Research Journal of Commerce & Behavioural Science - RJCBS

Table of Contents 

Articles 

INFRONICS SYSTEMS LTD: TRIGGERING ENTREPRENEURIAL BUG 

Lakshmaiah Botla 

AWARENESS OF CONSUMERS ON THE GREEN MARKETING INITIATIVES OF CORPORATES 

Chaarlas Lazar Jaganathan, Noorunnisha Syed Abbas, Rajkumar Ramachandran 

FREIGHT FORWARDERS HURDLES IN THE OPERATIONS – AN EXPLORATORY STUDY WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE 

TO TAMIL NADU - INDIA 

Paul Sundar Kirubakaran 

ASSESSING FARMER PERCEPTION TOWARDS INTERNET BASED INTERVENTION: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY 

Sudeepa Banerjee 

FINANCAIL INCLUSION FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT:ACRITICAL LITERATURE REVIEW-THE ROLE OF 

COMMERCIAL BANKS &LOW INCOME PEOPLES 

MR.CHITTA RANJAN MISHRA 

DETERMINANTS OF JOB SATISFACTION: A STUDY ON BANGLADESH PERSPECTIVE 

Ahasanul Haque 

ETHICAL ISSUES IN ACCESSING PEOPLE'S KNOWLEDGE AND INNOVATIONS: A STUDY ON SPECIFIC REFERENCE 

TO LOW COST HEALTH SYSTEM IN INDIA 

Suniti Chandiok 

INFLUENCE ON BRAND IN FEMALE CONSUMER BEHAVIOR IN APPAREL PURCHASE IN LUCKNOW 

Shalini Bariar 

TEST OF PRICING EFFICIENCY AND DISTRIBUTIONAL PROPERTIES: INDIAN COMMODITY MARKET 

Dr. Namita Rajput

Case Study: Infronics Systems Ltd: Triggering 

Entrepreneurial Bug 

Lakshmaiah Botla 

Faculty at Institute of Advanced Management Education and Entrepreneurship (IAMEE), Hyderabad 

Lakshmaiah Botla is a Faculty Member at Institute of 

Advanced Management Education and Entrepreneurship 

(IAMEE), Hyderabad, prepared this case for an assignment 

of ISB, under the supervision of Professor Ramachandran 

Kavil, Indian School of Business and Professor 

Ramakrishna Velamuri, CEIBS, to serve as the basis for 

class discussion rather than to illustrate either effective or 

ineffective handling of an organizational situation. Case 

writer can be reached at lakshman_botla@yahoo.co.in & 

l.botla@iamee.edu.in. This case study is presented in the 

“International Conference on Management Practices for 

Sustainable Growth” during 28-30 July 2010, conducted by 

Dept. of Business Management, Annamalai University, 

Tamilnadu, India. 

Infronics Systems Ltd: Triggering Entrepreneurial Bug 

Abstract: The case study discusses the entrepreneurial 

journey of a young engineer who left his lucrative software 

job abroad when triggered by entrepreneurial bug to realize 

his dream of starting his own company in India. The case 

study discusses the opinions of an entrepreneur and how 

they have influenced his path of success. The case study 

says that the appetite for risks open up new opportunities 

hence to be exploited to realize the hidden treasury. 

A young and medium built, MS Raju is very busy with his 

preparation for Netherlands business trip to expand his 

business into Europe when case writer reaches his office at 

Kondapur in Hyderabad at around 10.30 am on the day of 

appointment for the interview. He readily invited case writer 

into his chamber and made him to relax by offering water 

and that followed by refreshments while attending to his 

phone calls and laptop. He has been doing multiple tasks 

simultaneously while speaking with the case writer to 

optimize his time on various important things. 

Stepping into unknown is a game MS Raju plays to explore 

the possibilities but he as well knows where and when to 

control things and measures each step with calculated risk to 

the extent of mathematical precision, may be habituated 

because of his engineering background. He says every 

problem is a disguised opportunity and one should discover 

critical points in each opportunity to exploit the hidden 

treasure. He believes strategy is the best tool to face risk and 

people management is the highest priority in all of his 

endeavors to create and exploit opportunities. His career 

path is the testimony of his strategy and his vision is the 

telescope of his destiny. 

MS Raju is the person who has started his entrepreneurial 

journey in the year 2000; and has started a new venture 

Infronics Systems limited in the year 2007, headquartered 

at Hyderabad, with a turnover of Rs.70 million now, is one 

of the few companies in India with capabilities of 

developing business critical systems consisting of both 

hardware and software components. 

Infronics Systems Limited: A Profile 

Infronics Systems Ltd., a technology-enabled IT solutions 

company has started galloping by foreseeing future needs 

and exigencies of the market. It is delivering excellent 

products of high quality and reliability with unflinching 

commitment to its customers and having emphatic global 

market presence with a vision to become a global player. It 

specializes in industry-specific software and hardware 

solutions, with proven reputation for delivering high quality 

solutions to a broad spectrum of industry verticals. 

The core technology areas of the company are 

RFID 

Smart Cards 

Biometrics 

Enterprise Mobility 

Embedded Design & Hardware Production 

Some of the products*** are as follows. (See the Appendix 

III) 

BioMoRF: Centralized Monitoring Tool to 

authenticate or identify an individual from a remote 

location 

AVLS (Automatic Vehicle Location System): It 

enables accurate tracking of the vehicles plying any 

time, anywhere including fleet management and 

container tracking 

RFID based Smart Certificate: Solutions for the 

award of University degree Certificates to students 

eZSMS: It enables to send one or many SMSes to 

all the recipients for various business and personal 

communications 

eZBanking: solution helps banks and Micro 

Finance Institutions to reach the unbanked rural 

population with branchless banking 

Infronics has over 1000 major clients across various 

industry verticals like Software Houses, Banks, 

Manufacturing facilities, Defence establishments, Textile 

industry, Educational institutions, Oil Refineries and System 

Integrators. Few of the clients include TCS, Nokia, Nipuna, 

www.theinternationaljournal.org > RJCBS: Volume: 01, Number: 08, June-2012 Page 1

Hyundai, Hero Honda, Pepsi, Ford, University of 

Hyderabad, Concorde, Indian Oil, Mahindra, SBI etc. 

Infronics designs various indigenous applications and 

products for India and Overseas. The company exports its 

products to Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Dubai, UK, Ireland 

and United States. 

Triggering Entrepreneurial Bug 

There is a consensus in India that Software boom has done 

one great thing to Indians and that is awakening of the 

entrepreneurial bug dormant in them who have visited 

foreign lands. MS Raju is another testimony, who has been 

triggered by entrepreneurial bug when working for a Korean 

company of ENPIA Business Group. Soon after returned 

from Korea in 2004 he has started a Dotcom company 

“telugupictures.com” under company name Suchi Infotech 

Ltd in 2005, where people can watch movies online by 

paying a fee through online. A customer can watch any 

latest movie at this site with a fee. MS Raju has diversified 

his Suchi Infotech Ltd. into technology-enabled IT Solutions 

Company with a new name- Infronics Systems Ltd in the 

year 2007 and has become a brand by itself now. 

Entrepreneur Background 

MS Raju has completed his M.S. Post Graduate Degree in 

Engineering during 1991-96 from BITS, Pilani, India. Soon 

after completion of his Masters Degree he joined WIPRO as 

Software Developer and continued for five year but most of 

his tenure has been spent in US working for various 

assignments with General Electric and other reputed 

companies of the US. He has left WIPRO and joined a 

Korean company HANWA and stayed there for about 3 

years before joining into another Korean company ENPIA 

and has spent there till he left for his home country India to 

give a shape to his entrepreneurial drive. 

MS Raju does not have any family background of 

entrepreneurs. His father worked for TISCO and wanted his 

son to be an engineer to work for a big company and never 

dreamt of becoming his son an entrepreneur. 

Entrepreneurship is inside-out 

Ms Raju believes that entrepreneurs are born but they can be 

refined with training and mentoring. He says that triggering 

of entrepreneurial bug is possible only when the 

entrepreneurial gene exists dormant in the personality and 

context also plays a dominant role initially for triggering. 

When the entrepreneurial bug is triggered, it is very difficult 

to be non-entrepreneurial hence, creates opportunities for 

himself and fires his entrepreneurial drive and nurtures his 

entrepreneurial spirit. His inner passions mould the context 

to suit his drive and channel his spirit. The inside-out drive 

of any entrepreneur is manifested in many forms like start 

ups, change in personality, transforming organization, 

building new network etc. The inside-out drive of MS Raju 

has manifested in the form of Infronics Systems Ltd., a new 

startup. MS Raju’s work experiences in US where working 

for General Electric, in Korea working for HANWA and 

ENPIA have provided the right context for triggering of his 

entrepreneurial bug. 

Risk is an Opportunity 

MS Raju has always prepared himself to take calculated 

risks and is also having a presupposition that ‘risks provide 

opportunities’ hence, considers risks as “poly metallic 

noodles” loaded with treasures. His attitude strengthens the 

law ‘risks and rewards are directly proportional’ and his 

actions are also proving that ‘the law’ is correct. His 

entrepreneurial journey from ‘Dotcom Company’ to Suchi 

Infotech to Infronics Systems Ltd. proves that the 

opportunities are expanding proportionally with the risks 

that he has prepared to take. He is also expanding his 

company into overseas and making it a global player 

because risks are opening new opportunities. His presence in 

Europe, Middle East, US shows that he has ingrained the 

law in his personality. 

The appetite for risks has taken a quantum leap after 

triggering of entrepreneurial bug and the upwelling of 

entrepreneurial push is coming out from inside forcibly to 

face challenges that are influencing all the situations 

towards his way of drive and vision. 

Networking with Partners 

MS Raju concentrates on two important things while 

choosing his partners, the first is wave length of the partner 

and the second one is the experience of the partner. He 

understands people within few conversations and catches 

someone’s wave length with highest precision. He becomes 

very careful if wave length doesn’t match. He gives lot of 

importance to his partner’s experience also because that 

saves lot of time and is very important ingredient for any 

business to be successful. The dual dimensions of partners 

play a vital role in synerzyzing their efforts towards 

organizational vision and mission. His partnership with Assa 

Abloy ITG, Germany; IBM, USA; Nedap, Netherlands; etc. 

is the result of negotiations out of understanding the wave 

length of participants and the reputation of the partners 

involved in the deliberations. 

Technology and Strategic Partners 

He has collaborated with many global players for 

technology and expertise. The strategic partnership is crucial 

because he doesn’t want to reinvent the wheel. Wherever 

new innovations are there he wants to collaborate with them 

to serve customers by offering more value and latest 

technology. He has a passion for offering the best in the 

technology and delighting customers with the best product. 

Infronics strategic partners include the following reputed 

companies of the world. 

Assa Abloy ITG, Germany for RFID Tags 

IBM, USA for Enterprise Solutions and 

Middleware 

Nedap, Netharlands for RFID based Automatic 

Vehicle Identification 

NXP (Philips), Netharlands for NFC, RFID 


Sagem Defence (Safran group), France for Finger 

Print Technology 

Symbol (Motorola), USA for RFID Hardware 

Entrepreneurship and Innovation** 

MS Raju says entrepreneurship and innovation are 

synonymous and two sides of the same coin. He is an 

entrepreneur to invent things and innovator to materialize 

his entrepreneurship. He is a two-headed man but with one 

vision. His vision is to take Infronics to the top by 2012 and 

is possible only through integration of entrepreneurship and 

innovation hence, his personality with two dimensions. He 

has understood this relationship while working in US where 

innovation and entrepreneurship is considered as similar 

things. He himself has been a software developer while 

working for Wipro, Hanwa, Enpia, GE etc. He has now 

developed many products indigenously in India and offering 

to the world by expanding his market all over the globe. 

He has already filed four patents and applied five trade 

marks to date to demonstrate his innovative capacity and 

entrepreneurial drive. See the Appendix II for details. 

Indian Intelligentsia 

MS Raju has worked with many people and has understood 

the capacity of various minds of both the west and the East. 

His working in abroad has provided a scale to measure 

Indian minds with the rest of the best minds hence, his 

conviction that ‘Indian intelligence is par excellence’ and 

his R & D is loaded with Indian minds to give a shape to his 

innovative ideas by their creative talents. He softly warns 

Indians that ‘they waste their creative energies in 3-C’s: 

chitchat, cricket and cinema’ and that to be channelized for 

higher things of the life. He says that Indians waste nearly 3 

hours everyday in unproductive pursuits hence, a challenge 

to Indian entrepreneurs to channelize their best energies for 

productive use. 

Mentor Influence 

MS Raju is very much influenced by his mentor Krishnam 

Raju. K, former Finance Director of Visual Soft. He has 

understood the importance of mentorship and its impact on 

one’s life. He also has started mentoring his employees too 

to derive the extraordinary results of this process. His 

mentor Krishnam Raju K not only mentors MS Raju but 

also many other entrepreneurs because he has a passion to 

build as many entrepreneurs as possible in this country. MS 

Raju says he reveals everything to his mentor before taking 

any decision that facilitates detachment in his actions hence, 

the possibility of psychological balance in his decision 

making. He says mentoring plays a strategic role in 

nurturing entrepreneurial mind hence, to be given the 

highest priority to nurture entrepreneurs. Transformation of 

his earlier company ‘Suchi Infotech Ltd.’ into the present 

company ‘Infronics Systems Ltd.’ is the result of many 

hours of discussion with his mentor, Krishnam Raju and the 

mentorship can be seen in the every fiber of the company. 

Time Management 

MS Raju works nearly sixteen hours a day with rigor and 

vigor because he enjoys working hard and long. He says one 

has to sacrifice his family in the initial years of a venture 

and subsequently as the venture takes-off and reaches the 

success plateau, one can relax a bit and spend longer hours 

with the family. He also admits that but with the success of 

the venture one becomes more busy because more 

opportunities flood the door hence, creating time for family 

is utmost important. He also works from home while 

spending time with the family. He attends many works 

simultaneously to leverage time and he believes time is the 

most important resource. He again says balance of time 

between family and office is crucial for success in the long 

run. He starts his office work at around 9.00 am in the 

morning and goes up to 6.00 pm in the evening. He does 

office work at home during office holidays too. 

Managing People 

MS Raju follows a very interesting principle while 

managing resources and people. Infronics is presently run by 

140 employees and many of them are talented engineers. He 

gives people enough freedom but controls at critical points. 

It appears as if the principle of determinism and free-will 

that is seen in many scriptures. He gives the example of 

God, how he provides enough freedom to people but 

controls at strategic points of life. MS Raju borrows this 

philosophy while dealing his employees. He provides 

enough freedom to employees but that freedom is crosschecked 

at various strategic locations. He gives the example 

of 1----10--------20-------30----------40---------------50 

mathematical series to understand the concept. He controls 

employees at point 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 and so on and provides 

enough freedom to people in between 1 and 10, 10 and 20, 

20 and 30 and so on. He gives the freedom but also control 

with a strategic intent. 

The Role of Money 

MS Raju shatters the myth of importance of ‘money’ and its 

role attached in the success of any entrepreneur. He says the 

role of money in entrepreneurship is absolutely zero and he 

assumes that money is abundantly available around us if we 

have the strategy to exploit an opportunity. He truly fits into 

the definition of entrepreneurship that says ‘entrepreneurs 

pursue opportunities without regard to the resources they 

currently control’. He emphasizes more of partnerships and 

strategic partners who play a strong role in the success of 

entrepreneurship and simply ignores the parameter of money 

in the success of entrepreneurship. He says entrepreneurship 

attracts money from all the corners and is never be a 

constraint for entrepreneurs. His networking with world 

leaders in technology say, IBM, Nedap, NXP, Motorola etc. 

has provided him the competitive edge in the market rather 

than the money. 

Entrepreneurship and Strategy 

The success of any entrepreneur he says depends on the 

strategy that he adopts to influence the context and driving 

the context towards his vision. MS Raju gives the first 


priority to strategy for maintaining a leadership position in 

the market. He strongly advocates that strategy shapes the 

success. Strategy is the true lever that shapes the context 

towards your vision and mission. It is the strategy that 

optimizes the partners’ linkages to serve customers and to 

expand customer base. He goes to the extent of equating 

entrepreneurship with strategy. Strategy links partners and 

employees with the company to leverage all the 

relationships consistently. Entrepreneur delivers 

entrepreneurship by strategy hence, a synonymous 

relationship. 

Stretching Employees and (n+1) strategy 

Stretching employees is crucial for higher productivity and 

the strategy of Infronics is always demand driven. Many 

organizations go for supply-side to stretch employee like 

more incentives or other reward oriented strategies. MS 

Raju follows demand-driven strategy where he brings more 

projects to less number of employees and creates a challenge 

among employees to complete the projects. Employees 

naturally stretch to meet the demand and raise their 

productivity. He follows (n+1) strategy where for ‘n’ 

number of employees, he brings ‘(n+1)’ projects and keeps 

employees always on toes to attack the complacency, a virus 

to be killed consistently. 

Success mantra is Integrity* 

MS Raju knows the secret of success, and he says ‘integrity 

is the engine of successes; this cannot be substitutable with 

anything else’. Integrity is the glue that binds everyone for 

team work to produce quality conscious products for 

customers to sustain their trust and commanding respect and 

serving community. Infronics believes in six values that 

guide each and every employee of the organization and that 

are “Team Work, Respect, Trust, Integrity, Quality and 

Community”. The values can be seen in Appendix I. 

Dream is yet to be seen 

MS Raju is exploring his lands because he says ‘I have yet 

to realize my dreams’ and is working incessantly to achieve 

his ambitions day in and day out. He has ‘Insatiable Desire’ 

to take his company into higher levels even though his 

vision is to take Infronics Systems into one of the top tier-2 

IT companies of India by 2012. It is a proven fact that 

entrepreneurial dreams are never reached because they 

consistently dream higher and higher with the each 

achievement, hence MS Raju is certainly not an exception. 

*Appendix I: Infronics Systems Ltd (Sourcewww.infronics.com) 

VISSION 

“Be one of the Top Tier-2 IT companies of India by 2012” 

MISSION 

“Achieve Technological, Operational and Performance 

Excellence through Innovation” 

VALUES 

We believe in 

Teamwork 

– Believe in "Together Everyone Achieves More". 

Respect 

– Value the Individual, Others and Our Diversity. 

Trust 

– Keep Our Promises 

Integrity 

– Conduct Ourselves Honestly, Professionally and 

Ethically. 

Quality 

– Employ Quality Conscious Processes. 

Community 

– Believe in Corporate Social Responsibility 

**Appendix II: Corporate Highlights (Sourcewww.infronics.com) 

Established in the year 2000 

IT Products and Solutions Company headquartered 

at Hyderabad, India 

In the year 2006 the company expanded its 

footprint to UK and Ireland, and is now planning to 

expand to USA 

A growing, strong, dedicated, specialized and 

highly qualified engineering team from some of the 

best universities of India 

One of the leading organizations in Biometrics, 

RFID and e-mobility 

Immense expertise in design, development and 

deployment of highly secure and scalable 

enterprise products and solutions 

In-house Hardware Design and Manufacturing, 

catering to Domestic and Overseas Markets 

Four patents filed to date 

 

 

Five Trademarks applied 

Infronics has over 1000 major clients spreading 

across various 

*** 


Awareness of Consumers on the Green Marketing 

Initiatives of Corporates 

Dr. LJ. Chaarlas, Associate Professor & Research Advisor in Commerce, 

St.Joseph’s College(Autonomous), Tiruchirappalli – 2. 

Ms. A. Noorunnisha, Assistant Professor in Commerce, 

Holy Cross College (Autonomous), Tiruchirappalli – 2 

Mr. R. Rajkumar, Ph.D Research Scholar in commerce(F.T.), 

St.Joseph’s College(Autonomous), Tiruchirappalli – 2. 

Abstract— The threatening alarm of Global Warming 

pushes the coporates towards sharing the responsibility of 

making a safe environment for all by involving themselves 

as a party to the Social Contract – an invisible agreement 

lying between the society and coporates. This growing 

importance of an eco-friendly approach, has paved the way 

for a new dimension of marketing – the Green Marketing. 

Green marketing is still found at its nascent stage due to the 

lack of awareness of consumers on eco-friendly activities of 

corporates. In order to bring in the awareness of green 

marketing, the corporates are bound to educate their 

consumers on the importance of environmental protection 

rather than adopting the green marketing initiatives. To 

make green marketing successful it is essential that the 

coporates adopt these functions with the approach of 

volunteerism and responsibility over the society and 

environment which has given them existence and survival. 

Keywords— Green Marketing, Green issues, 

Environment-Friendly, FMCGs and services, Consumer 

awareness. 

I. INTRODUCTION 

An intelligent marketer is the one who not only convinces 

the consumer, but also involves the consumer in marketing 

his product. Today, many corporates have started realizing 

that they should be environment-friendly. They believe in 

the achievement of both social and environmental objectives 

as well as financial objectives. The threatening alarm of 

Global Warming pushes the coporates towards sharing the 

responsibility of making a safe environment for all by 

involving themselves as a party to the Social Contract – an 

invisible agreement lying between the society and coporates. 

This growing importance of an eco-friendly approach, has 

paved the way for a new dimension of marketing – the 

Green Marketing. 

According to the American Marketing Association, 

“green marketing is the marketing of products that are 

presumed to be environmentally safe”[1]. Hence, green 

marketing involves a broad range of activities, including 

product modification, changes to the production process, 

changes in packaging, as well as modifying advertising. 

Green marketing cannot be perceived to be just one more 

approach to marketing, but has to be pursued with much 

vitality, as it has an environmental and social dimension 

involved into it. It is highly important for the marketers that 

they make green marketing as one of the norms of 

marketing procedure rather than an exception or just a fad. 

Though environmental protection is the trend of the 

day, green marketing is still found at its nascent stage due to 

the lack of or low awareness of consumers on the ecofriendly 

activities performed by the manufacturers and 

service providers. Yet the limited awareness of consumers 

on green marketing pressurises the marketers and 

researchers to do a lot of research on green marketing to 

fully explore its potential. Measuring the level of awareness 

of consumers has been of great importance to the marketers 

as they need to bear the greatest responsibility to make the 

consumers understand the need for and benefits of green 

products as compared to non-green ones and motivate them 

to pay more to maintain a cleaner and greener environment. 

II. GREEN MARKETING – A REVIEW 

India is growing at 9% annually and expected to 

double its energy consumption between 2005 and 2030, is 

under pressure to take action for providing clean 

environment for all future generations to come. In 

India, around 25% of the consumers prefer environmentalfriendly 

products, and around 28% may be considered 

healthy conscious. Therefore, there is a lot of diverse and 

fairly sizeable untapped segment in India which green 

marketers can serve through offering eco-friendly products 

for profitability and survival in the era of globalization[2]. 

The first wave of Green Marketing occurred in the 

1980s. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Reports 

started with the ice cream seller Ben & Jerry's where the 

financial report was supplemented by a greater view on the 

company's environmental impact. 

In 1987, a document prepared by the World 

Commission on Environment and Development defined 

sustainable development as meeting "the needs of the 

present without compromising the ability of future 

generations to meet their own need". This became known as 


the Brundtland Report and was another step towards 

widespread thinking on sustainability in everyday activity. 

Two tangible milestones for wave of green 

marketing came in the form of published books, both of 

which were called Green Marketing. They were by Ken 

Peattie (1992) in the United Kingdom and by Jacquelyn 

Ottman (1993) in the United States of America. 

In the years after 2000 a second wave of Green 

marketing emerged. By now CSR and the Triple Bottom 

Line (TBL) were widespread. Such publications as a 2005 

United Nations Report, a book by Al Gore in 2006 and the 

UK Stern Report brought scientific-environmental 

arguments to the public in an easy-to-understand way[3]. 

Therefore, surely this is time right to inject 

sustainable development into the marketing mix to help 

address some of the gritty issues currently facing our planet. 

III. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM 

As resources are limited and human wants are 

unlimited, it is important for the marketers to utilize the 

resources efficiently without waste as well as to achieve the 

organization's objective. There is growing interest among 

the consumers all over the world regarding protection of 

environment. As a result, green marketing which speaks for 

growing market for sustainable and socially responsible 

products and services becomes inevitable for corporates. 

Various studies by environmentalists indicate that 

consumers are concerned with the environment and are 

changing their behavioural pattern so as to be less hostile 

towards it. The level of green marketing initiatives of 

manufacturers and marketers is based on the level of 

awareness of consumers on green marketing. 

Therefore, the present study “AWARENESS OF 

CONSUMERS ON THE GREEN MARKETING 

INITIATIVES OF CORPORATES” has been endeavoured 

by the researcher to analyse the level of awareness of 

consumers on green marketing initiatives of corporates. 

IV. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY 

The following are the objectives of this study, 

Primary Objective 

To study the level of awareness of consumers on 

green marketing initiatives of corporates. 

Secondary Objectives 

1. To find out the level of awareness of consumers of 

FMCGs on green marketing initiatives of corporates. 

2. To understand the level of awareness of consumers of 

durable goods on green marketing initiatives of 

corporates. 

3. To identify the level of awareness of consumers of 

services sector on green marketing initiatives of 

corporates. 

4. To provide suitable suggestion to the marketers of 

FMCGs, Durables and Services Sector with regard to the 

level of awareness of consumers on green marketing 

initiatives of corporates. 

V. RESEARCH HYPOTHESES OF THE STUDY 

To test the level of awareness of consumers on 

green marketing initiatives of corporates, the following 

research hypotheses have been proposed: 

1. There is a significant association between the level 

of awareness of consumers of FMCGs on green 

marketing initiatives of corporates and their age. 


of awareness of consumers of durable goods on 

green marketing initiatives of corporates and their 

age. 


of awareness of consumers of services sector on 


age. 



marketing initiatives of corporates and their sex. 




sex. 




sex. 



marketing initiatives of corporates and their level 

of education. 




level of education. 




level of education. 

VI. SCOPE OF THE STUDY 

The study focuses to understand level of awareness 

of consumers about green marketing of FMCGs, durables 

and services sector. The present study has been conducted 

covering consumer-respondents of the district of 

Tiruchirappalli. The study may be of help to the marketers 

of FMCGs, durables and services sector to work out a good 

green marketing campaign for their products, after 

understanding level of awareness of consumers on green 

marketing initiatives of corporates. 

VII. METHODOLOGY 

The consumers of the district of Tiruchirappalli were the 

sample units of this study. The sample size comprised of 51 

consumer-respondents who have been targeted in the retail 


stores of the district of Tiruchirappalli. The study is based 

on the primary data collected using a structured as well as 

illustrative questionnaire which has also been used as an 

interview schedule. The hypotheses of the study have been 

analysed and proved using Chi-Square Test. 

VIII. LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY 

The findings and suggestions derived out of the study may 

not be applicable to any period other the period from 15 th 

November, 2011 to 15 th December, 2011 and also may not 

be relevant to any area other than the district of 

Tiruchirappalli. 

IX. ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS 

The analysis of the study focuses on measuring the level of 

awareness possessed by the consumers of FMCGs, durables, 

and services sector on the green marketing initiatives of 

corporates. 

The Table – 1 explains the relationship between the age of 

consumer-respondents and their level of awareness on the 

green marketing initiatives of corporates of FMCGs, 

durables and services. It may be located from the table that: 

There is no significant association between the age 

of consumers and their level of awareness on the green 

marketing initiatives of corporates of beverages, electronic 

products, mobile phones, and services other than financial 

services. 

There is a significant association between the age 


marketing initiatives of corporates of detergent products and 

financial services. 

The consumers of electrical products possessed 

wide knowledge of the green marketing features of their 

products irrespective of their level of age. 

The consumers who purchase cars did not hold 

extensive knowledge of the green marketing aspects of their 

products irrespective of their level of age. 

Hence, from the Table – 1, it has been inferred that 

the independent variable age has no association with the 

level of awareness of consumers on green marketing 

initiatives of corporates. 

The Table – 2 demonstrates the relationship 

between the sex of consumer-respondents and their level of 

awareness on the green marketing initiatives of corporates 

of FMCGs, durables and services. The following findings 

have been inferred from the table: 

There is no significant association between the sex 


marketing initiatives of corporates of beverages, detergent 

products and financial services. 

There is a significant association between the sex 


marketing initiatives of corporates of electronic products, 

mobile phones and services other than financial services. 

Again the consumers of electrical products have 

been found having complete awareness of the green 

marketing initiatives of marketers of electrical products 

irrespective of their sex. 

As found in the previous table the consumers of 

cars do not embrace extensive knowledge of the green 

marketing aspects of their products irrespective of their sex. 

Hence, from Table – 2, it has been recognised that 

there is an association between sex of respondents and their 

level of awareness on the green marketing initiatives of 

corporates. 

Table – 3 throws light on the relationship between 

the level of education of consumer-respondents and their 

level of awareness on the green marketing initiatives of 

corporates of FMCGs, durables and services. The table 

provides the following inferences: 

There is no significant association between the 

level of education of consumers and their level of awareness 

on the green marketing initiatives of corporates of beverages 

and mobile phones. 

There is a significant association between the level 

of education of consumers and their level of awareness on 

the green marketing initiatives of corporates of detergent 

products, electronic products, financial services and services 

other than financial services. 

Again the consumers of electrical products have 

been found having complete awareness of the green 

marketing initiatives of corporates of electrical products 

irrespective of their level of education. 

The consumers of cars were found having no 

extensive knowledge of the green marketing features of their 

products irrespective of their level of education. 

Hence, from the Table – 3, it has been identified 

that there is an association between level of education of 

consumers and their level of awareness on the green 

marketing initiatives of corporates. 

X. SUGGESTIONS 

From the analyses and findings of the study the following 

suggestions were proposed: 

The corporates should make sure that the consumers are 

aware of and concerned about the green issues that the 

product attempts to address. 

The corporates may take an initiatives to educate the 

consumers and letting them know what the corporates are 

doing to protect the environment, also by making them 


know why it is important and educating them on ecocertifications. 

Consumers must be reassured of the fact that the product 

performs the job it's supposed to do and the green issues of 

the product are only the additional features. They must be 

given the confidence that companies will never forego the 

product quality in the name of the environment. 

Consumers need to be given an opportunity to participate by 

means of personalizing the benefits of environment-friendly 

actions of the corporates, through the promotion and 

positioning of the consumer desired value into 

environmental products and making the green product 

attributes as “solutions” for consumer needs. 

XI. CONCLUSION 

As the whole world is moving towards 

environmental protection, this seems to be the right time for 

the corporate to select “Green Marketing”, because it is the 

vital ingredient to save the world from man-made hazards. It 

might bring a radical change in the world of business if all 

the nations undertake to perform strict roles of being 

environment-friendly. The approach of green marketing 

should be practiced with much care, as it has an 

environmental as well as social dimension into it. Recycling 

activities, treatment of waste material, recovery of used 

materials, environment-friendly production etc., in a safe 

and harmless style should become a universal practice 

among corporates. Educating the consumers on the 

importance of environmental protection should be more 

important than adopting the green marketing initiatives. To 

design the strategy to implement green marketing, it is 

imperative for corporates to gauge the level of awareness of 

their consumers on their green marketing initiatives. Apart 

from all these practices, the prime most consideration of any 

sustainable activity of the corporates must be done beyond 

legalities and without the compulsion of government and 

non-governemental agencies, so that it becomes the part of 

one of the objectives and functions of a corporate. 

REFERENCES 

[1]Available:http://www.indianmba.com/Occasional_Papers 

/OP248/op248.html 

[2]Available:http://www.indianmba.com/Occasional_Papers 

/OP248/op248.html 

[3]Available:http://www.indianmba.com/Faculty_Column/F 

C1071/fc1071.html 


Source : Field Data 

ANNEXURE 

TABLE - 1 

ASSOCIATION OF THE LEVEL OF AWARENESS OF CONSUMERS ON GREEN MAERKETING 

INITIATIVES OF CORPORATES WITH THEIR AGE 

Products/ 

Age 

Statistical Inference 

Services Below 25yrs 26 to 35yrs 36 to 45yrs 46 to 55 yrs 56 & Above 

(n=21) (n=21) (n=0) (n=9) (n=0) 

Beverages X 2 =2.175 

Yes 01 2 - 02 - 

Df =2 

No 20 19 - 07 - 

P = 0.337 

P > 0.05 

Not Significant 

Detergents X 2 =14.433 

Yes 03 15 - 03 - 

Df =2 

No 18 06 - 06 - 

P = 0.001 

P < 0.05 

Significant 

Electronics X 2 =1.457 

Yes 03 03 - 0 - 

Df =2 

No 18 18 - 09 - 

P = 0.483 

P > 0.05 


Electricals - 

Yes 21 21 - 09 - 

No 0 0 - 0 - 

Mobile Phones X 2 =1.457 

Yes 03 03 - 0 - 

No 18 18 - 09 - 

Df =2 

P = 0.483 

P > 0.05 


Cars - 

Yes 0 0 - 0 - 

No 21 21 - 09 - 

Finacial Services X 2 =11.302 

Yes 18 18 - 03 - 

No 03 03 - 06 - 

Df =2 

P = 0.004 

P < 0.05 

Significant 

Other Services X 2 =3.363 

Yes 06 06 - 0 - 

Df =2 

No 15 15 - 09 - 

P = 0.186 

P > 0.05 



TABLE - 2 

ASSOCIATION OF THE LEVEL OF AWARENESS OF CONSUMERS ON GREEN MAERKETING 

INITIATIVES OF CORPORATES WITH THEIR SEX 

Products/ Services Sex Statistical Inference 

Male 

Female 

(n=21) 

(n=30) 


Yes 02 03 

Df =1 

P = 0.955 

No 19 27 

P > 0.05 



Yes 09 12 

Df =1 

P = 0.838 

No 12 18 

P > 0.05 



Yes 0 03 

Df =1 

P = 0.029 

No 06 24 

P < 0.05 

Significant 

Electricals - 

Yes 21 30 

No 0 0 


Yes 0 06 

Df =1 

No 21 24 

P = 0.029 

P < 0.05 

Significant 

Cars - 

Yes 0 0 

No 21 30 

Financial Services X 2 =0.504 

Yes 15 24 

Df =1 

No 06 06 

P = 0.478 

P > 0.05 



Yes 09 12 

Df =1 

No 12 27 

P = 0.006 

P < 0.05 

Significant 

Source: Field Data 


TABLE - 3 

ASSOCIATION OF LEVEL OF AWARENESS OF CONSUMERS ON GREEN MAERKETING INITIATIVES OF 

CORPORATES WITH THEIR LEVEL OF EDUCATION 

Products/ 

Level of Education 

Statistical Inference 

Services < than 

SSLC 

SSLC 

(n=3) 

HSC 

(n=3) 

UG (n=9) PG 

(n=30) 

Professional 

(n=3) 

(n=3) 


Yes 0 0 0 01 04 0 

Df =5 

No 03 03 03 08 26 03 

P = 0.883 

P > 0.05 



Yes 0 0 03 03 12 03 

Df =5 

No 03 03 0 06 18 0 

P = 0.023 

P < 0.05 

Significant 


Yes 0 0 0 06 0 0 

Df =5 

No 03 03 03 03 30 03 

P = 0.000 

P < 0.05 

Significant 

Electricals - 

Yes 03 03 03 09 30 03 

No 0 0 0 0 0 0 


Yes 0 0 0 03 03 0 

No 03 03 03 06 27 03 

Df =5 

P = 0.334 

P > 0.05 


Cars - 

Yes 0 0 0 0 0 0 

No 03 03 03 09 30 03 

Finacial Services X 2 =15.987 

Yes 03 0 03 09 21 03 

No 0 03 0 0 09 0 

Df =5 

P = 0.007 

P < 0.05 

Significant 


Yes 0 0 03 03 06 0 

Df =5 

No 03 03 0 06 24 03 

P = 0.022 

P < 0.05 

Significant 

Source: Field Data 


Freight Forwarders Hurdles In The Operations – An 

Exploratory Study With Special Reference To 

Tamil Nadu - India 

Dr. J. PAUL SUNDAR KIRUBAKARAN 

Faculty in Business Studies, Ibra College of Technology, Ibra, Sultanate of Oman 

ABSTRACT 

The goods are moved from the manufacturers to the 

customers/consumers by the freight forwarders with their 

effective utilization of the road/sea/air transportations. The 

key concept in freight forwarding is the delivery of the 

cargo till the destination point or at the doorsteps of the 

consignee. Most of the manufacturers are rely on 

international freight forwarders to perform the operations to 

bring the goods to their end users. The international freight 

forwarders act as bridge between the 

manufacturers/exporters to the destination of the consumers. 

An empirical study was conducted in the study area to 

limelight the problems faced by the freight forwarders 

whoever is involved towards the sea transportations. To 

identify and select the respondents in the study area Simple 

Random Sampling method was employed and a well 

structured questionnaire was employed to gather the firsthand 

information. The questionnaire covers information of 

various kinds of their personal, operations and the problems 

faced by them towards their operations. The problems faced 

by the freight forwarders were chosen for the analysis. The 

details of analysis and interpretation s are given in this 

article. 

I.INTRODUCTION 

Freight forwarding agents are licensed by the customs. 

The name and address of the freight forwarding agents 

operating from different ports can be obtained from customs 

house or from their local association. The exporter should 

due care in various selecting criteria of fixing freight 

forwarder Viz., location, facilities rates, services, 

flexibilities and efficiency. 

Freight forwarding agents are one who specializes in 

arranging of shipping, insurance, and many of them today 

arrange land, sea and air transportation for goods. They take 

a major portion of the exporters work and their risks. A 

forwarding agent receives a large number of consignments 

and often group together a number of small ones and, by 

putting them into one large consignment, obtain preferential 

freight rates from the shipping line or the airline. On behalf 

of the shippers, they do all procedural and documentation 

formalities involved in the customs and port clearance. 

They also look after the warehousing and transshipment of 

cargoes before shipment of export consignments and after 

discharge of import cargoes, by the sea carriers. 

II. NEED FOR THE STUDY 

Freight Forwarders play a vital role in transacting 

the goods along with doing all the documentation work on 

behalf of the Exporters/Importers. Freight Forwarders are 

applying different formula for the effective Logistics 

business transaction. 

The study aims at analyzing the problems faced by 

the Freight Forwarders in Tamil Nadu, India and giving 

suggestions for improving their services. 

III. SCOPE OF THE STUDY 

The present study focuses the variety of aspects of 

the performance of Freight Forwarders in Indian marine 

cargo industry. It highlights the Freight Forwarding 

operations, and the problems faced by them. Among all 

these aspects of freight forwarding operations, 

containerization is essential for speedy and safety reach. 

Hence, the study encompasses the role of freight forwarders 

in containerization. 

IV. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY 

The present study is aimed to analyze the following 

objectives empirically. 

1. To limelight the overview of the Freight 

Forwarders. 

2. To identify the problems faced by the Freight 

Forwarders. 

3. To analyze the problems faced by the freight 

forwarders towards their operations. 

4. To suggest ways and means for effective overseas 

sea operations. 

V. METHODOLOGY OF THE STUDY 

In the present study, an extensive use of both 

primary and secondary data was made. The study has been 

made in a descriptive and analytical way. 

SAMPLING DESIGN 

Judgment sampling was followed to select the 

sample respondent for the study. To obtain primary data, the 

researcher approached 300 respondents out of 640 registered 

freight forwarders in the area of Chennai, Tuticorin, Tirupur, 

Coimbatore and Karur. The data collected from the sample 

respondents has been subdued in to suitable tabulated forms. 


COLLECTION OF DATA 

The study has been used both primary and 

secondary data. 

PRIMARY DATA 

The primary data collected from the selected 

respondents, viz., Logistics operators, freight forwarding 

agents and multi model transport operators in the study area. 

Field survey techniques were used to collect the first hand 

information from the respondents. A well structured 

interview schedule was prepared to collect data from the 

freight forwarders. Pilot study has been conducted with the 

help of the few sample schedules and necessary 

modification was carried down as and when required. 

SECONDARY DATA 

The Secondary data was gathered from the records 

of freight forwarders association, internet sources, libraries 

in Bangalore, Tuticorin, Chennai and Coimbatore. 

tools viz - 

 

VI. FRAME WORK OF ANALYSIS 

The data collected were analyzed by applying the 

Total Score multiplied by the values and Mean 

Score and also Garrent Ranking has been used 

to analyze the problems faced by the Freight 

Forwarders. 

VII. MAJOR FINDINGS OF THE STUDY 

Major Findings of the study has been given in the following 

heads: 

The Freight Forwarders in the study area have 

encountered innumerable problems with the exporters, 

insurance companies, financial companies and port 

authorities. The common problems faced by them were 

studied with the help of Henry Garrent Ranking methods. 

The problem related to the exporters are (i) nature of 

product in different types (ii) over expectation regarding 

promptness in service (iii) poor co-operation (iv) breach in 

contract and lack of export knowledge. Ranking on each 

problem was analyzed and rank based on the quantum of 

problem faced by them, and the rank thus earmarked by the 

respondents are converted into percentage position. For 

each percentage Garrent score was calculated from the 

standard table developed by Henry Garrent Ranking. The 

details of ranking are shown in the following table: 

TABLE NO. 1.1 

PROBLEMS RELATED WITH EXPORTERS 

S.No. 

Problems 

Total 

Score 

Mean 

Score 

Rank 

1 Nature of product (in 

different) 14160 47.2 IV 

2 Over expectation 

(Promptness) 18235 60.8 I 

3 Lack of co operation 12350 41.2 V 

4 Terms of contracts 15748 52.5 II 

5 Lack of Export 

knowledge 14914 49.7 III 

The above table clearly shows that the problem “ 

Over expectation on prompt service” was ranked in the first 

position with the Grarrent score of 18235 points. It is 

followed by “Breach of contract” with a Grarrent Ranking 

score of 15748 points. The problems faced by the exporters 

especially on “Lack of Knowledge on export formalities” 

was ranked the third place with the Garrent score of 14914 

points. On the other hand, the problem of “Nature of 

product of different varieties” was ranked in the fourth place 

with the Garrent Score of 14160 points. Lastly, “Lack of 

co-operation” was ranked in the fifth place with the Garrent 

score of 12350 points. From the analysis it is inferred that 

over expectation regarding the prompt services and breach 

of contracts are the most burning problems faced by the 

Freight Forwarders with their exporters. 

PROBLEM RELATED WITH THE INSURANCE 

COMPANY 

Freight Forwarders encounter many high risk 

problems when transporting goods from one place to the 

destination. They may incur loss due to a variety of man 

made and natural calamities. To avoid these risks, the freight 

forwarders insured the goods and the vessels with the 

General Insurance and Marine Insurance companies. 

Whenever these Freight Forwarders approach the insurance 

company for claims and settlements, they have bitter 

experiences with them. The problems faced by the Freight 

forwarders with the insurance companies are studied under 

five categories namely, submission of more documents 

before settling the claims, unnecessary delay in settlement, 

indifferent attitude of the official of the insurance company, 

lack of co-operation and redtapism. Henrry Garrent 

Ranking methods were employed to ascertain the most 

problems suffered to the least problems suffered with the 

insurance company. The details are shown in the 

underneath table: 

S.No. 

TABLE NO. 1.2 

PROBLEMS RELATED WITH INSURANCE 

COMPANY 

Problems 

Total 

Score 

Mean 

Score 

Rank 

1 Submission of 

Unnecessary 

Documents 14581 48.6 IV 

2 Delay in settlement 17085 57.0 I 

3 Indifferent Attitude 14859 49.5 III 

4 Lack of co-operation 13071 43.6 V 

5 Redtapism 15877 52.9 II 

The above table reveals that the problem “ Delay in 

Settlement” was ranked in the first position with the 

Garrent score of 17085 points. It is followed by 

“Redtapism” with a Grarrent Ranking score of 15877 points. 

The problems faced with the insurance company especially 

on “In different attitude of official of insurance company” 

were ranked the third place with the Garrent score of 14859 

points. On the other hand the problem of “Submission of 

unnecessary documents” was ranked in the fourth place with 

the Garrent Score of 14581 points. Lastly, “Lack of cooperation” 

was ranked in the fifth place with the Garrent 


score of 13071 points. From the analysis it is identified that 

delay in settlement of their claims and Redtapism are the 

most burning problems faced by the Freight Forwarders 

with the insurance companies. 

PROBLEMS RELATED WITH FINANCIAL 

ASPECTS 


faced innumerable problems related with finance aspects. 

The exporters are not properly settling their payment to the 

freight forwarders for various reasons. The problem related 

with financial aspects are (i) delay in payment (ii) cheque 

bouncing (iii) demanding for extention of credit period (iv) 

demand for less freight cost and (v) financial loss on the 

exporter’s side. Ranking on each problem was analyzed and 

rank based on the quantum of problem encountered by them 

and the rank thus earmarked by the respondents are 

converted into percentage position. The details of ranking 

are shown in the following table: 

TABLE NO. 1.3 

PROBLEMS RELATED WITH FINANCIAL 

ASPECTS 

S.No. Problems 

Total Mean 

Score Score 

Rank 

1 Delay in payment 15255 50.9 IV 

2 Cheque bouncing 16550 55.2 II 

3 Demand for 

extended credit 

period 18739 62.5 I 

4 Demand for less 

freight cost 15297 51.0 III 

5 Financial loss on the 

exporter’s side 9167 30.6 V 

It is evident from the above table that the problem “ 

Demand for more credit period ” was ranked in the first 

position with the Garrent score of 18739 points. It is 

followed by “Cheque bouncing ” with a Garrent Ranking 

score of 16550 points. “Demand for less freight cost” was 

ranked in the third place with the Garrent score of 15297 

points. On the other hand, the problem of “delay in 

payment by the clients” was ranked in the fourth place with 

the Garrent Score of 15255 points. Lastly, “financial loss on 

the exporter’s side” was ranked in the fifth place with the 

Garrent score of 9167 points. From the analysis it is 

identified that Demand for more credit period by the clients 

and Cheque bouncing are the most burning issues faced by 

the Freight Forwarders with regard to the finance in nature. 

PROBLEM RELATED WITH THE INSURANCE 

COMPANY 

Freight Forwarders meet with lots of problems 

related with their operations because high risks are there 

when transporting goods from one place to the final 

destination through ship loss, damages, delay and other 

causes. The freight forwarders are solely responsible for the 

same towards their clients. To have the best logistics 

operations the freight forwarders now rely on the 

information technology , proper network and supply chain 

management into their operations for the best logistic 

operations. The problems faced by the Freight forwarders 

towards the operations are studied under five categories 

namely More operating and 

Freight cost , More government policies through legal 

restrictions, More documentary works, Delay in operations 

and Natural calamity. Henrry Garrent Ranking methods 

were employed to ascertain the most problems suffered to 

the least sufferings with the operations. The details are 

shown in the following table: 

TABLE NO. 1.4 

PROBLEMS RELATED WITH THE OPERATIONS 

S.No. 

Problems 

Total 

Score 

Mean 

Score 

Rank 

1 More operating 

(fright) cost 

13962 46.5 III 

2 More government 

policies (legal 18178 60.6 I 

restriction) 

3 More documentary 

works 

13112 43.7 V 

4 Delay in operation 16577 55.3 II 

5 Natural calamity 13502 45.0 IV 

It could be observed from the above table that the 

problem “ more government policies through legal 

restriction” was ranked in the first position with the 

Grarrent score of 18178 points. It is followed by “delay in 

operations” with a Garrent Ranking score of 16577 points. 

The problems faced with the operations especially on “More 

operating freight cost” were ranked the third place with the 

Garrent score of 13962 points. On the other hand, the 

problem of “natural calamity” was ranked in the fourth 

place with the Garrent Score of 13502 points. Lastly, 

“more documentary works” was ranked in the fifth place 

with the Garrent score of 13112 points. From the analysis it 

is identified that more government polices and delay in 

operations are the most burning issues faced by the Freight 

Forwarders with the operations. 

PROBLEMS RELATED WITH THE PORT 

AUTHORITIES 


experienced innumerable problems from the port authorities 

in the port. The port authorities are partial towards the 

logistic operators according their volume of business 

handling and the status of their organizations (Like MNC’s, 

Large Scale Operators and so on). The problem related 

with port authorities are (i) lack of co-operation (ii) more 

rules and regulations (iii) delay in getting signal for 

operations (iv) seeking more documentary evidence and (v) 

lack of advanced equipments. Ranking on each problem was 

analyzed and rank based on the quantum of problem 

experienced by them, the ranks thus earmarked by the 

respondents are converted into percentage position. The 

details of ranking is shown in the following table: 


TABLE NO. 1.5 

PROBLEMS RELATED WITH PORT AUTHORITIES 

S.No. Problems Total Score 

Mean 

Score 

Rank 

1 Lack co-operation 15146 50.5 III 

2 More rules and regulations 15940 53.1 I 

3 Delay in getting signal for operations 14584 48.6 IV 

4 Seeking more documentary evidence 14133 47.1 V 

5 Lack of advanced equipments 15575 51.9 II 

An analysis of the above table shows that t could 

be observed from the above “ more rules and regulations 

” was ranked in the first position with the Grarrent score of 

15940 points. It is followed by “lack of advanced 

equipments ” with a Garrent Ranking score of 15575 points. 

The problem of “ lack of co-operations” was ranked in the 

third place with the Garrent score of 15146 points. On the 

other hand, the problem of “delay in getting signal for 

operations” was ranked in the forth place with the Garrent 

Score of 14584 points. Lastly, “seeking more documentary 

evidences” was ranked in the fifth place with the Garrent 

score of 14133 points. From the analysis it is identified that 

more rules and regulations and lack of advanced equipments 

are the most burning problems faced by the Freight 

Forwarders with regard to the Port authorities in the study 

area. 

VIII. SUGGESTIONS 

1. Each and every freight forwarders should have an 

attitude to have a good and long term relationship with 

the manufacturers/exporters/ customers. 

2. General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) can be 

introduced both by the Customs and also the freight 

forwarders to locate the containers as well as the 

position. 

3. The Customs executives can treat the freight forwarders 

in an prestigious way because they are the real source to 

enhance the export and import there by our economy 

will be improved. 

4. The National High way infrastructure, Indian railways 

infrastructure should be developed 

according to the international standards to enhance the 

foreign trade and commerce. 

5. There should be proper connectivity between all the 

infrastructure in India. 

6. To meet the international standards the government 

should take effort to install and use the advanced 

equipments to improve the turnaround time. 

7. Proximity to the Container Freight Station (CFS) and 

Inland Container Depot (ICD) to be facilitated. 

IX. CONCLUSION 

The freight forwarders are proving their efficiency 

by doing the best operations to various countries with 

limited infrastructural facilities particularly in the study 

area. Though various problems are studied and highlighted 

in this research, the researcher specially notes that the 

freight forwarders in the study area are performing in an 

outstanding way. They are also very much enthusiastic and 

most dynamic personalities and have the willpower and 

courage to dominate the Germans container vessels 

operations. To make the effective and efficient way of 

operations supply chain management. In order to utilize the 

supply chain management concept at the optimal level a 

proper initiation should be made to encourage the freight 

forwarders this can be very easily achieved by the freight 

forwarders association, CII and government of India. 

Adequate training can be given to the freight forwarders on 

General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) system and its 

application and advantages of the same. 

TEXT REFERENCES 

X. REFERENCES 

Anderson, J. and Narus, J. (1998) “Business Market 

Management, Understanding, Creating and Delivering 

Value”, Prentice Hall, New Jersey. 

Ballou, Ronald H. (1999), “Business Logistics 

management:Planning, organizing, and controlling the 

supply chain”- 4 th Edition, New Jersey: Prentice Hall,ISBN: 

0-13-081262-5. 

Mercer, James L. and Koester, Edwin H.: Public 

Management Systems : American Management Association. 

Dr.Paul Sundar Kirubakaran.J., “Supply Chain 

Management, Serial Publications, New Delhi, 2008, ISBN: 

978-81-8387-221-8. 

Seturam Shobha, ‘Corporate Profitability and Supply 

Chain’, Supply Chain Management for Global 

Competitiveness, Macmillan, New Delhi, 1999, pp. 77-93. 

Taff, Charles A.; Management of Physical Distribution and 

Transportation: Irwin. 

Thomson, A.W.J. and Hunter, L.C,; The Nationalised 

Transport Industries: London, Heinemann Educational 

Books. 

Womack, J.P., Jones, D.T. and Roos, D. (1990) The 

machine that changed the world, MacMillan, New York. 

Willis, Roger; Physical Distribution Management : An 

Analytical Approach to Cutting Costs: Noyes. 


JOURNAL – RESEARCH PAPER REFERENCES 

Anderson, D.L. and Lee Han, “Synchronized Supply Chains 

: The New Frontiers, 

Achieving Supply chain Excellence through Technology”, 

Montgomery Research Inc., san Francisco, 1999, pp 12-21. 

Ansari, A. and Modarress, B., “Just-in-Time Purchasing”, 

The Free Press, 1990. 

Mason, J. (1999). “Total cycle time compression and the 

agile supply chain”. 

International Journal of production economics, 

1999. P.62. 

Sheth, J.N. “A Model of Industrial Buyer Behavior”, 

Journal of Marketing, October 1973. 

REPORTS REFERENCES 

Freight Forwarders Association Reports. 

Indian Ports Associations Annual Reports. 

Imaritime research report 2003. 

The Economic Times - ET Knowledge series2002. 

WEBSITES 

http://www.imaritime.com 

http://www.atlaslogistics.co.in 

http://www.tradeport.org 

http://www.ais.misstate.edu 

http://www.cio.com/summaries/enterprise/scm/ 

http://www.apldirectlogistics.com 

http://www.clml.org/ 

*** 


Assessing farmer perception towards Internet based 

intervention: an empirical study 

Dr. Sudeepa Banerjee, Associate professor, 

MIS .Teach in MBA, MHRM and MPSM programs of the Calcutta University, 

‘A quiet digital revolution is reshaping the lives of farmers 

in remote Indian villages. In these villages farmers grow 

soyabeans, wheat and coffee in small plots of land as they 

have for thousand years. A typical village has no reliable 

electricity and has antiquated telephone lines. The farmers 

are largely illiterate and have never seen a computer. But 

farmers in these villages are conducting e-business through 

an initiative called e-Choupal, created by ITC, one of India’s 

largest consumer and agribusiness communities.’ (Mohanbir 

Sawhney, 2002). 

Background 

A large part of the Indian population lives in rural areas. 

They have mostly low incomes, they are largely dependent 

on monsoons for their harvest, they are plagued by illiteracy, 

limited media reach and poor infrastructure and their 

markets have unviable direct distribution systems. 

The vicious circle of low incomes continues due to several 

reasons. Some of them are the fragmentation of land that 

adversely impacts productivity and quality of produce, 

thereby reducing the bargaining power of the farmer. Wide 

geographical dispersion results in limited or no real time 

access to information and also makes whatever information 

delivered, very expensive. The heterogeneity of farmers 

imply, single farmer and multiple crops, so it becomes 

difficult to customize the land or other requirements like soil 

conditions; there is a perpetual need for investment and 

hence cash and finally the weak infrastructure- whether it is 

roads, telecommunication, power, irrigation or a distribution 

system leading the farmers to depend heavily on middlemen 

and money lenders. 

Rural marketers also suffer a lot for the fragmentation on 

account of low effort ratio, high cost of reaching due to the 

geographical dispersion, not possible or worth customizing 

on account of heterogeneity and a passive distribution 

system because of poor infrastructure. 

The major problems that are being faced by farmers are lack 

of institutional support, lack of information on best farming 

practices and weather, quality and information of inputs. 

The presence of middle men in the chain lead to incorrect 

pricing, quality and weightment, handling losses and waste 

of time. 

Information and Communication Technology 

The revolution in information and communication 

technology (ICT) is affecting people in all walks of life 

today. Internationally, this revolution has facilitated the 

globalization of the economy, business, finance and culture 

(Gomez 1997; Heeks 1999). Today ICT constitutes the 

fastest growing component of the global economy and the 

Indian ICT spending is expected to grow 10.3 percent in 

2012 and in that Services and Software will be the fastest 

growing segment till the end of 2014(Gartner Press releases 

, 2012 and 2011). 

However, the rural community in most countries is out of 

this growth map and Internet access in these areas is usually 

very marginal if at all. India is no exception- while the 

spread and use of information technology has been 

phenomenal in urban areas the rural communities are still 

largely left out (Agarwal, 2009). 

There is a growing consensus that knowledge and 

information are essential for empowering rural communities. 

Communication is central to this process. Convergence of 

technologies can help people share knowledge and 

information. Information intermediaries like social workers, 

educators and mass media can help rural communities 

access relevant information. Internet technology can be used 

for strengthening research and increasing farmer linkages 

through better agricultural marketing, disaster mitigation 

through forecasting, monitoring and early warning systems. 

Relevance of use of Internet technology in Agriculture lies 

in it ability to reduce isolation, facilitate dialogue, provide 

information and skills training and encourage orderly 

structure in the system. 

Social empowerment 

Participatory development is necessary in terms of 

sustainability, relevance and empowerment and is 

considered better than top-down development approaches 

(Cooke and Kothari , 2002). The main endeavor in such 

processes is to involve economically and socially backward 

and neglected population in the decisions that affect their 

lives (Guijt, 1999,Khwaja,2004). Participation, especially in 

the context of community, is deeply linked to issues of 

democracy, power, and asymmetries that historically exist 

within communities. International organizations like the 

World Bank and UNICEF have been dealing with 

community participation through rapid rural appraisal, 

participative rural appraisal and participative learning for 

action. “Participation is viewed pragmatically and 

ideologically—something that helps efficiency, satisfaction 

and progress, but which is also morally right” (Mumford 

1984) .The role and relevance of modern communication 

technology towards social development and its improvement 

is being studied by various researchers (Sahay and Avgerou, 

2002; Madon and Sahay, 2002). 


The extent to which a farmer can understand and adopt a 

new technology depends on his experience with it. Strong 

and positive experiences will influence better acceptability 

amongst individuals and also groups. Certain group 

characteristics influence empowerment. When participants 

of a new technology interact with each other they make 

meaningful changes in their behavior and influences 

resulting in individual and collective empowerment. 

Research has shown that participation and empowerment are 

related to each other (Berger and Neuhaus, 1977; Thomas 

and Velthouse, 1990; Rappaport, 1987). 

The two underlying theoretical components in 

empowerment are information and influence (Khwaja,2005, 

pp.273-275). Information is a component of empowerment 

where an individual or a community is able to provide 

information about their own preference and gain information 

from outside that may enhance their capacity to make 

optimal choices. Thus access to information can help by 

allowing people to make more informed decisions. 

Participation can be considered a means of providing and 

gaining information. Information exchange as a component 

of empowerment implies that the users have to be otherwise 

empowered as well as they may else perceive that there is 

little chance of their preferences being considered. 

While information is necessary it is not sufficient o produce 

the desired outcome .There is another component called 

influence or ‘bargaining power’(Khwaja, 2005,pp.274) that 

is also required. Users may have access to information , but 

unless they have the ability to influence the decision and 

also know that they have this ability, they will have little 

motivation to either provide or gain the requisite 

information-this is the influence component of 

empowerment which leads to decisions that may be 

considered a less tangible asset. 

Research question 

Internet as a medium has been put to use in some rural areas 

of India. It is necessary to investigate how the farmers have 

perceived its use. A positive response and experience is 

necessary for more farmers to use this medium thus 

contributing to the ‘critical mass’ that can convert this 

technology to a mass media. 

The objective of this research includes an examination of the 

perception of empowerment amongst farmers who use 

Internet technology through e-Choupals. A modest attempt 

has been made to fill up the gap by identifying the following 

research question : 

What are the effects of different elements of the e-Choupal 

on the overall empowerment of farmers? 

Study design 

To answer this research question the researcher will be using 

the case of ITC’s e-choupal. ITC is well known for its 

corporate and social responsibility and it is this philosophy 

that initiated the e-choupal system, where the business 

model increased shareholders value as well as contributed to 

social development. ITC envisioned this project by using 

Internet as a medium. 

ITC and e-Choupal 

The ITC group of companies has a yearly turnover of Rs 7.5 

billion and is involved in tobacco, cigarettes, paper and 

packaging, paperboard manufacturing, hotels and tourism, 

information technology and agricultural exports. 

Of these its Agri Business Division is one of India’s largest 

exporters of agricultural commodities. Initially the 

agricultural commodity trading business was small 

compared to International players. The opening up of the 

Indian market around 1996 brought in international 

competition. ITC took the route of information technology 

through e-Choupals to create a competitive business that did 

not need a large asset base. The e-Choupal has been able to 

install computers with Internet access in rural farming 

villages, where it serves both as a social gathering place for 

exchange of information and an e-commerce hub. The 

computer is typically housed in the Sanchalak’s house, who 

is also a local farmer and is linked to the Internet via phone 

lines or VSAT connectivity and normally serves around 10 

villages within a radius of about five kilometers. There is an 

initial investment to set it up and an annual maintenance 

charge normally shared between ITC and the Sanchalak. 

Using the system costs nothing to the farmer. While a pure 

trading model does not require much capital investment, the 

e-Choupal model, in contrast, has required ITC to make 

significant investments to create and maintain its own IT 

network in rural India and to identify and train local farmers 

(Sanchalaks and Samayojaks ) to set up and manage each e- 

Choupal. 

Users of e-Choupal can use the computer to access daily 

closing prices on local mandis(government –fair price 

mandated markets),as well as to track global price trends or 

find information about new farming techniques or about 

fertilizers, weather , best global practices etc either by 

themselves or with assistance from the Sanchalak who is 

trained by ITC. Further they can also order quality seeds, 

fertilizers and other products such as consumer goods from 

ITC or its partners, at prices lower than those from village 

traders ; the Sanchalak basically aggregates the village 

demand of the various products and sends the order to an 

ITC representative. At harvest time, ITC offers to buy the 

crop directly from any farmer at prevailing prices, the 

testing of quality is done scientifically and the farmer is 

informed about the quality of his produce and the altered 

price if any in view of poorer quality. If the farmer is willing 

to sell , he then transports his produce to the local collecting 

centre where it is weighed electronically and reassessed for 

quality .The farmer gets paid for the crop as well as a 

transportation and bagging fee immediately. The Sanchalak 

on the other hand benefits from increased prestige and a 

commission paid to him for all e-Choupal transactions. This 

is in contrast to the normal trade route where the farmer sells 

his produce to a small trader called a kaccha adat, who sells 

the produce to a larger trader called pakka adat, who in turn 

takes the produce to a local mandi or a market place, where 


a larger trader buys the same. The mandi traders then 

operate through brokers to negotiate prices with specific 

companies like ITC and then sell. This long route results in 

high procurement cost for companies, unfair price recovery 

for farmers, loss in handling and also deterioration of the 

quality of produce due to this time-consuming system. 

Additionally, there is a long wait at mandi’s for farmers as 

well as harassment in the hands of the various middlemen. 

Further, the payment for the crops is also not scientific and 

farmers have to wait very long to recover their dues. 

Methodology 

Model 

An additive form of multiple regression model has been 

considered for the research question as mentioned earlier 

and postulated as: 

where, 

n 

Y= b 0 + b i 

i1 

X i + , i=1…..4 

Y = mean value of overall empowerment for each 

respondent 

b 0 = constant 

b i = regression coefficient of the i th constraint 

N 

X i = [ ( X j ) / N ] for each respondent 

j1 

X j = score on j th item of each respondent 

N= number of items of i th construct 

= Random error terms is assumed to be normally 

distributed. 

Hypothesis 

The perception of farmers towards i th construct will have a 

positive impact on overall empowerment. Mathematically 

H 0 : B i = 0 against 

H 1 : B i > 0 

Questionnaire design 

In the early stage of concept development (what is to be 

measured and what can be measured), an extensive review 

of literature on the subject and an analysis of possible 

components to be measured have been done. Some were 

established measures,while others were modified or 

developed for this study based on intuition, knowledge and 

experience.After identifying a set of possible items an 

intensive discussion with a group of target respondents 

(farmers using e-Choupal for trade and information) has 

been conducted to assess the proposed concepts, definition, 

terminology and final selection of the relevant items. In the 

next stage, face-to-face in-depth interviews with managers 

from ITC have been conducted to discuss all the items. After 

consultation with two academicians, these items have been 

confirmed and questions framed on them on a 5-point Likert 

scale (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree). The 

Likert scale has been used as it is a reliable and commonly 

used scale that can be easily interpreted .All the items are 

framed in closed-end form. 

For the purpose of pre testing the questionnaire a pilot 

survey had been performed on 22 respondents. 

Therefore, in this study farmer perception was 

operationalized as a multidimensional concept and thus the 

questionnaire finally consists of 19 items. These are all 

refined items, which have been derived from 39 items by 

repetitive factor analysis as well as consideration of standard 

deviation of each item (rejected when standard deviation 

was below 1). The dimensions or constructs that have been 

considered are fair price, price information-current as well 

as trend, faster recovery of dues, reduced dependence on 

money lenders, language barrier, ease of use, soil testing 

facility, weather information, information on fertilizers, 

pesticides and best practices, increased productivity of land, 

reduced wastage, availability of newer and better farming 

products that include seeds, tools, fertilizers and pesticides, 

reduced harassment and overall sense of empowerment. 

To measure the underlying dimensions of these items, 

exploratory factor analysis (PCA) has been performed and 4 

dimensions have been revealed: (1) increase in income, 

(2) inclusion/participation (Khwaja,2005, P.272), (3) 

decision-making power (Renuka and Lekshmi, 2003) and 

(4) additional benefits .The number of items varies from 3 

to 5 between constructs. This ensures the questionnaire 

satisfies the construct validity. As far as reliability is 

concerned Cronbach alpha for each construct has been 

calculated and it varies between 0.6 and 0.8 (Nunnally, 

1994). 

A single item that measures overall empowerment has been 

also framed on a 5-point Likert scale which has been used as 

a dependent variable in subsequent analysis. 

Sampling technique and sampling size 

The sample frame of the farmers was available; hence 

simple random sampling technique was used. By this 

technique a sample size of 200 had been drawn from a 

population of 584.The sample size was more than 5% of the 

population and hence this was a finite population and so the 

sample size (180) has been given an adjustment by finite 

population correction factor (FPCF) of 0.83, calculated as 

FPCF= (N-n)/(N-1); N=population size, n=sample 

size. Finally data have been collected from 150 , (FPCF x n) 

respondents. 

Method of interview 

The researcher conducted a questionnaire-based survey with 

farmers of wheat of the Basai ki Nagla village e-Choupal 

near Hathras in western UP in 2009. Interviews were 

conducted with Rana Sharma- Sanchalak, samyojaks, Mandi 

adatiyas and ITC personnels to gain a better understanding 

of the linkages among Internet, participatory development, 

social development and empowerment. 


Results and discussion 

Table 1 shows the result of the multiple regression analysis. 

It also shows the beta values, which indicate the variables’ 

explanatory power. 

The model cannot be interpreted before checking the 

multicollinearity of the independent variables. When high 

level of correlation exists between two or more independent 

variables used in the regression, then it is difficult to 

From the results presented in Table 1, it can be observed 

that the regression coefficient is positive in all the cases. 

This indicates that these variables have a positive 

relationship with the dependent variable – overall perception 

of empowerment. The coefficients of the four constructs ((1) 

increase in income, (2) inclusion/participation, (3) 

decision-making power and (4) additional benefits) are 

0.55,0.54,0.49,0.44 respectively. That is the change in 

perception of farmers with respect to increase in income by 

1 unit, will change the overall empowerment by 0.55 and so 

on. 

From the Table 1, it can be seen that the t values are 

significant at desired level, and hence all the hypotheses 

related to the four constructs ((1) increase in income, (2) 

inclusion/participation, (3) decision-making power and (4) 

additional benefits)) as mentioned earlier have been 

confirmed in this work. 

From the results presented in Table 1, the standardized beta 

coefficients indicate the impact that each independent 

variable has on the dependent variable. Decision-making 

power has the highest impact on empowerment followed by 

inclusion/participation, increase in income and finally 

additional benefits. 

The R 2 value or variance explained is significant at 52.1% 

(F=25.86, P=0.000) as expected (Anderson et.al ,2009) as is 

shown in Table 2 below. 

Table 2: Validation statistics 

R 2 F P 

52.1% 25.86 0.000 

Conclusion 

The objective of this study was to measure the acceptability 

of Internet amongst the rural people in general and farmers 

in particular. Data have been gathered and analysed 

empirically. Subsequently results have been interpreted. 

Findings suggest that overall sense of empowerment has 

been enhanced since farmer perception towards different 

dimensions is positively inclined. Hence the objective of this 

determine the contribution of each independent variable, 

because their effects are confounded (Hair and Anderson , 

2005, pp.188-89) .For this the variance inflation factor (VIF) 

has been assessed. The values are within the common cutoff 

threshold of 10(Hair and Anderson , 2005, pp.220-21) . 

Table 1: Results of the regression analysis between 

overall sense of empowerment, increase in income, 

decision-making power, inclusion/participation and 

additional benefits. 

The regression equation is: y=0.64+0.55x1+0.54x2+0.49x3+0.44x4 

Predictor Coefficient SE T Std Beta VIF Rank 

Constant 0.64 0.45 1.42 

Increase in income(x1) 0.55 0.27 2.05 ** 0.93 7.9 3 

Decision-making power (x2) 0.54 0.14 3.76 * 1.34 4.6 1 

Inclusion/ participation(x3) 0.49 0.22 2.19 * 1.21 5.3 2 

Additional benefits (x4) 0.44 0.22 1.99 * 0.74 9.8 4 

Notes: * P < 0.01, 

** 

P< 0.05, VIF: Variance inflation study has been fulfilled. Managers of e-Choupal on the other 

factor 

hand should consider farmer’s perception to formulate better 

strategy for the acceptance of Internet in rural India which in 

turn will uplift the rural community by increasing their 

income, inclusion and participation, their decision making 

powers and provide other benefits. 

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*** 


Financial inclusion for sustainable development: a 

critical literature review-the role of commercial 

banks & low-income peoples. 

Prof. CHITTA RANJAN MISHRA. 

ABSTRACT 

This report examines evidence from the academic and 

policy literature review about the financial capability & 

saving of low-income people. The purposes of the study are 

to provide a critical review of evidence about the lowincome 

people’s financial savings & the role of commercial 

banks measurement, the programs used to promote their 

saving capability & aware their knowledge about financial 

product, services and the information uncovered about the 

programs by evaluations. Financial knowledge & saving is 

the most important for financial inclusion. Financial product 

knowledge has been proposed widely as an effective 

approach to preparing people to manage their finances. 

Financial capability includes both the ability to act 

(knowledge, skills, confidence, and motivation) and the 

opportunity to act (through access to quality financial 

products and services). The data required for the study have 

collected from the secondary sources. Banks are essential 

for each country’s economy, since no growth can be 

achieved unless savings are efficiently channeled into 

investment. In this respect, the lack of a full-fledged banking 

system has often been identified as a major weakness of the 

centrally planned economies. Therefore, reforming the 

banking sector in the former communist countries and 

creating a new culture of trust and confidence has been a 

crucial task in the process of transition to a market economy. 

The banks should encourage the people to access banking 

services by ways of no frills account, financial inclusion 

campaign and business correspondent etc. As a financial 

inclusion strategy, developing inclusive financial systems 

should give priority, which is financially and socially 

sustainable. 

Keywords: Financial Inclusion , role of commercial bank, 

poverty Alleviation , Economic development, knowledge 

about Financial product & services. 

INTRODUCTION 

Financial inclusion is an idea whose time has finally come 

in India. It will enable hundreds of millions of low-income 

people to improve their economic and social status by 

participating in the financial system. Not only have the 

government and the Reserve Bank of India become very 

keen to promote inclusion, successful business models have 

at last emerged to serve the poor in a profitable manner. 

Capital, both debt and equity, is now available for this sector 

at reasonable cost even as better technology and Internet 

connectivity are making it easier and less expensive to reach 

the poor. Financial inclusion is the delivery of financial 

services at an affordable cost to low-income households. It 

is estimated that nearly 500 millions Indians are not served 

well (or even at all) by the current financial system. There is 

a close connection between poverty and financial exclusion, 

which can lead to estrangement, disaffection and reduced 

participation in society by low-income families. The 

government of India and the Reserve Bank of India have 

been very concerned about financial exclusion and the great 

harm it causes to the society. The RBI has taken many 

initiatives to spread banking services such as expanding the 

number of rural bank branches as well as allowing the 

banking correspondent model. The scale of the problem of 

financial exclusion can be daunting. Nearly half of the 

population and a majority in rural Indians do not have bank 

accounts. Less than 10% of India’s 600,000 villages have a 

bank branch. Nearly 80% of the Indian population is without 

life or health insurance. Penetration of mortgages, mutual 

funds and pension products is also very low. The world is 

full of poverty reducing strategies. Human imagination and 

creativity know no boundaries in how to overcome poverty. 

If they were all successful, the abolition of poverty might be 

in sight. However, only few of the many imaginable poverty 

reducing strategies are actually put to use, and most of those 

are incomplete in the sense that they are put only to partial 

use. There are many reasons for this situation. Lack of 

resources is the reason most often mentioned. Lack of 

knowledge on how to obtain efficient poverty reduction is 

one. Inaccurate use, or misuse of knowledge is another. 

Administrative inadequacy in organizing and implementing 

a poverty reducing strategy can be considered another 

reason for failure. Such arguments can be classified as 

technical reasons. The underlying assumption is that if 

knowledge, resources and administrative expertise increase, 

then poverty reduction would also increase. The explicit aim 

for donors and others is to work towards improving such 

technical defaults. It is important that they continue to do so. 

At the same time, we know that other and much stronger 

forces intervene to prevent poverty reduction. On the one 

hand we have forces that have a direct interest in neglecting 

poverty reduction or even trying to stop it from being 

implemented and carried out in an efficient manner. There 

are many reasons for such an attitude. It may be the dislike 

of poor people, the dislike of sharing resources or the fear of 

changing a social structure in favor of the poor. Some of 

those poverty producing forces are intended because vested 

interests are linked to continued poverty. Other poverty 

producing forces are unintentional, but still powerful. As a 

matter of fact, it can be argued that unintentional poverty 

production has a larger impact on poverty formation than 


direct poverty production. The relevance of the argument is 

here that poverty reducing strategies cannot be understood 

unless one takes into account also the forces that work 

against poverty reduction. The negative forces built into a 

counter-strategy can be political, cultural, economic or 

symbolic. The latter might be as important in terms of 

resistance to a poverty reducing strategy as the other three. 

If this argument is correct poverty reducing strategies need 

to be analyzed and understood not only in terms of intended 

positive effects. It is just as necessary to analyze and 

understand the likely counter forces that come into play 

when a new poverty reducing strategy is introduced. 

Otherwise the poverty reducing strategy is doomed to fail. 

The measures that need to be taken to bring the counterstrategies 

under control, or neutralize their effect on the 

intended poverty reduction, are not part of the ordinary 

curriculum of poverty reduction. It is taken for granted that 

“everybody” wants poverty reduction. The reality is 

different. There are severe conflicts surrounding most 

poverty reducing efforts, in particular those that call for 

more comprehensive redistribution or changes in the social 

structure. A model of conflict is more adequate. However, to 

work within a model of conflict calls for a reorientation of 

those responsible for poverty reduction. It means among 

other things to identify the counteractive forces and to 

develop ways of dealing with actors who are often among 

the powerful people. So far poverty reducing measures have 

not been developed within such a context. In the following I 

shall outline a set of current poverty reducing strategies as 

they are played out on different levels. The readers will be 

invited to identify counteracting strategies and the actors 

and interests behind such strategies. The time ate goal is to 

learn how to protect poverty reducing strategies from 

counterstrategies and carry them through to greater 

efficiency. This may be asking too much since this is a 

infield hat politicians and administrators have so far been 

reluctant to enter, and perhaps with good reason. Financial 

literacy levels are extremely low. Even though microfinance 

institutions have expanded very fast in the last five years, 

they still only cover about one fifth of low-income 

households and they to meet only one tenth of the credit 

needs of the poor. While it is a daunting challenge in size 

and scope, financial inclusion is also a great social and 

business opportunity. Among the potential businesses that 

will benefit from more inclusion are business 

correspondents who can bring simple banking services as 

wells insurance and even pension schemes to the poor. 

LITERATURE REVIEW 

Banks play an important role in meeting credit need of 

people. More studies have attempted to analyze the role of 

commercial banks in financial inclusion for sustainable 

development. The RRBs and commercial banks in the 

economic development and relation with other 

developmental programmes. An attempt in this section has 

been made to review some important research studies. 

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee (2010) said financial 

inclusion was a key determinant of sustainable and inclusive 

growth which could unlock the vast hidden potential of 

savings consumption and investment propensities of the 

poorer sections of society. 

Transact the national forum for financial inclusion, (2007 ) 

Financial inclusion is a state in which all people have access 

to appropriate, defined financial products and services in 

order to manage their money effetely. It is achieved by 

financial literacy and financial capability on the part of the 

consumer and financial access on the part of product, 

services and advice suppliers. 

Farhat Husain (1986) has made a detailed analysis of the 

development of Commercial banks in India in the light of 

reorientation of banking policy, credit planning and resource 

mobilization for the regional development. 

Choubey, B.N. (1983) has evaluated that Commercial Banks 

have failed to fill the serious gap and deficiencies in farm 

credit, which the RRBs could manage to do. Choubey 

emphasized that the NABARD would be required to pay 

special attention to the depoliticisation of the agricultural 

credit and government credit agencies. He suggested that 

NABARD might help the agricultural and rural sector in 

raising their productivity at reasonable faster rate. 

Shetty (1997) in his studies that the ‘social banking’ policies 

being followed by the country resulted in widening the 

‘geographical spread and functional reach’ of commercial 

banks in rural area in the period that followed the 

nationalization of banks. 

NABARD (1999) remarked that the despite having a wide 

network of rural bank branches in India which implemented 

specific poverty alleviation programmes that sought creation 

of self employment opportunities through bank credit, a very 

large number of the poorest of the poor continued to remain 

outside the fold of the formal banking systems. 

Gundannavar, V.R. (1992) has highlighted the role of banks 

in implementing social banking schemes to keep pace with 

changing social needs. He has strongly opposed any move to 

reduce resources allocation to priority sectors, which will 

have an adverse impact on the agricultural credit. He has 

suggested to increase higher interest rate on commercial 

lending and to continue concessional rate of lending to 

priority sectors. 

Barman, K.K. (1994) has made an analytical study on the 

implications of financial sector reforms on rural credit 

delivery system. He has found that implications are of wide 

spread; on interest rate of agricultural loans, lending rates, 

priority sector lending, reserve requirements and 

institutional restructuring. 

Rangarajan, C. (1996) has identified three to four major 

factors which would have impact over the future banking 

operation including progressive de-regulation of interest 

rates, a diversified competitive market place, market 

determined exchange rate mechanism and technological 

progress. He suggested the banks to provide credit to 

agriculture and allied sector as provision of credit to high- 


tech agriculture which is almost equal to providing credit to 

industry. 

Vaidya, B.V. (2002) has made a comprehensive effort to 

highlight some of the aspects of rural development of the 

country under the policy of liberalisation and globalisation, 

including economic aspect, agricultural aspect, industrial 

aspect, infrastructural aspect and management aspect. From 

his analysis, he has drawn the conclusion that a 

comprehensive methodology will be necessary for rural 

development which is the bed-rock of development for the 

whole country. 

Ansari (2007) in her study reveals that reaching the poorest 

and whose credit requirements were very small, frequent 

and unpredictable, was found to be difficult. Further, the 

emphasis was on providing credit rather than financial 

products and services including savings, insurance, etc. to 

the poor to meet their simple requirements. Therefore, need 

was felt for alternative policies, systems and procedures, 

savings and loans products, other complementary services 

and new delivery mechanisms, which would fulfill the 

requirements of the poorest. 

Shylendra, (1998) spoke of SHGs as meaning small 

informal associations created for the purpose of enabling 

members to reap economic benefit out of mutual help, 

solidarity, and joint responsibility. The benefits include 

mobilization of savings and credit facilities and pursuit of 

group enterprise activities. The group-based approach not 

only enables the poor to accumulate capital by way of small 

savings but also helps them to get access to formal credit 

facilities. 

To Beck & De la Torre, (2006) financial inclusion should 

signify access to a range of different financial services, the 

percentage of people in a given area with access to a bank 

account is the typical measuring stick for breadth of 

financial services. 

Karmarkar, K.G.(1997) has highlighted the role of Micro 

financing (SHGs) on the rural credit delivery system in the 

state of Orissa with example of successful projects in the 

different parts of the state. He has suggested for active 

participation of banks and other development agencies to 

promote micro financing in large scale to accelerate the pace 

of rural development. 

Biswal, D. and Dash, H. (1997) have attempted to study the 

recovery phenomenon of rural bank credit in Orissa. The 

banks in financing rural development are of the view that 

poor recovery and mounting overdue are the major huddles 

faced by them. They have suggested for adequate 

development of rural infrastructure in the state to improve 

the income and financial condition of rural poor which in 

turn will improve the recovery performance of banks in the 

state. 

Verrashekharappa (1997) in his work on “Institutional 

Finance for Rural Development” has highlighted the 

importance of institutional finance on farm sector in a 

changing perceptive. Taking into account the transaction 

cost, utilization of loan, repayments and over dues, he has 

advocated for policy implications to be implemented more 

cautiously to reduce the gap between bank credit and farm 

sector and to remove the size of landholding as collateral 

security against farm credit.. 

World Bank (2008) financial inclusion is also influenced by 

specific credit needs of various segment people arises for a 

number activities such as housing, microenterprises, 

agriculture difficulties in accessing formal sources of credit, 

the poor individuals and small savings or internal resources 

to invest in housing, health and education, and opportunities. 

NEED FOR THE STUDY 

The economy is presently in a phase of rapidly rising 

income, rural and urban, arising from an expansion of extant 

economic activities as well as the creation of new activities 

including corporate profitability which has exhibited 

sustainable trends and increasing consumer incomes thereby 

riding on the growth momentum. All of these developments 

suggest that the demand for financial services, both for 

savings as well as production purposes, will be greater than 

has been the case in the past, and there will be many new 

entrants in need of financial services who have not hitherto 

been served. Financial inclusion as a topic has attracted 

global attention in the recent past. For our own country 

where almost 70 percent of population lives in the rural 

areas and engages in agriculture and allied activities, 

financial inclusion assumes paramount importance indeed, 

and is an utmost necessity for a country where a large 

number of the world’s highest poverty stricken population 

resides. The bank provides a no frills Savings Bank Account 

to all members of the lower income groups. As a next step, 

small overdraft facilities are allowed in the Savings Bank 

Accounts in order to cater to the account holder’s general 

purpose or consumption needs. Those who are engaged in 

income generation activities were provided with general 

credit card facility with a flexibility of roll over facility. 

Opening no frills account with a small overdraft or GCC is 

only the first step in building the relationship which would 

require sustained efforts to ensure that the banking 

relationship with the customer is fashioned to meet his 

needs. The technology should have a clear focus on 

relatively unbanked and under reserved areas rather than 

competing aggressively in already well served areas. There 

is a clear need to vastly increase the numbers served by 

existing branches for saving, loan and remittances. It is 

hoped that the new KYC norms for male value accounts will 

go a long way in ensuring this. The financial services for 

rural areas will need to be supplemented by organizing 

support for ancillary activities and knowledge 

dissemination. Farmers training centers, village knowledge 

centers, RUDSET as set up by a few banks will need 

multiplication for ensuring sustainable development. With 

the gradual mushrooming of SHG programmers in the rural 

areas, there is a need for scaling up to cover productive 

loans while ensuring that the process of group formation and 

capacity building is given sufficient time to allow social 

capital and democratic processes to take root. 


OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY 

This study has the main objectives: 

To determine the level of awareness of people in 

various financial products and services and more 

importantly quality as a factor of financial 

inclusion. 

To study the impact of SHG bank linkage program 

& low income people on promotion of financial 

inclusion in rural and urban areas in term of access 

to banks, saving and loan by the SHG members. 

To make suggestions for improvement of the 

present situation which will lead to sustainable 

development? 

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM 

Financial exclusion is excluding people without of 

affordable credit, savings, insurance assets and money and 

bank advices. The financial excluded section largely 

comprises marginal framers, landless laborers, self 

employed and unorganized sector enterprises, urban slum 

dwellers, migrants, ethnic minorities and socially excluded 

groups, senior sector and women. To achieve greater 

financial inclusion, financial services should reach the poor 

of socially excluded group’s particularly poor people micro 

finance banks and other financial institution has played a 

vital role in filling up this gap. This study helps us to know 

the financial inclusion position, awareness level, towards no 

frills account and saving and credit behavior of the low 

income groups. 

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY 

The research shall focus on the problems they face with 

regard to basic banking needs and identify a range of 

particular difficulties likely to be faced relating to the use of 

bank accounts, products and services. The study is analytical 

and exploratory in nature and makes use of Secondary data. 

The data of the study has been collected mostly from the 

secondary sources. The secondary data have been collected 

from various publications and different government and 

non-governmental sources. The data collected from 

secondary sources have been suitably edited, analyzed and 

interpreted according to requirement of the study. The 

purposes of the study are to provide a critical review of 

evidence about low-income and at-risk people on how their 

financial capability is measured, what programs are used to 

promote their financial literacy, and what evaluations of the 

programs uncover about them. 

THE ROLE OF COMMERCIAL BANKS 

‘Banking’’ activity involves acceptance of deposits and 

lending for investment of money. It facilitates business 

activities by providing money and certain services that help 

in exchange of goods and services. Banks are such places 

where people can deposit their savings with the assurance 

that they will be able to withdraw money from the deposits 

whenever required. Banks have an important role in helping 

people to deal with financial distress. People earn money to 

meet their day-to-day expenses on food, clothing, education 

of children, housing etc. They also need money to meet 

future expenses on marriage, higher education of children, a 

building of their own and other social functions. These are 

heavy expenses in the long run which can be met if some 

money is saved out of the present income. Savings is also 

necessary to meet the exigencies of old age and ill health 

when it may not be possible for people to work and earn 

their living. People who wish to borrow money for 

business and other purposes can also get loans from the 

banks at reasonable rates of interest. On the basis of their 

deposit, the banks also grant loans and advances to farmers, 

traders and business men for productive purposes. The rate 

of interest is generally higher than the rate of interest 

allowed on deposits. Fees are also levied for the various 

other services rendered to the business community and 

public in general. Therefore banks contribute to the 

economic development of the country. In order to 

understand the relationship of banks and the environment, 

the basic role of a bank is to receive funds from customers 

by way of deposits and allocate these funds where there is a 

need or shortage of capital, which is called financial 

intermediation. However through the evolution of financial 

services, the role has a broader means so as to include 

among others, consumer credit, mortgage leasing, treasury, 

securities trading and insurance. Finance is universally 

acknowledged as the most important contributor to growth 

and empowerment in modern day context; financial 

inclusion has emerged as a concept uppermost before 

government, planners, financial sector players, socioeconomic 

organizations etc. All across the globe, a 

definition of financial inclusion, embracing all its essential 

aspects could be like this. ‘‘It is the delivery of financial 

services at an affordable cost to the vast sections of 

disadvantaged and low income groups.’’ In the Indian 

context, a specialty will be the coverage of rural areas as the 

main target in view of the concentration of these vulnerable 

groups in such areas. It is true that financial inclusion and 

poverty alleviation cannot be separated but components like 

saving, investment, credit, insurance and remittance should 

be included in financial inclusion. 

Moreover, financial inclusion emphasizes the need to 

include maximum number of people under formal financial 

systems. The most important part of financial services in a 

region is typically measured by the number of people who 

have access to bank accounts. The financial inclusion in the 

forms of the growth in bank accounts of scheduled 

commercial banks and the changes below poverty line 

population. As a poverty education strategy, developing 

inclusive financial systems should be given priority, which 

is financially and socially sustainable. 

The role of commercial banks for sustainable development 

is linked to increased savings mobilization and credit 

provision in rural areas which allows rural households to 

better accumulate capital and to obtain loans for longer term 

productive investments. Interest rates on loans and deposits 

are attractive relative to those available in informal markets. 


THE ROLE OF BANKS IN FINANCIAL INCLUSION 

The economy is presently in a phase of rapidly rising 

income, rural and urban, arising from an expansion of extant 

economic activities as well as the creation of new activities 

including corporate profitability which has exhibited 

sustainable trends and increasing consumer incomes thereby 

riding on the growth momentum. All of these developments 

suggest that the demand for financial services, both for 

savings as well as production purposes, will be greater than 

has been the case in the past, and there will be many new 

entrants in need of financial services who have not hitherto 

been served. Financial inclusion as a topic has attracted 

global attention in the recent past. For our own country 

where almost 70 percent of population lives in the rural 

areas and engages in agriculture and allied activities, 

financial inclusion assumes paramount importance indeed, 

and is an utmost necessity for a country where a large 

number of the world’s highest poverty stricken population 

resides. 

The bank provides a no frills Savings Bank Account to all 

members of the lower income groups. As a next step, small 

overdraft facilities are allowed in the Savings Bank 

Accounts in order to cater to the account holder’s general 

purpose or consumption needs. Those who are engaged in 

income generation activities were provided with general 

credit card facility with a flexibility of roll over facility. 

Opening no frills account with a small overdraft or GCC is 

only the first step in building the relationship which would 

require sustained efforts to ensure that the banking 

relationship with the customer is fashioned to meet his 

needs. The technology should have a clear focus on 

relatively unbanked and under reserved areas rather than 

competing aggressively in already well served areas. There 

is a clear need to vastly increase the numbers served by 

existing branches for saving, loan and remittances. It is 

hoped that the new KYC norms for male value accounts will 

go a long way in ensuring this. The financial services for 

rural areas will need to be supplemented by organizing 

support for ancillary activities and knowledge 

dissemination. Farmers training centers, village knowledge 

centers, RUDSET as set up by a few banks will need 

multiplication for ensuring sustainable development. With 

the gradual mushrooming of SHG programmes in the rural 

areas, there is a need for scaling up to cover productive 

loans while ensuring that the process of group formation and 

capacity building is given sufficient time to allow social 

capital and democratic processes to take root. 

CONCLUSION 

Financial inclusion becomes a major pre-requisite to poverty 

alleviation. Reserve Bank of Indias vision for 2020 is to 

open nearly 600 million new customers' accounts and 

service them through a variety of channels by leveraging on 

information technology. However, improper repayment need 

for additional workforce, time consumption, high cost and 

illiteracy are continued to be a road block to financial 

inclusion in many areas. Consequently, many banks are not 

adopting full fledged financial inclusion plan. The banks 

should step up to overwhelm all these problems and to 

disseminate its service to remote area. The banks should 

encourage the people to access banking services by ways of 

no frills account, financial inclusion campaign and business 

correspondent. The government should encourage the banks 

to adopt financial inclusion by means of financial assistance, 

advertisement and awareness programme etc. to achieve the 

Inclusive Growth. 

SUGGESTION 

India needs to develop a low-cost bank branch 

model, possibly attached to village post office. 

Bank should open small extension counters at 

organization providing public utility services such 

as local schools, primary health care centre, village 

mandies, farmers association and bus stops etc. 

Reserve Bank and Government should give the 

suggestion to commercial banks to promote the 

financial product and services of banking through 

all the educational institution (primary, secondary 

& higher secondary) 

The RBI should mandate that commercial banks 

have a certain percent of their portfolio in small 

loans. In addition, important social considerations 

should be factored into loan decisions. The children 

have to be attending a school before they are 

eligible for a loan. Similar conditions should be 

imposed for eligibility of loans in India. The 

government could also add extra incentives to lend 

in Rural areas 

India needs to expand the current business 

correspondents model to allow microfinance 

institutions, NBFCs and other profit-powered 

companies to use correspondents. 

The government of India should help develop 

financial literacy among the population, 

particularly in low-income families. That can be 

done by teaching it in primary schools, high 

schools and colleges. 

Telecom companies should be allowed to provide 

payments and money transfer services. 

The community-based financial systems like the 

chit funds need to be revived and strengthened. 

They serve as a very useful savings and credit 

function and result in local growth and 

employment. 

Post office employees should be trained and given 

incentives to market savings, investment and 

pension products. Some of these products have 

already been developed by the post office but have 

not been marketed effectively. 

The banks should step up to over whelm all these 

problems and to disseminate its service to remote 

area. The banks should encourage the people to 

access banking services by ways of no frills 

account, financial inclusion campaign and business 

correspondent. The government should encourage 

the banks to adopt financial inclusion by means of 

financial assistance, advertisement and awareness 


Determinants of Job Satisfaction: A Study on 

Bangladesh Perspective 

Fazlul Kabir Rabbanee, Graduate School of Business Curtin University, Perth Australia 

Sanoara Yasmin, University of Information Technology and Science 

Chittagong Campus, Bangladesh 

Abdullah Al Mamun, Faculty of Economics and Management Sciences 

International Islamic University, Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur 

Abstract: 

Job satisfaction as an attitude resulting from a balancing and 

summation of many specific likes and dislikes experienced 

in connection with the job. Extant literature mostly focused 

on job satisfaction in developed world context. 

Determinants of job satisfaction in developing world context 

are largely ignored whereas there are significant difference 

among the nature, personality and culture of the employees 

of developed and developing countries. This paper attempts 

to explore the determinants of job satisfaction in Bangladesh 

perspective. It focused on six factors – Job, Pay, Promotion, 

Supervision, Colleagues and Environment as the key 

determinants of job satisfaction based on the extant 

literature. The study conducted a survey based on structured 

questionnaire, which revealed that job, pay, promotion, 

supervision have significant impact on job satisfaction while 

other two factors – colleagues and environment are not 

found to have significant impact on job satisfaction of 

Bangladeshi employees. At the end, this paper suggest that, 

in order to attain the job satisfaction of the employees, the 

human resource managers of Bangladesh should concentrate 

more on the nature of the job, promotion, payment and 

supervision more than colleagues and the environment of 

the office / job. 

Prologue 

Specific employee attitude relating to job satisfaction is of 

major interest in the field of organizational behavior and the 

practice of human resources management now (Tett and 

Meyer 1993). The interest steamed from the belief that the 

satisfied employees are more productive than dissatisfied 

employees are. This interest induces the management 

academics to conduct many researches regarding different 

issues in the field of job satisfaction. However, most of 

these researches had been conducted in the organizations 

operating in developed countries. A very little number of 

researches were conducted in the organizations owned by 

third world countries and operating there. It is undeniable 

that the characteristics of the environment where the 

organizations operate vary from country to country; 

especially they vary significantly from developed to 

underdeveloped countries. In addition, the characteristics of 

members of those organizations in developed countries vary 

significantly from those of developing countries due to 

difference in cultures, norms, values, ethos and other issues. 

The bundle of variables that gains plaudit from employees’ 

point of view for igniting job satisfaction in a country may 

not work out in similar way and to the same extent in 

another country. A bundle with different combination of 

variables may be required. In this article, the authors have 

selected 6 variables that play significant role in determining 

job satisfaction and tried to figure out the latent 

relationships, if any exist and which are unnoticeable in 

ordinary view, among them in context of Bangladesh. The 

authors believe that the disclosure of such latent 

relationships will make practicing manager more 

knowledgeable to determine effective package of motivating 

variables to make the employees more satisfied in their job. 

Job Satisfaction 

Literature Review 

Job satisfaction has been widely studied over the last four 

decades of organizational research (Currivan, 1999). 

However, defining job satisfaction with a single definition is 

impossible (Abdulla, Djebarni and Mellahi, 2011). In 

general, job satisfaction has been defined as “a function of 

the perceived relationship between what one wants from 

one’s job and what one perceives it as offering” (Locke, 

1969 as cited in Daulatram, 2003). According to Spector, 

job satisfaction refers to “the degree to which people like 

their jobs” (Spector, 1997, p. 7). 

Job satisfaction is defined as “a pleasurable or 

positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one’s 

job or job experience” (Locke 1976, p.1300). It refers to an 

individual’s general attitude towards his/her job (Robins 

2003, p.78). According to Bullock (1952), job satisfaction is 

an attitude that results from a balancing and summation of 

many specific likes and dislikes experienced in connection 

with the job. Smith (1955, p.322) has defined job 

satisfaction as an employee’s judgment of how well his job 

has satisfied his various needs. Blum & Naylor (1968) have 

defined job satisfaction as a general attitude formed because 

of specific job factors, individual characteristics, and 

relationships outside the job. 

A person with high level of job satisfaction holds 

positive attitude towards the job, while a person who is 

dissatisfied with his or her job holds negative attitude about 


the job (Robins 2003, p.72). It is also defined as an affective 

or emotional response toward various facets of one’s job. 

This definition means job satisfaction is not a unitary 

concept. Rather a person can be relatively satisfied with one 

aspect of his or her job and dissatisfied with one or more 

other aspects (Kinicki and Kreitner 2003, p.125). As it is an 

attitude not exerted behavior i.e. emotional response, 

thereby only can be inferred (Luthans 1998, p.144). As it 

can be inferred only, it is always difficult to measure exactly 

to what extent employees are satisfied or dissatisfied. 

Determinants of Job Satisfaction 

Job satisfaction may come from a wide variety of sources 

(Quarstein and Glassman, 1993, Smith et al. 1969). One 

study even found that if college students’ major coincide 

with their job, they were satisfied with that job (Fricko and 

Beehr 1992, p.99). McGregor (1960), Argyris (1964), and 

Bass (1965) argued that job satisfaction lies in the needsatisfying 

potential of the job environment. However, we 

will consider the following factors discussed below as 

causes of job satisfaction. 

The Job 

The characteristics of job that allow individuals to fulfill 

their needs are determinants of job satisfaction (Kinicki and 

Kreitnen 2003, p.127). Job satisfaction is enhanced by the 

task that is mentally challenging but allows individual to 

experience success, and is personally interesting. (Locke 

1976). Ciabattari (1986, p.48) also argued identically saying 

task that is interesting and challenging can be a source of job 

satisfaction. Challenging job along with performance 

feedback was identified as variable, which makes employees 

intrinsically motivated (Csikszentmihalyi 1990, 

Csikszentmihalyi 1997, Mainemelis 2001). Katzell et al 

(1992, p.195) also argued the same that under the condition 

of moderate challenge, most employees experience pleasure 

and satisfaction. People with high growth need look for job 

that is meaningful and be satisfied when they get it 

(Hackman and Oldham, 1976). Thomas (2000) also argued 

that job that is meaningful provides intrinsic stimulus for job 

satisfaction. Hackman and Oldham (1976) maintained that 

‘autonomy over the job’ and ‘performance feedback’ are 

another two major sources of job satisfaction. However, 

Kanungo (1979, p.199) maintains that job satisfaction does 

not necessarily depend on job characteristics like autonomy 

over the job. Thomas (2000) also argued that when 

employees be able to accomplish something skillfully 

performing task activities, they be internally motivated. For 

performing task successfully employees need to develop 

competence. Purohit and Belal (1998, p.49) conducted a 

survey on professional accountants in Bangladesh and found 

‘opportunity for competence development’ as a source of 

job satisfaction. So it is assumed that the job that provides 

opportunity for competence development will contribute to 

job satisfaction. Besides, because of job scarcity in 

Bangladesh being employed at the right post is difficult. To 

get to the right job with right position, most people start 

their career in some job which provides them the 

opportunity for competence development. It is assumed that 

people expect at least such a job and when they get such, 

that job provides them satisfaction. Therefore, it is 

hypothesized that 

H1: The nature of job has positive impact on job 

satisfaction 

Pay 

Job satisfaction is a function of how fairly an individual is 

treated at work. Employees want pay system and promotion 

policies that they perceive just, unambiguous, and in line 

with their expectations. Their perceived fairness of pay and 

promotion were found significantly correlated with job 

satisfaction (Witt and Nye 1992). Lambert, Hogan and 

Barton (2001) have identified salary as an important factors 

that influence job satisfaction. According to Benjamin 

(2010), worker’s compensation package is an important part 

of the employee job satisfaction and it cannot be ignored. 

Wages and salaries are recognized to be significant 

but cognitively complex (Carraher and Buckley, 1996, 

p.102) and also multidimensional factor in job satisfaction 

(Judge 1993, p.331). Purohit and Belal (1998) found ‘pay 

and other facilities’ as a source of job satisfaction in 

Bangladesh while conducting a survey on professional 

accountants. Islam and Swierczerk (2003, p.47) also 

identified fair pay and other financial benefits influence job 

satisfaction of garments women workers in Bangladesh. 

Money not only helps people attain their basic needs but 

also is instrumental in providing upper-level needs 

satisfaction. Employees often see pay as a reflection of how 

management views their contribution to the organization 

(Luthans 1998,p.145). When pay is seen as fair based on job 

demands, individual skill level, community pay standards, 

satisfaction is likely to result (Locke 1976). However, 

Luthans (1998) argued that fringe benefits are also 

important but they are not as influential. Therefore, it is 

hypothesized that 

H2: Pay has positive impact on job satisfaction 

Promotion 

Promotional opportunities seem to have a varying effect on 

job satisfaction. This is because promotions take a number 

of different forms and have a variety of accompanying 

rewards (Luthans 1998, p.145). Promotions provide 

opportunities for personal growth, more responsibilities and 

increased social status. Individual who perceived that 

promotion decisions are made in a fair and just manner, are 

likely to experience satisfaction (Witt and Nye 1992). 

Promotion plays a significant role that is also a key indicator 

of employee job satisfaction (Lambert et al., 2001). Islam 

and Swierczerk (2003) identified promotional opportunities 

influence job satisfaction of garments women workers in 

Bangladesh. Therefore, it has been hypothesized that 

H3: Promotion has positive impact on job satisfaction 

Supervision 

Supervision is another major determinant of job satisfaction. 

Studies generally found that employee satisfaction is 


increased when the immediate supervisor is understanding 

and friendly, listen to employees’ opinions and shows 

personal interest in them, and offers praise and recognition 

for good performance (Locke 1976). Many researchers have 

examined the link between job satisfaction and management 

practices (Burke, 1995, 1996). According to Lambert et al. 

(2001), the existence of fair appraisal system can boost the 

employee satisfaction. Manager should create an 

environment where subordinates get opportunity to play an 

active role in decision-making process. A participative 

climate created by the supervisor has a more substantial 

effect on workers’ satisfaction than does participation in a 

specific decision (Miller and Monge 1986). 

In a survey on professional accountants in 

Bangladesh revealed that ‘participation in decision making’ 

acts as a source of job satisfaction in Bangladesh (Purohit 

and Belal 1998) Islam and Swierczerk (2003) found ‘better 

supervision’ as a variable influencing job satisfaction while 

conducting a survey over garments women workers in 

Bangladesh. Another dimension of good supervision is 

employee centeredness, which means managers interest in 

employees’ welfare. It is commonly manifested in ways, 

such as checking to see how well the subordinate is doing, 

providing advice and assistance to the individual, and 

communicating with the worker at personal as well as 

official level (Luthans 1998). Therefore, it is hypothesized 

that 

H4: The nature of supervision has positive impact on job 

satisfaction 

Colleagues 

People get more out of work than merely money or tangible 

achievements. For most employees, work also fills the need 

social interaction. Not surprisingly, therefore, having 

friendly and supportive co-workers lead to increased job 

satisfaction (Locke 1976). A ‘good work group’ serves as a 

source of support, comfort, advice, and assistance to the 

individual work and of course, makes the job more 

enjoyable. The absence of this in the workplace has negative 

effect on job satisfaction (Luthans 1998). A better relation 

with coworkers was found affecting the level of job 

satisfaction in garment women workers in Bangladesh 

(Islam and Swierczerk 2003). Therefore, we hypothesize 

that 

H5: Colleagues influence employees’ job satisfaction 

Working Environment 

Working condition also has a modest effect on job 

satisfaction like workgroup. There is a significant 

relationship exists between the work environment and the 

level of employee satisfaction in the work place (Herzberg, 

1968; Spector, 2008). Several researchers have examined 

the relationship between job satisfaction and organizational 

commitment (Currivan, 1999; Daulatram, 2003; Lok and 

Crawford, 1999; Vandenberg and Lance, 1992). Employees 

are concerned with their work environment for both 

personal comfort and facilitating doing a good job. If the 

working condition is good, the personnel will find it easier 

to carry out their job. If not, it will be more difficult to get 

things done. In other words, if things are good, there may 

not any job satisfaction problem. Nevertheless, things are 

otherwise, the likeliness of job dissatisfaction increases 

(Luthans 1998). Studies demonstrate that employees prefer 

physical surroundings that are not dangerous or 

uncomfortable. In addition, most employees prefer working 

relatively close to home, in clean and relatively modern 

facilities, and with adequate tools and equipment (Locke 

1976). Therefore, it is hypothesized that 

H6: Work environment has positive impact on job 

satisfaction 

The hypothesized relationship can be shown in the 

following Figure1 

Figure 1: Determinants of Job Satisfaction 


Research Methodology 

Questionnaire and its Construct Validity 

Based on the above literature review, an elevenitem 

questionnaire is prepared following 5–point Likart 

scale (1 = Strongly Disagree, 5 = Strongly Agree and 3 = 

Neutral). Conceptually ‘3’ represents neither satisfied nor 

dissatisfied with the variable. Thus, recording ‘4’ and ‘5’ 

represent satisfaction, the higher the number, the greater the 

satisfaction level. Similarly, recording ‘1’ and ‘2’ represent 

dissatisfaction, the lower the number, the greater the level of 

dissatisfaction. 

For this study, 600 questionnaires were distributed 

among the employees of 18 different private companies in 

Dhaka, Bangladesh out of which 467 questionnaires were 

received. Each of the response received systematically 

screened for errors, incomplete and missing responses. 

However, those responses that still contained questions in 

the survey questionnaire that had been remained unanswered 

or left incorrectly answered finally discarded from data 

analysis in order to establish a rationality of analysis through 

proper representation. After having the screening process 

completed, 437 responses found valid for data analysis. This 

represents a rate of 72.8%, which is considered extremely 

well in view of time, cost, certainty and geographical 

constraints (Sandelowski, 1995). 

The results obtained from 437 respondents have been 

thoroughly analyzed and the outputs of the results have been 

clearly explained in this section. Applying SPSS, the 

principal component analysis (PCA) was carried out to 

explore the underlying factors associated with 11 items. The 

constructs validity was tested applying Bartlett’s Test of 

Sphericity and The KMO measure of sampling adequacy 

analyzing the strength of association among variables. The 

KMO measure of sampling adequacy (KMO) was first 

computed to determine the suitability of using factor 

analysis. It helps to predict whether data are suitable to 

perform factor analysis. KMO is used to assess which 

variables to drop from the model due to multicollinearity 

problem. The value of KMO varies from 0 to 1, and KMO 

overall should be 0.60 or higher to perform factor analysis. 

If this does not have achieved, then it is necessary to drop 

the variables with lowest anti image value until KMO 

overall rises above .60. 

The analysis began with an examination of the 

measurement in terms of its reliability and its construct 

validity. The composite reliability coefficients of the 

measurements scale satisfied Nunally’s (1978) guidelines 

(Cornbatch Alpha = 0.87). The scale items of job, pay, 

promotion, supervision, colleague and working environment 

are shown in the following Table 1 along with the 

corresponding descriptive statistics and reliability. Result for 

the Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity and the KMO reveal that 

both were highly significant and eventually concluded that 

this variable was suitable for the factor analysis. According 

to the Sekeran (2000) Cronbach alpha is reliability 

coefficient that indicates how well the items are positively 

correlated to one another. Reliability coefficient tested by 

using Cronbach’s alpha (α) analysis. In order to measure the 

reliability for a set of two or more constructs, Cronbach 

alpha is a commonly used method where alpha coefficient 

values range between 0 and 1 with higher values indicating 

higher reliability among the indicators (Hair, et al., 2010). 

After the re-allocation of the eleven items, the Reliability 

test was conducted to ensure that, the extracted three factors 

are appropriate for this grouping. In accordance with the 

Cronbach alpha test, the total scale of reliability for this 

study varies from 0.72 to 0.81, indicating an overall higher 

reliability factors. The reliability of this study is substantial 

in every perspective, as the highest reliability value that can 

be achieved is 1.0. 

Results and Discussion 

Results from the primary data focused on the descriptive 

analysis based on the frequency Table 1. Regarding the 

length of employment as shown in (Table 1), with three 

categories: firstly, those below 10 years are 32.7 %. 

Secondly, between 10 to 20 years is 42.3 % where as those 

above 20 years, which is 25 %. It showed that, 75 % of the 

respondents have the opportunity to serve for the next 10 to 

20 years. 

Respondent’s demographic profile is shown in 

Table 3, out of the total participation of 437, 80.6 % were 

males and 19.4 % were females. As for the education level, 

22.6 % were degree holders while 77.4 % were those with 

diploma, secondary and primary schools qualifications. 

Types of employee indicated that, 27.7 % were executives 

and 72.3 % were nonexecutive. Out of this 27.7 % 

executives, 5.8 % are managers and above. 

Further, regression analysis was conducted in order 

to find out respective strength of the determinants of job 

satisfaction. The dependent variable Job satisfaction has 

been regressed by job, pay, promotion, supervision, 

colleagues, and environment. The regression results are 

shown in Table 4. 

Table 4 shows that H1, H2, H3, H4 are accepted (p 

< 0.05) while H5 and H6 are rejected. The factors of interest 

of this study (i.e. the independent variables) claim 70% of 

the variance explained by the dependent variable Job 

Satisfaction. Out of the six determinants, four factors (Job, 

Pay, Promotion, and Supervision) are found to have 

significant positive impact on job satisfaction. The rest two 

factors – colleagues and environment are not found to have 

significant impact on job satisfaction. Out of the four 

significant factors, job has the strongest impact on job 

satisfaction with beta value 0.462 followed by promotion, 

pay and supervision. 

Therefore, employees of Bangladesh consider their 

job, pay promotion and supervision as the key factors of 

perceiving their job as satisfied. Among these factors, they 

consider the job itself as the most important factor followed 

by the scope for promotion, pay and supervision. On the 

other hand, they do not consider colleagues and environment 

as influencing factors to be satisfied with their jobs. 


Conclusion and Future Implications 

Satisfied employees are more committed to their job than 

that of dissatisfied. This is because a person with high level 

of job satisfaction holds a positive attitude towards the job, 

while a person who is dissatisfied with his or her job holds 

negative attitude about the job (Robins, 2003). This paper 

focuses on determinants of job satisfaction in Bangladesh 

perspective. It offers key contributions in the human 

resource management literature of Bangladesh by 

suggesting the key considering factors to attain job 

satisfaction of the Bangladeshi employees. It has significant 

managerial implications. In order to attain the job 

satisfaction of the employees, the human resource managers 

of Bangladesh should concentrate more on the nature of the 

job, promotion, payment and supervision more than 

colleagues and the environment of the office / job. To be 

more specific, this paper emphasize the most on the Job 

itself as the key determining factor for attaining job 

satisfaction. By performing the job in real life situation an 

employee experience day-to-day pressures and meet variety 

of challenges which makes him/her capable of developing 

insights that enhances his/her aptitude, ability, skill and 

knowledge. Therefore, a job itself can be a key source for 

human resource development. It is undeniable that a job 

becomes a solid source of learning when it delivers 

motivation. A task that provides satisfaction can attract and 

contain employees with it. Organizations should always try 

to attain job satisfaction of their employees in order to 

improve their productivity and attain desired profitability by 

focusing on these determinants of job satisfactions. 

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Annexure 

Table 2: Reliability Test 

Table 3: Employee Demographic Profile 

Table 4: Regression Results for Determinants of Job Satisfaction 

** Significant at 5% level of significance 


Ethical issues in accessing people's knowledge and 

innovations: A study on specific reference to low 

cost health system in India 

Suniti Chandiok, Asst-Professor, 

Banrasidas Chandiwala Institute of Professional Studies, Dwarka, New Delhi 

Abstract— There is a widespread concern all over the world 

about the emerging tensions in the local, regional and global 

dialogues on relationship between formal and informal 

knowledge systems. It is realized that the basic social 

contract between knowledge producing communities and the 

knowledge valorizing corporations and professionals needs 

redefinition. Several professional societies have incorporated 

discussions on ethical issues in accessing knowledge, 

innovations and practices of local communities involving use 

of local biodiversity resources. The situation becomes even 

more complex when we realize that the healthcare needs of 

large majority of poor people still are met by their own 

survival strategies dependent upon use of local knowledge 

and resources. It is obvious that this knowledge is precious 

and can generate viable and productive alternatives valued by 

modern markets. At the same time, it is also true that if this 

knowledge was sufficiently robust as it stands, the local 

health conditions would not have been as precarious as these 

often are in many regions because of nutritional and other 

economic hardships. The linkage with formal science and 

technology is therefore vital. The paper deals with four issues 

like what can we learn from the analysis of a country wide 

campaign in India on documenting more than 300 local 

health traditions maintained by communities and individuals, 

whether the health priorities and the options for addressing 

them require new technological and institutional paradigms, 

how can new partnership between people, professionals, 

public policy makers and profit-oriented corporations be 

conceptualized so that not only benefits are shared fairly but 

also the knowledge systems grow and thrive and what should 

be the ethical code of conduct guiding the knowledge 

exchange, value addition and benefit sharing for generating 

viable health options for knowledge rich, economically poor 

people. The paper would thus provide an overview of the 

global debate on this subject and also suggest how an 

ethnobotanist can become the watchdog of, as well as the 

advocates for, the interests of healers, herbalists and other 

traditional knowledge rich communities. 

Key Words: Ethical issues, local communities, local 

biodiversity resources 


Knowledge happens when our expectations are belied, 

modified and sometimes confirmed. Because the asymmetry 

in our expectations is influenced by our access to resources, 

institutions, technology and cultural platforms, we get 

different kinds of knowledge, even when we confront similar 

situations. In any community living close to nature, 

asymmetry in knowledge generation and its utilization is 

inevitable. The experts exist not just in our profession, but in 

every profession. 

This raises the issue about conceptualizing the functional 

asymmetry without which knowledge systems cannot grow 

or provide incentives for experimentation, innovation and 

dissemination of either the knowledge itself or its 

applications for community well being. Why would a 

community encourage asymmetry becomes apparent when 

we look at the problems of survival with particular reference 

to health. Whether a child is to be born, a bone has to be 

repaired or a chronic ailment has to be relieved, one needs 

advice. In one of the Shodh Yatras in a village in Karnataka, 

a young person felt very disturbed when we paid respect and 

appreciated the expertise of a particular healer who seemed 

to be very effective in curing the cases of snake bite. This 

village was located in the western ghat region with very rich 

biodiversity. 

This young person felt that everybody in the village knew 

about the herbs to be used in such cases, what was so special 

about the old person whom we seemed to revere so much. 

We asked a question to all the people sitting there, as to how 

many people had had a case snake bite in their family in the 

last three months. Three people raised hands. We asked them 

who they went to, for consulting. All three pointed towards 

the old healer whom we were honouring. Everybody laughed 

and the answer became obvious. While many people in the 

village know, not everybody knows, how to use the specific 

knowledge in a specific case such that it works. The specific 

part of a generalized knowledge is available with only a few 

experts. Society respects such experts but does not adequately 

incentivise them. The result is, they often remain poor. 

Therefore, despite having walked for more than 2600 kms., 

during every summer and winter Shodh Yatra in last eight 

years, we have not come across many young healers. This is 

the crisis. If younger generation no more feels inspired and 

emboldened to learn, acquire, specialize and improvise the 

knowledge that has been generated by the older generation, 

the knowledge systems come under threat of erosion. I have 

argued that when knowledge erodes, a plant becomes a weed. 

How does one ensure that this knowledge system grows, 

becomes vibrant, encourages innovations and welcomes 

fusion of external, institutional and formal knowledge at its 

own terms? The ethical dilemma arise when we have to 

decide the terms, mediate the exchange and generate the 

portfolio of incentives for the community, local experts and 

those who add value to local knowledge. Ethical dilemma 

also arises when we the intellectuals, document people’s 

knowledge in good faith, publish it and become the author 


without even acknowledging the knowledge providers or 

protecting their intellectual property rights. The question of 

sharing benefits seldom arises. 

When resources are allocated for adding value to local 

diversity and associated knowledge, decision about which 

problems/whose problems get how much priority also 

involves ethical dilemma. The irony is that healers who help 

us cannot provide even the primary health care to the 

children, when need arises because public infrastructure and 

market forces are invariably very weak in the regions which 

are rich in biodiversity. Sixteen years ago, in a paper entitled, 

“Why regions of high biodiversity have high poverty”, I 

asked this question as to why such regions have poorest 

public infrastructure, highest rate of drop out in the primary 

education and lowest level of literacy, particularly of women, 

highest level of male emigration and consequently high 

proportion of households managed or headed by women, low 

level of employment and high degree of poverty. Ironically, 

the public representatives from these regions are also not very 

articulate and are unable to put pressure on the policy making 

process. It is not surprising, particularly in Indian context, 

almost all the insurgent groups are active in precisely these 

regions where social, economic and institutional disparities 

have widened over time. The last straw on the camel’s back 

would be, if we the ethnobotanists or socio ecologists or 

natural resource experts/scholars add to the disparity and 

asymmetry. This conference has to resolve some basic 

principles which should guide the exchange between local 

communities and outsiders. 

II. LITERATURE REVIEW 

Yamin (1995) suggests that new theories of distributed 

justice are required so that the distribution of resources not 

only among humans but also humans and the non-humans, 

present and the future generation may be pursued fairly in 

future. The moral and ethical issues underlying these theories 

will require decision about how we relate to ourselves and the 

nature around us. The perception of nature and its social 

context raises tremendous ethical difficulties. Not all of us 

use similar language to describe the same human nature 

interaction. The very term, ‘ethnobotany’ itself is a 

problematic in its orientation. Why should knowledge of 

local communities be ethnic in orientation whereas the music 

of the similar kind in western context becomes classical. The 

contradiction between what is ‘classical’ and what is ‘ethno’ 

is not going to be easily resolved. But it is useful, as Mary 

Douglas (1995:264) suggests (cited in Cooper, 2000:10125) 

the word, ‘construal’ vis-à-vis ‘construction’ as less 

problematic, perhaps more consensual. Whether one should 

use the term, Cooper asks, ‘forests’ or ‘wood’ depends upon 

the ethical and moral position one takes in relating to specific 

part of nature. Both are socially construed/constructed terms. 

Amartya Sen (1980) in his famous paper entitled, 

“Description as Choice” asked a similar question. When does 

description inherently suggest prescription or prediction, he 

said, was a function of the underlying values. Thus, the poor 

people after sixth five year plan in India were named, in the 

planning documents, as ‘weaker section’. He draws attention 

to the fact that language in this case turned the responsibility 

from the external forces and actors to the poor people 

themselves who were supposed to be weak. He asks as to 

how could weaker section carry the heaviest burden. When 

we use the term, ‘disadvantaged’ vis-à-vis just the ‘poor’, we 

highlight the dialectics in one case and mask it in another. 

Culture specific to a region provides different ways of 

construing nature. 

Just as I mentioned in the beginning, the moment the 

knowledge about a plant is lost, it becomes weed, i.e., a plant 

out of its place. Come to think of it, can a plant ever be out of 

its place? How do we determine what its place is and who 

determines it? Imagine a library without a catalogue. Will we 

be able to locate the books? Perhaps those of us who have 

walked through the carrels may through recollection reach 

the point where probability of finding a particular book is 

high. But then, librarians are creative people. The 

cataloguing assistants can interpret the titles and the subjects 

ingeniously. Book may not be where we suspect it to be. 

Catalogues, therefore, have a place. They need to be 

developed, preserved, updated and shared. Local 

communities have been trying to do it, but with more and 

more difficulty. The outsiders use Latin names (difficult to 

argue why only Latin), but a common classification scheme 

is necessary to pool the knowledge and make it accessible to 

the entire profession. 

The cultural project is just the opposite. As Margret Mead 

had stressed that the emphasis on etic meanings vis-à-vis the 

emic meanings was a reflection of dominating global over 

local. The communities create meanings which are accessed 

more easily by the members and are often inaccessible to 

outsiders. Conservation, perhaps requires respect for 

particular. The scholars, used to dealing with generalized 

meanings construct newer and newer projects which deny the 

locality of the meanings. This tension is understandable and 

to some extent desirable. The problem arises when assertion 

of locality and within locality, expertise is construed as 

contrary to the communitarian spirit. Attempt to reinforce the 

respect for individual experts is interpreted as an assault on 

assumed communitarian process of production of knowledge. 

The spirit is confused with the structure. The communitarian 

spirit does not in any case violate the need for individual 

expertise and location specific knowledge, language, terms 

and above all ethical norms. Should our profession consider 

its duty to understand, and then expand the space, both in 

policies and institutions for knowledge, institutions and 

technologies that originate in a specific socially construed 

spaces and cultural contexts. If we have to do that, we will 

have to use modern science and technology to validate and 

value add in this knowledge according to the local parameters 

so that social benefits in the form of drugs for masses raise 

the status of the little science. I will come back to the issue 

of building bridges between the ‘little’ and the ‘big’ science 

without comprising much with the rules of each system of 

knowledge. First let us understand, ‘who gets to tell the 

story’, (Lease, 1995 in Cooper, 20006) implies the power of 

those who describe, as Sen says often to prescribe. Toulmin 

(1982 in Cooper, 20007) teased out the ethical dimension of 

ecological concepts and terms. Those who narrate, also select 

what to narrate and how. Therefore, the evaluation of the 

local knowledge only on the basis of narration by third 

parties may not always do justice to the dynamics and 


complexity of the knowledge system. Since most researchers 

seldom share their findings with the knowledge providers 

before publishing or presenting at the conferences, the ethical 

dimension of the discourse also deserves attention. 

Bodeker (20038) reviews various examples where the 

knowledge rights of the local communities have not been 

respected adequately. The South African example where the 

San people objected to the patent by CSIR on their 

knowledge from which a drug was developed for anti obesity, 

illustrates the conflict between CBD and TRIPS. Bodeker 

strongly endorses SRISTI’s proposal for a global registry of 

traditional knowledge and grassroots innovations. He also 

supports the SRISTI’s arguments in support of a disclosure 

requirement from every patent applicant. Our proposal has 

been that every applicant should declare that source material 

and/or knowledge associated with it has been ‘rightfully’ and 

‘lawfully’ acquired. The ‘rightful’ refers to moral as well as 

ethical issues in accessing biodiversity (also see Pew Ethical 

Guidelines and background papers prepared for the purpose, 

Gupta 1994a & b). However, the task of making databases is 

fraught with risks. He refers to the Ethiopian example in 80s 

when government required traditional healers to register 

themselves as practitioner. 

Many healers, ‘submitted inaccurate information’ with the 

result that this database was not taken seriously (Bishaw, 

1991 in Bodeker 2003). He describes an initiative on Global 

Information Hub on Integrated Medicine as a part of 

Commonwealth Working Group on Traditional and 

Complimentary Health Systems which will build a database 

of various stakeholders as well as information resource 

regarding the intellectual property rights in traditional 

medicine and associated biodiversity. The concept of Prior 

Informed Consent (PIC) articulated in CBD but never 

incorporated in TRIPS has created considerable tensions with 

regard to the ethical aspect of information exchange. Ragavan 

(200110) feels that the concept of ‘free’ and ‘informed’ 

consents have not been defined. CBD does not provide 

framework of consequences when the consent is not informed 

or adequate. She asks several other questions about the right 

of knowledge holders to withhold or not to disclose or keep 

information trade secrets. The legal respect for traditional 

knowledge has been debated in different courts. She provides 

an interesting example of a case, Hodosh v. Block Drug 

Company (786F 2d 1136 Fed.Cir., 1986) in which a Chinese 

traditional medicine example was considered unacceptable as 

a prior art because the court observed that a “skilled person 

exercising reasonable diligence, would not be able to locate 

the prior art, given the esoteric nature of references. The 

constant dilemma of applying statutory law or common law is 

referred as one of the persistent problems. She questions 

whether codification of knowledge is a necessary condition 

for a traditional knowledge system to be recognized as legally 

valid system. Toffel (200211) reviews the possibility of using 

code of conduct in the absence of legal provisions for guiding 

the knowledge exchange between providers and receivers. He 

refers to the code of conduct developed by various 

indigenous communities as well as Association of Social 

Anthropologists, Society for Economic Botany, International 

Society for Ethnobiology, NIH, NCI, etc. In 1994, we had 

reviewed many of these guidelines and found that most did 

not posit any consequences for violation. Gupta and Sinha 

(2001) felt that the Honey Bee philosophy has not yet 

permeated the discourse on ethical ways of knowledge 

exchange, although it was enunciated way back in 1988-89. 

Toffel’s advice that ad hoc contract between indigenous 

groups and pharmaceutical companies seemed to be the 

best answer for getting compensation may be a pragmatic 

response but is not a long term institutional solution. Many 

others such as Posey, Dutfield and Brush have made 

familiar arguments questioning the concept of graduated 

and gradient rights in the community. I define ‘graduated’ 

rights as those which are modified subject to the value 

which is added in different stages of the value chain 

(sometime referred as milestone based payments or rights) 

and the ‘gradient’ rights as the asymmetrical knowledge 

distribution within a community and thus knowledge 

experts not being treated at par with those who are either 

only aware or sometimes not even aware of the details. 

The knowledge and ability to practice it in specific 

contexts is a skill developed over a period of time with 

enormous effort and perseverance. Knowledge systems 

would not grow or survive without such gradients being 

recognized as an inalienable feature of knowledge systems. 

In professional and institutional contexts, we recognize this 

concept very well but hesitate in according it the same 

respect in informal context and community context. 

Ogumanam believes that the alternative world view of 

traditional healers is not fully captured in the western bio 

medical approaches. He considers two systems as basically 

incompatible. However, he hopes that a global framework 

for protection of indigenous knowledge would emerge 

consistent with cultural and philosophical diversity of local 

health traditions. Norchi (200014) refers to the traditional 

Onge people of Indian Nicobar and Andaman Islands and 

suggests that customary laws evolved by Onges need to be 

recognized by forming Onge Corporation. The corporate 

firm could respect the trust of the community who could be 

share holders. The corporation would then enter into 

contract for their knowledge to be accessed by outsiders. 

He refers to the work of Ashish Kothari and many others 

who have raised the issue of Onges. The health leads from 

one had suggested a new eco-ethno ethics, essentially 

enforced by not the law but the professional societies. He 

warned that anthropologists and ethnobiologists would lose 

the respect of native people if they did not follow proper 

ethics. Brush (1993) also feels that ethnobiological 

information collected so far did not touch upon several 

issues that were arising due to commercialization 

prospects. Former are non-negotiable and latter are subject 

to debate and can be improved. Knowledge rights are at 

the root of cultural and other rights. Gadgil, et al (2000) 

explains the concept of People’s Biodiversity Register 

(PBR) and suggests that these registers could be a tool for 

conserving and respecting folk knowledge. They also 

suggest that compensation could follow according to the 

quality of documentation. They propose that in due course 

this knowledge could be fed back to the people from whom 

it is collected. Recently, National Innovation Foundation 

(NIF) and a community in Karnataka having developed 

PBR signed an MOU to honour the knowledge rights of 

the communities, already articulated in the PIC framework 


used by NIF (see of the oldest tribes of the world would 

obviously be of interest to the Indian society. Whether 

utilitarian logic will suffice in this context, is the issue that 

we need to address. Posey 

(1990151617www.nifindia.org/pic.htm). Simpson, Sedjo 

and Reid (199618) had earlier cautioned that despite much 

hype about the biodiversity use in pharmaceutical research, 

not much benefit may flow to the people either for 

conservation or for consumption because the companies 

had several options and the biodiversity based options 

were necessarily the most attractive ones. Lewis and 

Ramani (2003) feel that ICBG proposal in Peru was fair on 

account of communication, confidentiality and 

compensation. Cochran (200519) describes the ethical 

guidelines of the Yukon First Nation people from Alaska 

region. The Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN) requires 

that native people be advised about the purpose, goal, 

timeframe, data gathering technique, impact – positive and 

negative of the research; the informed consent of 

appropriate governing body. Fund the monitoring 

committee of the native people to track the research project 

and ensure the compliance, protect the sacred knowledge 

and cultural and intellectual property, hire and train native 

people in the study, use native language whenever English 

is the second language, ensure confidentiality, incorporate 

native people’s view points, acknowledge local 

contribution, inform the community about the major 

findings and provide the copies for the local library. This, 

to me, is a neat summary of what the local communities 

aspire. We could benchmark our practices against this 

expectation and judge for ourselves as to how far have we 

reached. However, as we know, no ethnobiology or 

ethnobotany has follows the concepts of PIC, sharing of 

knowledge with the knowledge providers in the manner 

and language they understand before sharing it with third 

party, not treating knowledge providers anonymously, 

ensuring that any benefits generated by the knowledge are 

shared with the knowledge providers in fair and just 

manner and the rights of individual experts vis-à-vis 

community are differentiated as per the local norms. 

III. OBJECTIVE AND RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 

There is a widespread concern all over the world about the 

emerging tensions in the local, regional and global dialogues 

on relationship between formal and informal knowledge 

systems. It is realized that the basic social contract between 

knowledge producing communities and the knowledge 

valorizing corporations and professionals needs redefinition. 

Several professional societies have incorporated discussions 

on ethical issues in accessing knowledge, innovations and 

practices of local communities involving use of local 

biodiversity resources. The situation becomes even more 

complex when we realize that the healthcare needs of large 

majority of poor people still are met by their own survival 

strategies dependent upon use of local knowledge and 

resources. It is obvious that this knowledge is precious and 

can generate viable and productive alternatives valued by 

modern markets. The linkage with formal science and 

technology is therefore vital. The research deals with four 

objectives of study: 

(a) What can we learn from the analysis of a country wide 

campaign in India on documenting more than 300 local 

health traditions maintained by communities and individuals? 

(b) Whether the health priorities and the options for 

addressing them require new technological and institutional 

paradigms 

(c) How can new partnership between people, professionals, 

public policy makers and profit-oriented corporations be 

conceptualized so that not only benefits are shared fairly but 

also the knowledge systems grow and thrive? 

(d) What should be the ethical code of conduct guiding the 

knowledge exchange, value addition and benefit sharing for 

generating viable health options for knowledge rich, 

economically poor people. 

The field of study are rural villages of India and this study is 

based on field study and explorative research design. Data 

was collected from 300 local health centers which rural 

people use for their treatments. 

IV. ANALYSIS OF STUDY: 

Healing strategies and ethical engagement with people’s 

knowledge systems:The way ahead Herbal formulations 

developed by local communities involve not just the plants, 

or their derivatives but also a process, a perception, and 

sometimes a deep philosophy. It is true that in most of the 

cases when we do documentation, we often get information 

about plants, their uses and in some cases the methodology. 

There are also cases when the formulations are accompanied 

with some hymns or chants, essentially combining the 

material world with spiritual consciousness. The scientific 

evidence on the effect of prayers is not robust. Recent study 

led by Krucoff in July 16, 2005 issue of Lancet does not 

provide much support for the therapeutic effect of the 

prayers. Surely, it will not change our tendency to pray when 

either we or our dear ones are in pain. We cannot say the 

same thing about a herbal medicine. Prayer relaxes us and to 

that extent its effect is instantaneous. Herbal medicine needs 

to interact with our metabolic or physiological pathways and 

demonstrate results compatible with expectations. More than 

60 per cent people in India rely on herbal and alternative 

medicine for meeting their regular or occasional health 

needs. Even among the 40 per cent, the popularity of herbal 

medicine from different traditions (ayurveda, siddha, unani, 

homeopathic, etc.) is increasing. 

The story of Chinese medicine is well known. One in five 

persons in US is supposed to have used Chinese herbal 

medicine or food additives. The knowledge about the herbal 

medicine abounds in most developing countries. In last five 

years, NIF scouted about 51000 grassroots green innovations 

and traditional knowledge practices. More than 70 per cent 

deal with herbal knowledge for curing human, animal or 

plant diseases/pests or disorders. Formulations developed by 

people are often multi ingredient based. Scientists find it very 

difficult to deal with formulations having more than 3 or 4 

ingredients. The limits of modern science therefore define 

the range of opportunities one can create for local knowledge 

holders. Most ethnobotanists have documented the 

knowledge governed by private, community or public 

domain. Often the scientists will document proprietary 

knowledge from individuals and/or communities and bring it 


in public domain without any possibility of reciprocity. In 

Conferences like this have to raise fundamental question 

about ethics of such appropriation. If we follow ethical 

practice and people voluntarily share their knowledge with 

mutual faith and respect, how can this knowledge become the 

basis of improving societal health. 

There are five ways in which we can achieve the health 

objectives using herbal knowledge: 

a. Large number of diseases in rural areas are water borne 

and therefore herbal substances that can purify water of 

various impurities and eliminate the chances of even 

viral diseases should be the top priority. We must 

recognize the social gain of such substances for safe, 

affordable, accessible and widely available solution to 

this persistent global problem. 

b. In a study of about 8000 entries from our database, we 

found about 1000 remedies for pain and aches. Pick up 

any public health document and look for any reference 

to pains and aches. I doubt if we will find any. I myself 

did not realize it till my colleagues in analysed the 

frequency distribution of disease wise herbal leads. 

When we look at the fact that large majority of poor 

people and their livelihood by essentially using labour 

and are not able to obtain sufficient nutrition for 

meeting their needs, it is understandable that they 

would suffer from certain deficiencies. In addition to 

these deficiencies, the inability to compensate the loss 

of energy may also add to the burden. Further, the 

physical drudgery involved in various activities takes 

toll of one’s stamina. Pains and aches are also caused 

by the hazardous occupations. For working class, 

solutions to this problem which may be caused by a 

variety of reasons (ranging from excess fluorides to 

other deficiencies or sprains and other injuries. Various 

analgesics may have to be discovered to supplement the 

effect of aspirin which itself originated from plants. 

c. Nutraceuticals seem to be the next major category of 

solutions that can lead to healthy communities at low 

costs and perhaps by strengthening preventive health 

care. One of the problems of the working class is that it 

ages faster. Nutraceuticals could help in extending the 

working life and therefore the wellbeing of the families 

of poor people. 

d. The diarrohea, diabetes, jaundice, wound, malaria and many 

other tropical diseases are well known candidates for 

discovering herbal solution. The important concern should 

be to distinguish four kinds of ingredients in any herbal 

formulation: curative, carrier, bio enhancer, suppresser of 

side effects or stimulator of supporting/suppressing 

hormonal secretions. Unless we do careful analysis, we may 

bark the wrong tree. While National Cancer Institute of US 

screened 35000 plants and could isolate only seven leads, 

taxol being one of them, it does not mean that hit rate 

should be so low. One reason why scientists often fail in 

confirming the claims of local communities or individual 

healers is because of the basic difference in the protocol of 

extraction, delivery and dosage. There are many examples 

where healers find something effective and scientists fail to 

find appropriate results. The heuristics of validation also 

will have to be taken into account while developing 

solutions for various diseases. 

e. The problems of women whose access to basic 

sanitation and hygiene facilities is severely restricted. 

Many problems occur because they don’t take enough 

water lest they have to keep their bladder under control 

in situations where public toilets are often absent or 

available infrequently. There are large number of other 

institutional conditions which create stress and other 

problems for women. Millions of women have to carry 

water and other loads on their head and back, perform 

farm operations by using inappropriately designed 

tools, have to transplant paddy by keeping their feet 

under water attracting fungal infections. Why should 

not such problems be the priority for scholars and 

scientists? Having identified five major areas which 

affect working class and their children and women, 

how would changing the ethical discourse provide a 

solution? 

Towards solutions: Learning from Gandhi :Gandhiji was 

once asked by a group of young students as to what should 

they do for rural development. Gandhiji replied that he had 

never worked rural areas and therefore how could he answer 

this question. The students insisted, assuming that Gandhiji 

was being unnecessarily modest. After a while, Gandhiji 

relented. He said that while he lacks experience, he has a 

proposal to make. Assume that we have to work in a 

particular problem area, say livestock development, in a 

given group of villages. He described what he would do in 

such a situation. He will go to the villages and look for the 

most efficient livestock producer whose animals produce 

maximum milk or other products. He will study from 

morning till evening all the practices of feeding, managing, 

watering, sanitation, hygiene and even psychological care of 

the animals. He will write them down. Then he will study 

the similar practices of the average livestock producer. The 

gap between the two will be his plan of work. Can we 

follow Gandhiji’s advice in using ethnobotanical knowledge 

for solving widespread global health problems of common 

people? Can we focus on identifying those members of the 

working class whose health is far superior to the rest, and 

study the entire set of strategies including herbal medicine 

that they use? Likewise, we could identify local experts who 

specialize in solving specific problems. After assuring them 

that the solutions will be used exactly as per their advice 

and with all the conditions they would impose in the PIC 

form, we pool the best practices and develop new products. 

There is no reason why our hit rate will not be higher and 

gains to all the partners in building herbal value chain not 

be commensurate with their expectation. 

V. RESULT DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: 

We have minimum protocol to be followed by all the 

ethnobotanists and health researchers. We should aim the the 

next discussion, the ethical barometer will show a much 


higher reading than is the case today. The key elements of 

this protocol discussed many times in past are: 

a. Complete disclosure of the purpose of research, 

documentation or any other research interaction with the 

local communities/researchers. 

b. Disclosure of the advantages and disadvantages of 

saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to different choices in local 

language. 

c. Clarification about two stage PIC process so that benefit 

sharing in general may be discussed in stage one but 

specific elements of agreement may be discussed in 

stage two when something useful has been found out. 

d. Clarification about the risks and chances in developing 

products through various stages and therefore 

moderating expectations, linking them with the 

milestone based performance indicators and assuring 

sharing of findings in the manner that can understand at 

each stage. 

e. Respecting the identity of knowledge providers and 

publishing only those results which are authorized by 

the knowledge providers with their name and identity. 

Unless requested otherwise, knowledge providers will 

always be named either as knowledge provider or as 

knowledge holder or innovator. 

are often developed by understanding the problem of disease, 

disability or disorder. I am proposing that the study health, 

wisdom and wellbeing. Very seldom, do we ask the question 

why are some people are more healthy than others. Let us 

learn from those knowledge rich, economically poor people 

who have solved problems through their own genius and 

have managed to survive sometimes sustainably and 

sometime precariously. It is the balance between holistic and 

reductionist vision which will help blend informal and formal 

science. We need both. Without reductionism, we cannot 

specialize. If a bone setter does not focus only on bone 

setting, he or she will never become an expert. We need 

general physicians but we also need experts. Holism is the 

context, the reductionism is the content. Without one, the 

other cannot sustain. Let me conclude by suggesting that 

good ethics also makes good science. Only when people have 

trust in our intentions, they will share the cases where they 

fail in treating a problem or cases where they had remarkable 

results. Unless we get to learn the extreme values in the 

repertoire, we will not be able to dissect the problem in parts 

that make it comprehensible and also assimilable with 

modern science. Let us remember that health is not absence 

of sickness. It is a moral state in which we feel responsible 

and because we feel responsible, we have joy, and because 

we have joy, we are able to build relationships full of trust 

and respect with people who have as much right to enjoy the 

same state of happiness despite all the deprivations they 

suffer form. 

f. The responsibility of taking permission of the 

community or informing it as the case that may be, 

fulfilled without compromising. It should be understood 

that this process can take lot of time and trouble. 

g. The benefits can be in monetary or non-monetary terms 

and can be targeted at individual or communities. A 

portfolio of incentives will have to be evolved for 

different situations. It cannot be same everywhere. 

h. The ethical basis of knowledge exchange will need to be 

recalibrated from time to time so that the learning at the 

level of community or scholars is factored in the 

evolving ethical framework. 

i. If the drug has to be patented, the patentee must take 

prior permission from the knowledge providers and 

disclose that moral and legal provisions of ethical 

knowledge exchange have been followed scrupulously. 

There can be many more suggestions. Protocol can be 

modified, tested and improved. The plants which are 

endangered have to be conserved. It has to be recognized that 

medicines based on such plants can pose threat to the 

environment, particularly when such plants may also be 

endemic. The use of biotechnology or other such means to 

propagate such plants must be encouraged. Health solutions 

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*** 


Influence on Brand in Female Consumer behavior 

in Apparel Purchase in Lucknow 

Shalini Bariar 

Sr. Lecturer, Babu Banarsi Das University, Lucknow, UP 

Dr. Gaurav pande 

Associate Professor, Babu Banarsi Das University, Lucknow, UP 

Abstract 

In the Indian scenario, the branded female apparels are 

facing tough competition with in-house brands especially in 

the Indian casual wear. The female costumers prefer to 

purchase garments according to regional requirements and 

culture from the local outlets. The trend of national brands 

is growing importance due to the recent development in 

retail industry. It is very important for the marketers to 

understand the various factors influencing the apparel 

purchase to formulate appropriate marketing strategies to 

attract consumers towards branded apparels. The purpose 

of this research is to examine the female consumer behavior 

and to understand the influence branded apparels on 

consumer behavior in purchase of apparels. 

A survey was conducted from female consumers aged from 

25-35, to obtain evidences. Approximately, 100 respondents 

were interviewed during the survey which results into 

indicating the Brand loyalty, Brand awareness, Brand 

Association, Quality Perceptions, and self-concepts were 

found to have positive impact on female consumers on 

purchase behavior in apparel. 

Key words: Brands, Apparels, Consumer Behavior, Female 

consumers, Influencing factors. 

INTRODUCTION 

The Apparel industry is one of the leading Industries in 

Indian economy and claims to be the biggest revenue 

earners in industrial sectors in India. In the recent years the 

Apparel industry especially in Female Garments section, is 

witnessing robust growth and grabbing attention of various 

marketers in India. Due to the introduction of in-house 

brands in apparel industry the national brands are facing 

tough challenge in maintaining leading position in the 

industry. The female apparel sector in India has been 

dominated by in-house clothing brands 

The total value for women’s branded apparel as compared to 

unbranded apparel for women accounts for one fourth of 

total apparel market. 

The changing economical condition, lifestyle and increase in 

working woman segment resulted in the growth in demand 

of branded apparel for females. Also, the rising trend of 

family shopping in malls has prompted apparel brands to get 

attracted towards branded apparels due to a wide range of 

products to customers. And now, brand expansion is the 

next step in the Indian branded apparel sector to cater to the 

varied tastes and preferences of the Indian customer. 

Considering the recent development in the retail trends and 

apparel sector, clothing sector firms are competing to 

increase their profit share in the market and among these 

firms; branded clothing has shifted the conventional clothing 

interest of people. 

Objective of the study 

During the recent years, India has witnessed increasing 

attention of females towards branded and unbranded 

fashionable apparels for casual as well as formal clothing, it 

has also grabbed attention of foreign brands and in-house 

branded apparels in the female segment. The purpose of this 

study is to analyze the influence of brands in Lucknow and 

its impact on consumer purchasing behavior in apparels. 

Five dynamic factors of branded clothing adoption are 

defined and their relationship is explored with consumer 

behavior namely: Brand loyalty, Brand awareness, Brand 

Association, Quality Perceptions, and self-concepts. A 

survey of general female consumers is conducted in this 

study, with help of personal interview. 

Branding 

Brand is a new business warrior in times of tough 

competition as it etches consumer’s mind that signifies what 

they stand for and what can be expected from them. In the 

times on tough competition with various in house labels, the 

brands can create clutter through its brand image. The 

product can be copied but the brand can not be. In the 

increasingly complex world, a strong brand’s ability to 

simplify consumer’s decision making, reduce risk and sets 

expectations is invaluable. Brands can be symbolic devices 

allowing consumers to project their self-image. A brand can 

generate consumer interest, patronage, and loyalty. The 

retailers have come up with their respective brand in for of 

in-house brands to create its own brand image and 

establishing positioning. Creating strong brands that deliver 

a promise, maintains and enhances the strength of brands 

overtime is a management imperative. As we know that 

branded products have always attracted consumers attraction 

and marketers preference it has become utmost important 

for the marketers to understand the various factors 


influencing the purchase of branded products. Various 

research has been conducted in past regarding the 

importance of brand. Brands are increasingly viewed as 

offering a vital point of differentiation and a sustainable 

form of competitive advantage in the market place for firms 

(Beverland et.al., 2007; Low & Blois, 2002). Brand serves a 

pivotal role for distinguishing goods and services from those 

of the competitors (Aaker, 1991; Murphy, 1998). The 

emergence of brand equity underlies the importance of 

brand in marketing tactics and hence provides useful 

insights for managers and further research (Keller, 2003). 

Consumers like to buy and use brand-name products with a 

view to highlight their personality in different situational 

contexts (Aaker, 1999; Fennis and Pruyn,2006). A brand can 

be an everlasting and lucrative asset as long as it is 

maintained in a good manner that can continue satisfying 

consumers’ needs (Batchelor,1998; Murphy, 1998). 

Apparels 

As stated above apparel sector is witnessing robust growth 

in the retail sector, it has become a leading industry 

contributing to the growth of Indian economy. As India is 

one of the emerging markets , it has also attracted global 

attention in the various retail industries like food and 

grocery and apparels etc. As stated by Bearden and Etzel (as 

cited in Hogg et al., 1998), clothing is a kind of public 

necessity with weak reference group influence on the 

product category but strong reference group influence on the 

brand choice. Owing to the proliferation of brands in the 

clothing sector, consumers need to take serious 

consideration during the buying processes. As mentioned by 

Rayport and Jaworski (2003), the purchasing processes can 

be divided into three stages, namely pre-purchase, purchase 

and post-purchase. Each stage is of equal importance that 

can alter the consumer buying decision. Once consumers 

make a purchasing decision, consumers may need to 

recognize their personal needs, read product information, 

decide which and where to buy, determine whether to buy 

again from the same retailer, choose the buying modes, 

show satisfaction to the services or product quality and 

finally be loyal to the brand. 

These highlight the complication of buying processes and 

the potential impact a brand could impose in between them. 

Several brands, under the influence of globalization and 

concerted efforts from media advertising, have become 

popular not only in their country of origin, but also in other 

markets with high potential. Having a strong and remarkable 

brand image could help establish an identity in marketplace 

(Aaker, 1996), widen the profit margins, encourage greater 

intermediary co-operation as well as increase the chance for 

further brand extension (Delgado-Ballester and Munuera- 

Aleman, 2005). In accordance with Delong et al. (2004), 

consumers appear to rely on the brand image as long as they 

have little knowledge about the brand. In this way, 

managing brand image is of utmost importance. In order to 

differentiate one brand from another, marketers would 

develop retail brands with unique image so as to continue to 

gain popularity and market share (Abend, 2000; Ailawadi, 

2001; Corstjens and Lal, 2000). 

Consumer behavior 

Consumer behavior refers to the activities in which people 

acquire, consume and dispose products and services 

(Blackwell et al., 2001).Consumer behavior focuses on how 

individual consumers and families or households make 

decisions to spend their available resources in form of time 

money and effort on consumption related items. This 

includes what they buy, why they buy, when they buy, 

where they buy, how often they buy and use, how they 

evaluate it after purchasing, impact of such evaluations on 

future purchases and how they dispose it off. It is interesting 

to note that the importance of understanding consumer 

behavior was realized much before the establishment of 

marketing concepts. To identify consumer’s satisfied and 

unsatisfied needs it is important for companies to 

continuously monitor consumer buying behavior. Owing to 

the proliferation of brands in the recent decades, there is a 

growing number of researches conducted in the field of 

consumer buying behavior. Changing life styles, 

technological development in textiles and international trade 

have brought about changes in the clothing preferences of 

the present day consumers. Consumers with the same needs 

may want different clothes depending upon their cultural 

background, age, socio-economic status and personality 

(Sumathi, 2005) consumer tend to prefer clothes that are 

attractive, socially acceptable, economical and suits the 

climatic conditions and personality well. It is found that 

consumers’ emotions are one of the major determinants 

which affect their buying behaviour (Berry, 2000). 

According to a research conducted by Freeride Media LLC 

(1998) on shopping habits, nearly one-fourth of the 

respondents are likely to impulse-buy clothes and 

accessories. When deciding which products to purchase, 

consumers would have their preferences, which are 

developed in accordance with their perceptions towards the 

brand. Successful branding could make consumers aware of 

the presence of the brand and hence could increase the 

chance of buying the company’s products and services 

(Doyle, 1999). 

In India the purchasing pattern of consumers especially in 

case of woman apparels is highly influenced by the 

demographic, socio cultural, economical and household 

structure. Others influencers may be family, friends, 

reference groups, needs, emotions, personality and 

information processing etc. 

Research methodology 

According to the various researches conducted in past on 

apparel branding suggest that branded clothes are of high 

preference in consumers but in case of females in Lucknow 

branded apparels are not much popular especially in case of 

Indian wear. There are only limited branded apparel outlets 

in comparison to the retailer’s own labels. But still, female 

Branded apparels are gaining high acceptance since last 

decade, therefore it’s important for the marketers to study 

the influence of brands in apparel purchase. This study was 

conducted to analyze the various factors like Brand loyalty, 

Brand awareness, Brand Association, Quality Perceptions, 


and self-concepts, particularly in case of Indian Woman, 

influencing the purchase of branded apparels. Around 100 

females of 25-35 years were interviewed and further study 

was done on the basis of these five factors which influence 

brand equity. 

Brand loyalty 

Brand loyalty has always been a key concern for the 

marketers. It provides a dramatic insulation against the 

competition and provides an opportunity to command the 

premium. Brand loyalty is one of the core components of 

brand equity and also positively and directly affected brand 

equity (Atilgan et al., 2005). Under the influence of brand 

loyalty, consumers continue to buy the brand, regardless of 

the superior features, prices and convenience owned by its 

competitors (Aaker, 1991). Brand loyalty leads to repeat 

purchase, brand recommendation, word of mouth and 

customer satisfaction. In case of apparels, it was found that 

almost 80% female consumers of lucknow are loyal to retail 

outlets rather than being loyal to a particular brand specially 

in case of Indian casual wear. The factors which influence 

the customer loyalty are accessibility, current fashion trends, 

quality of dress material, aesthetics of the apparel available 

at specific outlet. 

Brand awareness 

It refers to the ability of a potential consumer to recall and 

recognize the brand, linking the brand with its 

corresponding product class (Aaker, 1991). Brand 

awareness includes brand recognition and recall i.e., the 

ability to confirm prior exposure and remember the brand. 

This sort of awareness is essential for a brand to be able to 

take part in the decision process. It is very important for a 

marketer to create brand awareness so that a consumer 

knows and makes it one of the purchasing choice. 

It has been noted that brands with higher level of awareness 

would be more likely to be purchased (Yasin et al., 2007) 

and consumers tend to buy a recognizable brand rather than 

an unfamiliar one (Hoyer, 1990; Macdonaldand Sharp, 

2000). As mentioned by Keller (1998), brand awareness can 

be enhanced through repeat exposure to the brand. The topof-the-mind 

awareness indicates the relative superiority a 

brand enjoys over others and develops a stronger positioning 

in the mind. During the research it was also found that 

female consumers at Lucknow prefers to purchase the 

apparel brands which are known to them as it easily access 

the association of the brand with attributes and benefits. It 

also generates familiarity in the mind of consumers in 

apparel purchase and supports during the decision making 

process. According the female consumers at lucknow , they 

consider brand awareness as a very important factor in 

purchasing of Indian casual apparel . 

Brand Association 

Brand association is defined as the specific linkage between 

the memory and the brand (Aaker, 1991). Keller (1998) and 

Yasin et al. (2007) further note that equity of a brand is 

largely supported by consumers’ associations towards the 

brand, which contribute to a specific brand image. A brand 

may have connected associations of feelings , characters, 

symbols, lifestyle users etc. and can influence recall of 

information and is especially important during decision 

making. Keller (1993, 1998) further divides brand 

associations into three categories, namely attributes, benefits 

and attitudes. As in case of luckow consumers mentioned 

above that the females purchasing Indian casual apparel 

brands are not much loyal to branded clothes but shows 

brand loyalty towards retail outlets, brand association 

provides bases to them to purchase the branded clothes and 

even make them brand loyal. According to consumers at 

lucknow, the apparel brands are preferred due to its 

association with the endorser or the local culture. The brand 

association triggers to the customers to recall the past 

experiences, and its unique sets of associations to 

differentiate one brand from another. 

Perceived Quality 

Perceived quality can be defined as the customer's 

perception of the overall quality or superiority of a product 

or service with respect to its intended purpose, relative to 

alternatives (Aaker 1991). According to various research 

work conducted in past , it is know that a brand name 

enhances the perceived quality of a product. Perceived 

quality of a product gives a powerful reason to the customer 

to consider and buy a specific brand. Only brands that are 

perceived to be of a good quality are considered for a 

purchase decision and rest are all eliminated. it also allows 

the brand to acquire a position and differentiate and gives 

branded products an option for charging premium. In case of 

females purchasing apparel in lucknow feels that the 

branded apparel are considered to be of high quality only 

where the customer involvement is low. The branded 

apparels are considered to be of good quality but this is not 

the only reason to end up purchasing the branded apparels. 

Taking the quality considerations in a brand, the gap 

between the actual and perceived quality and its pricing 

plays a big role in apparel purchase. 

Self-Concepts 

According to Pervin and John (2001), selfconcept is often 

viewed as a component of personality. A number of 

researchers have suggested that there is a positive 

association between self-concept and brand image (Levy, 

1959; Sirgy 1982; Sirgy and Su, 2000; Sirgy, Grewal and 

Mangleburg, 2000; Johar and Sirgy, 1991). Self-concept is 

hypothesised to consist of four components, actual selfconcept, 

ideal self-concept, social self-concept and ideal 

social self-concept (Schiffman et al., 2001). To understand 

consumer’s self-perception, self-concept and self-image has 

a greater importance for marketers to be familiar with their 

consumption behavior and the reason is mostly when 

consumer’s take any buying decision when they are 

influenced by their self-image. People purchase products to 

help them show a certain image of themselves to other 

people. Individuals use fashion related products to reflect 

their self-image and fashion related clothes to reflect their 

self-concept. It is seen that in apparel purchase self-concept 

plays the most important role during the decision making. 


During purchase of apparel, female consumers consider 

their age, personality, occupation, culture, style statement 

etc. The consumers believe that due to presence of brand 

name in their clothing their social image is presented in a 

better way. Thus the self-concept is one of the most 

important factors to influence the purchase of branded 

apparel. 

Conclusion 

It is seen that the most important factor which influence the 

purchase of female branded apparel in the city of Lucknow 

is self-concept. The females also believe that the quality of 

the branded apparel is better than non-branded ones but the 

gap between that actual and perceived quality influences the 

repeat purchase. The factor like brand awareness and brand 

association plays a key role during the decision making as it 

helps in recognizing and recalling the connection of brand 

with the previous exposure or emotional attachment. Brand 

loyalty is not a very important factor for influencing the 

purchase as females of Lucknow are more into convenience 

shopping and also give more importance to fashion trends, 

quality of dress material and aesthetics of the apparel which 

makes them loyal towards a specific outlet. 

References 

1. Apaydın, F. (2009). Dimensions of global brand 

buying behavior: An empirical investigation . 5Th 

International Conference on Business, 

Management, and Economics, İzmir, Turkey 

2. Farquhar, P. H. (1989). Managing Brand Equity. 

Marketing Research , 1(Sep.), 24-33 

3. Jacoby, J., & Chestnut, R.W. (1978). Brand loyalty 

measurement and management . New York, NY: 

Wiley 

4. Wood, L.M. (2004). Dimensions of Brand 

Purchasing Behavior: Consumers in the 18-24 Age 

Group. Journal of Consumer Behavior, 4 (1), 9-24. 

http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/cb.154 

5. A note on branded apparel industry in India, 

http://www.icmrindia.org/ 

6. Consumer Awareness towards Ready Made 

Garments , Dr.N.Vasugi Raaja & Dr.Kanikicherla 

Rani, www.fashion2fiber.com 

7. Sumathi, G.J., Elements of Fashion and Apparel 

Design, New Age International Publishers, New 

Delhi, P.46 (2005). 

8. Murugaiah, V., and Vishvas, R., Women and 

Shopping-An Empirical Study of Banglore City, 

Indian Journal Marketing, XXXVIII, (7), July, P.47 

(2008). 

9. Frings, G.S., Fashion from Concept to Consumers, 

Pearson Education, New Delhi, Pp.366-368, 

(2005). 

10. Jasuja, G.D.,), Consumer Choices; Understanding 

Apparel and Furnishing Textiles, The New Cloth 

Market.20, (3), March, P.37 (2006). 

11. Hareem Zeb, Kashif Rashid, and M.Bilal Javeed, 

Influence of Brands on Female Consumer’s Buying 

Behavior in Pakistan, International Journal of 

Trade, Economics and Finance, Vol. 2, No. 3, June 

2011 

12. Vieira, A.A. (2009), An extended theoretical model 

of fashion clothing involvement, Journal of Fashion 

Marketing and Management, 13(2), 179-200. 

13. Ben Webb and John Gountas, La Trobe University, 

Australia, An Integrative Model of Brand 

Personality, Self–Concept and Consumer 

Personality Orientations 

14. Aaker, J., 1997. Dimensions of Brand Personality. 

Journal of Marketing Research, 34, (August), 347- 

356. 

15. Aaker, J., Fournier, S. and Brasel, S., 2004. When 

Good Brands Do Bad. Journal of Consumer 

Research. 31(1), 1-16. 

16. Blackwell, R. D., Miniard, P. W. & Engel, J. F. 

(2006). Consumer behavior. Mason: Thomson. 

17. Aaker, D. A (1991). Managing brand equity. New 

York: Macmillan. 

18. Aaker, D. A (1996). Building strong brands. New 

York: The Free Press. 

19. Dholakia, R. R. (1999). Going shopping: Key 

determinants of shopping behaviors and 

motivations. International Journal of Retail & 

Distribution Management, 27 (4), 154-165. 

20. Keller(2008), Strategic Brand management , 

Pearson education 

21. Harsh V Verma , (2006) 2nd edition, Brand 

management, Excel books 

22. www.fashion2fiber.com 


ANNEXURE 

1.1 Consumer preference of apparel types: 

Apparel Types 

Preference of Apparel Types 

Branded 47 

In-house Apparels 11 

Both 26 

Influence of factors on branded 

apparels 

1 

Least 

Important 

1.2 Influence of Factors 

2 

Not 

important 

3 

Important 

4 

very 

Important 

5 

Most 

important 

Brand Loyalty 2 36 42 16 4 

Brand awareness 0 15 25 45 15 

Brand association 0 12 21 44 25 

Perceived quality 1 8 18 41 32 

self concepts 1 2 16 27 54 


Test of Pricing Efficiency and Distributional 

Properties: Indian Commodity Market 

Prof. Sanjay Sehgal 

Associate Professor in Department of Commerce at Sri Aurobindo College (M), University of Delhi, 

Dr. Namita Rajput 

Professor of finance in Department Of Financial Studies, south campus at University of Delhi 

 

Abstract— In this paper we perform the test of random walk 

for Indian Commodity Market. Spot price data is used for 

thirteen commodities from 2006-2011.We find that daily 

commodity returns are not normally distributed and exhibit 

short term serial dependence which can be exploited by 

technical traders. Commodity return parameters such as mean 

returns and volatility do not vary significantly across 

commodity classes i.e. agriculture, metal and energy. Further 

commodity return characteristics are sensitive to observation 

frequency and tend to follow a random walk on monthly 

observation hence commodity traders, investors and 

researchers shall find more appropriate to work on low 

frequency data. The study contributes to both market 

efficiency and alternate Asset literature of emerging markets. 

Index Terms— Weak-form market efficiency, emerging 

market, Indian commodity Markets, trading strategies, 

observation frequency. 

Jel Codes: G14, G15, C12, C14, C46. 

F 


luctuations in commodity prices are of interest 

because they affect the decisions taken by producers and 

consumers; they play a crucial role in commodity-related 

investments, project appraisals, and strategic planning; and 

they reflect and influence general economic activity. The 

ability to accurately forecast the price of these various 

natural resource products is therefore an important concern 

in both policy and business circles. The Efficient Markets 

Hypothesis (EMH) states that an efficient capital market is 

one in which security prices adjust rapidly to the arrival of 

new information, and therefore, the current prices of 

securities reflect all information about them (FAMA 1970). 

Three sets of assumptions imply an efficient capital market: 

(a) new information regarding securities come to the market 

in a random fashion, and the timing of one announcement is 

generally independent of others, (b) an efficient market 

requires that a large number of competing profit-maximizing 

participants analyze and value securities, each independently 

of others, (c) the competing investors attempt to adjust 

. 

Dr. Namita Rajput is an Associate Professor in Department of Commerce 

at Sri Aurobindo College (M), University of Delhi, India (phone: +91- 

9312180054; +91-8285888860; e-mail: drnamitarajput@ymail.com). 

Prof. Sanjay Sehgal is a Professor of finance in Department Of 

Financial Studies, south campus at University of Delhi, India, ESC-PAU, 

France, (e-mail: sanjayfin15@yahoo.co.in). 

security prices rapidly to reflect the effect of new 

information. Although the price adjustment may be 

imperfect, it is unbiased. This means that sometimes the 

market will under-adjust or over-adjust, but an investor 

cannot predict which will occur at any given time. The main 

corollary of the idea that markets are efficient is that price 

movements do not follow any patterns or trends; hence past 

price movements cannot be used to predict future prices. 

Rather, prices follow what is known as a ‘random walk’, an 

intrinsically unpredictable pattern i . If we believe that 

efficient market hypothesis is a valid proposition, then the 

current asset prices should reflect all generally available 

information. The efficient market hypothesis implies that 

since market prices reflect all available information, 

including the information about the future, the only 

difference between the prices at Pt and Pt+1 are events that 

we cannot possibly predict, i.e. a random event. Hence, in an 

efficient market, stock prices can be statistically tested for 

random walk hypothesis. 

Recently the efficient markets hypothesis and the notions 

connected with it have provided the basis for a great deal of 

research in financial economics. Voluminous literature has 

developed supporting this hypothesis. Briefly stated, the 

EMH claims that asset prices are rationally related to 

economic realities and always incorporate all the 

information available to the market. This implies the 

absence of exploitable excess profit opportunities. The EMH 

has received a lot of empirical support in the academic 

literature during seventies and eighties. This line of thought 

has always been viewed with a lot of skepticism in the 

professional community, which led to the use of charts and 

technical analysis rules for trading strategies in markets. 

Numerous researchers conducted empirical studies in 

testing weak-form efficiency for several stock markets and 

employed various techniques but the empirical evidence is 

controversial. There is a substantial body of literature on 

market efficiency and stock return behavior, but similar 

research for commodity market is limited. Mainly the 

studies are concentrated in the developed stock markets 

particularly US market. However, the needs of more 

research in the emerging and less developed markets are 

well recognized, especially in commodity market. 

EMH can be tested in various forms; most common are 

“Weak Form” tests in which the set of available information 

is simply the history of market prices. Rejection of 

hypothesis requires the researchers to demonstrate 

dependencies in the history of prices which can be profitably 


e exploited .A trading strategy based only on past prices 

must be shown consistently to outperform a naïve strategy 

based only on past prices must be shown inconsistently to 

outperform a naïve strategy such as buying at the start of the 

trading period and selling at its end (buy-and-hold). 

Examples of weak form tests of efficiency in commodity 

markets are Houthakker (1961), Smidt (1968), Srevenson 

and bear (1970), Leuthold (1972), and Peterson and 

Leuthold (1982).This paper reports the results of weak form 

efficiency tests which samuelson (1965), Cootner (1964) 

and Danthine (1978) have all argued that weak form 

efficiency is valid only for futures market. Alchian (1974) 

claims, however, that cash markets should exhibit efficiency 

properties. 

The empirical evidence is controversial in the field of 

weak form of commodity markets. In this section we 

provide a brief review of literature. Financial and economic 

time series have often been modelled as random-walk 

processes (e.g., Mercer and Smith, 1959; Cheng and Deets, 

1971; Cogley, 1990). However, the random walk has been 

proven to fit real market data poorly in many cases. For 

examples, see Mandelbrot (1963a); Fama (1965); Greene 

and Fielitz (1977); Helms and Martell (1985); Hsieh (1989); 

Baillie and Bollerslev (1994); Barkoulas et al. (1997). Other 

models with trends and cycles have been suggested, and one 

category of such models is characterized by long memory or 

long-term memory. Memory means that observations are not 

independent; each observation is affected by the events that 

preceded it. Even a simple autoregressive series exhibits 

memory, but autoregressive behaviour is considered short 

memory. Early studies on testing weak form efficiency 

generally agree with the preposition considering a low 

degree of serial correlation and transaction cost (Cootner, 

1962; Fama, 1965; Kendall 1953). All these studies support 

the proposition that price changes are random and past price 

changes are not useful in forecasting future price changes 

particularly after transaction costs are taken into account. 

Granger and Morgenstern (1970) tested random walk theory 

covering more than fifty stock market price series with 

differing sampling intervals. Various cues of randomness of 

short-term stock prices were found and some deviations 

from random walk were also noted in both high and low 

frequency regions of the spectrum. However, there are some 

studies, which found the predictability of share price 

changes (e.g., Fama and French 1988 a and b) in developed 

markets but they did not reach a conclusion about profitable 

trading rules. Nicolaas, (1997) conceded that past returns 

have predictive power but the degree of predictability of 

returns was not high. Though it is generally believed that 

emerging markets are less efficient, the empirical evidence 

does not always support this thought. 

A World Bank study by Claessens, Dasgupta and Glen 

(1995) noted significant serial dependence in equity returns 

from 19 emerging markets that violates weak form EMH. It 

explained that the inefficiency might be due to delay in 

operations and high transaction cost, thinness of trading and 

illiquidity in a market. In India, weak form market 

efficiency has been widely researched and studies have 

generated a large amount of evidence in favor of weak form 

efficiency, e.g. Barua (1981), Barua and Raghunathan 

(1987), Rao and Mukherjee (1971), Sharma and Kennedy 

(1977), Sharma (1983), Gupta (1985), Ramachandran 

(1985), Dhankar (1991), Saxena (1992), Belgaumi (1995), 

Mittal (1995), Yalawar (1988), Mishra (2000), and Gupta 

(2001).There have been only a few studies (e.g. Chaudhury, 

1991; Kulkarni, 1978) which did to support the weak 

efficiency hypothesis. Subramanian (1993) studied weak 

form of market efficiency and noted prominent spikes at 

lower frequency range through spectral analysis. It noted the 

presence of periodic cycles in the movement of share prices, 

which are against the assertion of the weak form of EMH. 

Gupta and Gupta (1997) opined that phenomenon of large 

departures from random price behaviour might have been 

due to structural transformation taking place in the Indian 

Capital Market. Deb (2003) tested weak form efficiency 

using both parametric and nonparametric tests across five 

major market indices of the Indian stock market. It depicted 

that prices in the Indian stock market do not follow the 

random walk model except for BSE 100 indices, which 

endorses efficiency for the variance ratio test. 

Among the studies on commodity futures prices, Larson 

[13], using autocorrelograms, found evidence to support 

Working's [17] theory of anticipatory prices which implies 

that prices move randomly. Stevenson and Bear [16], who 

used an assortment of statistical tools and mechanical 

trading rules, concluded that corn and soybean futures prices 

move in a systematic rather than a random fashion. This 

tends to agree with earlier work done by Houthakker [11] 

who applied a stop-loss scheme to corn trading. On the other 

hand, Cargill and Rausser [3], utilizing spectral analysis on 

various futures contracts for 1967, including corn, 

concluded that "a simple stochastic process appears 

consistent with commodity markets price behavior." 

Singh (2001) found that Indian commodity market is 

efficient especially when the time of maturity comes closer. 

He found Gur and Potato futures market, confirmed to 

efficient market hypothesis throughout. Whereas, he found 

efficiency in Castroseed, Hapur and Turmeric futures 

market was sensitive to period for maturity. On the whole, 

since strong co integration in spot market and the futures 

market was identified thus, Singh concluded that Indian 

commodity futures market was efficient. 

A major shortcoming of the entire analysis and a possible 

reason for the lack of wide acceptance for any single result. 

The consequence has been varying results, depending upon 

data and tests used. Only Stevenson and Bear have 

attempted to apply alternative statistical tools and 

mechanical trading rules to similar data. 

Thus, a large majority of studies favor prevalence of weak 

form stock market efficiency in Indian commodity market. 

Some studies deny its existence to keep the academic debate 

alive on the subject. Under this backdrop, the present study 

was conceptualized to explore plausibility of profitable 

trading strategies based on past prices. In this regard, it may 

be constructed as yet another attempt to re-examine the 

weak form efficiency proposition in commodity market in 

India. 

This paper is organized into following sections, first 


section gives the introduction of commodity market and 

about the EMH i.e. the present section, second section 

explains about the research objectives, hypothesis, data and 

the period of study. Third section deals with time series 

Behaviour of commodity prices and returns in India: 

distributional, descriptive, autoregressive analysis is done. 

Section four describes about observation frequency and its 

impact on aggregate commodity price behaviour and section 

five gives Summary and conclusions. 

II. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES, HYPOTHESIS AND 

DATA 

A. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES 

As outlined earlier, the basic objective of this paper is to 

assess whether spot/cash prices in the Indian commodity 

markets move as the random walks theory suggests. In other 

words, is the Indian commodity market mechanism efficient 

in the manner stipulated in its weak form preposition? To be 

more precise, the following objectives are conceptualized in 

the paper under consideration: Whether commodity cash 

prices tend to follow a normal distribution, to empirically 

test whether the weak form of efficient market hypothesis 

holds well in Indian commodity markets encompassing 

observable interdependence and non randomness, do 

commodity parameters vary across risk return parameters 

across different commodity classes. 

B. HYPOTHESIS 

The paper attempts to test on the commodity market 

efficiency in its weak form variant for India an emerging 

market. In this regard, it tends to examine validity of the 

following hypotheses: 

H 1: Commodity prices in India are normally distributed. 

H 2: Successive price movements are random and are not 

interdependent. 

H 3: Whether commodity parameters tend to vary across 

alternative commodity class i.e. agriculture, metal and 

energy. 

H 4: The characteristics of commodity return series are 

sensitive to observation frequency i.e. use of daily, weekly, 

monthly data. 

H 5: There is no significant co-incident lead/lag/ between 

prices of different commodities. 

C. DATA 

Daily closing price data of thirteen commodities have 

been taken from MCX from may 2006 to January 2010. 

There are 1092 observations for each commodity. The 

commodity prices were converted into percentage returns by 

the following formula Rt = (Pt – Pt-1), where Rt = Returns 

of commodities, in period t, Pt = Price of commodities at 

day t, Pt-1 = Price of commodities at day t-1. Commodities 

include basket of commodities which include agricultural 

(pepper, channa, jeera, wheat, refined soya oil, soya bean), 

energy (natural gas, crude oil), and metal (gold, silver, 

copper, zinc, aluminum). Daily prices were converted into 

weekly and monthly by taking closing prices for each week 

and month respectively and converted into percentage 

returns using the above said formula. 

III. TIME SERIES BEHAVIOUR OF COMMODITY RETURNS 

We start by testing the stationarity of sample price series. 

Augmented Dickey–Fuller Test (ADF) test was performed 

on the sample price data using 5% level of significance. The 

sample time series exhibit non stationarity as shown in table 

1.Next we repeat stationarity test for sample return series. 

The daily return series seem to be stable over time as 

indicated in table 11 implying that commodity price are 

integrated to order 1. After that Descriptive Analysis is done 

which exhibits, very low Mean returns .While standard 

deviations are quiet high for most of the commodities. High 

standard deviation signify very high volatility in asset 

returns which is common across all commodity classes, i.e 

in agricultural, energy and metal .The result of natural gas 

is exceptionally different with large mean and standard 

deviations. It provides an annualized return of 1250% 

(Assuming 250 trading days in a year), followed by jeera 

and pepper. Zinc and wheat provide 25% annualized returns, 

while other commodities show low negative returns. There 

seems to be no distinct pattern in the mean and volatility 

characteristics across commodity classes. it is evidenced that 

there is negative skewness in eight out of thirteen 

commodities and five are positively skewed. Aluminium, 

jeera and natural gas have high positive skweness. Further 

the commodity returns distributions series exhibit 

leptokurtic. So negative skewness and leptokurtic series of 

commodity return series indicates that the distribution is not 

normal. Normality violations patterns are also confirmed by 

Jarque-bera (parametric test) at 5% level of significance p 

value is less than 0.05. In other words, the non-normal series 

of commodity return series deviate from the prior condition 

of random walk model as shown in table 11. 

To confirm the pattern of non –normality Jarque-bera test 

was performed. The j b statistics is computed as follows 

Where n=no of observations 

S=measure of skewness 

K=measure of kurtosis 

Under large samples the J&B statistic tends to follow chisquare 

distribution with two degree of freedom and can be 

used to test the null hypothesis that the data are from a 

normal distribution. The null hypothesis is a joint hypothesis 

of the skewness being zero and the excess kurtosis being 0, 

since samples from a normal distribution have an expected 

skewness of 0 and an expected excess kurtosis of 0 (which is 

the same as a kurtosis of 3). As the definition of JB shows, 

any deviation from this increases the JB statistic. Our results 

show that no value is less than 0.05, which confirms non 

normality. To reconfirm the distribution pattern of the 

commodity return series, Kolmogrov–Smirnov Goodness of 

Fit test is also used, (K-S test) is a non-parametric test and is 

used to determine how well a random sample of data fits a 

particular distribution (uniform, normal and Poisson)., 

which provides further evidence whether the distribution 

confirms to a normal distribution or not. 


Results of (K-S test) show very low p –values, which 

clearly indicates that daily return series of sample 

commodities do not follow normal distribution. 

Next we test the statistical dependencies of the daily 

return series using parametric test i.e. serial correlation 

(parametric test) and non parametric test i.e. runs test (non – 

parametric) .Test statistic which is used to notice any 

perceptible trend in commodity returns is the serial 

correlation matrices that measures correlation between price 

changes in consecutive time periods, and is a measure of 

H 0: 

H a: 

Test 

Statistic: 

THE KOLMOGOROV-SMIRNOV TEST IS DEFINED BY: 

The data follow a specified distribution 

Sig. Level: . 

Critical 

values: 

The data do not follow the specified distribution 

The Kolmogorov-Smirnov test statistic is defined as 

where F is the theoretical cumulative distribution of the 

distribution being tested which must be a continuous distribution 

(i.e., no discrete distributions such as the binomial or Poisson or 

normal), and it must be fully specified (i.e., the location, scale, 

and shape parameters cannot be estimated from the data). 

The hypothesis regarding the distributional form is rejected if the 

test statistic, D, is greater than the critical value obtained from a 

table. There are several variations of these tables in the literature 

that use somewhat different scaling for the K-S test statistic and 

critical regions. 

how much price change in any period depends upon price 

change over the previous time period. A serial correlation of 

zero would imply that price changes in consecutive time 

periods are uncorrelated with each other, and can thus be 

viewed as a rejection of the hypothesis that investors can 

learn about future price changes from the past ones. A 

positive and statistically significant serial correlation could 

be viewed as evidence of price momentum in markets, and 

would suggest that returns in a period are more likely to be 

positive (negative) if the prior period returns were positive 

(negative). Similarly, a negative and statistically significant 

serial correlation could be evidence of price reversals, and 

would be consistent with a market where positive returns 

were to follow negative returns and vice versa. In a more 

precise way, serial correlation coefficients provide a 

measure of relationship between value of a random variable 

(Xt) in time t and its value k-periods earlier. It indicates 

whether price changes in the time t are influenced by price 

changes occurring k-periods earlier, where k = 1, 2, 3….n. 

In the present study we have considered time lags of 1, 2, 

3… 16 days. The autocorrelation matrix is estimated by: 

S.E. (k) = 1/ (n-k)1/2, When n is sufficiently large (n>50), 

approximate value of the standard error of estimated 

(S.E. (k)) matrices is given by: 

S.E. (k) = 1/ (n) ½ 

From the analysis it is evident that at lag one (5 %) level 

of significance there are negative autocorrelation factor 

(ACF) values of all thirteen commodities i.e. mean reversion 

nature is exhibited for all sample commodities. The results 

reported in Table 11 do not support randomness in the 

commodity prices as none of p values was greater than 0.05 

hence found to be significant .hypothesis is rejected and 

series are negatively auto correlated. Market is not 

efficient and market information is not symmetric. In 

trading behaviour there is no maturity because the 

information is not complete. Auto correlation exists in the 

series except in case of wheat and soya bean where p 

value is >0.05. 

The run test, is used to detect statistical dependencies 

(non randomness), which may not be diagnosed by the 

parametric auto-correlation test. The test is well known 

and widely used to prove the random walk model because 

it ignores the properties of distribution. Null hypothesis 

of the test is that the observed series is a random series. 

The numbers of runs are computed as a sequence of the 

price changes of the same sign (such as: ++, −−, 0 

0).When the expected number of run is significantly 

different from the observed first number of runs implies 

that the null hypothesis of randomness of the daily return 

series is rejected. The run test converts the total number of 

runs into a Z statistic. For large samples the Z statistics 

gives the probability of difference between the actual and 

expected number of runs. The Z value is greater than or 

equal to ± 1.96; reject the null hypothesis at 5% level of 

significance. The question of whether a sequence of 

observed numbers (i.e., the individual daily commodity 

price series or daily commodity returns series) is a random 

sequence can be studied by the number of runs observed in, 

Wherein, 

M = Expected number of runs 

n1 = Number of positive price changes 

n2 = Number of negative changes. 

n3 = Number of zero price changes. 

N = Total number of price changes (n1+n2+n3) 

A process is said to be random if observed number of 

runs is given by: 

R = M ± 1.96 S. E. 

Wherein, standard error (S. E.) is given as: 

Wherein, 

C0 = Variance of Xt, and 

N = number of observation. 

Statistical testing of auto correlation matrices requires 

standard error of estimated matrices (S.E. (k)), which is 

obtained as: 

The difference between the actual and expected number 

of runs is expressed by a Standard normal z variate as: 

Z = [(R-M)/S.E.] 

Adjusted z variate (taking into consideration continuity 

adjustment factor, i.e., 0.5) is as follows: 

Z = [(R + 0.5 -M)/S.E.] 

The independence hypothesis is again rejected at 5% level 

of significance for majority of commodities with exception 

of three agricultural commodities like wheat, pepper and 


efined soya, as shown in table 11. Thus the daily 

commodity returns in India do not seem to follow a random 

walk as they are not independently and identically 

distribution. Typically, they exhibit thick tails and high 

peakdness, which are the properties of stable paretian 

distribution ii . Such distribution follows a biased random 

Walk and behaves as nonlinear dynamical or chaotic 

systems. They combine long term trends with noise and 

confirm a presence of noise trader risk in such markets. 

IV. OBSERVATION FREQUENCY AND ITS IMPACT ON 

AGGREGATE COMMODITY PRICE BEHAVIOUR 

In this section, we focus on weekly and monthly time 

series of commodity returns. The objective is to ascertain 

how time series properties of sample distribution change. 

When one shifts from high observation frequency (daily 

returns) to low observation frequency (weekly and monthly 

returns).We replicate the statistical analysis executed in the 

previous sections. 

Weekly analysis: Weekly returns series exhibit 

stationarity when we performed unit root test as shown in 

table-111.Further seven out of thirteen commodity return 

series show negative skewness, while many of them are 

leptokurtic. J&b statistics confirms that seven out of thirteen 

commodity returns are non normal in nature. The K.S 

statistics provides even stronger results against non 

normality as the null hypothesis does hold for any of the 

sample distribution. We next evaluate the time series 

dependence of weekly commodity returns using ACF (one 

lag) it is observed that nine out of thirteen return series 

commodities exhibit negative autocorrelation thus 

confirming their mean reversion tendency. The sample 

return series however seem to exhibit no short term memory 

process as per runs test. It is interesting to note that that the 

results for both distributional properties and as well as time 

series dependence are somewhat conflicting when one uses 

parametric and non parametric version of statistical tests. 

This is not surprising in case of sample time series which 

show i.i.d violations. On overall basis, major of return series 

do not seem to be random on weekly basis. 

Monthly analysis: The monthly commodity return series 

are stable over time. The mean returns and volatility seem to 

have sobered down with an exception of Natural Gas with 

extremely high mean return and volatility parameters. 

Soyabean tend to provide an annualized return of 36% while 

Jeera, Pepper wheat and zinc give 24% returns on 

annualized basis. Skewness and kurtosis have also become 

small over sample distribution. Both JB and KS statistics 

confirm that the distribution is normal .The serial correlation 

and runs test suggest that the sample distributions are also 

independent over time. Thus monthly commodity returns 

seem to be randomly distributed, as shown in Table 1V. 

This implies that monthly returns are weak form efficient. 

This precludes any possibility of employing technical 

analysis of employing any profitable strategies further the 

sample series are normally distributed and hence 

commodities can be suitable analyzed using mean and 

volatility statistics. 

V. SUMMERY AND CONCLUSION 

Indian commodity market, in organized form is relatively 

nascent in nature. In India there are 25 recognized future 

exchanges, of which there are three national levels. It has 

operationalized from November 26, 2002 and got its 

recognition in October 2002. In this paper we attempt to 

analyze the time series behaviour of selected commodities 

.Such a study is essential before any meaningful investment 

strategies could be developed for the asset class. The daily 

commodity returns behaviour exhibit low mean returns and 

high volatility. Further theses commodity return series are 

not normally distributed owing to leptokurtosis and high 

skewness (which is negative in majority of cases).The 

commodity returns also exhibit serial dependence and hence 

can be exploited by technical traders. 

Commodity return characteristics seem to be sensitive to 

observation frequency for instance mean and standard 

deviation of return sobered down as we move from daily to 

weekly then from weekly to monthly returns. The monthly 

commodity returns also follow a random walk as they are 

normally distributed and have no short term memory. 

Commodity characteristics do not seem to vary significantly 

across various asset classes like metal, agriculture and 

energy products. Natural Gas is an exception with extremely 

high mean returns and volatility parameters; in addition 

Jeera, Pepper wheat and zinc tend to provide high annual 

returns. 

Our findings are extremely pertinent for commodity 

traders who are on a look out for profit trading strategies. 

They must concentrate on high observation frequency for 

trading purpose but must bear in mind that profit from 

transaction intensive strategy may get eroded by high costs 

of trading. From researchers point of view it is advisable 

that empirical work is conducted mainly on monthly return 

series at this observation frequency no i.i.d violations are 

exhibited. Our empirical work shall provide a foundation for 

analyzing relevant research issue in commodity market 

including the interrelationship between spot and future 

market characteristics. 

ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

I would like to thank the editor and an anonymous referee 

for useful inputs. I gratefully acknowledge the help received 

from reviewers. The remaining errors, if any, are my 

responsibility. 

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i The term random does not imply that price movements are 

erratic or chaotic, just that prices respond only to new 

information. This information may be randomly good or bad 

and prices will therefore move in an unpredictable manner. 

The movements themselves are a perfectly rational response 

to the available information (Keane, 1983). The market 

efficiency theory is inconsistent with the possibility for 

analysts and investors to spot over- and undervalued stocks 

with different investment strategies in order to earn excess 

return. An efficient market is one where market price is an 

unbiased estimate of the true value of investment. Contrary 

to the popular view, it does not require that the market price 

be equal to true value at every point in time. All it requires 

is that errors in the market price be unbiased, i.e., that price 

can be greater than or less than true value, as long as these 

deviations are random. 

ii 

Non-normal stable distributions have "fat tails" that 

generally satisfy a convergence property defined by Wilfred 

Pareto. For this reason, non-normal stable distributions are 

often called stable Paretian distributions. 


APPENDIX 

TABLE-1: ADF TEST OF PRICES 

Commodities t-Statistic Prob.* ADF Statistics 

1)GOLD -0.276069 0.9258 -2.863972 

2)SILVER -2.863977 0.6058 -1.354392 

3)COPPER -1.917971 0.3241 -2.863974 

4)ZINC -1.332403 0.6162 -2.863974 

5)ALUM -2.863974 0.4715 -1.620845 

6)NATGAS -17.92243 0 -2.864649 

7)CRUDEOIL -2.863972 0.5642 -1.43908 

8)REFSOYA -2.864031 0.4165 -1.728647 

9)SOYABEAN -1.301508 0.6302 -2.867496 

10)PEPPER -2.863974 0.0321 -3.034252 

11)CHANA -2.864013 0.0594 -2.79384 

12)ZEERA -2.863977 0.2143 -2.178846 

13)WHEAT -0.647119 0.8569 -2.867949 

TABLE-11: DESCRITIVE ANALYSIS OF DAILY RETURNS 

DAILY ADF (TVAL) ADF(ST) MEAN SD 

ENERGY 

NATU GAS -2.8 -16.0 0.0567 1.2175 

CRUDEOIL -2.864 -15.755 0.0004 0.0163 

AGRI COMM 

JEERA -2.863 -16.071 0.0028 0.0738 

CHANNA -2.877 -9.0478 0.0004 0.0164 

PEPPER -2.863 -11.368 0.0016 0.0142 

REFINED SOYA -2.864 -19.734 0.0005 0.0056 

SOYABEAN -2.867 -13.155 0.0007 0.0142 

WHEAT -2.899 -9.7441 -0.001 0.0487 

METAL 

ZINC -2.863 -13.774 -0.001 0.0236 

ALUMINIUM -2.877 -9.1853 -0.008 0.0209 

COPPER -2.877 -5.0726 0 0.0191 

SILVER -2.863 -12.96 0 0.0152 

GOLD -2.863 -11.767 0.0002 0.0095 

DAILY SK KURT J&BERA (P V) KS (P V) 

ENERGY 

NATU GAS 20.792 434.26 3425897.94 (0) 13.447 (0) 

CRUDEOIL -0.042 3.7932 11.6130587 (0) 5.5727 (0) 

AGRI COMM 

JEERA 14.923 317.14 1817292.73 11.902 (0) 

(5.95E-11) 

CHANNA -0.645 6.6052 267.643148 7.4592 (0) 

(0.003007851) 

PEPPER 0.6188 5.6637 157.447936 (0) 8.2581 (0) 

REFINED SOYA 0.6177 3.7607 38.4205162 (0) 9.8324 (0) 

SOYABEAN -6.425 91.125 144744.33 (0) 6.9686 (0) 

WHEAT -19.76 405.19 29805.4 7.6134 (0) 

(-4.54E-09) 

METAL 

ZINC -0.417 4.3915 48.0814395 (0) 4.6484 (0) 

ALUMINIUM 3.1649 78.943 105987.188 (0) 6.6341 (0) 

COPPER -0.291 4.4968 47.0915449 (0) 5.3402 (0) 

SILVER -0.39 5.313 108.812321 7.1522 (0) 

(3.62E-11) 

GOLD -0.453 498 128.914701 (0) 8.3672 (0) 

DAILY ACF(AC) ACF -P VA RUNS (ZA) RUNS(PV 

ENERGY 

NATU GAS -0.04 0.242 0.946 0.343 

CRUDEOIL -0.035 0.241 1.562 0.118 

AGRI COMM 

JEERA -0.239 0.011 -3.74 0.0001 

CHANNA 0.027 0.366 -1.949 0.0512 

PEPPER 0.03 0.321 -6.016 1.78E-09 

REFINED SOYA 0.027 0.369 -6.022 1.72E-09 

SOYABEAN 0.026 0.569 -1.11 0.2667 

WHEAT 0.01 0.841 -5.549 0 

METAL 

ZINC 0.014 0.646 2.143 0.03 

ALUMINIUM -0.058 0.052 2.324 0.02 

COPPER 0.007 0.811 1.518 1.518 

SILVER 0.007 0.811 -1.089 0.275 

GOLD 0.008 0.793 -0.755 0.449 

TABLE-111: DESCRITIVE ANALYSIS OF WEELY RETURNS 

WEEKLY ADF(T-VAL) ADF(STAS) MEAN SD 

NATL GAS -2.864 -16.001 0 0.04 

CRUDEOIL -2.864 -15.755 0.001 0.02 

AGRI COM 

JEERA -2.863 -16.071 0.032 0.23 

CHANNA -2.877 -9.0478 0.003 0.03 

PEPPER -2.863 -11.368 0.037 0.28 

REFINED SOYA -2.864 -19.734 -0.01 0.1 

SOYABEAN -2.867 -13.15 0.035 0.28 

WHEAT -2.899 -9.7441 0.004 0.01 

METAL 

ZINC -2.863 -13.774 0 0.03 

ALUMINIM -2.877 -9.1853 0 0.01 

COPPER -2.877 -5.0726 0.004 0.02 

SILVER -2.863 -12.96 0.001 0.03 

GOLD -2.863 -11.767 0 0.01 

WEEKLY 

SKEWNES 

S 

KURTOSI 

S 

JARQUEBER 

A (P 

VALUE) 

NATL GAS -0.713 4.961 18.36134 

(0.100923) 

CRUDEOIL -0.081 2.624 0.523536 

(0) 

AGRI COM 

JEERA 8.398 72.02 15769.1 

(0.692813) 

CHANNA -0.295 4.056 4.574182 

(0.000103) 

PEPPER 8.341 71.4 15488.74 

(0.76969) 

REFINEDSOY -8.351 71.51 15539.96 

A 

(0) 

SOYABEAN 8.337 71.42 15499.38 

(0) 

WHEAT 1.408 5.889 50.85251 

(0) 

METAL 

ZINC -0.331 3.613 2.545997 

(0.101561) 

ALUMINIM 0.193 3.292 0.73399 

(0) 

COPPER -0.015 3.95 2.824737 

(0) 

SILVER 2.296 15.77 575.5493 

(0) 

GOLD -0.23 4.121 4.586791 

(0.279991) 

KS (p) 

value) 

13.447 

(0) 

5.5727(0 

) 

11.902(0 

) 

7.4592(0 

) 

8.2583 

(0) 

9.8324 

(0) 

6.9686(0 

) 

7.6007(0 

) 

4.6484(0 

) 

6.6341(0 

) 

5.3402(0 

) 

7.1522(0 

) 

8.3672(0 

) 

WEEKLY ACF ACF(PVAL) RUNS RUNS(P) 

(AC) 

(ZA) 

NATL GAS -0.518 0 1.23 0.2173 

CRUDEOIL -0.582 0 -1.31 0.188 

AGRI COM 

JEERA -0.115 0 1.23 0.2173 

CHANNA -0.148 0 -1.31 0.188 

PEPPER -0.078 0.01 0.65 0.5113 

REFINEDSOYA -0.078 0.011 -0.07 0.9415 

SOYABEAN -0.078 0.092 -2.4 0.0162 


WHEAT -0.025 0.599 -1.1 0.2689 

METAL 

ZINC -0.311 0 1.28 0.2003 

ALUMINIM 0 1.95 0.05 

COPPER -0.505 0 -3.38 0.0007 

SILVER -0.191 0 0.73 0.4646 

GOLD -0.115 0 -1.46 0.1435 

TABLE-1V: DESCRITIVE ANALYSIS OF MONTHLY RETURNS 

MONTHLY ADF(T-VAL) ADF(STAS) MEAN SD 

ENERGY 

NATU GAS -2.9511 -5.8091 1.485 6.32 

CRUDEOIL -5.8091 -3.9381 0.007 0.064 

AGRI COMM 

JEERA -2.9314 -4.5305 0.02 0.072 

CHANNA -2.9369 -7.2182 0.003 0.097 

PEPPER -2.9297 -6.7863 0.037 0.141 

REFINED SOYA -2.9297 -6.2519 0.013 0.04 

SOYABEAN -3.0206 -4.039 0.033 0.061 

WHEAT -2.6605 -3.1122 0.02 0.058 

METAL 

ZINC -2.9 -7.29 -0.02 0.113 

ALUM -2.9 -7.97 0 0.03 

COPPER -2.9 -13.9 -0.01 0 

SILVER -2.9 -7.14 0.001 0.068 

GOLD -2.9 -7.42 0 0 

NATU GAS -0.026 0.871 -0.33 0.734 

CRUDEOIL 0.451 0.002 -0.2984 0.76541 

AGRI COMM 

JEERA 0.26 0.072 0 1 

CHANNA -0.169 0.236 0.149 0.881 

PEPPER -0.048 0.739 0.305 0.76 

REFINED SOYA 0.018 0.903 0 1 

SOYABEAN 0.02 0.92 0 1 

WHEAT 0.218 0.304 -2.35 0.018 

METAL 

ZINC 0 0.52 0.003 0.997 

ALUM -0.26 0.069 -0.9 0.367 

COPPER 0.08 0.5 -2.8 0 

SILVER 0.01 0.9 0 0.99 

GOLD -0.1 0.3 -0.29 0.76 

MONTHLY 

SKEWNES 

S 

KURTOSI 

S 

JARQUEBER 

A 

(P VALUE) 

ENERGY 

NATU GAS 4.0037 17.03 206.806 

(0.064325) 

CRUDEOIL -0.109 1.763 1.248718 

(0.490115) 

AGRICOM 

M 

JEERA 0.9609 3.091 2.931099 

(0.57193) 

CHANNA 0.6061 2.423 1.426229 

(0.2309) 

PEPPER 1.0833 4.201 4.859556 

(0.0915) 

REFINED 

SOYA 

0.3442 2.589 0.508596 

(0.6301) 

KS (p 

value) 

3.0300 

(2.119) 

0.6942 

(0.720) 

0.7170 

(0.682) 

0.842 

(0.477) 

0.684 

(0.7365 

) 

0.518 

(0.9511 

) 

0.640 

(0.805) 

0.757 

(0.615) 

SOYABEAN 0.2037 1.999 0.923536 

(0.7754) 

WHEAT 1.1212 4.005 4.781933 

(0.88056) 

METAL 

ZINC 0.93 3.437 2.891298 (0) 0.579 

(-0.89) 

ALUM 1.116 4.396 5.487614 

(0.5356) 

COPPER 0.073 1.821 1.117461 

(0.63307) 

SILVER -0.361 2.281 0.8227 

(0.535) 

GOLD 0.031 1.927 0.9143 

(0.235) 

0.693 

(0.79) 

2.286 

(5.E- 

05) 

0.648 

(-0.79) 

0.825 

(-0.05) 

MONTHLY ACF(AC) ACF(P 

VAL) 

ENERGY 

RUNS 

(ZA) 

RUNS(P 

VALUE)

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