Cultural Analysis of the Indian Women\u27s Festival of \u3ci\u3eKarvachauth\u3c/i\u3e

The festival of Karvachauth is celebrated by upper class married women of North India and occurs in the month of October or early November. On this day married women fast to ensure the long lives of their husbands. They wake up before dawn and eat a meal. After sunrise they do not drink water or eat any food until they see the moon at night. The moon is watched through a sieve and prayed to before breaking the fast. An important part of Karvachauth is a ritual that is performed by women in the afternoon. This ritual is hosted by a woman of the neighborhood and other women assemble in the house where they form a circle. The narration of a folktale of a princess named Veeravati forms the center of the ritual. Women also dress up in festive bright saris and lots of jewelry for the ritual. Some part of the day is spent in putting intricate designs of henna on their hands and feet. Although women\u27s act of fasting for their husbands might appear as a sign of subjugation, in my thesis I argue that it is not. Rather, festivals like Karvachauth temporarily liberate women from daily restrictions and give them a licensed freedom to break away from customs that confine them to the threshold of their households. I argue that Karvachauth gives women a chance to move out of their confined private worlds into the public world, dominated by men, and out of their reach in daily life. I do acknowledge that women must satisfy the serious aspects of the ritual first if they wish to enjoy the liberties. But once they are able to do so, the freedoms are easily manipulated by women to empower them, albeit temporarily, in various ways

Scheduling and shop floor control in commercial airplane manufacturing

Thesis (M.B.A.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management; and, (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering; in conjunction with the Leaders for Manufacturing Program at MIT, 2005.Includes bibliographical references (p. 73-75).Boeing is the premier manufacturer of commercial jetliners and a leader in defense and space systems. Competition in commercial aircraft production is increasing and in order to retain their competitive position, Boeing must strive to improve their operations by reducing costs. Boeing factories today still schedule and monitor the shop floor much as they have for the past 100 years. This thesis compares and contrasts several different methods for shop floor control and scheduling including Boeing's barcharts, Toyota production system, critical chain, and dynamic scheduling. Each system is will be analyzed with respect to how it handles variability in labor output required and how that affects which products are typically made under each system. In additional to qualitative comparisons, discrete event simulations comparing the various strategies will be presented. Areas for future simulation study are also discussed. The recommended approach for commercial airplane assembly is critical chain. A suggested implementation plan is presented along with methods to ease acceptance.by Vikram Neal Sahney.S.M.M.B.A

Aligning Individual and Organizational R&D Goals for Self-Sustainability: Investigating Preferences of Researchers in Selected CSIR-Laboratories, India

This paper intends to explore the measure for aligning the goals of researchers towards achieving organizational R&D targets. The paper also explores the significance and ordering of R&D outputs and the factors that influence generation of R&D outputs, from the perspective of researchers working in the Indian public sector organizations. Data was collected in five Indian R&D laboratories and Weighted Average Method; Spearman Correlation Coefficient and Rank Regression were utilized for the analysis. The findings indicated that various groups of researchers prefer to target different R&D outputs and not all the factors are considered as equally significant in influencing the generation of R&D outputs. Further, the R&D organization should include preferred real factors while policy making for achieving collaborative efforts towards fulfilling organizational objectives. The set of selected R&D outputs and influencing factors were also ordered according to the average rankings given by the researchers. The findings can help R&D managers to identify the expectations of the researchers and include their preferences in R&D Planning. The study could be extended to a larger dataset of researchers working in other government as well as private R&D organizations. Hardly any studies were found that explored the preferences of researchers with respect to R&D outputs and influencing factors with respect to the Indian public sector R&D laboratories. Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) Version License Emerald allows authors to deposit their AAM under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial International Licence 4.0 (CC BY-NC 4.0). To do this, the deposit must clearly state that the AAM is deposited under this licence and that any reuse is allowed in accordance with the terms outlined by the licence. To reuse the AAM for commercial purposes, permission should be sought by contacting [email protected]. For the sake of clarity, commercial usage would be considered as, but not limited to: o Copying or downloading AAMs for further distribution for a fee; o Any use of the AAM in conjunction with advertising; o Any use of the AAM by for promotional purposes by for-profit organisations; o Any use that would confer monetary reward, commercial gain or commercial exploitation. Final Published Version is available at: DOI (10.1108/IJPPM-12-2019-0556) Citation Kumari, B., Sahney, S. and Madhukar, A. (2021), "Aligning individual and organizational R&D goals for self-sustainability: investigating preferences of researchers in selected CSIR laboratories, India", International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPPM-12-2019-055

A R&D productivity model to achieve self-sustainability for public funded/CSIR R&D laboratories, India

Purpose – The paper develops a model for enhancing R&D productivity for Indian public funded laboratories. The paper utilizes the productivity data of five Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) laboratories for analysis and to form the constructs of the model. Design/methodology/approach – The weighted average method was employed for analyzing the rankings of survey respondents pertaining to the significant measures enhancing R&D involvement of researchers and significant non-R&D jobs. The authors have proposed a model of productivity. Various individual, organizational and environmental constructs related to the researchers working in the CSIR laboratories have been outlined that can enhance R&D productivity of researchers in Indian R&D laboratories. Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to find the predictability of the productivity model. Findings – The organizational factors have a crucial role in enhancing the R&D outputs of CSIR laboratories. The R&D productivity of researchers can be improved through implementing the constructs of the proposed model of productivity. Research limitations/implications – The R&D productivity model can be adapted by the R&D laboratories to enhance researchers’ R&D involvement, increased R&D outputs and achieving self-sustenance in long run. Practical implications – The R&D laboratories can initiate exercises to explore the most relevant factors and measures to enhance R&D productivity of their researchers. The constructs of the model can function as a guideline to introduce the most preferable research policies in the laboratory for overall mutual growth of laboratory and the researchers. Originality/value – Hardly any studies have been found that have focused on finding the measures of enhancing R&D involvement of researchers and the influence of significant time-intensive jobs on researchers’ productivity. Keywords R&D productivity model, CSIR, Mandays-involvement, Non –R&D jobs Paper type Research pape

Involvement and productivity of research and development workers: A case study of a publicly-funded research laboratory

Purpose The effect of global integration of businesses and interchange of ideas and technology through internet has many facets. Increase in economic recessions and decrease in research funding has forced both private and public sector research organizations to introduce measures of self-sustainability. Enhancing research and development (R&D) productivity of researchers can be one of those measures. The purpose of this paper is to attempt toward identifying and analyzing those factors of productivity that may be related to the manpower in R&D. Design/methodology/approach Based upon the theoretical background and the nature of data available, this empirical study has been carried out as a case study for a public sector research laboratory. The extent of involvement in research projects have been analyzed with respect to the R&D outputs generated by the researchers, which if found to be positively related, may be focussed upon, for increasing productivity of manpower in R&D. Several other determinants of R&D productivity were identified from the literature review and were analyzed in association with the “involvement.” “Robust Regression” technique was used for the statistical analysis. Findings It was found that the R&D productivity of researchers has a positive correlation with their extent of involvement in the R&D projects. Practical implications The result may help in creation of the policies for enhancing organizational self-sustainability. Originality/value Several prior studies have been conducted with different determinants of R&D productivity but hardly any studies were found considering “extent of manpower involvement in research projects.” This study can be useful for public sector research organizations to relate the findings with their endeavors of enhancing R&D productivity