Projects in progress

Research papers

Understanding Pride And Identification Of State Bank Of India Employees And Their Relationship To Responsive, Value, And Transformative Contributions

Abhijeet K Vadera; E S Srinivas
We would first explore the level of pride and organisational identification of the employees of SBI. We would then examine if, and how, this pride and organisational identification affects the various contributions (responsive, value, and transformative) of the employees of SBI. Finally, we would investigate if there are other organisational — branch-level as well as individual-level — factors which affect the contributions.

Global Leadership: Lessons from Indian Companies Operating across Borders

S Ramnarayan, Charles Dhanaraj, and E S Srinivas
In the leadership area, an important prerequisite is increasingly going to be the ability to function effectively across borders in a multipolar world. Our research would focus on exploring the following key questions: What are the leadership and organisation capabilities required for building a successful business outside India? How have our sample organisations built or acquired the required capabilities over time?

Managing the Dark side of Leadership

Amit Nandkeolyar and Jonathan Shaffer
Traditionally, it has been assumed that leaders are charismatic and supportive, yet empirical evidence suggests that many leaders also engage in sustained display of hostile verbal and non-verbal behaviour, often subsumed under the term “abusive supervision”. Abusive supervision is related to absenteeism, turnover, withdrawal symptoms, and health problems amongst subordinates. Based on data from 450 Indian IT employees, we show that such an action also results in decreased job performance, but only for those employees with low levels of conscientiousness.

Rewards, Learning and Performance in Teams

Amit Nandkeolyar and Greg Stewart
On the one hand, rewards increase cooperation between team members while on the other, it breeds competition between teams and sometimes amongst team members. We found evidence that rewards lead to better performance only when the team is involved in interdependent tasks and team members learn from their partners. We suggest that organisations design teams that engage in learning from their members. This will lead to more efficient utilisation of human capital and improve the team performance.

Governance after the shock

Rajesh Chakrabarti and Krishnamurthy Subramanian
The composition, working, compensation and quality of corporate boards have all undergone significant changes in India in the aftermath of the Satyam debacle. The paper finds that as independent directors have become more aware of the risks of board positions and shied away from boards, companies also put more faith in internal directors. Directors are now better paid and they work harder.

Employment Protection Laws and Privatization

Krishnamurthy Subramanian and William Megginson
Since labour retrenchment is regulated in most countries through employment protection laws, the above reluctance to privatise raises a fundamental question: Do employment protection laws hinder privatisation? Using a sample of privatisation deals in OECD countries from late 1970s onwards and within-country variation in employment protection laws, we plan to investigate whether stringent employment protection laws indeed deter privatisation significantly.

Case studies

Union Bank of India

S. Ramnarayan and Swami Krishnan
The case deals with the transformation of UBI during the period from 2006 to 2010. In addition to participative change, widespread communication, use of technology, focus on customers, etc, a distinctive and an interesting feature is the mechanism of coaches, who were selected from within, trained by consultants and studied progressive practices from other banks. It deals with the role of the coaches in the transformation journey.

Mentoring at TP Engineering Company

S. Ramnarayan and Rekha Krishna N.
The case discusses the introduction of a HR system called “Project Vishwamitra” in a public sector organisation. It is a mentoring programme introduced to ease the entry of the fresh engineers and to make them feel comfortable. It focuses on how the system was working effectively in the initial five years (2000-2005) of its introduction and why it has fallen apart since 2005.

Singareni Collieries: From gloom to glory

S. Ramnarayan and Neha Gupta
When Singareni’s performance was at its lowest ebb some years back, an extensive and innovative communication exercise was taken up to energise low-skilled and less-educated employees at the operating levels. The case deals with the initiatives taken by the organisation to improve its performance.

The transformation Journey of IDBI

S. Ramnarayan and Chitra Rao
IDBI Bank merged with IDBI Limited with effect from April 2, 2005. The case will look at how the merger process was conceived, how it was executed, what problems were encountered, how they were solved, and how the organisation managed to maintain and enhance its performance during the entire process.

Indian Bank: What Sustains its Turnaround?

Kanchan M
The case attempts to provide a platform to understand and appreciate the need for good governance in an organisation. It also highlights the need for best practices to ensure sustainability in the long run. The case presents the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats faced by the bank in late 1990s. It provides an opportunity to understand the need for responsibility, accountability, transparency and fairness — the four pillars of good governance, be it in the private or public sector.

SBI Merger

Rajesh Chakrabarti
After half a century of their creation and its effective control over them, SBI finally started merging the associate banks in 2005 starting with the State Bank of Saurashtra. The process was complex but the cost savings were significant. The learnings were critical for the progress of such mergers of the other associate banks.

Kosi flood management

Rajesh Chakrabarti
The Kosi flood in Bihar in 2008 which changed the course of the river was possibly the largest flood disaster in independent India's history. Timely crisis management by the state government, the NDMA (National Disaster Management Authority) at the centre and seamless coordination between state and central agencies ensured that the death toll remained remarkably low and the massive relief operations provided support to the tens of thousands displaced.

Bihar bridge building unit

Rajesh Chakrabarti
In 2006, Bihar Rajya Pul Nirman Nigam (BRPNN) was a sick unit, facing closure. In five years, it was turned around into a company with Rs 1000 crore turnover, building bridges, roads, and other civil works. The turnaround involved total team rejuvenation, and delivering on strict deadlines on hundreds of simultaneous projects.