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Socio-economic development is multi-faceted. The major facets consist of: income, level of education, level of health, quality of infrastructure, sex ratio, level of employment, industrial and agricultural development, and so on. In India, the progress of socio-economic development among the states is not even. This study makes a modest attempt to measure the socio-economic development among the states of India and highlight the disparity among them. In the same line of thought, a composite index based on several facets of socio-economic development has been developed in a holistic manner and the states are arranged accordingly based on the indices. Instead of studying the disparity of a particular facet across states, a composite index is a better measure. This study has utilized the varied dimensions of socio-economic development and a taxonomic approach to construct a composite index without making any assumptions on the raw data. The findings of the study also support the general perception of large disparity in socio-economic development status of the states in India.

The introductory paper begins with the issue about the relevance of research in management. It emphasizes the need for scholars to adopt methodologies best suited to the research problem of their choice. This paper contains sections on the nature of management research, dominant research paradigms, the methodological domain, quantitative versus qualitative research, and triangulation in using multiple methodologies. The paper provides a background to the purpose of the book and summarizes in brief the purpose of each the subsequent papers.