IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/orited/v24y2023i1p70-75.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Case Article—GAP: A Humanitarian Initiative of Ramakrishna Mission for Underprivileged Children

Author

Listed:
  • Vinay Ramani

    (Industrial & Management Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh 208016, India)

  • Jyotirmoy Dalal

    (Decision Sciences Area, Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh 226013, India)

  • Swami Dayakarananda

    (Projects Gadadhar Abhyudaya Prakalpa, Ramakrishna Math & Ramakrishna Mission, Belur, West Bengal 711202, India)

Abstract

Conventional textbook models of profit-maximizing firms are generally unsuitable for understanding and modeling the objectives of a nonprofit organization. Closing this gap is especially important as nonprofits, regarded as the third pillar of the society, are increasingly prevalent along with the government and the for-profit businesses. GAP, a humanitarian project undertaken by Ramakrishna Mission (RKM), a large nonprofit organization in India, has been highlighted in our case. Our case serves three pedagogical objectives: (i) understanding the cost structure that is specific to the GAP project, (ii) applying break-even analysis, and (iii) quantitative modeling of the nonprofit’s decision-making problem using a simple spreadsheet modeling approach. The case has been tested across a diverse set of courses across different MBA programs at two public business schools in India. In all those courses, students found the case challenging but were appreciative of the hands-on experience gained by working on a real-life decision-making problem.

Suggested Citation

  • Vinay Ramani & Jyotirmoy Dalal & Swami Dayakarananda, 2023. "Case Article—GAP: A Humanitarian Initiative of Ramakrishna Mission for Underprivileged Children," INFORMS Transactions on Education, INFORMS, vol. 24(1), pages 70-75, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:orited:v:24:y:2023:i:1:p:70-75
    DOI: 10.1287/ited.2022.0273ca
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/ited.2022.0273ca
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/ited.2022.0273ca?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Barry Cobb, 2011. "Graphical Models for Economic Profit Maximization," INFORMS Transactions on Education, INFORMS, vol. 11(2), pages 43-56, January.
    2. Stephen G. Powell, 2001. "Teaching Modeling in Management Science," INFORMS Transactions on Education, INFORMS, vol. 1(2), pages 62-67, January.
    3. Gemma Berenguer & Zuo-Jun (Max) Shen, 2020. "OM Forum—Challenges and Strategies in Managing Nonprofit Operations: An Operations Management Perspective," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 22(5), pages 888-905, September.
    4. Sundaravalli Narayanaswami & Ravichandran Narasimhan, 2017. "Case—Optimal Movement Plan of Rice in the State of Andhra Pradesh in India," INFORMS Transactions on Education, INFORMS, vol. 18(1), pages 41-47, September.
    5. Thin-Yin Leong & Michelle L. F. Cheong, 2008. "Teaching Business Modeling Using Spreadsheets," INFORMS Transactions on Education, INFORMS, vol. 9(1), pages 20-34, September.
    6. Vishwesh Singbal & Gajendra K. Adil & Rakesh Venkitasubramony, 2020. "Case—Forward-Reserve Storage Design: A Case of Carriage Repair Workshop, Indian Railways," INFORMS Transactions on Education, INFORMS, vol. 21(1), pages 35-40, September.
    7. Gemma Berenguer & Pinar Keskinocak & J. George Shanthikumar & Jayashankar M. Swaminathan & Luk Van Wassenhove & Sripad K. Devalkar & Milind G. Sohoni & Priyank Arora, 2017. "Ex-Post Funding: How Should a Resource-Constrained Non-Profit Organization Allocate Its Funds?," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 26(6), pages 1035-1055, June.
    8. Ina S. Markham & Susan W. Palocsay, 2006. "Scenario Analysis in Spreadsheets with Excel's Scenario Tool," INFORMS Transactions on Education, INFORMS, vol. 6(2), pages 23-31, January.
    9. Thomas A. Grossman, 2006. "Integrating Spreadsheet Engineering in a Management Science Course: A Hierarchical Approach," INFORMS Transactions on Education, INFORMS, vol. 7(1), pages 18-36, September.
    10. Sundaravalli Narayanaswami & Ravichandran Narasimhan, 2017. "Case Article—Optimal Movement Plan of Rice in the State of Andhra Pradesh," INFORMS Transactions on Education, INFORMS, vol. 18(1), pages 37-40, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. John Miltenburg, 2019. "Online Teaching in a Large, Required, Undergraduate Management Science Course," INFORMS Transactions on Education, INFORMS, vol. 19(2), pages 89-104, January.
    2. LeBlanc, Larry J. & Grossman, Thomas A. & Bartolacci, Michael R., 2019. "Ensuring scalability and reusability of spreadsheet linear programming models," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 55-69.
    3. Thomas A. Grossman & Vijay Mehrotra & Mouwafac Sidaoui, 2016. "A Student-Centered Approach to the Business School Management Science Course," INFORMS Transactions on Education, INFORMS, vol. 16(2), pages 42-53, January.
    4. Sanjay Choudhari & Saurabh Chandra, 2022. "Case Article—Route Planning at an Animal Husbandry Department," INFORMS Transactions on Education, INFORMS, vol. 23(1), pages 35-40, September.
    5. Mark W. Isken, 2014. "Translating a Lab Based Spreadsheet Modeling Course to an Online Format: Experience from a Natural Experiment," INFORMS Transactions on Education, INFORMS, vol. 14(3), pages 120-128, May.
    6. Feyza G. Sahinyazan & Marie‐Ève Rancourt & Vedat Verter, 2021. "Food Aid Modality Selection Problem," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 30(4), pages 965-983, April.
    7. Iman Parsa & Mahyar Eftekhar & Charles J Corbett, 2022. "Does governance ease the overhead squeeze experienced by nonprofits?," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 31(8), pages 3288-3303, August.
    8. Jónas Oddur Jónasson & Kamalini Ramdas & Alp Sungu, 2022. "Social impact operations at the global base of the pyramid," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 31(12), pages 4364-4378, December.
    9. Yuanzheng Ma & Tong Wang & Huan Zheng, 2023. "On fairness and efficiency in nonprofit operations: Dynamic resource allocations," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 32(6), pages 1778-1792, June.
    10. repec:eur:ejfejr:25 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Vishwesh Singbal & Gajendra K. Adil & Rakesh Venkitasubramony, 2020. "Case Article—Forward-Reserve Storage Design: A Case of Carriage Repair Workshop, Indian Railways," INFORMS Transactions on Education, INFORMS, vol. 21(1), pages 30-34, September.
    12. Lester Blackmon & Ross Chan & Omar Carbral & Geeta Chintapally & Sandip Dhara & Peter Felix & Aditi Jagdish & Srini Konakalla & Jasbir Labana & Jeff McIlvain & Jason Stone & Christopher S. Tang & Jaso, 2021. "Rapid Development of a Decision Support System to Alleviate Food Insecurity at the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank amid the COVID‐19 Pandemic," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 30(10), pages 3391-3407, October.
    13. Dalal, Jyotirmoy, 2022. "Food donation management under supply and demand uncertainties in COVID-19: A robust optimization approach," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 82(PA).
    14. James R. Evans, 2015. "Teaching Note—Analytic Visualization of Solver Output," INFORMS Transactions on Education, INFORMS, vol. 15(3), pages 232-239, May.
    15. Ganesh, Gopala & Paswan, Audhesh K., 2010. "Teaching basic marketing accountability using spreadsheets: An exploratory perspective," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 182-190, February.
    16. Peter J. Regan, 2006. "Professional Decision Modeling: Practitioner as Professor," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 36(2), pages 142-149, April.
    17. Gemma Berenguer & Zuo-Jun (Max) Shen, 2020. "OM Forum—Challenges and Strategies in Managing Nonprofit Operations: An Operations Management Perspective," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 22(5), pages 888-905, September.
    18. Quan Zhou & Tava Lennon Olsen, 2023. "Modeling the effects of dated medical supplies donation on recipient countries," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 32(1), pages 116-130, January.
    19. Priyank Arora & Wei Wei & Senay Solak, 2021. "Improving Outcomes in Child Care Subsidy Voucher Programs under Regional Asymmetries," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 30(12), pages 4435-4454, December.
    20. Jason Amaral & Dorothea Kuettner, 2008. "Analyzing Supply Chains at HP Using Spreadsheet Models," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 38(4), pages 228-240, August.
    21. Leong Thin-Yin & Leong Yonghui Jonathan, 2020. "Simpler Machine Learning Using Spreadsheets: Neural Network Predict," European Journal of Engineering and Formal Sciences Articles, European Center for Science Education and Research, vol. 4, January -.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:orited:v:24:y:2023:i:1:p:70-75. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.