Metamorphosis: A Journal of Management Research

Internet penetration is growing dramatically in the emerging economy of India. This study examines whether the Internet maven construct, first identified in the United States, exists amongst the online population in India. Internet mavens, an extension of the market maven, are savvy Internet users who act as sources of consumer information for others. In this study, Internet mavens are identified in the Indian population. Various aspects of Internet usage (amount, purpose, and enjoyment) are found to be predictors of Internet mavenism. Further, Internet mavens are found to more fully trust the Internet as a source of consumer information and to see the Internet as more essential to their day-to-day life than do non-mavens. Mavens were found to have significantly higher household incomes than non-mavens however despite looking across a variety of additional variables, no clear demographic profile of the Indian Internet maven emerged.

Indian banking system has come a long way since independence, going through the nationalization phase, the liberalization phase and is preparing itself for very crucial globalization phase. During the different phases public sector bank, private banks and foreign banks plays an important role. This study analyze the effect liberalization on the overall Indian banking system by going through impact of reforms on Indian banking system, performance of public sector banks vis-a-vis private sector and foreign banks. This study also shows the relationship between profitability and internal parameters of the bank.

The diversity in the reference group influence on consumer purchase in general and with reference to rural consumers is examined in the review of literature. The literature on reference groups influence on rural consumer behaviour reveals the role and importance of opinion leaders and the susceptibility of consumers on reference groups for any purchase. Many findings in rural marketing domain concur with the literature on the reference group influence construct done elsewhere. Consumers who are susceptible to interpersonal influence will try to satisfy reference groups' expectation by complying with groups' norms. Reference groups in all have been found to have profound influence on consumers' decision making. This influence is different for several sub cultures and situations. Consumers may accept a reference group influence because of its role in providing informational, utilitarian and value expressive influences.

This study empirically tests the interrelationships among ownership structure, capital structure, investment decisions and corporate valuation. The Hausman specification tests show that these variables are endogenously related and therefore the study uses a system of equations and estimates the relations using the 2SLS method. The empirical tests show that the relationship between corporate investment and corporate value is positive, but nonlinear at varying levels of inside ownership. Results also show that the impact of insider ownership on corporate investment and value is nonlinear, a unique finding of this study. Furthermore, this study confirms substitute relationships among ownership measures (debt, insider ownership, and institutional ownership) as well as between investment flexibility and financial flexibility.

Keni Pharmaceuticals is a large MNC based at Bombay known for their leadership in the field of both drugs and formulations. It is a company with ethics, quality product and well established distributor network. This company has looked after the interest of its associates so well that enjoys a huge amount of goodwill and they have all grown with him. This case talks about Keni Pharma's decision to enter into Domestic Pesticides. Company of this repute got high stacks in the market and Mr. Keni has to be very cautious about making final decision. This case deals with Mr. Keni's decision problem to start marketing operations, channel decisions, marketing and other issues for this new product line. Could you help Mr. Keni in answering the above questions?