Examining role stress among technical students in India

Although organizational stress has been the subject of much research, role stress among professional students in India has not been well examined. This study explores the extent and types of role stresses present among the engineering and management students in India. The findings reveal that students are experiencing role overload, role stagnation and self-role distance. Male students experience higher levels of role stagnation than female students. However, no significant differences could be observed on any of the role stressors between first year students and their seniors, or between management and engineering students. The results are indicative of the social and educational environment prevailing in the country.     

Suicidal behavior in hospitalized schizophrenics

A group of 131 hospitalized schizophrenics who had attempted suicide within the past year was compared with another group of 70 hospitalized schizophrenics who had not attempted suicide, using the Present State Examination (PSE) depressive symptoms. The former had a significantly higher number of symptoms indicative of a depressive disorder.     

Initial Development and Validation of a Measure of Intercultural Development Scale

Intercultural development in global employees will aid organizations to function successfully in the current global work scene. However, there is a need for a psychometrically valid and reliable measure, which can be used by practitioners and academics to assess the capabilities of individuals. This vignette based intercultural development scale was conceived on the basis of Bennett’s developmental model of intercultural sensitivity. The content was generated using interviews with international employees and subject matter experts. Psychometric properties were established with both qualitative and quantitative analysis. A sample of 461 international employees was used to test the validity of the scale. Confirmatory factor analysis, reliability analysis and construct validity was established with cosmopolitanism and openness to experience scales. The study confirms the scale’s dimensionality and established convergent, discriminant and nomological validity. The applications of this scale in building capabilities, talent management and strategic decisions in both practical and theoretical assessment are outlined.     

Positive Psychology and Indian Psychology: Birds of the Same Feather

Positive psychology and Indian psychology share similar concerns regarding human life. But Indian psychology has more to offer towards our understanding of happiness and well-being than what Positive psychology can at this point of time, because of latter’s paradigmatic limitations. This commentary draws attention to certain shortcomings of the target article: (a) in presenting the contemporary Positive psychology perspective; (b) in conceptualizing IP with reference to its epistemological position; (c) and in equating certain concepts from PP and IP and their implications.     

The Five‐factor Model of Personality and Knowledge Transfer in the United Arab Emirates

Knowledge transfer has emerged as an important criterion in organizations for achieving a sustainable competitive advantage. While research has examined contextual determinants of knowledge transfer, very little research has considered the role of individual differences. In the present study, we addressed this issue by testing the relationship between the five‐factor model of personality and supervisory ratings of knowledge transfer in a sample of employees from the United Arab Emirates (N = 294). Our findings indicated that the extraversion (r = .22), conscientiousness (r = .18), and openness (r = .14) were significant predictors of knowledge transfer. Implications for knowledge management practices are discussed.     

The Significance of Three Errors in the First Chapter of Bhagavadgītā

The recognition of three errors in verses 1.10, 11, and 36 of Bhagavadgītā and the truth behind it is essential to grasp the beginning of the tread of thought developed by Vedavyāsa from the first to the last verse of the entire text spanning over 18 chapters. Generally, only the first error in verse 1.10 has received recognition, but as soon as the error is recognized there was attempt either to interpret the verse violating its syntax and semantics to make its meaning consistent with epic facts or to redraft the verse taking it as an error of a copyist, who has exchanged Bhīṣma with Bhīma and vice versa while copying the original. But, the attempt to remove the errors by interpretation or redrafting makes the interpreters ignore the significance of the errors in development in the argument and the readers become blind to the logic of thought as it is developed in Bhagavadgītā spanning over the entire text of Bhagavadgītā.

     

Reversible phase transition in vanadium oxide films sputtered on metal substrates

Vanadium oxide films, deposited on aluminium (Al), titanium (Ti) and tantalum (Ta) metal substrates by pulsed RF magnetron sputtering at a working pressure of 1.5 x10^?2 mbar at room temperature are found to display mixed crystalline vanadium oxide phases viz., VO₂, V₂O₃, V₂O₅. The films have been characterized by field-emission scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and their thermo-optical and electrical properties have been investigated. Studies of the deposited films by DSC have revealed a reversible-phase transition found in the temperature range of 45–49 °C.     

Twice Migrants in Canada: Who Are They and How Do They Perform Economically?

Immigrants known as “twice migrants” are those who arrive in Canada via an intermediate country, that is, not directly from their country of birth. With a focus on large contemporary immigrant groups in Canada—South Asians, Chinese and Filipinos in particular—this study develops socio-economic profiles of twice migrants and assesses their economic performance in comparison to that of direct migrants. The study uses custom tables of multiple national level datasets as well as qualitative interviews with a selected group of twice-migrant families to arrive at its findings. The results show that relative to direct migrants, twice migrants were older, more likely to speak a Canadian official language, slightly more educated and more skilled. These human capital characteristics did not however fully translate into economic success. Political and economic situations both in the country of birth and the country of last place of residence affect the flow of twice migration. Lack of job opportunities in Canada forced many twice migrant families to split between two countries.     

Fluency misattribution and auditory hindsight bias

We conducted three experiments to test the fluency-misattribution account of auditory hindsight bias. According to this account, prior exposure to a clearly presented auditory stimulus produces fluent (improved) processing of a distorted version of that stimulus, which results in participants mistakenly rating that item as easy to identify. In all experiments, participants in an exposure phase heard clearly spoken words zero, one, three, or six times. In the test phase, we examined auditory hindsight bias by manipulating whether participants heard a clear version of a target word just prior to hearing the distorted version of that word. Participants then estimated the ability of naïve peers to identify the distorted word. Auditory hindsight bias and the number of priming presentations during the exposure phase interacted underadditively in their prediction of participants’ estimates: When no clear version of the target word appeared prior to the distorted version of that word in the test phase, participants identified target words more often the more frequently they heard the clear word in the exposure phase. Conversely, hearing a clear version of the target word at test produced similar estimates, regardless of the number of times participants heard clear versions of those words during the exposure phase. As per Roberts and Sternberg’s (Attention and Performance XIV, pp. 611–653, 1993) additive factors logic, this finding suggests that both auditory hindsight bias and repetition priming contribute to a common process, which we propose involves a misattribution of processing fluency. We conclude that misattribution of fluency accounts for auditory hindsight bias.     

Ranking of Drivers for Green Manufacturing Implementation Using Fuzzy Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution Method

The governments are under tremendous pressure to sustain high manufacturing growth in emerging economies. Unfortunately, the manufacturing sector consumes much energy and other resources and emits a large amount of green house gases, which increases environmental problems such as climate change and global warming. One possible solution to this problem is green manufacturing (GM) implementation in industry. However, GM implementation faces many challenges. Various motivating factors named as ‘drivers’ should be facilitated by the government and industry to make this change possible. This paper investigates the drivers for GM implementation and their ranking based on fuzzy technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution method using government, industry and experts perspectives. The study concluded that competitiveness, incentives, organizational resources and technology are top ranked drivers and should be facilitated by the government and industry to help implement GM. The ranking of these drivers is expected to help the government and industry to focus on few important drivers to facilitate the GM implementation with limited resources. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.