International Journal of Business and General Management

11-18

Authors: N. Venkateswaran

Logistics information systems are a subset of the firm‘s total information system, and it is directed to the particular problems of logistics decision making. The popularity of logisticscal information systems has grown in recent years in order to meet the requirements of today’s logistics managers. Analyzing and setting up the available systems can sometimes prove to be a difficult task. The main objective of the study is to evaluate Logistics Information System at a pharmaceutical firm. This study will help to reduce operational costs, improve efficiency, improve the timeliness of data, provide administrative/decision -making data, maintain transactionnal details, improve tracking and maintain complete paperless/electronic flow of information. For this study primary data werewas collected by the use of a questionnaire from 300 respondents from the employees and suppliers of the firm collected randomly especially from Logistics and Warehouse departments. Initially, the questionnaire validated using Cronbach Alpha test where the researcher’s measurement scales of the constructs were stable and consistent in measuring the constructs. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS 20.0. Since pharmaceutical firms are moving towards next generation technologyical solutions by continuously improving their existing supply chain this study paving way for the firm in making use of real-time applications in near future

25-30

Authors: R. Shanmugam & J. Manoj Chlarence

The speedy adoption of social media is growing nowadays more noticeable day by day and changing the ways of doing business. Social media is a broad term used to describe all the different online technology tools that enable people to communicate easily via the Internet through sharing information and resources. Methods used include posts on blogs or forums, sharing of photos, audio clips, videos and links, creating profiles on social networking sites, and posting status updates—usually with a feedback mechanism. Although social media started out as a medium for friends and family to share information, smart marketers quickly caught on to how they could leverage it. So social media plays a vital role in small business marketing strategy for takeover customer and retention of the customer.

45-52

Authors: Li-Chuan Chu & Che-Pin Liang

Recently, the convenience stores in Taiwan have provided smart marketing program: Point Collecting Service by APP. This paper examines the key factor for consumers’ behavior intention towards the reception of the APP service. The study uses Structured Equation Modeling (SEM) to analyze users the relationships betweenamong the service quality, service value, switching costs and behavior intention. First, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed to determine whether the measured variables reliably reflected the hypothesized latent variables. Second, structural models were tested to determine overall model fit and path coefficients. Finally, we discuss the advantage of the APP service by the Important-Performance Analysis. The study's findings show that the proposed model has good explanatory power and confirms its robustness in predicting customers' intention to use convenience store’s point collecting APP service

61-84

Authors: Oti Robinson Chibu

The economic and political realities of the 1990s are forcing industries to implement operational changes to cut or contain costs in their maintenance efforts. However, maintenance costs are difficult challenge in any organization and require a corporate culture. Often, the changes necessary to control maintenance costs directly confront long standing organizational cultures. This paper provides insights to the magnitude of problems in the Nigeria electric power stations, by examining the maintenance practice efforts on corporate culture. Objectives for the study have been to gain an understanding of subtle areas of maintenance and culture; and the way maintenance management is handled in different cultures. It compares other organizational cultures, cultural theory, Hofstede’s dimensions of power distance and uncertainty avoidance, the role of leadership in organizational culture and the lifelong learning at workplace. The study results offer many differences in corporate cultures, and therefore suggest complete maintenance of corporate culture reforms- from repair focused to reliability focused, which should include TMP and RCM.

95-98

Authors: Poonam Rani & Bimla Dhanda

Caste is the group of people who inherit exclusive privileges or are perceived as socially distinct. Soft skills and social skills including effective communication, social, professional ethics, problem-solving, decision-making, and organizational skills are needed in adventure education to enhance the learning of children. The study was conducted in Hisar district of Haryana state. Two areas were selected purposively i.e., rural and urban, from the urban area Hisar city and from rural area, two villages namely Balsmand and Kharia were taken for collection of data. A total of 200 children in three age groups, namely, 3, 4 and 5 years were selected for the study. Caste was the independent variable. Self- developed scheduled was used to assess the caste. Soft skills and social skills were taken as the dependent variable. Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scale of Social Maturity (Sparrow et al., 1935) was used to determine soft skills and social skills among children. Result revealed that soft skills were significantly related to caste in rural (2 =3.97) and urban (2=0.51) areas. But social skills were also significantly related to a caste of the children in rural areas (2=6.76*) but not related to caste in urban (2=0.01) areas.