistically significant. From the results of the hypotheses tests and multiple regression analyses, this research has answered the three research questions and achieved the three research objectives.

Keywords: Quality Attributes, Design Feature Attributes, Trust Attributes, Website Use, Website Satisfaction, Organisational Benefits

Dr. Goh Seh KaiLecturer

East Asia Institute of Management


Introduction

A Hamburg-based market research firm, in its Asia business-to-consumer (B2C) electronic commerce (e-commerce) Report 2011, reported that Internet users and online shoppers have increased in almost all Asian countries, including Singapore (yStats.com 2012). Relaxnews (2010), Indo Asian News Service (2012) and yStats.com (2012) also reported that the growth of B2C e-commerce sales and revenue has increased when compared with previous years and it is expected to increase even more in the future. Therefore, a great opportunity for the potential growth of e-commerce sales and revenue is evident now and in the future both locally and regionally. As a website is the e-commerce storefront of enterprises (Laudon & Travel 2011; Udo & Marquis 2002), it is critical to research how Singaporean enterprises can embrace and leverage on their website to seize e-commerce growth opportunities to improve their business performance. Likewise, since a website is the storefront of e-commerce with which visitors or users have to interface before any transaction activities occur, how to design an effective website is crucial to the success of the platform (Fan & Tsai 2010; Jeffrey & Bernard 2004).

Based on recent survey findings on e-commerce of Singaporean SMEs published by ECAS (2011), it is essential to improve the e-commerce capabilities of Singaporean SMEs and the contribution of e-commerce to their overall revenue. The findings showed that more than half of the participants’ e-commerce contribution was less than 10% of their overall revenue (ECAS 2011). The survey findings also revealed that most of the Singaporean SMEs surveyed were dissatisfied with their own e-commerce capabilities (ECAS 2011). Also, fewer than half of the enterprises surveyed felt that the overall e-commerce capabilities of Singapore were above average (ECAS 2011).

In addition, based on statistics published by IDA (2013), it is also crucial to improve the web presence and website design of Singaporean enterprises. In 2012, the website possession rate of Singaporean enterprises with fewer than 10 employees was low (39%), and for those with 10 - 49 employees was moderate (65%) (IDA 2013). Therefore, there is an urgent need to encourage more of these enterprises to embrace a website so that they can tap the e-commerce growth opportunities. Those enterprises with fewer than 10 employees, according to ECAS (2011), also require tremendous support from government and third party organisations in terms of


subsidies, knowledge of website building and online marketing monitoring. For those enterprises with 50 or more employees, the percentage with web presence is high (90%) (IDA 2013). Whether they understand how to design a successful website to enhance their organisational performance is relatively under-researched. An apparent lack of knowledge by Singaporean enterprises in website design is also evident from previous research by Li and Huang (2007). Their research found that many Singapore companies’ websites did not reveal important information. According to DeLone and McLean (1992 & 2002), this could affect website use and website satisfaction. Hence, it is imperative to investigate the website design issues of Singaporean enterprises.

Further to the aforementioned issues, it is also vital to improve online purchases in Singapore. In 2011, the percentage of Internet users who were also online shoppers was only about 50% (IDA 2012). In the same year, the percentage of individual online activities for the purchasing or ordering goods or services across all age groups was lower than 15% (IDA 2012). This is comparatively lower than countries such as South Korea and China, where 95% of online consumers intended to make a purchase online in the next six months (The Nielson Company 2010). Singapore’s Internet penetration rate is also ranked 59th in the world as of Dec 2013 (Miniwatts Marketing Group 2014), while the broadband download speed is ranked 2nd in the world according to Ookla Speedtest data (Ookla 2014). Thus, Singapore is regarded as being conducive to online activities when compared with other countries. According to the e-commerce consumer behaviour model by Turban et al. (2010), website attributes (quality attributes, design feature attributes and trust attributes) could affect a consumer’s online purchase intention, purchase and repurchase. Hence, it is paramount to research website attributes as they could affect the success of Singaporean enterprises’ websites.

In summary, based on the aforementioned, there is a research issue related to determining the website attributes that could affect the website success of Singaporean enterprises. So far, the researcher has not identified any similar research being done in this field. Moreover, there are no previous major empirical findings that have uncovered website attributes important to increase website usage, increase website satisfaction and benefit Singaporean enterprises. The findings of this research will narrow this knowledge gap. The research aims to determine which website attributes (quality attributes, design feature attributes and trust attributes) are important to increase website usage, increase website satisfaction and benefit Singaporean enterprises. Furthermore,


the research findings could be used to guide the growing developmental needs of both existing and new websites of Singaporean enterprises to support their e-commerce. The findings could then be used to encourage more Singaporean enterprises to embrace a website for e-commerce, which will help to improve their business performance now and in the future.

Theoretical Background

The literature review has identified the DeLone and McLean (D&M) information system (IS) success and updated models (1992, 2002, 2003 & 2004) as a useful basis for this research. According to D&M (2003), when they undertook a citation search on their IS success model in 2002, it yielded 285 refereed papers in journals and proceedings over the period from 1993 to mid-2002. Strong validation of the model was evident from many research studies undertaken since it was formulated and introduced by D&M in 1992. D&M models (1992, 2002, 2003 & 2004) theorised that information quality, system quality and service quality could individually and collectively affect system use and satisfaction positively, which might in turn lead to some net benefits for individuals, organisations, industries or society in the context of e-commerce.

This research is based primarily on the D&M (1992, 2002, 2003 & 2004) IS success and updated models, and the Molla and Licker (2001) e-commerce success model. This research also draws on a website research study by Palmer (2002) and other previous research. A hypothesised website success model with constructs extended primarily from the above mentioned models is used to determine the factors affecting the success of the websites of Singaporean enterprises.

Using the proposed hypothesised website success model and its constructs, this research collects data from website owners of Singaporean enterprises. Data analyses are based on hypotheses designed to test the relationship between the independent and dependent variables as identified in the proposed model and hence to address the research questions and achieve the research objectives.


Research Objectives and Questions

The following are the research objectives and questions which this research addresses:

Research Objective 1 - To identify the factors affecting successful website use based on Singaporean enterprise website owners’ perspectives.

Research Objective 2 - To identify the factors affecting website satisfaction based on Singaporean enterprise website owners’ perspectives.

Research Objective 3 - To identify the relationships between website use, website satisfaction and organisational benefits based on Singaporean enterprise website owners’ perspectives.

Research Question 1 – What are the factors that affect successful website use from Singaporean enterprise website owners’ perspectives?

Research Question 2 – What are the factors that affect website satisfaction from Singaporean enterprise website owners’ perspectives?

Research Question 3 – What are the relationships between website use, website satisfaction and organisational benefits from Singaporean enterprise website owners’ perspectives?

Hypotheses of Research

To address the research questions and achieve the research objectives, a hypothesised model is proposed and its associated constructs are shown in Figure 1 and Table 1 on the following page.


Figure 1: Hypothesised Model for this Research

(Source: adapted from D&M (1992, 2002, 2003 & 2004); Laudon and Travel (2011); Molla and Licker (2001); Palmer (2002); Pujani (2008); Turban et al. (2010); and selectively combined by the researcher for this research.)


Table 1: Constructs in the Hypothesised Model for this ResearchConstructs Description ExamplesWebsite Design Feature Attributes

Media richness and media-inherent capabilities of a website, such as navigation, content, interactivity and responsiveness that are able to convey messages and information to viewers or visitors based on Singaporean enterprise website owners’ perspectives.

Layout, Organisation, arrangement and sequencing; Variety and amount of product information; Customisation and interactivity; FAQs and feedback options.

Website Quality Attributes

How good a website is in terms of the quality delivered through the website based on Singaporean enterprise website owners’ perspectives, which includes: (1) System quality - availability, usability, reliability, adaptability and response time; (2) Information quality - security, personalisation, relevance, completeness, ease of understanding and visual appearance; (3) Service quality – assurance, responsiveness, empathy and the support and service provided to customers during all phases of transaction.

Fast download of web pages; Ease of navigation; Pleasant display; Accurate and Up-to-date information.

Website Trust Attributes

Website attributes that generate consumer trust and ensure the security and privacy of transactions during customers’ interaction with an e-commerce system based on Singaporean enterprise website owners’ perspectives.

Return policy; Security and privacy policy statement on website; Secure transaction system (e.g. SSL) and User log-in facility (e.g. user name and password).

Website Use The voluntary use of a website and the extent that a company’s website is accessed or used based on Singaporean enterprise website owners’ perspectives. Its measurement metrics include nature of use, number of visits, information retrieval, number of transactions executed, and navigation patterns within a website.

For visitors to surf a website; For users to place orders for products/services; For group discussions among users.

Website Satisfaction

The feeling or satisfaction of customers during their experience with the website. The opinions of customers about their purchase experience on the website from retrieval of information to purchase of goods, payment, receipt of goods and customer service based on Singaporean enterprise website owners’ perspectives. Its measurement metrics include the number and amount of repeat purchases, the number of repeat visits and user satisfaction with the website through surveys.

Repeated visits to your website; Reduced complaints regarding your website system quality (e.g. download speeds).

Organisational Benefits

The contributions of a website to the net benefits of the organisation, including increased sales, cost reduction market share expansion and productivity improvement based on Singaporean enterprise website owners’ perspectives.

Increase of number of customers; Increase of profit margin; Increase of customer loyalty.

(Source: D&M (1992, 2002, 2003 & 2004); Laudon and Travel (2011); Molla and Licker (2001); Palmer (2002); Pujani (2008); Turban et al. (2010); and selectively combined by the researcher for this research.)


The nine hypotheses based on the above hypothesised model and its associated constructs are as follows:

Hypothesis One (H1):Null Hypothesis (H0,1): From Singaporean enterprise website owners’ perspectives, website use is not correlated positively with website quality. Alternative Hypothesis (H1,1): From Singaporean enterprise website owners’ perspectives, website use is correlated positively with website quality.

Hypothesis Two (H2):Null Hypothesis (H0,2): From Singaporean enterprise website owners’ perspectives, website satisfaction is not correlated positively with website quality.

Alternative Hypothesis (H1,2): From Singaporean enterprise website owners’ perspectives, website satisfaction is correlated positively with website quality.

Hypothesis Three (H3):Null Hypothesis (H0,3): From Singaporean enterprise website owners’ perspectives, website use is not correlated positively with website design features.

Alternative Hypothesis (H1,3): From Singaporean enterprise website owners’ perspectives, website use is correlated positively with website design features.

Hypothesis Four (H4):Null Hypothesis (H0,4): From Singaporean enterprise website owners’ perspectives, website satisfaction is not correlated positively with website design features.

Alternative Hypothesis (H1,4): From Singaporean enterprise website owners’ perspectives, website satisfaction is correlated positively with website design features.

Hypothesis Five (H5):Null Hypothesis (H0,5): From Singaporean enterprise website owners’ perspectives, website use is not correlated positively with website trust attributes.


Alternative Hypothesis (H1,5): From Singaporean enterprise website owners’ perspectives, website use is correlated positively with website trust attributes.

Hypothesis Six (H6):Null Hypothesis (H0,6): From Singaporean enterprise website owners’ perspectives, website satisfaction is not correlated positively with website trust attributes.

Alternative Hypothesis (H1,6): From Singaporean enterprise website owners’ perspectives, website satisfaction is correlated positively with website trust attributes.

Hypothesis Seven (H7):Null Hypothesis (H0,7): From Singaporean enterprise website owners’ perspectives, website use is not correlated positively with website satisfaction.

Alternative Hypothesis (H1,7): From Singaporean enterprise website owners’ perspectives, website use is correlated positively with website satisfaction.

Hypothesis Eight (H8):Null Hypothesis (H0,8): From Singaporean enterprise website owners’ perspectives, website use is not correlated positively with organisational benefits.

Alternative Hypothesis (H1,8): From Singaporean enterprise website owners’ perspectives, website use is correlated positively with organisational benefits.

Hypothesis Nine (H9):Null Hypothesis (H0,9): From Singaporean enterprise website owners’ perspectives, website satisfaction is not correlated positively with organisational benefits.

Alternative Hypothesis (H1,9): From Singaporean enterprise website owners’ perspectives, website satisfaction is correlated positively with organisational benefits.


Research Methodology

The paradigm for this research is positivism (Hussey & Hussey 1997; Saunders & Lewis 2012) for the reason that a hypothesised website success model is used to test the relationship between the constructs identified in the model. Based on the positivist paradigm, quantitative methodology is the appropriate research methodology for this research (Hussey & Hussey 1997). The explanatory research method (Cavana, Delahaye & Sekaran 2001) is used in this research to perform hypotheses tests to explain the relationship between website attributes (quality, design features and trust) in relation to website use, website satisfaction and organisational benefits. Data are collected from Singaporean enterprises which provided their views on how their website attributes (quality, design features, and trust) will affect their website use, website satisfaction and organisational benefits.

This research uses a survey with a self-administered online questionnaire. A web instead of fax or mail survey is used for the self-administered questionnaire data collection based on response rate, cost, time and other factors, as evident from previous research (Shih & Fan 2007; Frippiat, Marquis & Wiles-Portier 2010; Heerwegh & Loosveldt 2008; Ticehurst & Veal 2000; Bryman & Bell 2007; Evans & Mathur 2005 and Zikmund et al. 2013). A further consideration is the current conducive Internet environment of Singapore where the use of e-mail is high (IDA 2013; Evans & Mathur 2005).

Pre-coded fixed alternative question types (Zikmund 2003; Cooper & Schindler 2011; Zikmund et al. 2013; Ticehurst & Veal 2000) are used in designing the survey questionnaire.

Five-point Likert scales (Cooper & Schindler 2011) are used to measure the degree of importance of website attributes (quality, design features and trust) to the website of Singaporean enterprises and also the degree of importance of website attributes to the website use, website satisfaction and organisational benefits based on the website owners’ perspective.

InSing.com, which is a web portal created by SingTel Digital Media Pte Ltd (STDM), a wholly owned subsidiary of SingTel - Asia's leading communications


group (inSing.com 2012) is identified as the sampling frame (Cavana, Delahaye & Sekaran 2001). InSing.com is a gateway to a large searchable and complete database of businesses in Singapore. Singaporean enterprises are categorised according to their business nature such as retailer, wholesaler, manufacturer, and subcategory such as products and services with the number of firms (inSing.com 2012). Proportional stratified probability sampling method (Zikmund et al. 2013; Cooper & Schindler 2011; Bryman & Bell 2007) based on the nature and size of business category is adopted for this research. In view of the time, cost and the estimated response rate, a minimum target of about 200 completed survey questionnaires is considered sufficient for analysis.

After the drafting of the survey questionnaire, SurveyMonkey, which is a provider of web-based survey solutions, was used to design and host the survey questionnaire with a website address. As those firms with website and contact information such as e-mail address, office address and telephone number can be contacted easily, they are the unit of analysis. The researcher identified those Singaporean enterprises listed in inSing.com for survey by evaluating their website via the inSing.com portal to ensure they met the criteria.

A pilot study is conducted to test the survey questionnaire on a few Singaporean enterprises. The pilot survey aims to improve the clarity of questions and ensure participants understand the meaning of each evaluated item. Furthermore, the website and server are also tested to ensure they are functional and reliable for processing and to facilitate the collection of a large amount of completed questionnaires.

After the questionnaire is standardised, website access is confirmed for functionality and reliability, and accurate collection of data, when the actual survey commenced. An information sheet is e-mailed to the participants to invite them to access the web-based questionnaire by clicking on the survey website address.

SPSS 21.0 is used for the data analysis in this research. The validity and reliability of the measuring scales, which consist of items related to the six constructs (website quality, feature and trust attributes, website use, website satisfaction and organisational benefits) are evaluated to ensure good measurement of data (Cooper & Schindler 2011; Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill 2009).


In terms of detail, the procedure for conducting the validity assessment was as follows. Firstly, those items which did not exceed the item-to-total correlation of 0.5 were removed based on the item-to-total correlations. Secondly, a new total score was calculated by summing up the scores of the remaining items. Thirdly, the item-to-total correlations of all the remaining items were reassessed. Fourthly, after all the remaining items had exceeded the item-to-total ratio of 0.5, their item-to-item correlations were assessed. Those items with any item-to-item correlation which did not exceed 0.3 were removed, a new total score was calculated based on the remaining items and the item-to-total and item-to-item correlations were reassessed. This process was repeated until the item-to-total correlations of all the remaining items were in excess of 0.5 and their item-to-item correlations were in excess of 0.3.

In order to avoid false statistical calculations and violation of the assumptions of statistical analyses, all the univariate and multivariate outliers on the total scores of the six constructs are identified and removed before the normality of the total scores is assessed (Manning & Munro 2006). The normality test on the distribution of each of the total scores is conducted to assess whether their distribution varies significantly from normality (Manning & Munro 2006; Tabachnick & Fidell 1996) and transformation of total scores is undertaken as required (Manning & Munro 2006).

After the distribution of all the six total scores is confirmed normal, the nine hypothesis tests are conducted. Scatter diagrams and Pearson Product Moment Correlation (Pearson r) tests are conducted to confirm the relationship between the independent and dependent variables for each of the hypotheses (Manning & Munro 2006; Zikmund et al. 2013). The coefficient of determination, R2, which represents the proportion of variance of dependent variable is explained by the independent variable (Manning & Munro 2006; Zikmund et al. 2013), is also determined. Multiple regression analyses are then conducted to explain how well the independent variables are able to predict the dependent variables and provides information about the model as a whole (all subscales) and the relative contribution of each of the variables in the model (individual subscales) (Pallant 2010; Manning & Munro 2006).


Data Analysis And Results

Results of Hypotheses TestsThe interpretation of the hypothesis tests’ decision was to support the null

hypothesis of H6 and all the other alternative hypotheses as shown in the fourth column of Table 2.

Table 2: Summary of the Hypotheses Tests Decision

Hypothesis p-value (reported as “sig. (2-tailed)” in SPSS

Decision (using cut-off point of 0.05) Interpretation

H1 P = 0.000 <0.05 Reject H0,1 Support H1,1





H6 P = 0.516 > 0.05 Do not reject H0,6 Support H0,6




(Source: IBM SPSS Statistics Version 21)

Table 3 is the summary of the Pearson correlation coefficient (r) and the interpretation of the effect size of the hypothesis tests based on the effect size of correlation coefficients guideline by Cohen and Holiday (1982).

Table 3: Summary of Pearson Correlation Coefficient (r) of Hypothesis Tests

Hypothesis Number of Cases

Pearson Correlation Coefficient (r) Effect Size Coefficient of

Determination (r2)H1 189 0.410* Modest 17%H2 192 0.684* Modest 47%H3 194 0.332* Low 11%H4 195 0.768* High 59%H5 193 0.505* Modest 26%H6 196 0.065 Very Low 0.4%H7 192 0.283* Low 8%H8 189 0.351* Low 12%H9 191 0.552* Modest 31%

*p < 0.05 (2-tailed)(Source: IBM SPSS Statistics Version 21)


Figure 2 displays the hypothesis tests’ results based on the summary of the Pearson correlation coefficient statistics in Tables 2 and 3.

Figure 2: Hypothesis Testing Results

*Pearson correlation coefficient (r) p<0.05 (2-tailed) Support for alternative hypothesis Support for null hypothesis(Source: Tables 2 and 3)


Results of Multiple Regression AnalysesThe findings based on the model evaluation results of multiple regression analysis

are summarised in Table 4.

Table 4: Summary of Multiple Regression Analyses ResultsIndependent Variables

Website Attributes (Quality, Features, Trust)Dependent Variable

(Website Use)

1 Website attributes explained about 38% of the variation in website use (p<0.05).

2 Website use was explained uniquely by trust attributes (beta =0.48), design feature attributes (beta =0.2) and quality attributes (beta =0.19).

3 Quality attributes, design feature attributes and trust attributes made a statistically significant (p<0.05) unique contribution to the prediction of website use.

4 A small amount (13%) of overlap of the three variables included in the model. (Total part variance = 25% and adjusted R2 = 38%)

Independent VariablesWebsite Attributes (Quality, Features, Trust)

and Website Use

Dependent Variable(Website Satisfaction)

1 Website attributes and website use explained about 61% of the variation in website satisfaction (p<0.05).

2 Website satisfaction was explained uniquely by design feature attributes (beta = 0.76), quality attributes (beta = 0.4), website use (beta = -0.08) and trust attributes (beta = 0.04).

3 Quality attributes and design feature attributes but not trust attributes and website use made a statistically significant (p<0.05) unique contribution to the prediction of website satisfaction.

4 A moderate amount (44%) of overlap of the four variables included in the model. (Total part variance = 17% and adjusted R2 = 61%)

Independent Variables(Website Use and Website Satisfaction)

Dependent Variable(Organisational Benefits)

1 34% of the variation in organisational benefits was explained by website use and website satisfaction (p<0.05).

2 Organisational benefits were explained uniquely by website satisfaction (beta = 0.49) and website use (beta = 0.21)

3 Website use and website satisfaction made a statistically significant (p<0.05) unique contribution to the prediction of organisational benefits.

4 A very small amount (8%) of overlap of the two variables included in the model.(Total part variance = 26% and adjusted R2 = 34%).

(Source: Summarised for this research)


Conclusion

Table 5 summarises the answers to the three research questions (RQ) and the three research objectives (RO).

Table 5: Summary of Answers to Research Objectives/QuestionsWhat Description of Research Question/Objectives and Answers

RO1/RQ1

RO1 - To identify the factors affecting successful website use based on Singaporean enterprise website owners’ perspectives.RQ1 - What are the factors that affect successful website use from Singaporean enterprises website owners’ perspectives?

Answer - Website quality, feature and trust attributes as a whole are determined as factors affecting successful website use from Singaporean enterprise website owners’ perspectives.

RO2/RQ2

RO2 - To identify the factors affecting website satisfaction based on Singaporean enterprise website owners’ perspectives.RQ2 - What are the factors that affect website satisfaction from Singaporean enterprises website owners’ perspectives?

Answer - Website design feature attributes and quality attributes as a whole are determined as factors affecting website satisfaction from Singaporean enterprise website owners’ perspectives.

RO3/RQ3

RO3 - To identify the relationships between website use, website satisfaction and organisational benefits based on the Singaporean enterprise website owners’ perspectives.RQ3 - What are the relationships between website use, website satisfaction and organisational benefits from Singaporean enterprises website owners’ perspectives?

Answer - The relationships between website use, website satisfaction and organisational benefits of Singaporean enterprises are determined to be positively correlated from Singaporean enterprise website owners’ perspectives. Website use and website satisfaction as a whole are determined as factors contributing organisational benefits from Singaporean enterprise website owners’ perspectives.

(Source: Summarised for this research)

In conclusion, all the alternative hypotheses were supported except H6. The multiple regression results also showed prediction of the dependent constructs based most of the hypothesised independent variables. From these results, the three research questions have been answered and the research objectives achieved.


References

Al-Dwairi, R. M. 2013, “E-commerce Websites Trust Factors: An Empirical Approach”, Contemporary Engineering Sciences, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 1-7.

Bélanger, F., Fan, W., Schaupp, L. C., Krishen, A., Everhart, J., Poteet, D. & Nakamoto, K. 2006, “Website Success Metrics: Addressing the Duality of Goals”, Communications of the ACM, vol. 49, no. 12, pp. 114-116.

Bilkova, R. & Kopackova, H. 2013, “Enhancing E-commerce by Website Quality”, Proceedings of the 2013 International Conference on Business Administration, Marketing and Economics, pp. 40-47.

Bryman, A. & Bell, E. 2007, Business Research Methods, 2nd edn., Oxford University Press, New York.

Cavana, R. Y., Delahaye, B. L. & Sekaran, U. 2001, Applied Business Research: Qualitative and Quantitative Methods, John Wiley & Sons, Milton, Queensland.

Cohen, L. & Holiday, M. 1982, Statistics for Social Scientists, Harper & Row, London.

Cooper, D. R. & Schindler, P. S. 2011, Business Research Methods, McGraw-Hill/Irwin, Singapore.

DeLone, W. H. & McLean, E. R. 1992, “Information Systems Success: The Quest for the Dependent Variable”, Information Systems Research, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 60-95.

DeLone, W. H. & McLean, E. R. 2002, “Information System Success Revisited”, Proceeding of the 35th Hawaii International Conference on System Science.

DeLone, W. H. & McLean, E. R. 2003, “The DeLone & McLean Model of Information Systems Success: A Ten-Year Update”, Journal of Management Information Systems, vol. 19, no. 4, pp. 9-30.


DeLone, W. H. & McLean, E. R. 2004, “Measuring E-commerce Success: Applying the DeLone & McLean Information Systems Success Model”, International Journal of Electronic Commerce, vol. 9, no. 1, pp.31-47.

ECAS 2011, “Singapore Ecommerce Survey 2011” [online], Available: http://ecommerce.org.sg/ [Accessed 5 Jan 2012].

Evans, J. R. & Mathur, A. 2005, “The Value of Online Surveys”, Internet Research, vol. 15, no. 2, pp.195-219.

Fan, W. S. & Tsai, M. C. 2010, “Factors Driving Website Success – The Key Role of Internet Customization and the Influence of Website Design Quality and Internet Marketing Strategy”, Total Quality Management, vol. 21, no. 11, pp.1141–1159.

Frippiat, D., Marquis, N. & Wiles-Portier, E. 2010, “Web Surveys in the Social Sciences: An Overview”, Population, vol. 65, no. 2, pp. 285-311.

Heerwegh, D. & Loosveldt, G. 2008, "Face-to-Face versus Web Surveying in a High-Internet-Coverage Population: Differences in Response Quality", Public Opinion Quarterly, vol. 72, no. 5, pp. 836-834.

Huang, T. K. & Fu, F. L. 2009, “Understanding User Interface Needs of E-commerce Websites”, Behaviour & Information Technology, vol. 28, no. 5, pp. 461-469.

Hussey, J. & Hussey, R. 1997, Business Research (A Practical Guide for Undergraduate and Postgraduate Students), Macmillan Press, London.

IDA 2012, “Infocomm Usage - Households and Individuals” [online], Available: http://www.ida.gov.sg/Infocomm-Landscape/Facts-and-Figures/Infocomm-Usage-Households-and-Individuals#2 [Accessed 25 Oct 2013].

IDA 2013, “Infocomm Usage – Business” [online], Available: http://www.ida.gov.sg/Infocomm-Landscape/Facts-and-Figures/Infocomm-Usage-Business [Accessed 25 Oct 2013].


Indo Asian News Service 2012, “South Korea's E-commerce Sales Hit All-Time High” [online], Available: http://en-maktoob.news.yahoo.com/south-koreas-e-commerce-sales-hit-time-high-070310820.html [Accessed 3 Apr 2012].

inSing.com 2012, “About Us” [online], Available: http://www.insing.com/info/about-us [Accessed 8Feb 2012].

Jeffrey, F. R. & Bernard, J. J. 2004, Introduction to E-commerce, 2nd edn., McGraw-Hill/Irwin, New York.

Kuan, H. H., Bock, G. W. & Vathanophas, V. 2008, “Comparing the Effects of Website Quality on Customer Initial Purchase and Continued Purchase at E-commerce Websites”, Behaviour & Information Technology, vol. 27, no. 1, pp. 3-16.

Laudon, K. C. & Travel, C. G. 2011, E-commerce Business, Technology, Society, 2011, 7th edn., Pearson Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

Li, X. & Huang, W. 2007, “Design a Knowledge-Based System to Automatically Assess Commercial Websites”, International Journal of Information Technology & Decision Making, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 43-59.

Lin, H. F. 2007, “The Impact of Website Quality Dimensions on Customer Satisfaction in the B2C E-commerce Context”, Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, vol. 18, no. 4, pp. 363-378.

Liu, C. & Arnett, K. P. 2000, "Exploring the Factors Associated with Website Success in the Context of Electronic Commerce" Information & Management, vol. 38, no. 1, pp. 23-33.

Manning, M. L. & Munro, D. 2006, The Survey Researcher’s SPSS Cookbook, Pearson SprintPrint, Frenchs Forest, New South Wales.

Miniwatts Marketing Group 2014, “Alphabetical List of Countries (Including the Latest Internet Indicators, Usage, Penetration Rates, Population, Broadband and ISO 3316 Symbol)”, Internet World Stats [online], Available: http://www.internetworldstats.com/list2.htm [Accessed 4 Oct 2014].


Molla, A. & Licker, P. S. 2001, “E-commerce Systems Success: An Attempt to Extend and Respecify the DeLone & McLean Model of IS Success”, Journal of Electronic Commerce Research, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 131-141.

Ookla 2014, “Household Download Index” [online], available: http://www.netindex.com/download/allcountries/ [Accessed 5 Oct 2014].

Pallant, J. 2010, SPSS Survival Manual: A Step by Step Guide to Data Analysis Using SPSS, 4th edn., Open University Press/McGraw-Hill, Maidenhead, Berkshire.

Palmer, J. W. 2002, “Website Usability, Design and Performance Metrics”, Information Systems Research, vol. 13, no. 2, pp.151-167.

Pujani, V. 2008, “A Study of Factors Influencing the Success of the Website in Indonesian Small and Medium Enterprises”, DBA Thesis, Southern Cross University [online], Available: http://learn.scu.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_2_1&url=%2fwebapps%2fblackboard%2fexecute%2flauncher%3ftype%3dCourse%26id%3d_66962_1%26url%3d [Accessed 5 Feb 2010].

Relaxnews 2010, “E-commerce in Asia: Japanese Online Retail Sector Most Sophisticated, China to Grow Fastest”, The Independent [online], Available: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/ecommerce-in-asia-japanese-online-retail-sector-most-sophisticated-china-to-grow-fastest-2164968.html [Accessed 5 Apr 2012].

Saunders, M. & Lewis, P. 2012, Doing Research in Business & Management (An Essential Guide to Planning Your Project), Pearson Education, Harlow, Essex.

Saunders, M., Lewis, P. & Thornhill, A. 2009, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th edn., Pearson Education, Harlow, Essex.

Shih, T. & Fan, X. 2007, "Response Rates and Mode Preferences in Web-Mail Mixed-Mode Surveys: A Meta-Analysis", International Journal of Internet Science, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 59-82.


Sindhuja, P. N. & Dastidar, S. G. 2009, “Impact of the Factors Influencing Website Usability on User Satisfaction”, The IUP Journal of Management Research, vol. 8, no. 12, pp. 54-66.

Tabachnick, B. G. & Fidell, L. S. 1996, Using Multivariate Statistics, 3rd edn., Harper Collins, Northbridge, California.

Tarafdar, M. & Zhang, J. 2006, “Analysis of Critical Website Characteristics: A Cross-Category Study of Successful Website”, Journal of Computer Information Systems, vol. 46, no. 2, pp. 14-24.

Tarafdar, M. & Zhang, J. 2008, “Determinants of Reach and Loyalty: A Study of Website Performance and Implications for Website Design”, Journal of Computer Information Systems, vol. 48, no. 2, pp. 16-24.

The Nielson Company 2010, “Global Trends in Online Shopping; A Nielsen Global Consumer Report” [online], Available: http://hk.nielsen.com/documents/Q12010OnlineShoppingTrendsReport.pdf [Accessed 15 Jan 2012].

Ticehurst, G. W. & Veal, A. J. 2000, Questionnaires Surveys, Business Research Methods: A Managerial Approach, Pearson Education, Frenchs Forest, New South Wales.

Turban, E., King, D., Mckay, J., Marshall, P., Lee, J. & Viehland, D. 2010, Electronic Commerce 2010, A Managerial Perspective, Pearson Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

Udo, G. J. & Marquis, G. P. 2002, “Factors Affecting E-commerce Website Effectiveness”, Journal of Computer Information Systems, vol. 42, no.2, pp. 10-16.

Wang, Y. S. 2008, “Assessing E-commerce Systems Success: A Respecification and Validation of the DeLone & McLean Model of IS success”, Information Systems Journal, vol. 18, no. 5, pp. 529-557.


yStats.com 2012, “Asia B2C E-commerce Report 2011” [online], Available: http://ystats.com/en/reports/preview.php?reportId=883 [Accessed 4 Apr 2012].

Zikmund, W.G. 2003, Business Research Methods, 7th edn., South-Western Cengage Learning, Sydney.

Zikmund, W. G., Babin, B. J., Carr, J. C. & Griffin, M. 2013, Business Research Methods, 9th edn., South-Western Cengage Learning, Sydney.


“Brand is just a perception and perception will match reality over time.”

– Elon Musk

31 Challenges of Inclusion of ERP in B-school Curriculum

Challenges of Inclusion of ERP in B-school Curriculum: The B-Schools Students’ Perspectives

AbstractEnterprise Resource Planning (ERP) has become a strategic tool to facilitate

business performance and efficiency across the globe. India, as an emerging Asian economic power, has also witnessed large scale integration of business processes through ERP implementation and has immensely benefitted from such initiatives. However, up until now, very few Indian b-schools have conducted ERP training for business management students. Thus, ERP as a learnable discipline within regular business management curriculum remains a distant dream in most b-schools across India. The present research attempts to understand the dilemma of the students pursuing business management education in selected b-schools of Bengaluru, the national capital and also a popular hub of business management education in India. A random sample of 660 students from six premier business schools of Bengaluru was surveyed using a structured questionnaire. The responses were analysed through standard statistical processes and hypotheses testing. The result indicated a lack of knowledge about the course content of ERP among students, though the significance of ERP for career facilitation was widely accepted.

Keywords: Challenges of inclusion of ERP, B-school curriculum, Students’ perspectives, 660 students, Bengaluru

Dr. Indranil BoseDean-School of Business

Western International College-University of Bolton

Dr. Subho ChattopadhyayAssociate Professor

Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management and Technology


Introduction

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) facilitates corporate strategy formulation, by incorporating all resources of the enterprise into an automated and integrated system. An ERP system encompasses every department of an organisation, including HRM, marketing and administration, production, operations and finance. The system enables an organisation to assemble relevant data into a single data store (Olson, 2003). Several companies offer hosted or ‘cloud’ ERP systems, enabling companies to manage and reduce otherwise huge technical costs. Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS), Business Intelligence (BI) and Supply Chain management are add-on services. ERP makers are now also providing Customer Relationship Management and Product Life Cycle Management (PLM) tools in the software. Different business schools in India, including many located in Bengaluru have employed ERP as a course in the curriculum in order to train students for the future. They have deployed specially trained IT professionals to communicate and teach the key perspectives of ERP. However, in spite of such effort, few B-schools in Bengaluru are teaching ERP courses.

Review of Literature

A study on Canadian manufacturing organisations (Helena, 2005), found that since mid and late 1990s, there has been a growing interest in implementing ERP systems, particularly to help organisations cope with the pressure created by the presence of competitors, fulfilling all requirements of the business process at a faster speed, integration between different units, and the standardisation of organisational practices across different functional areas. The study found that the implementation of ERP systems varied considerably across the range of organisations surveyed, depending mainly on the unique and distinctive operation processes of each organisation. Another study by Dong-Gil Ko, et al. (2005) highlighted that in Korea, the main objectives of the implementation of Enterprise Resource Planning systems were improving customer services, replacement of the legacy systems, execution of ethical business practices, along with standardisation of business processes, and the availability of accurate and authentic information through a centralized database. Another study on thirty major engineering and automobile component manufacturing organisations located across the European Union demonstrated that the replacement of any damaged part could be


shipped in three days, and its part inventory could be priced in five minutes, compared with the traditional system where a damaged part replacement took twenty-two days and the pricing of the inventory required five days (Brady et. al., 2006).

Studies on Enterprise Resource Planning systems typically focused on two main issues, the degree of adoption of ERP systems by the business schools and institutions, and the efficiency of the teaching faculty of these business schools to run this course in their curriculum. In a study on the advanced management education system in UK, researchers found that most of the b-schools showed high levels of scepticism in adopting the ERP as the part of their curriculum. The same study showed that only twenty-three percent (23%) of the private business schools in London taught ERP as a part of their regular curriculum, despite acknowledgment of the growing importance of the same (Bradford et al., 2003). An Indian study on ninety-four (94) private business schools in central and western part of India revealed that most of the institutions were still at the stage of researching the what, how and why of incorporating ERP systems into their curriculum. Another research study found that many b-schools were also in a dilemma about the investment and return on investment from the incorporation of ERP in the course curriculum (Vijayaraman and Chandra, 2003). Other studies have indicated that the reasons behind the low penetration of ERP incorporation in B-school course across the globe included difficulty to adapt to the fast changing ‘life cycle of ERP implementation’ (Davis,1989), the lack of trained faculty and educators (MacKinnon, 2004), and the challenges of ERP curriculum (Corbitt and Mensching, 2000, and Joseph and George, 2004.

Research Objectives

Bengaluru is the information technology (IT) capital of India. It is also emerging as an important centre of business education, with many universities and institutes offering regular and executive programmes on business management. As of December 2012, 24,000 students from different parts on India studied in post graduate and under graduate programmes in different universities, colleges and institutes in Delhi. However, very few of these educational institutions have formally introduced ERP in their course curriculum (Rai, 2013).


The present research therefore intends:• To realise the dilemma while introducing ERP in the business school

curriculum, from the students’ perspectives.• To suggest some recommendations to solve the issues.• To evaluate the students’ perception of the significance of ERP as the facilitator

of their career.

Hypothesis Formulation

Based on the above research objectives, the following hypotheses have been framed.

1. The majority of the B-school students are aware of the importance of ERP as a career facilitating tool.

2. The majority of the B-School students accept that ERP should be added in their regular business curriculum in the early semesters.

3. The majority of the B-School students accept that ERP is an easier course in comparison to other courses.

4. The majority of the B-School students accept that ERP in general is difficult to understand.

5. The majority of the B-School students are fully aware of the content of the ERP course content

6. The majority of the B-School students prefer the inclusion of ERP at the late semesters of the course.

7. The majority of the B-School students believe that the teaching style should be the same for ERP as for the traditional courses

8. The majority of the B-School students believe that sufficient information on ERP is available on internet.

9. The majority of the B-School students believe that sufficient printed materials on ERP are available.

10. The majority of the students believe that ERP is practically applicable in business.



Quantitative and descriptive research techniques were adopted in the present study. Responses were received through a structured questionnaire, comprising of ten questions on 5 points Likert scale on the pertinent areas of research. The issues addressed in the questionnaire were chosen from different available literature including the significance of ERP as a career facilitating tool (Peterson et al., 2008), adding ERP in the course curriculum (Raghunatham, 2009), comparison of ERP with other courses of management in terms of learning (Bradrick, 2009), ERP as a skill to understand (Randiff, 2009), student awareness about the content of the course (Rao, 2010) etc. After the questionnaire was prepared, the Cronbach’s Alpha Coefficient value was calculated on the responses received from a small aggregate sample of 57 respondents. The alpha coefficient value of 0.83 indicated a high level of reliability of the questionnaire. The questionnaire was then administered on a random sample of 660 students pursuing post graduate programmes in management in six major B-schools from Bengaluru. Based on the responses received, the data were analysed for testing of the hypotheses formulated for the present study.

Data Analysis and Results

From the responses received, it was found that 375 students out of 660 students did not join the ERP programme, accounting for 56.81% of the total respondents covered in the present study. It was also found that 85 respondents indicated “strongly agreed” and “agreed” on the importance of ERP as a career facilitating tool. This indicated that the total number of 170 students were aware of the importance of ERP as a career enhancement qualification, making up only 25.75% of the total respondents covered in the study. The result also indicated the mean score of 2.49, clearly showing a low awareness of the significance of the same among the respondents (Table 1). Hence the first hypothesis pertaining to the awareness of students about the importance of ERP as career enhancement tool was rejected (Table 2).

On the issue of whether ERP should be added to the regular business curriculum, almost the same patterns in response were observed. 86 respondents indicated “strongly agreed” and 85 respondents “agreed” on the issue. Thus only 171 respondents


expressed positive opinions out of 660 respondents (25.90%). The result also indicated the mean score of 2.69 (Table 1) showing a low acceptance level of the issue. The second hypothesis on the introduction of ERP as B-school curriculum at the earlier semesters was rejected (Table 2) .

On the issue of acceptance of ERP as an easier subject to learn comparing to other subjects, 202 respondents out of 285 respondents, who have attended the ERP training as the part of their course curriculum (70.87%) chose “not agreed” on the issue, indicating that the majority of the respondents still believed that ERP was not an easy area to learn in comparison to other areas of management. The mean score of the response pattern on the issue was 2.01 (Table 1) and the third hypothesis was also rejected (Table 2).

It was observed that 160 respondents out of 285 respondents (56.14%) (Table 1), who attended training on ERP, indicated “agreed” and “strongly agreed” indicating that ERP was really difficult to understand. The mean score of 3.30 also showed that the fourth hypothesis pertaining to difficulty of understanding ERP was accepted (Table 2).

On the question on the awareness of the content of the course of ERP, 365 respondents indicated they were not aware about the content of the course, making up almost 55.30% of total respondents covered in the study. The mean score was 2.51 (Table 1), and the fifth hypothesis pertaining to awareness of the respondents was rejected (Table 2).

76.36% of the respondents indicated “agreed” on the issue of adding the ERP curriculum in the late semesters of the course. The mean value of 3.93 (Table 1) led to the sixth hypothesis being accepted (Table 2).

On the issue of the teaching style of ERP courses, it was found that only 73 (11.06%) respondents out of 660 agreed that the teaching style of ERP should be same as any other subject. The mean score of 2.45 (Table 1) led to the rejection of the hypothesis (hypothesis seven) on the issue (Table 2).

Regarding the issue of the availability of sufficient online material on ERP, 70.15% of respondents indicated “agreed” and “strongly agreed” on the issue. The mean score


of 4.31 of the response pattern (Table 1) also indicated a positive opinion on the issue, leading to the acceptance of the eighth hypothesis (Table 2).

However, on the issue of availability of printed material, an opposite trend was observed in the response pattern. Here, 74.54% of the respondents expressed a negative opinion on the issue, as reflected in the mean score of 2.29 (Table 1). The ninth hypothesis on the sufficient availability of printed books was therefore rejected (Table 2).

On the final issue, i.e., the applicability of ERP in business, 376 (56.96% ) of the students out of 660 students expressed positive opinions (Table1). This was supported by the high mean score of 3.13, and hence the tenth hypothesis was accepted (Table 2).

Table 1: Distribution of Response PatternIssues covered Strongly

agreeAgree Neutral Disagree Strongly

DisagreeTotal

respondentsMean Score

ERP is a significant career facilitator

85 85 10 372 108 660 2.49

ERP should be introduced to business curriculum in the earlier semesters

86 85 09 372 108 660 2.69

ERP is as easy as other subjects of Business curriculum

48 154 27 82 64 375 2.01

ERP is really difficult to understand

78 85 8 68 46 285 3.30

Business students are fully aware of the content of ERP course

146 130 19 246 119 660 2.51

ERP should be added in later semesters

329 175 13 67 76 660 3.93

Teaching style of ERP should be same as any other subject

39 34 18 107 77 275 2.45

Learning material on ERP is sufficiently available on internet

235 228 8 102 87 660 4.31

Printed learning material on ERP is sufficiently available

83 68 17 287 205 660 2.29

ERP is applicable in business

201 175 12 142 130 660 3.13


Table 2: Results of Hypotheses TestingSerial No. Statement of Hypothesis Accepted/Rejected

1 Majority of the B-school students are aware of importance of ERP as a career facilitating tool.

Rejected

2 Majority of the B-School students accept that ERP should be added in their regular business curriculum in the early semesters.

Rejected

3 Majority of the B-School students accept that ERP is an easier course in comparison to other courses.

Rejected

4 Majority of the B-School students accept that ERP in general is difficult to understand.

Accepted

5 Majority of the B-School students are fully aware of the content of the ERP course content.

Rejected

6 Majority of the B-School students prefer inclusion of ERP at the late semesters of the course.

Accepted

7 Majority of the B-School students believe that teaching style should be same for ERP like the traditional courses

Rejected

8 Majority of the B-School students believe that sufficient information on ERP is available on internet.

Accepted

9 Majority of the B-School students believe that sufficient printed materials on ERP are available.

Rejected

10 Majority of the students believe that ERP is practically applicable in business.

Accepted

Key Findings and Recommendations

Based on the results of analysis of the response patterns (Refer Table 1) and subsequent results on hypotheses testing, it was found that there was a serious lack of understanding of the relevance of ERP as a career tool, even though the majority of the students were aware of the practicality of the same in business. This clearly indicated a vacuum in student perception in understanding the benefit and enhancement of their professional life by learning ERP in a business school. We summarise the following key findings and recommendations arising out of the research:

• The majority of the students surveyed were not interested to pursue an ERP curriculum alongside their business curriculum in the early semesters of their programme. It was also found that the majority of the student respondents have accepted that ERP curriculum was difficult to understand; and that the


available print materials were not up to the level of expectation. Therefore, it was recommended that the course on ERP be introduced at the later semesters, and that printed study materials and books be arranged before introduction of the course as much as possible and teaching aspects such as an experienced faculty with a clear idea of delivering sessions on ERP must be found and deployed for the purpose.

• It was also found that majority of the respondents were not even aware of the detailed content of ERP as well, though as a subject itself and in comparison with other subjects, ERP had been identified as a difficult one. The issue can be resolved through the recruitment of specialised faculty with the understanding of the teaching skills for the specific subject and the relevant experience. There should also be more printed materials available and an increase in practical learning on the issue.

Limitations of Research The researcher acknowledges some of the research limitations.

• The present study was restricted to only 660 respondents of selected b-schools. A more detailed picture might have been captured by extending the study to a larger sampling size.

• The study could have been more comprehensive by making a comparison between the students of different specialisations and semesters.

• The study could have been made more comprehensive by adding further demographic dimensions and comparison between genders, age groups, experience profile etc.

• Further research may be done on aspects such as the life cycle issues of ERP and the need for adaptability with continuous learning and the perception of ERP as a functional tool rather than a managerial skill could have made the study more comprehensive.


Conclusion

The research indicated that the introduction of ERP remained a distant dream in most of the b-schools in India. This was due to lack of understanding of the significance, content and availability of printed materials at b-schools. Furthermore, the lack of properly trained faculty members to deliver the sessions effectively remained a major factor behind limited progress on the issue.

References

Bradford, G; Murrar, K and Davidson, J (2003), ERP in curriculum in vocational education in UK: Challenges and opportunities, International Journal of Education and Training, Vol.19 (4), pp.46-78.

Bradrick, J. (2009), Understanding learning dilemma with ERP training: a case study, Journal of Educational Technology, Vol.11 (2), pp.23-34.

Brady, I; Branditt K and Anderson, G. (2006), Strategic ramification through technology transformation, Journal of Technology, Vol.4 (2), pp.40-52.

Corbitt, K. and Mensching, N. (2000), Experiential learning theory and practice: play ground management, Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol.6 (6), pp.35-49.

Davis, R. (1989), Learning life cycle and technology training challenges, Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 14 (2), pp.90-112.

Dong-Gil Ko., K; Richard, S; Suki-Ho. (2005), Technology as a tool of organizational transformation: empirical study on Korean organizations, International Journal of Management Research, Vol.6 (5), pp.78-102.

Helena, B. (2005), Business technology in action: an macro-economic study, International Journal of Marketing and Operations, Vol.18 (4), pp.79-92.


Joseph, P. and George, D. (2004), Education and educator : Science of delivery in technology learning, Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol.26 (3), pp.34-50.

MacKinnon, K. (2004), Challenges of learning and technology learning in new era, International Journal of Education and Learning, Vol.20 (1), pp.60-78.

Olson, T. (2003), ERP and integration of data driven business decisions, Journal of Information Technology and Engineering, Vol.6 (1), pp.26-39.

Peterson, R.; David, L and Brayen, K. (2008), Study on training technology in embedded platforms in the globalised business era, Journal of Business and Technology, Vol. 5 (1), pp.78-99.

Raghunatham, V. (2009), Can Indian B-School adopt to technology, Journal of Business and Technology, Vol. 8 (1), pp.19-34.

Rai, S. (2013), ERP a possibility or bane? A study on Indian education scenario, Indian Journal of Business and Education, Vol.7 (2), pp.40-54.

Randiff, J.(2009), Does ERP serves managers’ responsibilities in contemporary business, Journal of Technology, Vol.14 (5), pp.30-46.

Rao, K.L. (2010), Introduction to technology education for skilled professionals, Vidarva Publications, Vadodara, 3rd Edition, pp.30-32.

Vijayaraman, L. and Chandra, S. (2003), Educational leadership issues in contemporary professional education in India, Journal of Leadership and Business, Vol.3 (2), pp.20-36.

42 Entrepreneurship Research: Motivation and Management Innovation

“Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.”

– Warren Bennis


Entrepreneurship Research: Motivation and Management Innovation

AbstractThis research looked at the relationship between the motivation and management

innovation of Chinese start-up entrepreneurs, here referring to entrepreneurs at the start-up stage of their business and business deals. Recent research suggested that motivation played an important role in entrepreneurial behavior and success (Baum, Locke & Smith, 2000; Stewart & Roth, 2001). The motivation content of entrepreneurs influenced their decision to start a business (Virgnia&Carlos, 2012). Julian and Michael (2008) defined management innovation as the invention and implementation of a new management practice, process, structure, or technique that was new to the state of the art and was intended to further organisational goals. Post-positivist approaches were adopted in this study. Questionnaires were distributed to more than 400 Chinese start-up entrepreneurs and one hundred fifty-two valid responses were received and analysed. Multiple regression analysis was used to analyze the correlation between entrepreneurial motivation and management innovation. Results found that there was a statistically significant relationship between these two concepts.

Keywords: Entrepreneurship, Start-up entrepreneur, Motivation, Management innovation

Dr. Chen Sheng (Ph.D, MBA, MSc)Lecturer,


Poon Yu Zhen Felicia (MSc, MBPsS)Lecturer,



Introduction

Variations among people in their willingness and ability to act were found to have an important effect on the entrepreneurial process (Shane et al., 2003). The various types of motivation from entrepreneurs influenced their decision to start a business (Virgnia & Carlos, 2012). However, there was a huge gap in understanding motivation and management innovation. Thus the focus of this research was to find out about the relationship between these two concepts. Researchers predicted there would be a relationship between the two concepts which would increase the success rate of the entrepreneurships.

Literature Review a. Entrepreneurial motivation

In many new enterprises, entrepreneurial motivations were the driving force encouraging people who have entrepreneurial abilities and conditions to start a business (Olson & Bosserman, 1984). Shane et al. (2003) agreed to a certain extent that human motivations may influence entrepreneurship. Alan and Malin (2011) argued that entrepreneurial motivations were important explanatory mechanisms for a variety of entrepreneurial behaviors. This supported a relationship with success in achieving the goal. (Kusurkar et al, 2011).

There were a variety of different types of entrepreneurial motivation and these motivations varied even among start-up entrepreneurs. Researchers aspired to classify the types of entrepreneurial motivations through analysing the results and discussion from previous literature. Based on qualitative and quantitative analyses, Shane and colleagues (2003) classified motivation into two parts - the general and the task-specific. They divided these two parts into eight motivational factors: the need for achievement, locus of control, vision, desire for independence, passion, drive, goal setting and self-efficacy. Gilad and Levine (1986) pointed out two closely-related explanations of entrepreneurial motivation, the “push” theory and the “pull” theory. The “push” theory referred to the pursuit of wealth acquisition while the “pull” theory referred to career aspirations. Ashley-Cotleur et al. (2009) divided motivation into two dimensions based on different reasons or goals that resulted in a behaviour being


acted out: extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivations. Extrinsic motivation referred to doing an action leading to a separable outcome (e.g., wealth), while intrinsic motivation referred to doing something because it was inherently interesting or enjoyable - typically implementing value and growth (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Financial compensation was an extrinsic reward motivation that can motivate innovations (Amabile, 1998) and start-up entrepreneurs with extrinsic motivation tended to pursue money and wealth. Intrinsic motivations included fun and enjoyment in working in a challenging and innovative task, because people felt passionate about the behaviour (Chen & Francesco, 2003).

Based on research exploring entrepreneurial motivation, Kuratko and Naffziger (1997) classified four types of entrepreneurial motivations:

1. Extrinsic reward: Focusing on form of money or shares.2. Intrinsic reward: Focusing on internal needs and achievement.3. Need for independence / autonomy: Being bosses and having the freedom to make

decisions.4. Need for family security: Providing protection for themselves and their families through their entrepreneurial ventures.

Robichaud and Roger (2001) refined Kuratko (1997)’s scale by adding in new descriptors, including ‘close to home’, ‘protection after retirement’, and ‘improving the quality of life’. They pointed out that an important source of entrepreneurial motivation depended on the setting of targets that influenced the entrepreneur’s behaviour and thus indirectly addressed the success of their enterprises through ownership of a business enterprise. Robichaud and Roger (2001) believed start-up entrepreneurs sought goals through business ownership. Entrepreneurial motivation determined the start-up entrepreneur behavior patterns and success of business. Currently, the measurement model of motivation and improved model of motivation proposed by Kuratko and Naffziger’s theory (1997) and Robichaud and Roger’s (2001) respectively carried out very broad and representative studies about types of entrepreneurial motivation.

This study used four dimensions based on Robichaud and Roger’s (2001) theory: extrinsic reward, independent/autonomous, intrinsic reward, family security. The various motivational types were summarised as given below:


Table 1: Summary of Entrepreneurial Motivation TypeKuratko and Naffziger

(1994), Robichaud and Roger

(2001)

Extrinsic rewardIndependent / autonomous

Intrinsic rewardFamily security

Ashley-Cotleur et al. (2009) Extrinsic motives Intrinsic motives

Gilad and Levine (1986) Push theory Pull theory

Feng et al. (2004) Wealth preferences Career preferences

Caliendo and Kritikos (2009)

Necessity Opportunity Opportunity Necessity

Gu qiao (2005) Economical type Community type

Li and Chang (2008) Enterprises trading profits

Enterprises development and growth

Wang, Walker and Redmond (2006)

Financial motivations

Flexible lifestyle motivation

Personal Development motivations

Motivation related to work and family

Kirkwood (2009) Monetary gain Desire to be independent

Relates to issues around career

Family-related factors

Source: research summary

The above table summary of entrepreneurial motivation indicated the major perspectives adopted by researchers regarding that form of motivation. After further research and analysis, the researcher decided that the types of motivations proposed by Robichaud and Roger (2001) in his improved model were consistent with other researchers in this table.


Table 2: Dimensions and Variables of MotivationDimension Variable (Item)

Extrinsic reward EM01: To increase my income

EM02: To acquire personal wealth

EM03: To increase profits and sales

EM04: To improve the quality of life

Independence/Autonomy

INDM01: To maintain my personal freedom

INDM02: Personal Security

INDM03: Self-employment

INDM04: To be my own boss

INDM05: Autonomous decision-making

Intrinsic reward INTM01: To gain public recognition

INTM02: To meet the challenge

INTM03: For my own satisfaction and growth

INTM04: Social acceptance

INTM05: To prove I can do it

Family Security FM01: To provide jobs to family members

FM02: To build a business to pass on

FM03: Retirement and protection

FM04: To be closer to my family

Source: According to Robichaud and Roger (2001) Toward the development of a measuring instrument for entrepreneurial motivation. Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship

Based on the above analysis, the researcher adopted the following rational

classifications of entrepreneurial motivation types:

1. First dimension The first type of motivation was based on a preference of wealth. Demand would

push start-up entrepreneurs to chase wealth and income. Scholars also called them “Necessity”; “Economical type”; “Financial motivation”; “Enterprise trading profit” and “Poverty-driven”(Caliendo & Kritikos, 2009; Gu, 2008; Walker, 2006; Zhang, 2004; Li & Chang, 2008). Extrinsic reward was appropriate to describe their attribution which had been found to be an important motivational factor for entrepreneurship. However, based on previous research regarding the reason people needed to work,


money was found to be an important factor in the motivation of entrepreneurship (Lofstrom, 2002). Extrinsic reward highlighted a financial incentive to become self-employed.

2. Second dimension The second type of entrepreneurial motivation was the pursuit of independence.

Personal freedom, self-employment and autonomy in making decisions were special features to this type of motivation. Caliendo & Kritikos (2009) highlighted these kinds of start-up entrepreneurs as “Opportunity entrepreneurs”; Wang, Walker and Redmond (2006) also called them “Flexible lifestyle” and Kirkwood thought the desire to be independent was the reason for their entrepreneurship. Independence and autonomy were seen as the primary motivating factors in becoming a start-up entrepreneur (Hamilton et al., 1987/1988).

3. Third dimension Start-up entrepreneurs had a higher need for intrinsic rewards as compared to the

general population. Intrinsic rewards may facilitate start-up entrepreneurs towards innovative behavior in a specific way. This type of motivation was related to a desire to engage in challenging tasks, and was highlighted extensively in previous research on motivation (Buttner & Moore, 1997; Marlow, 1997). Start-up entrepreneurs who possessed high levels of self-efficacy and self-fulfillment were drawn to set up new businesses.

4. Fourth dimension The fourth type of motivation was family security. Family security was seen to

be the most important motivation for start-up entrepreneurs. (Shane, Kolvereid & Westhead, 1991; Still & Soutar, 2001). Many researchers focused on the nature of the family like birth order and social class of family (Belcourt, 1987). This factor was important in family owned businesses. (Aldrich & Cliff, 2003). Their motivations often focused on securing a future for family members and building a family business to pass on to the next generation.

b. Management InnovationInnovation was important to value creation. It had an enormous effect on a firm’s

survival and success (Damonpour, 1991; Dougherty & Hardy, 1996; Nohria & Gulati,


1996). Drucker (1985) and Schumpeter (1934) pointed out that innovation had a profound influence on entrepreneurship such that it affected the success or failure of a new enterprise. Innovation involved carrying out new combinations of production and included the following five cases: the introduction of new goods, the introduction of a new method of production, the opening of a new market, the conquest of a new source of supply of raw materials and set-up of a new organisation in any industry.

Management innovation had been widely adopted, but its influence on organisational performance had not been well-researched. (Richard et al., 2010). Birkinshaw, Hamel and Mow (2008) defined management innovation as the invention and implementation of a new management practice, process, structure, or technique that was new to the state of the art and was intended to further organisational goals. Management innovation was viewed as an overarching concept with multiple subsets of innovation strategies. Rui (1994) saw “management innovation” as encompassing five dimensions: idea innovation, structure innovation, style innovation, partner innovation and system innovation. Li (2004) further refined the taxonomy and classified management innovation into four types, described as follows:

1. Idea innovation was a thought process which included innovation of a developmental idea, strategy innovation and innovation of the method of production and management services. Synek (2011) saw idea innovations as playing a considerable role in the success of innovations.

2. Structure innovation was a form of innovation relating to the resetting of organisations, departments, adjustment of status and responsibilities and sector relationships.

3. System innovation referred to internal management system of innovation, which included management tools, workflow, specific management system innovation.

4. Style innovation referred to management innovation, which included specific management methods for resources and innovation of leadership style.

Rui (1998) and Li (2004) classified the type of management innovations based on normal entrepreneurs. However, in the fields of start-up entrepreneurs, according to Chen (2014)’s classification of start-up entrepreneurs about types of management innovation, system innovation had much more in common with structure innovation


as shown in survey results as compared to start-up entrepreneurs. The factor behaviors of two dimensions were very similar. Structure innovation would lead to common features with system innovation in this term. For example: Adjusting departments built up new management systems and used new management structures. New systems adapted new structures in the enterprise. Their relationships were consistent. Management innovations were classified into three categories: as idea innovation, structure innovation and style innovation.

Research Model

This research investigated how entrepreneurial motivations influenced management innovation. The different types of motivations were operationalised as independent variables with management innovation being operationalised as the dependent variable. Researchers explored the correlation between independent variables and dependent variables in the following diagram.

Figure 1: Basic Model in Study


Having generalised the previous descriptions of all dimensions, the researcher was able to further elaborate on the following figure.

EntrepreneurialMotivation

(Independent variable)

ManagementInnovation

(Dependent variables)


Figure 2: Further Research Model in Study


Research Hypotheses

From the estimated analysis above, the researcher postulated positive and negative correlations between terms:

Hypothesis 1:There is a negative correlation between extrinsic reward and idea innovation.

Hypothesis 2:There is a negative correlation between extrinsic reward and structure innovation.

Hypothesis 3:There is a negative correlation between extrinsic reward and style innovation.

Hypothesis 4:There is a positive correlation between independence/autonomy and idea innovation.

Entrepreneurial Motivation

Managem

ent Innovation

Extrinsic rewardIdea Innovation

Extrinsic reward

Structure Innovation

Family Security

Style Innovation

Independence/ Autonomy


Hypothesis 5:There is a positive correlation between independence/autonomy and structure innovation.

Hypothesis 6:There is a positive correlation between independence/autonomy and style innovation.

Hypothesis 7:There is a positive correlation between intrinsic reward and idea innovation.

Hypothesis 8:There is a positive correlation between intrinsic reward and structure innovation.

Hypothesis 9:There is a positive correlation between intrinsic reward and style innovation.

Hypothesis 10:There is a negative correlation between family security and idea innovation.

Hypothesis 11:There is a negative correlation between family security and structure innovation.

Hypothesis 12:There is a negative correlation between family security and style innovation.

Methodology

The research deployed a mixed method research design. Firstly, the researcher summarised the concepts and classified the research topics through literature reviews. The researcher then proposed the estimated hypothesis based on literature review. Secondly, the researcher investigated the samples and validated the hypothesis through the quantitative approach. Thirdly, the researcher analysed the cases and in-depth interviews to re-validate the hypothesis. Finally, researcher discussed and


analysed the results and gave suggestions for future studies. This study investigated the relationship between motivation and management innovation through surveys and interviews. In real-life contexts, only prominent entrepreneurships went through innovative behaviours, such as competition, which may lead to good performance. The following diagram summarises the stages of research process:

Figure 3: Figure of Research Processing

Source: Research summary

This research was informed by a post-positivistic framework supporting methodological pluralism, and reflecting a deterministic philosophy in which causes probably determined effects or outcomes (Creswell, 2006). This was expressed in the use of both qualitative and quantitative approaches to generate reliable and valid data used in the analysis on how entrepreneurial motivations influenced the management innovation.

Primary Analysis in Literature Review

(Qualitative analysis)

Hypothesis

Survey and Interview

Conclusion

Statistical Analysis andVerify Hypothesis

(Quantitative Analysis)


Implementation of Research

The researcher conducted a linear regression analysis based on 152 effective questionnaires to test the correlation between each motivation factor (independent variable) and management innovation (dependent variable). This was followed by a multiple regression analysis on the collected data utilising SPSS.

An absolute value of the correlation coefficient equal to or greater than 0.8 indicated that the two variables were highly correlated. An absolute value of correlation coefficient 0.4 to 0.8 meant that the correlation was modest (Wu, 2008).An absolute value of the correlation coefficient less than or equal to 0.4, represented a low correlation.

1. Multiple regression analysis based on extrinsic reward and idea innovation

Table 3

Table 4

Correlations

1.000 -.191 -.169 -.166 -.089-.191 1.000 .621 .668 .575-.169 .621 1.000 .584 .422-.166 .668 .584 1.000 .603-.089 .575 .422 .603 1.000

. .009 .019 .021 .137.009 . .000 .000 .000.019 .000 . .000 .000.021 .000 .000 . .000.137 .000 .000 .000 .152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152

AVEINN11EM01EM02EM03EM04AVEINN11EM01EM02EM03EM04AVEINN11EM01EM02EM03EM04

Pearson Correlation

Sig. (1-tailed)

N

AVEINN11 EM01 EM02 EM03 EM04

Model Summary

.209a .044 .018 .93886 .044 1.683 4 147 .157Model1

R R SquareAdjustedR Square

Std. Error ofthe Estimate

R SquareChange F Change df1 df2 Sig. F Change

Change Statistics

Predictors: (Constant), EM04, EM02, EM03, EM01a.


Hypothesis 1: At p > 0.05, there is no significant correlation between extrinsic rewards and idea innovation. The hypothesis “H0” (no obvious difference between the two variables) is not rejected. Hypothesis 1 is not accepted.

2. Multiple regression analysis based on extrinsic reward and structure innovation

Table 5

Table 6

Hypothesis 2: There is significant correlation between extrinsic reward and structure innovation where p < 0.05. The hypothesis “H0” (no obvious difference between the two variables) is rejected. According to correlation analysis, there is negative correlation between two dimensions. R=-0.545 means that there is a negative correlation between extrinsic reward and structure innovation, and 27.8% of variance is explained by structure innovation. Hypothesis 2 is accepted.

Correlations

1.000 -.479 -.408 -.447 -.456-.479 1.000 .621 .668 .575-.408 .621 1.000 .584 .422-.447 .668 .584 1.000 .603-.456 .575 .422 .603 1.000

. .000 .000 .000 .000.000 . .000 .000 .000.000 .000 . .000 .000.000 .000 .000 . .000.000 .000 .000 .000 .152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152


Pearson Correlation

Sig. (1-tailed)

N


Model Summary

.545a .297 .278 1.05412 .297 15.516 4 147 .000Model1




Change Statistics



3. Multiple regression analysis based on extrinsic reward and style innovation

Table 7

Table 8

Hypothesis 3: At P<0.05, shows that there is significant correlation between extrinsic reward and style innovation. The hypothesis “H0” that there is no obvious difference between the two variables is rejected. According to correlation analysis, there is negative correlation between two dimensions. R=-0.493 means that there is a negative correlation between extrinsic reward motivation and style innovation, and 22.3% of variance is explained by style innovation. Hypothesis 3 is accepted.

Correlations

1.000 -.422 -.384 -.379 -.420-.422 1.000 .621 .668 .575-.384 .621 1.000 .584 .422-.379 .668 .584 1.000 .603-.420 .575 .422 .603 1.000

. .000 .000 .000 .000.000 . .000 .000 .000.000 .000 . .000 .000.000 .000 .000 . .000.000 .000 .000 .000 .152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152


Pearson Correlation

Sig. (1-tailed)

N


Model Summary

.493a .243 .223 1.19476 .243 11.820 4 147 .000Model1




Change Statistics



4. Multiple regression analysis based on independence/autonomy and idea innovation

Table 9

Table 10

Hypothesis 4: At P>0.05, shows that there is no significant correlation between independence /autonomy and idea innovation. The hypothesis “H0” that there is no obvious difference between the two variables is not rejected. Hypothesis 4 is not accepted.

Correlations

1.000 .024 .023 .121 -.023 -.016.024 1.000 .473 .556 .483 .451.023 .473 1.000 .486 .338 .368.121 .556 .486 1.000 .532 .451

-.023 .483 .338 .532 1.000 .434-.016 .451 .368 .451 .434 1.000

. .387 .390 .068 .389 .421.387 . .000 .000 .000 .000.390 .000 . .000 .000 .000.068 .000 .000 . .000 .000.389 .000 .000 .000 . .000.421 .000 .000 .000 .000 .152 152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152 152

AVEINN11INDM01INDM02INDM03INDM04INDM05AVEINN11INDM01INDM02INDM03INDM04INDM05AVEINN11INDM01INDM02INDM03INDM04INDM05

Pearson Correlation

Sig. (1-tailed)

N

AVEINN11 INDM01 INDM02 INDM03 INDM04 INDM05

Model Summary

.170a .029 -.004 .94935 .029 .870 5 146 .503Model1




Change Statistics

Predictors: (Constant), INDM05, INDM02, INDM04, INDM01, INDM03a.


5. Multiple regression analysis based on independence /autonomy and structure innovation

Table 11

Table 12

Hypothesis 5: At p > 0.05, shows that there is no significant correlation between independence /autonomy motivation and structure innovation. The hypothesis “H0” that there is no obvious difference between the two variables is not rejected. Hypothesis 5 is not accepted.

Correlations

1.000 .041 -.115 .030 .062 -.054.041 1.000 .473 .556 .483 .451

-.115 .473 1.000 .486 .338 .368.030 .556 .486 1.000 .532 .451.062 .483 .338 .532 1.000 .434

-.054 .451 .368 .451 .434 1.000. .309 .079 .355 .223 .253

.309 . .000 .000 .000 .000

.079 .000 . .000 .000 .000

.355 .000 .000 . .000 .000

.223 .000 .000 .000 . .000

.253 .000 .000 .000 .000 .152 152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152 152


Pearson Correlation

Sig. (1-tailed)

N


Model Summary

.194a .038 .005 1.23747 .038 1.140 5 146 .342Model1




Change Statistics



6. Multiple regression analysis based on independence /autonomy and style innovation

Table 13

Table 14

Hypothesis 6: At p>0.05, shows that there is no significant correlation between independence /autonomy and style innovation. The hypothesis “H0” that there is no obvious difference between the two variables is not rejected. Hypothesis 6 is not accepted.

Correlations

1.000 .044 -.099 .022 .008 .020.044 1.000 .473 .556 .483 .451

-.099 .473 1.000 .486 .338 .368.022 .556 .486 1.000 .532 .451.008 .483 .338 .532 1.000 .434.020 .451 .368 .451 .434 1.000

. .294 .112 .396 .463 .405.294 . .000 .000 .000 .000.112 .000 . .000 .000 .000.396 .000 .000 . .000 .000.463 .000 .000 .000 . .000.405 .000 .000 .000 .000 .152 152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152 152


Pearson Correlation

Sig. (1-tailed)

N


Model Summary

.150a .023 -.011 1.36254 .023 .676 5 146 .642Model1




Change Statistics



7. Multiple regression analysis based on intrinsic reward and idea innovation

Table 15

Table 16

Hypothesis 7: At p <0.05, shows that there is significant positive correlation between intrinsic reward and idea innovation. The hypothesis “H0” that there is no obvious difference between the two variables is rejected. R=0.293 means that there is a positive correlation between intrinsic reward motivation and idea innovation, and 5.4% of variance is explained by idea innovation. Hypothesis 7 is accepted.

Correlations

1.000 .162 .211 .275 .159 .184.162 1.000 .609 .544 .535 .538.211 .609 1.000 .529 .435 .427.275 .544 .529 1.000 .460 .468.159 .535 .435 .460 1.000 .441.184 .538 .427 .468 .441 1.000

. .023 .005 .000 .025 .011.023 . .000 .000 .000 .000.005 .000 . .000 .000 .000.000 .000 .000 . .000 .000.025 .000 .000 .000 . .000.011 .000 .000 .000 .000 .152 152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152 152

AVEINN11INTM01INTM02INTM03INTM04INTM05AVEINN11INTM01INTM02INTM03INTM04INTM05AVEINN11INTM01INTM02INTM03INTM04INTM05

Pearson Correlation

Sig. (1-tailed)

N

AVEINN11 INTM01 INTM02 INTM03 INTM04 INTM05

Model Summary

.293a .086 .054 .92126 .086 2.732 5 146 .022Model1




Change Statistics

Predictors: (Constant), INTM05, INTM02, INTM04, INTM03, INTM01a.


8. Multiple regression analysis based on intrinsic reward and structure innovation

Table 17

Table 18

Hypothesis 8: At p < 0.05, shows that there is significant correlation between intrinsic reward and structure innovation. The hypothesis “H0” that there is no obvious difference between the two variables is rejected. According to correlation analysis, there is positive correlation between two dimensions. R=0.662 means that there is a positive correlation between intrinsic reward and structure innovation, and 41.9% of variance is explained by structure innovation. Hypothesis 8 is accepted.

Correlations

1.000 .563 .502 .521 .504 .462.563 1.000 .609 .544 .535 .538.502 .609 1.000 .529 .435 .427.521 .544 .529 1.000 .460 .468.504 .535 .435 .460 1.000 .441.462 .538 .427 .468 .441 1.000

. .000 .000 .000 .000 .000.000 . .000 .000 .000 .000.000 .000 . .000 .000 .000.000 .000 .000 . .000 .000.000 .000 .000 .000 . .000.000 .000 .000 .000 .000 .152 152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152 152


Pearson Correlation

Sig. (1-tailed)

N


Model Summary

.662a .438 .419 .94579 .438 22.740 5 146 .000Model1




Change Statistics



9. Multiple regression analysis based on intrinsic reward and style innovation

Table 19

Table 20

Hypothesis 9: At p < 0.05, shows that there is significant correlation between intrinsic reward and style innovation. The hypothesis “H0” that there is no obvious difference between the two variables is rejected. According to correlation analysis, there is positive correlation between two dimensions. R=0.568 means that there is a positive correlation between intrinsic reward and style innovation, and 29.9% of variance is explained by style innovation. Hypothesis 9 is accepted.

Correlations

1.000 .495 .386 .454 .384 .439.495 1.000 .609 .544 .535 .538.386 .609 1.000 .529 .435 .427.454 .544 .529 1.000 .460 .468.384 .535 .435 .460 1.000 .441.439 .538 .427 .468 .441 1.000

. .000 .000 .000 .000 .000.000 . .000 .000 .000 .000.000 .000 . .000 .000 .000.000 .000 .000 . .000 .000.000 .000 .000 .000 . .000.000 .000 .000 .000 .000 .152 152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152 152


Pearson Correlation

Sig. (1-tailed)

N


Model Summary

.568a .323 .299 1.13441 .323 13.900 5 146 .000Model1




Change Statistics



10. Multiple regression analysis based on family security and idea innovation

Table 21

Table 22

Hypothesis 10: At P <0.05, shows that there is significant correlation between family security and idea innovation. The hypothesis “H0” that there is no obvious difference between the two variables is rejected. According to correlation analysis, there is negative correlation between two dimensions. R=-0.366 means that there is a negative correlation between family security and idea innovation, and 11.1% of variance is explained by idea innovation. Hypothesis 10 is accepted.

Correlations

1.000 -.459 -.516 -.528 -.506-.459 1.000 .615 .511 .363-.516 .615 1.000 .726 .478-.528 .511 .726 1.000 .566-.506 .363 .478 .566 1.000

. .000 .000 .000 .000.000 . .000 .000 .000.000 .000 . .000 .000.000 .000 .000 . .000.000 .000 .000 .000 .152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152

AVEINN01FM01FM02FM03FM04AVEINN01FM01FM02FM03FM04AVEINN01FM01FM02FM03FM04

Pearson Correlation

Sig. (1-tailed)

N

AVEINN01 FM01 FM02 FM03 FM04

Model Summary

.366a .134 .111 .89338 .134 5.696 4 147 .000Model1




Change Statistics

Predictors: (Constant), FM04, FM01, FM03, FM02a.


11. Multiple regression analysis based on family security and structure innovation

Table 23

Table 24

Hypothesis 11: At p <0.05, shows that there is significant correlation between family security and structure innovation. The hypothesis “H0” that there is no obvious difference between the two variables is rejected. According to correlation analysis, there is negative correlation between two dimensions. R=-0.48 means that there is a negative correlation between family security and structure innovation, and 20.9% of variance is explained by structure innovation. Hypothesis 11 is accepted.

Correlations

1.000 .432 .462 .432 .304.432 1.000 .615 .511 .363.462 .615 1.000 .726 .478.432 .511 .726 1.000 .566.304 .363 .478 .566 1.000

. .000 .000 .000 .000.000 . .000 .000 .000.000 .000 . .000 .000.000 .000 .000 . .000.000 .000 .000 .000 .152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152


Pearson Correlation

Sig. (1-tailed)

N


Model Summary

.480a .230 .209 1.10288 .230 10.996 4 147 .000Model1




Change Statistics



12. Multiple regression analysis based on family and style innovation

Table 25

Table 26

Hypothesis 12: At P <0.05, shows that there is significant correlation between family security and style innovation. The hypothesis “H0” that there is no obvious difference between the two variables is rejected. According to correlation analysis, there is negative correlation between two dimensions. R=-0.387 means that there is a negative correlation between family security and style innovation, and 12.6% of variance is explained by style innovation. Hypothesis 12 is accepted.

According to the discussions and analyses above, the relations among the factors were clear. A summary of the 12 hypotheses is given below, with indications whether to accept the propositions in this dissertation.

Correlations

1.000 -.223 -.284 -.222 -.328-.223 1.000 .615 .511 .363-.284 .615 1.000 .726 .478-.222 .511 .726 1.000 .566-.328 .363 .478 .566 1.000

. .003 .000 .003 .000.003 . .000 .000 .000.000 .000 . .000 .000.003 .000 .000 . .000.000 .000 .000 .000 .152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152152 152 152 152 152


Pearson Correlation

Sig. (1-tailed)

N


Model Summary

.387a .150 .126 1.26669 .150 6.461 4 147 .000Model1




Change Statistics



Table 27: Conclusion of HypothesisHypothesis number Description ConclusionHypothesis 1 There is a negative correlation between extrinsic reward and idea

innovationNot Accepted

Hypothesis 2 There is a negative correlation between extrinsic reward and structure innovation

Accepted

Hypothesis 3 There is a negative correlation between extrinsic reward and style innovation

Accepted

Hypothesis 4 There is a positive correlation between independence /autonomy and idea innovation

Not Accepted

Hypothesis 5 There is a positive correlation between independence /autonomy and structure innovation

Not Accepted

Hypothesis 6 There is a positive correlation between independence /autonomy and style innovation

Not Accepted

Hypothesis 7 There is a positive correlation between intrinsic reward and idea innovation

Accepted

Hypothesis 8 There is a positive correlation between intrinsic reward and structure innovation

Accepted

Hypothesis 9 There is a positive correlation between intrinsic reward and style innovation

Accepted

Hypothesis 10 There is a negative correlation between family security and idea innovation

Accepted

Hypothesis 11 There is a negative correlation between family security and structure innovation

Accepted

Hypothesis 12 There is a negative correlation between family security and style innovation

Accepted

Conclusions and Limitations of Research

Start-up entrepreneurs possessed different kinds of motivations to build up their businesses. According to the research results, different types of motivations influenced different features in management innovations. The results clarified and highlighted certain insights into the nature of the relationship between motivation and management innovation. The research concluded that intrinsic reward was positively correlated with idea innovation, style innovation and structure innovation, while extrinsic reward had a negative correlation with structure innovation and style innovation. Meanwhile, family security had a negative correlation with idea innovation, style innovation and structure innovation. Through regression analysis, the researchers did not find any relationship between independence /autonomy and innovations. In conclusion, this meant that different motivations influenced different types of innovation to varying degrees.


We arrived at the following conclusions from this study:

1. Start-up entrepreneurs who were motivated by extrinsic rewards were driven to pursue money and wealth. They thought the level of innovation closely related with the risks they faced. They disliked huge changes for their enterprise. Their business fields were dispersed and as such it was easy to change the status in order to avoid risks. They often did not have mature ideas to develop to their business. They did not think management innovation was important in raising their income level and wealth. Many of them were afraid that management innovation would result in lost income and earnings.

2. Start-up entrepreneurs who possessed independency/autonomy traits tended to desire personal freedom and they did not want to be constrained. They wanted to control their own career development and make self-decisions. The researcher did not discover any relationship between this type and management innovation. As a conclusion, the samples of independence/autonomy motivation were dispersive and irregular. There were no relationships between this motivation and other factors. It showed this form of motivation and innovation were not closely related to entrepreneurship.

3. Start-up entrepreneurs who possessed intrinsic reward tended to pursue non-physical needs, like rights control, honor and a sense of accomplishment. Their entrepreneurial motivation was not to pursue money, wealth and family security. They generally regarded social recognition, personal growth and thinking of career as responsibility. They thought entrepreneurship risks were the norm. More risks meant more opportunities. They usually tended to get involved in the operational aspects of their business. They tended to desire technology and competition. They often used management innovation to reform the idea, structure and style in enterprise teams, believing that these would improve the level of management.

4. Start-up entrepreneurs who preferred family security tended to pursue measures which would create good family conditions. Their original motivations to set up entrepreneurship would stem from family needs. The first task would be to deploy the wealth for their families. Caring about the future of their families and members was very important to them. Their mutual goal was to maintain and improve their family. It showed family security was normally familiar to extrinsic reward. They did not like to reform their management, thinking that much emphasis on professional management


practices in a family enterprise would create a feeling of heartlessness, against the expectations of the family members who joined the business to obtain a steady job and stable salary.

The biggest limitation of this study would be the complicated and diverse

entrepreneurial environment. Other than motivation, a plethora of external environmental factors might also affect management innovation. These included the trends of economic development, national policies, business conditions, regional differences and conditions of competitive market. This study only focused on motivation and management innovation. Further research may look into how external environmental factors could influence management innovation, and its impact.

ReferencesCarsrud, A. & Brännback, M. 2011. Entrepreneurial Motivations: What Do We Still Need to Know? Journal of Small Business Management 49(1), pp. 9-26.

Aldrich, H. E., & Zimmer, C. 1986. Entrepreneurship through social networks. The art and science of entrepreneurship. Ballinger, New York, 3-23.

Amabile, T.M., 1998. How to kill creativity: Keep doing what you’re doing. Or, if you want to spark innovation, rethink how you motivate, reward, and assign work to people. Harvard Business Review (September-October), 77-87.

Ashley-Cotleur, C., King, S. & Solomon G. 2009. Parental and Gender Influences on Entrepreneurial Intentions, Motivations and Attitudes. From <http: //usasbe.org/ knowledge> (Retrieved February 27, 2009).

Belcourt, M. 1987. The family incubator model of female entrepreneurship. Journal of small business and entrepreneurship, 5(3), 34-44.

Bhidé, A., 2000. The Origin and Evolution of New Businesses. Oxford University Press, New York, NY.


Carter, N., Gartner, W., Reynolds, P., 1996. Exploring start-up event sequences. Journal of Business Venturing 11, 151–166.

Chen Sheng 2014, Relationship between Motivation and Innovation Behavior of Chinese Start-up Entrepreneurs, PhD dissertation in Strategy, Program & Project Management, Skema Business School.

Damonpour F. 1991, Organizational innovation: a meta-analysis of effects of determinants and moderators, Academy of Management Journal, 34 (3), 555–90.

Dougherty, D. and C. Hardy 1996, Sustained product innovation in large, mature organizations: overcoming innovation-to-organization problems, Academy of Management Journal, 39, 1120–54.

Drucker, P. F. 1985. Innovation and Entrepreneurship. New York: Harper & Row.

Feng Jinlu. & Yi Gong. & Li Yuan & Liu Xinmin. 2004, Different types of entrepreneurs ‘innovative research on the behavior selection . Foreign economics and management. (12): 69.

Gilad, B. and Levine, P. 1986, A behavioral model of entrepreneurial supply, Journal of Small Business Management 4, 45-53.

Gu Qiao. 2005, Construction and analysis of theoretical model of motivation, Scientific and technological progress and strategies. (12). pp. 36.

Hamilton, R. T. 1987. Motivations and aspiration: igniting the entrepreneurial spirit: is the role parents play gendered of business founders. International Small Business Journal, 6 (1), 70-78.

Birkinshaw, J. Hamel, G. & Michael J. Management Innovation, Academy of Management Review2008, Vol. 33, No. 4, 825–845.

Kirkwood, J. 2009. Motivational factors in a push-pull theory of entrepreneurship. Gender in Management: An International Journal, 24(5), 346-364.


Kuratko, D. F., Hornsby, J. S., & Naffziger, D. W. 1997. An examination of owner’s goals in sustaining entrepreneurship. Journal of Small Business Management, 35(1), 24-34.

Kusurkar, R. A., Ten, T. J., van Asperen, M., & Croiset, G. 2011. Motivation as an independent and a dependent variable in medical education: A review of the literature. Medical Teacher, 33, e242–e262.

Li Yan 2004 , Management Innovation Organized Learning Method (Chinese version) Fu Dan University doctoral dissertation.

Magnus Lofstrom, (2002). Labor market assimilation and the self-employment decision of immigrant entrepreneurs, Journal of Population Economics, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 83-114.

Caliendo, M. & Kritikos, A.S. 2009, “I Want to, But I Also Need to: Start-Ups Resulting from Opportunity and Necessity, IZA DP No. 4661.

Nohria, N. and R. Gulati (1996), Is slack good or bad for innovation? Academy of Management Journal, 39 (5), 1245–64.

Olson P D, Bosserman D A.(1984). Attributes of the Entrepreneurial Type.Business Horizons, (6):53-56.

Walker, R.M. , Damanpour, F. & Devece, C.A.. 2010.Management Innovation and Organizational Performance: The Mediating Effect of Performance Management” J Public Adm Res Theory, 18 Aug.

Robichaud ,Y.,Egbeit, M. and Roger,. A. 2001. Toward the development of a measuring instrument for entrepreneurial motivation . Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship.

Rui Mingjie. 1994, Management Innovation (Chinese version), Yiwen Publisher. Shang Hai, IBSN: 7-5327-1994-

Ryan, R. and Deci, E., 2000. Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivations: Classic Definitions and New Directions. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 25, 54-67.


Schumpeter, J. 1934. The Theory of Economic Development. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Shane, S., Kolvereid, L., & Westhead, P. 1991. An exploratory examination of the reasons leading to new firm formation across country and gender. Journal of Business Venturing, 6(6), 431-446.

Shane, S., Locke, E.A. & Collins, C.J. 2003. Entrepreneurial motivation. Human Resource Management Review, 13, pp. 257-279.

Still, L. V., & Soutar, G. N. 2001. Generational and gender differences in the start-up goals and later satisfaction of small business proprietors. Paper presented at the Australia and New Zealand Academy of Management (ANZAM), Auckland, New Zealand.

Virginia Barba., & Carlos Atienza. 2012. Entrepreneurial behavior: Impact of motivation factors on decision to create a new venture., (AEDEM) 12 May.

Wang, C., Walker, E. A., & Redmond, J. 2006. Ownership motivation and strategic planning in small business. Journal of Asia Entrepreneurship and Sustainability, 2(4), 1-27.

Chen X.N. & Francesco A.M. 2003, The relationship between the three components of commitment and employee performance in china, Journal of Vocational Behaviour, 62 (3), pp. 490–510.

Zhang, X. 2004. Entrepreneurs. Management Science, 2004(12), pp. 17-19.

Zhu, Y. 2004. How to determine the motivation and implementation of business plans. Pioneering design.: 26-27.

Crafting Conformity at Work: Traversing Ethically for Workspace Transformation72

“People talk of the new economy and of reinventing themselves in the workplace, and in that sense most of us are less secure.”

– Daniel Kahneman


Crafting Conformity at Work: Traversing Ethically for Workspace Transformation

Abstract

Dr. Manodip Ray ChaudhuriAssociate Professor Amity University Kolkata

Dr. Ankita Chakravarty BhattacharyaDirector

Amity University Kolkata

The world today has emerged as a global village. Activities, interventions and benchmarks are no longer confined within the premises of a single corporation or within the political and geographical limits of a nation. Business houses endeavor to build a ‘High Performance Work System’. The undertone of high performance culture in the workplace revolves around recreating the self or the individual towards the philosophy and practice of an ethical concord within the employee fraternity at work. The authors highlight the essence of ethics and ethical practices towards harmonisation of business interventions. This is dealt in relation to organisational improvement, rejuvenation and business process survival. The focus of the paper is to elucidate the nomenclature and rationale of workplace ethics; identify values and ethics in relation to business strategy; understand the essentials in drafting an ethical culture in organisations and the underlying leadership demeanor necessary within corporations; the notion of ethical dilemmas, its identification and choice; and the aspect of corporate dilemma over ethical moves in the light of utility, rights and justice. The paper concludes with references to the deontological and teleological approaches of maneuvering workspaces ethically in the context of a dynamic world of business, coupled with a real life case on workplace ethics.

Keywords: ethics, values, workplace, workspace, utility, justice, transformation, business, corporate, enterprise, deontological, teleological


Introduction

To do or not to do; how to do it; is this the correct way of doing it; is this the just and most appropriate way of doing it – these are the many questions that often run through our minds when we are plagued with decision-making at life’s junctures. The much talked-about critical guiding force in this connection is ethics; an understanding that reflects within individuals, between individuals, within groups, between groups and broadly within business and society. Ethics is a concept of right and wrong behaviour, and defines our actions as moral or immoral. The application of ethics in business creates the notion of business ethics and business ethical behaviour. Ethical behaviour in business is also associated with profitability, harmonious business relationships, better employee productivity with reduction in criminal penalties, protection of business against unprincipled and dodgy employees and associations, protection of employees from harmful and immoral employees and drive towards fostering greater good to people and society at large.

Nomenclature of Business Ethics – What is and What is not

Organisations are often prone to moral debates, which are deliberate and require time to reflect. Business ethics is the art of applying ethical principles and norms to identify, examine and solve complex moral problems and dilemmas at work. The application of business ethics has long standing implications on businesses that are positive and genuinely growth-oriented. Business ethics is the reason, and value-based logic, sense and judgment that governs the conduct of business along its innumerable mundane transactions within the workspace. Careful thought is needed to arrive at an effective marriage between ethical principles and situational pretext to rightly arrive at positive results in business with righteousness, uprightness and decency. In the fundamental sense, business ethics is an enabling factor to reach to a trade-off between a company’s economic objectives and social obligations pertaining to the region or place where it operates, to the people from whom it achieves its economic motives and to the broader environment from where it depletes resources for its use. Ethics in businesses is rather a balance between the subterfuge, the hoax, the swindle on the


one hand and the propriety, the aptness and the just on the other (Ray Chaudhuri & Naskar, 2015).

Along with knowing what constitutes the notion of ethics and business-oriented ethical applications, it is imperative to rightly understand, comprehend and recognise what essentially does not fall under the gamut of ethics as a subject matter of business application. Ethics is different from religion. Religion is a set of an individual’s fundamental pre-conceived beliefs and may not always be an applicable tool to confront and manipulate workplace dilemmas, hassle and annoyances. Ethics is not synonymous with law. It may be the case that a good legal system incorporates ethical standards, but there are ample examples of instances where the law can be seen to deviate from what is ethical. Legal systems and prototypes vary from society to society and there may not be a real-life convergence everywhere with ethical standpoints in all situations and contexts. Ethical issues are different from cultural orientations as well. One follows culture and cultural customs depending on the demands of a place, area or a circumstance. This can be understood from the English saying that when in Rome, one needs to be as a Roman. Now, being a Roman here may not be along the lines of ethics, so to say, in many situations. Furthermore, ethics is different from feelings. It is not necessary that all individuals would feel bad with an unethical move. A little boy in school may feel bad when he steals an eraser from his classmate, but a wagon breaker may be quite cheerful and contented in his ardent mission which is grossly unethical. Ethics is not merely a collection of values. Values often tend to be undefined or under-defined. Contexts create values and situations govern value-systems, which all may be inherently either logical or illogical by nature and may often be subject to flaws of human systems and orientations in vogue. Ethics, on the contrary, are instruments that may recreate value-systems on the path of righteousness, rectitude and morality (Guest, 2001).


Figure 1: Elucidation of the Nomenclature of Business Ethics

Values, Ethics and Business Strategy

Value is a view of life and judgment of what should be and what is desirable. It helps to identify what appears to be pleasant and sought-after and what is in tune with decency, graciousness and courtesy. In business contexts, it refers to the alleyway to employee welfare. Every business house has its own value-systems, generally upheld by the entrepreneur and founder of the business, which are further carried forward by the top team of the business, with an eye to effective percolation all along the organisational hierarchical system. Business values operate as a means for achieving business goals, intentions, motives and aspirations.

Business leaders have a lot to contribute to foster values within the workspace by way of imbibing ethical actions within business strategy. Value systems can paint an ethical business premise when the business leader improvises his moves in line with ethical standpoints of integrity, impartiality, responsiveness, accountability, honesty and transparency. The common roots of unethical behaviour are when employees fail to balance work and family, fall prey to inconsistent leadership moves, experience poor or incoherent internal communication, sense a lack of management support towards

Conception of Business Ethics

WHAT ETHICS ISPositive in trait

Growth-oriented in natureReference to situational pretexts

Business uprightnessWorkplace decencySocial obligations

Long-standing moral implications Balance between swindle and aptness

WHAT ETHICS IS NOTDifferent from religion

Not in tune with law in all casesDeviation from legal prototypes

Variation from cultural traitsDifferent from feelings

Not a collection of valuesNot a cluster of value-systems

Free from flaws of human systems


their personal and self enhancement and when there is a gross demand for fulfilling unrealistic goals and objectives (Bates, 2002).

The call of the hour in most business houses of the day revolves around drafting a workplace with a constructive and beneficial unification of business ethics and business strategy. A strategic path of business can be created with an ethical undertone by drafting positive interventions to protect its employee-friendly identity and to protect the interests of the business stakeholders as a whole. It includes keeping its commitment to society, meeting stakeholder expectations, preventing harm to the general population at large, building on the element of trust in the key stakeholder groups, protecting its own competitive edge in front of misleading competitors, using reason in planning and implementation, and creating an environment that is consistent, value-driven and humane in the real sense of the term (Budhwar, 1996).

Observance of ethics is evident across modern organisations looking up to competitive superiority and survival in the long run. Multi-national houses like: Nike, Coca Cola, IBM and the like and Indian organisations like: ICICI, TISCO, Infosys, Dr. Reddy’s Lab, ONGC, etc. are looking into value-oriented strategic steps in the name of ‘socially responsible’ mandates. These go a long way in creating human capital who show commitment, assurance, pledge and promise. All of which in turn, provides a competitive edge and drives business process survival in the ever-dynamic business environment. The thrust element all along is that the performance and profitability for any business concern has a lot to do with its own drives and ethical mandates, commands and directives that it holds in store for its employees at large. An ethical business strategy will allow for employeesto uphold its own cause of perpetual and uninterrupted functioning in the face of crisis, emergencies, challenges and environmental defiance.


Figure 2: Ethics and Values in Business Strategy

Ethical Culture and Leadership Demeanour in Organisations

It has been observed in many instances that in the path of creating ethical organisations, the problem is not with corporations, but with people who run them and are accountable for the transactions within. The question is “whether I am running my business or ruining it in reality”. Managers and leaders should therefore continuously monitor and ensure that the business workspace is not devoid of an ethical conscience. One can well recall business leaders like J. R. D. Tata and N. R. Narayana Murthy who built ethical organisations even under adverse circumstances as they fostered and advanced their beliefs in ethics and justice in situations they encountered. Their idea was to generate a positive culture with all its commitments and bindings (Ray Chaudhuri, Kettunen & Naskar, 2015).

Pride and Ferrell (2014) defines corporate culture as a set of values, beliefs, goals and norms that are apparent within the actions and motives of organisational members. A truly value-driven ethical culture would be humanistic and philanthropic. A benevolent approach, coupled with a humanitarian touch, ensures observance of morality and, in

ACTING WITH HONESTY AND INTEGRITYPROVIDING ACCURATE, TIMELY, COMPLETE, RELEVANT INFORMATION

PROTECTING CONFIDENTIALITY INFORMATION AND ACTIONSHAVE A HUMANE APPROACH IN CONTROL AND COORDINATION

ALLOW FOR SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE MANDATESMEETING STAKEHOLDER EXPECTATIONS

BUILDING TRUST IN KEY STAKEHOLDER GROUPSUSING REASON IN PLANNING AND IMPLEMENTATION

ALLOWING FOR CONSISTENCY IN BEHAVIOR AND INTERACTIONS

ETHICS AND VALUE-DRIVEN STRATEGY FOR BUSINESS ENHANCEMENT


turn, rightly creates the steps leading to business process enhancement, augmentation and development.

Notwithstanding the fact that employees are internal customers of an enterprise, modern day businesses now increasingly harp on outlining organic structures at work as oppose to mechanistic business lay-outs and typical functional organograms. Culture is what one follows, carries out and nurtures within its own system and operational modes. Today’s leaders create leaders and not followers within a system. A leader today is thus key in generating a culture conducive to growth and enhancement of employees and employee groups in the true sense of the term (Resick, et al, 2009; Ray Chaudhuri & Naskar, 2014).

It often remains a matter of debate as to what can leaders actually do in order to generate and engender ethics in the workplace within their daily moves and actions. Literature and key organisational reviews in management context reveal the following – leaders themselves should have and follow formal codes of conduct; they should allow the formation of ethics committees in the workplace as whistle-blowers within the system. They should disallow any and every form of ethical infraction by employees; and build an ethical communication system. Generally, they should try to display a human touch in interventions and actions; and make employees and the work system conscious of ethical issues. They should further allow for ethical training programmes and similar interventions if necessary from time to time, be impartial, be a friend, philosopher and guide with employees wherever and whenever possible, and have an overall demeanor which portrays an amicable persona and deportment in interactions, motives and expressions (Lepak & Snell, 2002).

Wipro has perhaps been the first Indian organisation to articulate a set of values and beliefs to guide business conduct in line with business ethics. The organisation boasts of an ‘Integrity Manual’ that is a compilation of key ‘Wipro Values’. The organisation has created the Wipro Helpline’ comprising of senior management who act as guides in situations of moral, ethical or legal dilemmas that any Wiproite may encounter. The key ethical standpoints that Wipro professes are its respect for human values, respect for unique needs for customers and employees, deliver with integrity, commitment, honesty, fairness, reliability and uprightness, allow for innovations, focus on quality and speed with care for employees as well, and a continuous drive to be the employer-brand.


Creating a conducive workplace culture with an eye for business ethics can help a leader to achieve his goals and objectives using the human factor effectively at work. The ignition in workplace culture should not be under the employees, but should be within them for setting the stage for right and precise ethical observance. Leadership and culture should go hand-in-hand to be a significant pull factor and not a trivial push factor to generate true workplace spirits in day-to-day actions and interventions.

Figure 3: Leadership Demeanour towards an Ethical Culture in Business

Ethical Dilemmas – Identifications and Choice in Work Settings

An ethical dilemma is a moral situation where a choice has to be made between two equally undesirable alternatives at hand. A business dilemma in work settings appears when an individual encounters a choice between two or more available options having considerable impact on profitability, competitiveness and business process survival. What is most crucial here is how and in what manner the concerned individual ultimately identifies the choice-set and decides upon it. A person’s intentions, perception, judgment and promptness are the driving factors in such a decision making situation. The most crucial phenomenon here is of making a choice which should not be abrupt, illogical, morally wrong or ethically incorrect in judgment. Wisdom,

LEADERSHIP DEMEANOUR AND ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE

Ethical ConscienceHumanistic and Philanthrophic

Create Organic Structures and SystemsBuild and Practice Formal Codes of Conduct

Set up Ethics CommitteesDisallow Ethical Infraction

Display Human TouchAct as Friend, Philosopher and Guide

Amicable Deportment and PersonaCreate a Positive Ignition within Employees


experience, emotional quotient, ethical understanding and appropriate behavioral projections are imperative in this situation of choice, as are the situational constraints in the immediate contextual environment at hand (Ray Chaudhuri, 2013). A systematic pattern of acting upon ethical dilemma is given in Figure 4.

Figure 4: Ethical Dilemma and Moral Choice

Corporate Dilemma over Ethical Behaviour – Playing with Utility, Rights and Justice

Most executives and managers constantly face a calamitous and dire dilemma between ethical action and business process survival. Practicing ethics in all walks of organisational life may be a big challenge for any institutional head who is consistently and constantly striving to meet deadlines and complicated assignments at work. As many put it, “Between right and wrong, there is a troublesome grey area.” Others say that leaders often experience situations in which their professional responsibilities

Ethical Dilemma in Practice

CHOICE

EITHER

WHAT IS MORALLY RIGHT

WHAT IS MORALLY WRONG

CONSTRAINTS AND LIMITATIONS

OR

Results in a good outcome yielding better and acceptable effects OR

Results in a bad outcome yielding poor and unacceptable effects


unexpectedly come into conflict with their deepest sense of values and ethics. Often managers find themselves in situations where there seems to be a lack of any clear linkage between business ethics and financial success in an enterprise. There are examples of cases where unethical and unprincipled, dishonest and corrupt managers and business persons seem to flourish, enjoying the fruits of others’ labour while many others, in spite of being scrupulously honest and ethical, fail in their businesses (Richardson & Thompson, 1999).

Marrying ethics with business activities generally reap long term benefits as against short term booms and ultimately goes a long way in creating a congenial, amiable and affable team culture with high spirits at work. This ultimately pushes the enterprise towards growth, expansion, augmentation and intensification of jobs and operations in the workspace.

The ethics of corporate life rest on the principles of utility, rights and justice. Utility refers to how much the enterprise is of help and useful to all stakeholders; suppliers, employees and customers at large. Rights speak of whether the enterprise adheres to and advocates the practice of human respect and dignity at work. Respect is a shared phenomenon. To earn it, one needs to give it through. Providing and maintaining dignity for employees is a treasured key for all business managers. The correct application of an amiable behavioral projection that shows human dignity in words and actions not only eases out workspace obstacles for the business leader but also becomes a positive step forward in creating a band of trustworthy followers who will remain supportive even in times of strain and stress (Rogg, et al, 2001).

Yet another building block for organisational augmentation is the notion of the practice of justice at work. Justice implies righteousness, evenhandedness, rectitude and impartiality. It seeks to distribute the benefits and burdens at work among all concerned. Justice is affirmative and is essential for crafting workplace conformity in the long run, being a driving force in creating organisations of tomorrow (Murphey & Southey, 2003).


Figure 5: Utility, Rights and Justice in Ethics

Ethics and Business Transformation – The Deontological and Teleological Way

All business houses seek to build a ‘High Performance Work System’ that will create finesse and excellence for long term growth and sustenance of the organisation. A high performance culture in the workplace revolves around recreating the self or the individual towards the philosophy and practice of an ethical concord within the employee fraternity at work. Two approaches to business ethics are often referred to: deontological and teleological approaches. (Murphey & Southey, 2003; Ray Chaudhuri, 2005).

A deontological approach to workspace ethics is action-oriented. It assumes that a rational and free person would always perform optimally. The fundamental belief here is that given a culture of flexibility, empathy, compromise, concession, negotiation and litheness, employees show vigor, enthusiasm and responsibility in taking care of what they are entrusted with.

The teleological approach to ethical dilemma revolves around the practice of result-oriented actions. The focus is on generating results without hurting people working for

UTILITY

ENTERPRISE AUGMENTS TO SURVIVAL AND SUSTENANCEMANAGER GROWS AND DEVELOPS AS A REAL LEADER

RIGHTS JUSTICE

USEFULNESS OF THE ENTERPRISE TO THE

ENTREPRENEUR, EMPLOYEES AND

SOCIETY

HUMAN RESPECT, DIGNITY, REVERENCE,

VENERATION, ADORATION AND FELLOW-FEELING

EVENHANDEDNESS, FAIRNESS, FAIR-

MINDEDNESS, REC-TITUDE, INTEGRITY

AND EQUALITY


the same. The idea here is to reward the practice of the ‘right’ and to dis-incentivise the practice of the ‘wrong’.

Ethics for Workspace Transformation - Story of Tata Steel

Quite an old industry, Tata Steel, has its existence in India since 1907. The fact that this organisation has survived for so long, while others have floundered, is proof of its commitment, dedication and obligation to provide the best to people in terms of justice and ethics. There is no different way in which an organisation can successfully survive for this long a time. The organisation puts a lot of emphasis on ethical behaviour at work, an active orientation towards corporate social responsibility and introduction and practice of safety measures. In 2013, Tata Steel was recognised as one of the most ethical organisations. The fundamental belief, within the organisation, is that business and ethics go hand in hand. To make its presence felt in the business environment, an organisation must focus on quality through ethics; this is what Tata Steel envisages; and it is quality that is the ultimate game-changer towards the long term stabilisation of a business.

Ethical behaviour is inherent in the way Tata Steel conducts business and it is a key component of the Group’s legacy from the founder, Sri Jamsetji Tata. His belief was that a business must operate in a way that respects, compliments and greets the rights of all its stakeholders and creates an overall advantage for society.

Best Practices on Corporate Ethics of Tata Steel

Tata Steel believes in adopting the best practices in terms of corporate governance and business ethics, characterised by complete transparency and accountability.

Business Ethics and The Tata Code Of ConductThe values and principles, which have governed Tata Steel’s business for over a

century, have been deployed through the implementation of the Tata Code of Conduct, TCOC, often referred to as the ‘Code’. TCOC was first formally articulated and


officially spelt out in 1998. It was intended to serve as a guide to each employee on the values, ethics and business principles expected of him in his personal and professional conduct. The Tata Code of Conduct has been reviewed and appropriately modified from time to time, especially in response to its growing global footprint. This ensures that diverse cultural and business related issues are addressed universally across Tata Group. The Code continues to serve as the ethical roadmap for all Tata companies and a pre-requisite for service for suppliers, contractors and vendors, who must agree to it, abide by and respect it.

Human RightsTata Steel Group has earned a reputation as a fair, just, unbiased and caring

employer, who respects all human rights both within and outside the workplace. The Tata Code of Conduct stipulates that all employees have a personal responsibility and accountability to help preserve the human rights of everyone at work and this practice extends to the wider community as well.

Responsible ProcurementTata Steel is at the forefront of the steel industry’s efforts to formulate best practice

in the area of responsible procurement of raw materials for production purposes.

Tata Steel – The Employer of Choice

Tata Steel has always been a pioneering, revolutionary, tolerant, open-minded and enlightened employer. The enterprise takes substantial sense of pride and honor in being the employer of choice to many employees. In several instances, appreciation for Tata Steel has cascaded down to four generations of the same family.

Core Philosophy. Tata Steel strongly believes in the primacy of the human factor in an enterprise. People, and the talent they bring to an enterprise, contribute to its competitiveness. Thus, across the Tata Steel Group, there is equality of opportunity, continuing personal development, fairness, mutual trust and teamwork. The principles that underpin the Tata Group core values include integrity, understanding, excellence, unity and responsibility.

Talent Acquisition and Talent Retention. The Tata Steel Group believes that being


the best possible employer helps it to recruit and retain the best employees with the most coveted knowledge, skills, abilities and attitudes for business excellence. Tata Steel values and appreciates dedicated and skilled employees within the workspace. It further holds on to the premise that, in order to deliver world-class service to its customers and to maintain its competitive advantage through cutting edge research, the best talent needs to be retained and motivated to put out their best efforts. Talent retention, according to Tata Steel, is the best way of earning employee loyalty in the long run. Providing employees with opportunities for development and progression, competitive compensation and benefits schemes, scope for initiative, innovation, teamwork and leadership are some of the essential means to gain competitive advantage in the real sense of the term.

Nurturing Talent. Tata Steel invests heavily in manpower development, and is constantly looking into the improvement of its managerial and technical capabilities through internal development and training of its employees across Europe, India and South East Asia. The focus of its developmental activities is to engage employees across all levels and to develop their capabilities through training and development initiatives.

Open Communication. Clear, honest, relevant, two-way communication between management and employees at all levels are intrinsic and very fundamental to the culture of the Tata Steel Group. Communication is facilitated through careful planning and management in the enterprise and revolves around openness, mutual trust and transparency.

Conclusion

Crafting conformity at work by way of traversing the ethical way demands continuous, meticulous and sincere efforts. This paper explores the various underlying facets and dogmas on the subject. It seeks to delineate a clear understanding of how and in what way business transformation can be guided along the avenue of workplace ethics and ethical moves. The charter of application of ethics for business development acts as a whistle-blower. The manager and the entrepreneur is guided in identifying reason and rationality in business process growth and deceleration and can act upon a day-to-day stream of possible and proposed actions, benefits, harms within the work system to ensure the consideration of utility, rights and justice in real terms.


Organisations, beyond being mere enterprises, is home to many employees who toil their days away to promote its growth and sustenance. The marriage of ethics with a spirit of empathy, poise, and assurance, coupled with a touch of human dignity, can build an empire out of a mole-hill. Traversing the ethical way therefore is a call for crafting conformity at work towards enterprise transformation in the real sense of the term.

Notes and References

The authors would like to state that all the figures and diagrammatic elucidations in the paper are the results of their own study and research work and are not replicated from any academic source what-so-ever. Both authors hold their copyright on them. The authors dedicate this academic work to their respective sons.

Agarwala, T. 2003 “Innovative Human Resource Practices and Organizational Commitment: An Empirical Investigation”, International Journal of Human Resource Management, 14(2): pp.175-197.

Armstrong, M. 2003 Handbook of Strategic Human Resource Management”, New Delhi: Crest Publishing House.

Bates, S. 2002 Facing the Future, HR Magazine, 47(7): pp. 26-32.

Bhatnagar, J. and Sharma, A. 2003 Strategic HR Roles in India: A Rhetoric or Reality?, Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, 38(4): pp. 409-424.

Boselic, P, Paauwe, J and Jansen, P. 2001 Human Resource Management and Performance: Lessons from the Netherlands, International Journal of Human Resource Management, 12(7): pp. 1107-1125.

Budhwar, P. S. 1996 Developments in Human Resource Management: An Analytical Review of the American and British Models, Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, 31(3): pp. 307-329.


CIPD Impact Report 2005 Why HR must seek to become a Business Partner?, Impact 10, London: CIPD.

Drucker, P. M. 1980 Managing in Turbulent Times, New York: Harper & Row.

Guest, D. E. 2001 Human Resource Management: When Reality Confronts Theory, International Journal of Human Resource Management, 7(12): pp. 1092-106.

Hamel, G and Prahalad, C. K. 1993 Strategy as Stretch and Leverage, Harvard Business Review, 71(2): pp. 75-84.

Lepak, D. P and Snell, S. A. 2002 Examining the Human Resource Management Architecture: The relationship among Human Capital, Employment and Human Resource Configurations, Journal of Management, 28(4): pp. 517-543.

Monappa, A. 1997 Managing Human Resources, New Delhi: Macmillan India Ltd.

Murphy, G. D. and Southey, G. 2003 High Performance Work Practices: Perceived Determinants of Adoption and the Role of the HR Practitioner, Personnel Review, 32(1): pp. 73-92.

Ray Chaudhuri, M. 2005 Unleashing the New Vision in Performance Management: An Escalation Towards Betterment, in HR Interventions in the Global Competitive Regime: Strategies for Leadership, New Delhi :Excel Books.

Ray Chaudhuri, M. 2006 Strategic HRM for Competitive Sustainability: Roles, Concepts and Implications. In Strategic Thought in the New Age Management, New Delhi: Excel Books.

Ray Chaudhuri, M. 2013 “Cultivating Values and Ethics in Business: Crafting the 21st

Century HR”, In Global Advances in Innovations in IT and Management. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.

Pride, W.M. & Ferrell, O.C. 2014. Marketing. Australia: Cengage.


Ray Chaudhuri, M., Naskar, P. and Sur, S. 2013 “Vista of Business Ethics: A Navigating Force for Good Governance”, in the conference proceedings of the 3rd Biennial International Conference on ‘Rethinking Management Theory and Practice in the Present Indian Economic Context’ organised by Indian Academy of Management (IAM, Ahmedabad and Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad, published from IIM-Ahmedabad in December, 2013.

Ray Chaudhuri, M. and Naskar, P. 2015 Strategic HR for Workplace Restructuring: Managing Discontentment, Discourteousness and Aggression. Malaysian Management Review, 50(1),

Ray Chaudhuri, M., Kettunen, J. and Naskar, P. 2015 Reflections from Leadership Styles from Higher Education in India, Universal Journal of Management (UJM), 3 (10).

Ray Chaudhuri, M. and Naskar, P. 2015. Organisational Development for Organisational Augmentation: Comprehending Regime, Relevance and Recognition” Singapore Management Journal, 3(2).

Resick, C J, Whitman, D S, Weingarden, S M and Hiller, N J. 2009. The Bright-Side and the Dark-Side of CEO Personality: Examining Core Self-Evaluations, Narcissism, Transformational Leadership and Strategic Influence”, Journal of Applied Psychology, 94(6): 1365-1381.

Richardson, R and Thompson, M. 1999. The Impact of People Management Practices on Business Performance: A Literature Review, London: Institute of Personnel and Development.

Rogg, K L, Schmidt, D B, Schull, C and Schmidt, N 2001. Human Resource Practices, Organizational Climate and Customer Satisfaction, Journal of Management, 27 (1): 431-449.

Pharmaceutical Retail Store Characteristics And Trade Promotion90

“You cannot discover new oceans unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.”

– Anonymous


Pharmaceutical Retail Store Characteristics And Trade Promotion

Abstract

Dr. Vinita SrivastavaLecturer

Jaipura Institute of Management

This study attempted to understand the relationship between the exposure of retailers to various promotional tools targeted at them by the pharmaceutical firms and store characteristics. This study was part of a larger research where primary data was collected from a convenience sample of 400 pharmaceutical retailers in Delhi. The list of pharmaceutical retailers was obtained from the Delhi Government website. The respondents were contacted through personal visits and 252 completed usable questionnaires were received. Specifically, the study sought to relate the frequency of exposure to promotional tools (including medical representatives) to four variables, namely the pharmaceutical retailers’ employee strength, store size, turnover and business experience. Analysis found a significant association existed between employee strength and exposure to medical representatives, promotional literature and online promotions. A significant association was found between store size and exposure to medical representative, schemes and gifts. A positive relationship was found between the mean rating of exposure to the promotional tools and the turnover. A significant relationship was also observed between exposure to medical representatives, schemes, gifts and promotional literature by the chemists. A positive association existed between number of years in business and the mean rating of exposure to promotional tools, with an exception of online promotion. This study was the first to examine the association between pharmaceutical retailer characteristics and promotional tools used by pharmaceutical industry. The significance of this study was increased with the participation of biggest association of pharmaceutical retailers, All Indian Origin Chemists and Distributors Ltd (AIOCDL), as a corporate entity, in the Indian domestic pharmaceutical industry.

Keywords: Pharmaceutical retailer, store characteristics, trade promotion, push strategy


Introduction

The All India Organisation of Chemists & Druggists (AIOCD) was formed to negotiate with the industry and the government as trade gained power and became more organised. AIOCD currently has over 750,000 members.

Pharmaceutical retailers started manufacturing and selling generic medicines after the formation of the new corporate entity, competing directly with drug makers whose products they sold thus widening a rift in the pharmaceutical industry. Drug manufacturers and the chemists’ lobby, AIOCD had all these while been at odds over several issues, including distribution and retail margins, product launch fees and the appointment of stockists. The conflict worsened when new drug price controls were put in place by the government, prompting drug makers to cut margins paid to distributors and chemists. This was in direct conflict with the existing push strategy adopted by the domestic pharmaceutical firms. In response to the reduced margins, the traders’ lobby decided to boycott top drug makers, which led to a significant drop in sales at several companies including multinationals like GlaxoSmithKline Plc., Pfizer Inc. and Novartis AG and almost all top domestic pharmaceutical firms in the first two quarters of the 2014-15. Alongside manufacturing generic medicines, the chemists’ entity ventured into logistics and cold- chain management and market research linked to the pharmaceutical retail market. For the latter, the group formed a joint venture called AIOCD Pharmasofttech AWACS Pvt. Ltd. with information technology company Trikaal Mediinfotech Pvt Ltd.

The entry of the chemists’ lobby into drug manufacturing will be negative for the INR 7,500 crores industry, and will further erode its profit margins. The industry is already losing on profitability on account of intense competition, price regulations and Jan Aushadhi Stores. The government has therefore proposed to add more anti-cancer, diabetes and heart disease treatment drugs in the Jan Aushadhi scheme that was aimed at ensuring the availability of quality medicines at affordable prices to all. It was therefore useful to study the promotional tools aimed at pharmaceutical retailers by the pharmaceutical industry, particularly to look into the association between retailer characteristics and the frequency of exposure of promotion tools.


Literature Review

Trade promotions were widely practiced but sparingly researched. Retailers preferred short term incentives which enhanced sales but firms looked for long term profitability. Marketers knew that bringing the product to the market was only half the battle.

The real business started when patients bought the drug. This only happened when the product was available with the retailers. Retailers kept the stocks only if they were made aware of it either online, through promotional literature or medical representatives or if the product was being pushed by the stockist because of a scheme / offer on it. A push strategy involved the manufacturer’s marketing activities (primarily sales force and trade promotion) directed at channel intermediaries to induce them to order and carry the product and promote it to end users. While push strategy had been used with great success by a number of consumer goods companies, they were not out of place in the marketing of prescription drugs. Pharmaceutical firms ensured that their products were adequately stocked with all the retailers before implementing a pull strategy to generate substantial prescriptions for the drugs. Every pharmaceutical marketer knew the price he had to pay for a dishonoured prescription at the retail counter for want of stocks. Regenerating prescriptions for a product was twice as difficult as generating them in first place. That was why a combination of push and pull strategies was seen as the best formula for achieving the marketing objectives of prescription drugs. Unless the prescription generation was supported by increased availability of stocks at the retailer, the gains would be just transient. The push strategy got its name because it involved pushing or urging, members of marketing channels to sell a product by recommending it to consumers or by giving it an adequate display space.

Objectives for promotions targeted at marketing intermediaries, such as wholesalers and retailers, included obtaining distribution and support for new products, maintaining support for established brands, encouraging retailers to display established brands, and building retail inventories. Each channel member used personal selling and trade promotion to promote its products downstream. For example, manufacturers promoted to wholesalers, wholesalers to retailers and retailers to consumers. Manufacturers offered special schemes, discounts or gifts to stockists and retailers to gain their support.


Retailers in the drug field can be classified on the basis of store size, number of employees, type of business, type of ownership and volume of business. The retail pharmacy owner’s task was basically simple, to go where the customers were, and where there were not too many pharmacies. The importance of a good location could not be over emphasised. This study attempted to understand the association between retail store characteristics and trade promotion tools used by the pharmaceutical industry.


This study was part of a larger research where primary data from pharmaceutical retailers in Delhi was collected through a structured questionnaire. For this purpose, Delhi was divided into five zones; East, West, North, South and Central and a list of pharmaceutical retailers in each of the zones obtained from the Delhi Government website. There were a total of 2534 pharmaceutical retailers listed, of which, 487 were in East Zone, 486 in West Zone, 480 in North Zone, 487 in South Zone and 594 in Central Zone. From the list, a convenience sample of 400 pharmaceutical retailers was drawn. The number of pharmaceutical retailers from each zone was proportionate to the total number of pharmaceutical retailers in the zone. Thus, the number of pharmaceutical retailers from East Zone was 77, from West Zone was 76, from North Zone was 76, from South Zone was 77 and from Central Zone was 94. 400 respondents were contacted through personal visits and a total of 252 completed usable questionnaires obtained. Regarding the sample size, 10Hair et al. recommended a sample size of 200 as a ‘critical sample size’ that could be used in any common estimation procedure for valid results. Based on this requirement, a sample size of 252 pharmaceutical retailers was deemed adequate.

The following hypothesis were formulated for the study:

H1: There exists a significant association between frequency of exposure to promotional tools and employee strength of the pharmaceutical retailer.

H2: There exists a significant association between frequency of exposure to promotional tools and store size of the pharmaceutical retailer.


H3: There exists a significant association between frequency of exposure to promotional tools and turnover of the pharmaceutical retailer.

H4: There exists a significant association between frequency of exposure to promotional tools and experience of the pharmaceutical retailer.

Findings

Exposure To Promotional ToolsTable 1 presents the data collected regarding the promotional offers made by

pharmaceutical companies to the respondents. Pharmaceutical firms targeted a variety of promotional tools at pharmaceutical retailers who formed a vital link between the firms and the consumers. These included medical representatives, cash and quantity discount schemes, gifts, promotional literature, free strips or boxes of medicine and free trip to a foreign land on achievement of specific sales target. Gifts most frequently offered included pens, notepads, shortage pads and items of personal use. Promotional literature was related to information related to schemes and new product launches. Respondents rarely got exposed to online promotion.

Table 1: Descriptive Statistics for Exposure to Promotional ToolsPromotional tools Mean Std. Deviation

Medical representative 3.96 1.22

Schemes 3.74 0.96

Gifts 3.08 0.79

Promotional literature 2.76 0.89

Online promotion 1.84 1.03

n=252

Relationship Between Extent Of Promotional Tools OfferedAnd Retail Store Characteristics

Table 2 shows that the extent of promotional tools offered to pharmaceutical retailers varies according to retail store characteristics. Respondents were asked to rate the frequency of their exposure to promotional tools on a scale of 1 to 5 where


1 represented never and 5 represented very high frequency. A significant association was found between retail store characteristics (Employee Strength) and exposure to medical representative, promotional literature and online promotion. Mean frequency of exposure to medical representative, promotional literature and online promotion was found to be positively associated with employee strength.

Table 2: One way Anova for Exposure of Pharmaceutical retailers to Promotional Tools and Retail Store Characteristics (Employee Strength)

Promotional tools

Number of employees

Mean rating of exposure to promotional tools

Std.Deviation F Sig

n

Medical representative

1-2 4.34 1.055.96 .003-5 4.00 1.12

>5 4.65 1.40

Schemes1-2 3.84 0.86

.34 .713-5 3.72 0.93>5 3.77 1.13

Gifts1-2 3.17 0.66

.56 .563-5 3.04 0.94>5 3.09 0.67

Promotional literature

1-2 2.05 0.783.61 .023-5 2.59 0.89

>5 2.95 1.03

Online promotion

1-2 1.32 0.7018.02 .003-5 2.17 1.10

>5 2.91 1.02n=252

Table 3 presents the relationship between store size and exposure of pharmaceutical retailers to promotional tools. A significant association was found between store size and exposure to medical representative, schemes and gifts. The bigger size of store may also reflected stores with higher inventories. Thus, they were offered promotional tools with greater frequency.


Table 3: One way Anova for Exposure of Pharmaceutical retailers to Promotional Tools and Retail Store Characteristics (Store Size)

Promotional Tools

Store Size (sq m)


Std.Deviation F Sig.


50-100 4.44 0.87

10.05 .00100-150 4.03 1.31

>150 3.61 1.20

Schemes

50-100 3.98 0.58

5.93 .00100-150 3.83 1.12

>150 3.48 0.99

Gifts

50-100 3.40 0.58

19.74 .00100-150 3.18 0.78

>150 2.67 0.83


50-100 2.83 0.83

.36 .69100-150 2.75 0.98

>150 2.71 0.88

Online promotion

50-100 1.39 0.86

11.65 .09100-150 2.01 1.17

>150 2.07 0.85

n=252

Table 4 presents the relationship between retail store turnover and mean rating of exposure to promotional tools. A significant relationship was found between turnover and all the promotional tools. A positive relationship was observed in Table 4. It was found that the mean rating of exposure to the studied promotional tools increased with turnover. Thus, the higher the turnover, the greater was the frequency of exposure of the promotional tools.


Table 4: One way Anova for Exposure of Pharmaceutical retailers to Promotional Tools and Retail Store Characteristics (Turnover)

Promotional tools

Turnover (in lacs)




0-5 2.32 0.94

52.10 .006-10 4.03 1.0011-15 4.14 0.92>15 4.59 0.92

Schemes

0-5 2.67 1.24

32.81 .006-10 3.25 0.3511-15 3.63 0.85>15 4.22 0.77

Gifts

0-5 2.64 0.48

5.69 .006-10 3.05 0.8511-15 3.14 0.65>15 3.26 0.88


0-5 2.35 0.88

8.82 .006-10 2.42 0.7411-15 3.03 0.77>15 3.44 0.97

Online promotion

0-5 1.18 0.93

2.91 .036-10 1.57 0.9211-15 1.75 0.96>15 1.90 1.13

n=252

Table 5 presents the relationship between the number store characteristics (number of years in business) and mean rating of exposure to promotional tools. A significant relationship was found between the mean rating of exposure to medical representative, schemes, gifts and promotional literature. Analysis showed that the higher the number of years in business, the higher the mean rating of exposure to promotional tools with the exception of online promotion.


Table 5: One way Anova for Exposure of Pharmaceutical retailersto Promotional Tools and Retail Store Characteristics

(Number of Years in Business)

Promotional tools

Number of years in business




0-5 2.56 0.89

124.81 .006-10 3.97 1.0411-15 4.74 0.44>15 5.00 0.00

Schemes

0-5 2.93 0.88

41.38 .006-10 3.69 1.0511-15 4.10 0.31>15 4.43 0.50

Gifts

0-5 2.72 0.81

16.98 .006-10 2.88 0.5511-15 3.55 0.50>15 3.89 0.95


0-5 2.56 0.85

5.94 .006-10 2.59 0.7411-15 3.19 0.82>15 3.85 1.08

Online promotion

0-5 1.88 0.90

2.53 .066-10 1.93 0.9911-15 1.46 1.01>15 1.93 1.16

n=252

Reasons For Cooperation

Pharmaceutical retailers cooperated with medical representatives by providing them feedback about physicians’ prescriptions and liquidation of stocks. Visiting pharmaceutical retailers was part of the daily reporting schedule of medical representatives. Respondents were asked their reasons for cooperating with medical representatives. This helped medical representatives with the feedback because the


relationship enabled retailers to obtain information about schemes and discounts offered. Coordination with medical representative also helped in expiry settlement. Retailers also mentioned, as reasons for their cooperation with the medical representatives, the help they received in the expiry settlement of drugs.

Table 6: Reasons for Cooperation of Pharmaceutical retailerwith Medical Representatives

S. No. Reasons for cooperation of pharmaceutical retailers with medical representatives

% of Respondents Mentioning

(i) Humanity and relationship 27.8

(ii) To know about schemes and discounts 61.2

(iii) Expiry settlement 55.2

n=252


Status Of Hypothesis

The following table presents the status of hypothesis related to promotional tools aimed at pharmaceutical retailers.

Table 7: Status of the Hypotheses Related to Promotional ToolsAimed at Pharmaceutical retailers

Hypothesis Statement Status

H1 There exists a significant association between frequency of exposure to promotional tools and employee strength of thepharmaceutical retailer.

A significant association was found between retail store characteristics (Employee Strength) and exposure to medical representatives, promotional literature and online promotion. Respondents were asked to rate the frequency of their exposure to promotional tools on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 represented “never” and 5 represented “very high frequency”. Mean frequency of exposure to medical representative, promotional literature and online promotion was found to be positively associated with employee strength.

H2 There exists a significant association between frequency of exposure to promotional tools and store size of the pharmaceutical retailer.

A significant association was found between store size and exposure to medical representative, schemes and gifts. The bigger size of store may also reflected the stores with higher inventories. Thus, they were offered promotional tools with greater frequency.

H3 There exists a significant association between frequency of exposure to promotional tools and turnover of the pharmaceutical retailer.

A significant relationship was found between turnover and all the promotional tools. A positive relationship was found between the mean rating of exposure to the promotional tools and the turnover. Thus the higher the turnover, the greater was the frequency of exposure of the promotional tools.

H4 There exists a significant association between frequency of exposure to promotional tools and experience of the pharmaceutical retailer.

A significant relationship was found between mean rating of exposure to medical representatives, schemes, gifts and promotional literature by the pharmaceutical retailers. It was reported that the higher the number of years in business the higher was the mean rating of exposure to promotional tools with an exception of online promotion.


Conclusion And Recommendations

Pharmaceutical firms targeted a variety of promotional tools at chemists who formed a vital link between the firms and the consumers. These included medical representatives, cash and quantity discount schemes, gifts, promotional literature and strips or boxes of medicine and free trips to a foreign land on achievement of specific sales target. Gifts most frequently offered included pens, notepads, shortage pads and items of personal use. Promotional literature was related to information on schemes and new product launches. Respondents rarely got exposed to online promotion. All the chemists participating in the study reported being visited by medical representatives with almost sixty-eight (68) percent being visited frequently and very frequently. About ninety-five (95) percent of chemists reported that they had been offered schemes such as cash discounts quantity discounts, travel and holiday offers by pharmaceutical firms. About seventy-five (75) percent of respondents reported that they were offered these types of schemes frequently or very frequently. Over ninety-seven (97.7) percent of respondents reported that they were offered various type of gifts by pharmaceutical firms. The gifts ranged from pens to air conditioners. Only twenty-nine (29) percent of the respondents reported that they had received gifts frequently. Gifts most frequently offered were pens, notepads, shortage pads and items of personal use. About ninety-four (94) percent of chemists reported being provided promotional literature by pharmaceutical firms, with twenty-six (26) percent reported receiving promotional literature frequently. A significant association was found between retail store characteristics (Employee Strength) and exposure to medical representative, promotional literature and online promotion. Respondents were asked to rate the frequency of their exposure to promotional tools on a scale of 1 to 5 where 1 represented never and 5 represented very high frequency. The mean frequency of exposure to medical representatives, promotional literature and online promotion was found to be positively associated with employee strength. A significant association was found between store size and exposure to medical representatives, schemes and gifts. The bigger stores were likely those with higher inventories. Thus, they were offered promotional tools with greater frequency. A significant relationship was found between turnover and all the promotional tools. A positive relationship was found between the mean rating of exposure to the promotional tools and the turnover. Thus, the higher the turnover, the greater was the frequency of exposure of the promotional tools. A significant relationship was found between the mean rating of exposure to medical representatives, schemes, gifts and promotional literature by the chemists. With an


exception of online promotion, a positive association existed between the number of years in business and the mean rating of exposure to promotional tools.

Chemists and druggists may form a separate corporate entity to manufacture and distribute their drugs, but they cannot do away with selling the established brands in the market. Therefore, pharmaceutical retailers most often extended their support to medical representatives to know more about schemes and offers. Promotional tools (medical representatives, schemes, literature) aided in enhancing the profitability in the business. Marketers can take a cue from the current study that there existed a positive relationship between turnover, employee strength, store size with mean exposure to promotional tools. The study would also be helpful in guiding business decisions on the frequency of exposure of promotional tools relating to the various categories of pharmaceutical retailers.

References

Smrata, R.B. 1994. Strategic Pharmaceutical Marketing, New Delhi: Wheeler Publishing.

Bhandari B., (2013) Playing around with drugs, Business Standard.

Unnikrishnan, S. 2014 Rift widens in pharma industry as retailers enter manufacturing arena, Live Mint, 23 January.

Hansraj, A.G. 2015. Government plans to expand drug basket of Jan Aushadhi stores, The Economic Times, 28 April.

Poddar, A.D., Atul, N.P. 2013. Drivers of Trade Promotion Receptiveness: The Role of Relationship and Trade Promotion Satisfaction., Journal of Marketing Theory & Practice.

Kotler, P. 1992. Marketing Management - Analysis, planning, implementation and control, New Delhi: Prentice Hall.


Chaganti, R.S., 2007. Pharmaceutical Marketing in India, India: Pharma Book Syndicate.

Belch G.E., Belch A.M. & Purani K. 2013. . Advertising and Promotion : An Integrated Marketing Communications Perspective. India: McGraw Hill.

Smith M.C. 1988. Principles of Pharmaceutical Marketing, London: Routledge.

Hair, J.F, Anderson R.E, Tatham, R.L & Black, W. 1998. Multivariate Data Analysis. London: Prentice Hall.

About the Authors106

About the Authors

Dr. Goh Seh KaiDr. Goh Seh Kai is currently a lecturer at East Asia Institute of Management. He holds a Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) degree from Southern Cross University of Australia. He also possesses an MBA degree from the University of Hull of England and a B.Sc. degree from the National University of Singapore. Prior to his current job, Dr. Goh has worked at managerial positions in the integrated circuit and PCB industry and as a lecturer in local private educational institutions for more than 30 years. His research interests include e-commerce and operations management. He can be contacted at [email protected]

Ms. Felicia PoonFelicia Poon graduated from the University of Dundee with a MSc in Developmental Psychology, specialisng in the area of Interpersonal Relationships and Social Behaviours. She held various teaching and research positions and is currently a Psychology Lecturer in East Asia Institute of Management (EASBTM). Her email contact is [email protected]

Dr. Chen ShengDr. Chen Sheng is currently a lecturer in East Asia Institute of Management. He holds a Ph.D degree in Strategy & Project Management from SKEMA Business School, France. He obtained a MSc (Hons) degree in Technopreneurship & Innovation from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and a MBA degree from Centenary College in US. Dr. Chen has worked in various industries as senior manager in China, Hong Kong and Singapore before embarking on his academic career. His research interests include Entrepreneurship; Project Management and Innovation. He can be contacted at [email protected]

Dr. Manodip Ray ChaudhuriDr. Manodip Ray Chaudhuri, M.Sc, MBA, PhD is Associate Professor, Amity Business School, Amity University Kolkata, India. His career in academics and research spans over 16 years, including as Professor and Dean with Future Business School, Kolkata, West Bengal University of Technology, stints with TASMAC, ICFAI Business School, Kolkata and The Economic Times, Kolkata. He has some 70 articles published in national and international journals. His academic interests include strategic HRM, change management, performance management, training


& development, gender issues in management, leadership & organisational transformation, organisational culture, organisational development, business ethics, green HRM, spirituality at work, etc. in behavioural sciences & human asset management. Dr Chaudhuri can be contacted at [email protected]

Dr. Ankita Chakravarty BhattacharyaDr. Ankita Chakravarty Bhattacharya, PhD, is currently Director and Head of Institution in the Business and Allied Schools at Amity University Kolkata and Director of Admissions and Director Academics at Amity University Kolkata. Her specialisation portfolio is wide-ranging, include the areas of Consumer Behaviour, Emotional Intelligence, Organisational Behaviour, Strategic Management, Corporate Communication. She actively leads in sports and cultural activities. She is also well known as a motivational speaker, having addressed national and international gatherings of professionals and academics. Dr Bhattacharya can be contacted at [email protected]

Dr. Indranil BoseDr. Indranil Bose, PhD, is the Dean of School of Business at Western International College, Ras Al Khaimah, United Arab Emirates. He obtained his master’s degree in Personnel Management and Industrial Relations from National Institute of Personnel Management, India. He is a seasoned academician, actively engaged in teaching, research and academic administration in UAE and India. Presently, he is associated with Post graduate and Bachelors level management education of UK universities including the universities of Bolton, London and Wolverhampton. He can be contacted at [email protected]

Dr. Vinita SrivastavaDr. Vinita Srivastava, PhD, MBA, teaches in Jaipuria Institute of Management, Noida, India. A graduate of Delhi University, Delhi in 1994, she spent 4 years in industry, before commencing on a teaching career. She has published 18 papers in various national & international proceedings and journals in the area of Marketing and Branding. Her area of interest are pharmaceutical marketing, public health marketing, pharmaceutical industrial management and Social marketing. She can be contacted at [email protected]

Dr. Subho ChattopadhyayDr Chattopadhyay holds a Doctor of Business Administration degree and has worked as a sales and marketing professional in the pharmaceutical industry and as

About the Authors108

a resource person for management development programmes. He has also presented research papers at national and international conferences, published in journals and magazines. His research interests are in the areas of brand development. He can be contacted at [email protected]

Guide for Authors Submitting Articles to Singapore Management Journal110

Guide for Authors Submitting Articles to Singapore Management Journal

The Singapore Management Journal (SMJ) is a peer-reviewed publication and publishes original articles relating to business and management. The international panel of advisors are peer experts in the field. Articles submitted by authors are subject to a ‘blind’ review by this panel. The reviewers may recommend but the Editor-in-Chief makes the final decision on whether the submitted article will be published, revised, or rejected. Single research studies, integrative research reviews, theoretical papers, and “action research” are welcome. All articles and data must be original.

All articles must include an abstract of no more than 250 words. Research articles should generally include Introduction, Research Aims and Objectives, Literature Review, Method, Results, Discussion, Practical Applications or Implications for business and management, Conclusion, and References sections. Protracted literature reviews are usually unnecessary, but a brief introduction that provides rationale and reviews directly relevant literature is desirable.

A concise writing style is preferred. Authors should bear in mind that the SMJ is read by a broad cross section of professionals in a wide variety of business and management fields. As such, articles should remain comprehensible to as many readers as possible.

In submitting manuscripts, please observe the following guidelines.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

Use Times New Roman font size 12 on A4-sized paper with 1.5 line spacing.

Soft copies of the completed manuscript preferably in MS Word for Windows as well as a *.txt file.

The cover page should clearly state the title of the paper, author’s name, telephone, email address, fax number, position, institutional affiliation, and any acknowledgement.

Please include an abstract, not exceeding 250 words.

Please include Keywords: approximately 5 - 10 words or phrases. Keywords are important for online searches.

Headings. Section Headings should be in bold upper lower case and should start at the margin. Subheadings should be in normal text, upper lower case. Do not capitalise the second part of hyphenated compound: Long-term Loan; Self-destruction; Ultra-violet Rays.

Spelling. Preferred spelling is Anglicised not Americanised, for example, honour, not honor,


8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

criticise not criticize. Spell out zero to nine, two or more digit numbers to be in Arabic figures: 10, 23, 489. Do not start sentence with Arabic figures. Capitalise the keywords of official titles of conferences, congresses, undergraduate courses, organisations, institutions, business firms, and government agencies.

Quotations. Set within double quotes all quotations of passages in their original wording, spelling and punctuation where they are less than three lines. However, where extracts exceed three lines, the passage should be in a separate paragraph, indented and without quotation marks.

References and Citations. Strictly follow the Harvard Referencing style throughout.Author, Year, Article/Book Title, Journal/Publisher, Country. References in text: (Author, Year).

Copyright. Include a note to declare that the article is an original and unpublished work of the author/s. You will have to sign an indemnity form when your paper has been accepted. It must not be submitted or used elsewhere without the permission of the publisher, East Asia Institute of Management (EASBTM).

Word Count. Include total number of words at the end of the manuscript. The article length should typically be between 3000 to 5000 words.

Tables. Place all tables at the end of the text and references. Indicate the place for each table in the text by writing the words: [Inset Table…near here]. An example of Table heading should be: Table 2: Population of Singapore, 2004.

Equations. Use Roman letters rather than Greek letters wherever possible. For example, use y=a+bx instead of γ=α+βχ .

Notes. All notes should come at the end, before the references. Numbered footnotes are not acceptable.

Please include a brief biodata of the author(s) with at least 70 to 100 words.

Soft copies of articles should be sent via email to:

The EditorSingapore Management JournalEast Asia Institute of Management9 Ah Hood RoadSingapore 329975Email: [email protected]

singapore management journal 2017 ebook... · 2017-04-26 · academic research and writing can,...

Documents