Papers by Pradip Khandwalla
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, May 1, 1995
As societies in transition, involved in modernisation, nation building, socio-economic transforma... more As societies in transition, involved in modernisation, nation building, socio-economic transformation, and increasing globalisation of their economies, developing societies must evolve forms of organizational excellence appropriate to their context. Several meta processes drawing their strength in part from the organizational and behavioural sciences are presented. These are: revitalisation of sick organizations, institutionalisation of durable excellence, nurturance of creative excellence, development of competitive excellence, and nurturance of missionary excellence. These processes can be combined in various ways to raise organizational quality. A better understanding of these meta processes may contribute to evolving high performing organizations in developing societies, possibly in the rest of the world also. These meta processes can enlarge current notions of organizational development, human resource development, and transformational leadership.
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Nov 1, 1997
Beginning with the eighties there has been a growing perception, in developed and developing coun... more Beginning with the eighties there has been a growing perception, in developed and developing countries alike, that the modern state has extended itself beyond its governance capacity. In many countries the state is perceived as soft and ill-governed. One response to the ill-governed state has been slimming, in the form of privatization and deregulation. In the paper four forms of slimming are examined: privatization of state-owned enterprises (SOEs), privatization of public services, privatization of the state’s governance functions, and deregulation. Several cases of privatization f SOEs, both in the developed and the developing economies, point to complex compulsions, politics, motives, and consequences of such privatization. While empirical studies do not indicate that privatization strikingly improves the performance of privatized SOEs, there are other pragmatic reasons for a programme of selective privatization of non-strategic SOEs. The many modes of privatization and some considerations in its management are discussed. Privatization of public services seems to have considerable potential for cutting costs and improving the quality of services to citizens. There are many options in privatizing public services, and the problems associated with privatization of public services can be addressed effectively. Although in its infancy, selective privatization of the state’s governance functions holds much promise for harnessing of society’s management capabilities for effectively furthering the public interest. Certification, licensing, and justice are promising areas for selective privatization. Democratically functioning associations of organizations can play an especially important role in this sort of privatization. While neither regulation nor deregulation are panaceas, appropriate deregulation in statist societies or in over-regulated sectors can reduce corruption and black marketing, and bring down the operating and transactions cost of business. If some regulation is necessary, the institution-light alternative may be generally preferable to the institution-intensive alternative. Several effective ways of getting rid off excessive regulations are presented. It is concluded that slimming is likely to be effective when it is pursued for pragmatic rather than doctrinaire reasons, and that selective privatization is a powerful way of bringing private sector initiative and efficiency in the public domain and public purpose in the private domain.
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Oct 1, 1997
Organizational research indicates that large organizations involved in many different activities ... more Organizational research indicates that large organizations involved in many different activities can counteract the diseconomies of size and complexity, tendency to bureaucratization, and to increasing resistance to innovation by breaking up into relatively autonomous, self-contained units such as relatively autonomous, self-contained divisions, retaining mainly policy control at the centre and a powerful MIS as a monitoring device. States too can enhance their administrative capacity and innovativeness highly by decentralizing and by fragmenting themselves into relatively autonomous, self-contained units headed by professional managers with clear accountability and clear mandate. Such unbundling must, however, be in the pursuit of an integrating, shared vision of national excellence like social justice, economic growth, and improvement in the quality of life. Several case studies from a number of countries of government departments, agencies, and projects that were decentralized along the foregoing lines under a shared vision of state excellence demonstrate the efficacy of this strategy of fragmenting the state in certain effective ways. Several additional mechanisms can institutionalize the culture on innovation in governmental bodies, such as progressively higher goals, with potential conflict among goals. The operationalziation of a strong serving the “customer” commitment, an operationlized commitment to cut costs, to make increasingly technologically sophisticated offerings, to benchmarking, to entrepreneurship, to global scanning for innovations, trends, and opportunities, to periodic diagnosis of the organization’s functioning, to participative decision making and brainstorming for novel but workable solutions, to periodic, exonovation, and toa daunting developmental and growth vision are powerful mechanisms to make government bodies highly innovative.
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, 1984
Questionnaire based data from 47 Indian corporations indicated interesting causal linkages betwee... more Questionnaire based data from 47 Indian corporations indicated interesting causal linkages between goals of top management and the level of job satisfaction of the relatively lower level of management vis-a-vis various job factors. three hypotheses were assessed, namely, that each goal differentially affects the various facets of lower management job satisfaction, that goals differ in their patterns of effects on lower management job satisfaction, and that goals differ on the extent of impact on lower management job satisfaction. The data broadly supported the hypotheses. Implications of the findings for organization theory and management practice are discussed. Hypotheses emerging from the study are stated.
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Nov 1, 1978
Literature on the performance, control, and management of the central government non-departmental... more Literature on the performance, control, and management of the central government non-departmental enterprises has been surveyed. A model of the managerial and organizational determinants of enterprise performance is developed and a number of testable hypotheses have been generated.
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Apr 1, 1985
The paper presents the relevance, conceptual foundations, and operational measure of an important... more The paper presents the relevance, conceptual foundations, and operational measure of an important motive of professionals, and one that may be critical for socio-economic transformation. It is labelled the pioneering-innovating (PI) motive. The strength of the PI motive is assessed vis-a-vis five other motives for a sample of 750 professionals and professionals-in-the-making. Five hypotheses concerning the PI motive are tested. Four are supported while one receives mixed support. Several implications of the findings are discussed.
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Apr 1, 1986
The paper highlights the importance of environmental perceptions of management for a strategic co... more The paper highlights the importance of environmental perceptions of management for a strategic contingency theory of organizational functioning. Based on data from 75 Indian organizations, the paper examines the temporal stability of environmental perceptions and the potential causal linkages between perceptions of ten dimensions of the organization’s operating environment. Based on identified casual linkages, the environmental dimensions are classified into strategic, transmitter, instrumental, and isolated. A causal network is constructed. Distinction is drawn between the direct and network organizational effects of changes in environmental perceptions. Implications are drawn for a dynamic organization theory. The paper concludes with some emergent hypotheses.
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, 1994
... The Bhagavada Gita, the centerpiece of Vaishnava spiritual philosophy, while excoriating gree... more ... The Bhagavada Gita, the centerpiece of Vaishnava spiritual philosophy, while excoriating greed, provides a powerful structure of the work ethic that upholds the necessity of effort and legitimises every manner of mundane pursuit including commerce provided it is pursued with ...
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Mar 1, 1996
In most developing societies there has been a decisive shift towards economic liberalization, tha... more In most developing societies there has been a decisive shift towards economic liberalization, that is, towards deregulation and globalization of the economy. Liberalisation has two majhor consequences for the corporate world: intensification of competition and increase in growth opportunities. Increasing competition subjects competing corporations to many partially conflicting pressures, such as the need for sharper awareness of market developments and competitive moves of rivals, greater compulsion to cut costs, to respond to special needs of customers, quicker responses to the moves of rivals and the demands of customers, better coordination between various management functions, greater decentralization to meet effectively local contingencies, greater resourcefulness and innovativeness, greater access to diverse expertise, etc. Greater growth opportunities cannot be seized without increased entrepreneurial spirit. These pressures require a complex organizational response which is partly systematic and partly strategic. The systematic response needs to be the greater deployment of uncertainty coping, differentiation, and integration mechanisms. The strategic response requires clearer conceptualization of a short term strategy based on core competencies and a longer term strategy based on learning and adaptive capacity. The deployment of appropriate systemic and strategic mechanisms consequent on liberalization should lead to greater efficiency, better product quality, more innovation, faster growth, and greater profitability. However, in several countries liberalization does not appear to have produced the hoped for results, possibly because of institutional barriers to effective corporate response. In India, however, several indicators suggest that the corporate response to liberalization has, by and large, been quite satisfactory, as judged by corporate growth rates, increased profitability, greater quality consciousness, increased exports, etc. Available evidence suggests that both systematic and strategic responses tend to be in the expected direction. The reasons for the better corporate response to liberalization in India as compared to such countries as Russia are explored. Some management challenges for coping with liberalization, such as institutionalizing effective management styles and policies indicated by recent studies, are described.
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Jun 1, 1983
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Jan 5, 2000
Failure of bureaucracy has prompted many efforts at reforming it. But administrative reform has f... more Failure of bureaucracy has prompted many efforts at reforming it. But administrative reform has failed in many developing countries, including India, for a variety of reasons. The costs of the bureaucracy’s malfunctioning are huge. Any attempt to recharge the Indian bureaucracy would need an examination of its design flaws. The first design flaw is a merit system that does not select for needed administrative capabilities. Second, short uncertain terms of members of the elite services. Third, overloading and centralization. Fourth, a monolithic state. Successful recharging of administration in Britain, Canada, Malaysia, Singapore, New Zealand, etc. indicate that a large part of the state needs to be broken up into semi-autonomous executive agencies. These need to have competitively selected heads on fixed tenures who operate autonomously within the constraints of an MoU with the government. The process adopted in Britain to set up and run executive agencies is described, and example of Passport Agency is given to illustrate how a government body may get transformed after its conversion into an executive agency. The contrasting performance after liberalization of India’s central government public enterprises, whose management structure resembles executive agencies, and the states-owned public enterprises with politician chairpersons and IAS managing directors on short, uncertain tenures supports fragmentation of the bulk of the Indian state into executive agencies for revitalizing administration.
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Sep 1, 1983
Public sector enterprises account for a very substantial proportion of the manufacturing activity... more Public sector enterprises account for a very substantial proportion of the manufacturing activity in India. Public enterprises (PEs) in India are rapidly diversifying their businesses as a response to environmental changes as well as to achieve their growth, profitability and other strategic objectives. Hence, management of diversification has emerged as a major task of PEs. Most PEs are diversifying into related and technologically sophisticated fields ; unrelated diversification is not very uncommon. Based on research done by the authors the pertinent studies by others, three modes of growth and diversification have been conceptualised. The more effective modes amongst them have been identified and the conditions facilitating successful diversification have been delineated. Diversification creates the need for major changes in organizational structure, systems, and management processes. Some of the problems of transition from a single business to multiple product lines have been highlighted. Finally, this paper sketches out major steps in planning a diversification move in the public sector in India.
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Jun 6, 1999
Restructuring activity has picked up in corporate India, and many of the largest Indian companies... more Restructuring activity has picked up in corporate India, and many of the largest Indian companies have been opting for the services of Western international management consultants (WIMC). The writings of some of these consultants indicate the sort of restructuring they tend to favour. Recent restructuring examples, of BILT and SBI, in which WIMC were hired, indicate the strengths and weaknesses of the WIMC mode. The WIMC mode of restructuring is contrasted with an innovative, self-help mode of restructuring pursued by several Indian and Western corporations. This mode relies on participative diagnosis of the strengths and weakness of the organization, mobilization of the stakeholders for change and for identifying needed changes, improvisation by the stakeholders of the way changes are to be brought about, and participative implementation of changes. There is only very limited reliance on external consultants, and top management plays more of a catalytic than a directive role. Two examples are discussed, the first of the restructuring of SAIL in the mid-eighties, and the other of the restructuring of Siemens Nixdorf, the German IT major, in the mid-nineties. Some implications are advanced for Indian corporates wishing to restructure.
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Sep 1, 1982
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Sep 1, 1996
It is argued that organizational is worth probing because it may play a significant role in human... more It is argued that organizational is worth probing because it may play a significant role in human evolution. Organizational greatness is postulated to require both performance excellence vis-à-vis organization centered, conventional indicators and exalted conduct or contribution of a moral, spiritual, ethical, idealistic, or socially beneficial nature. Five alternative approaches to the design of performance excellence are discussed, namely, environmental determination, organizational attributes, strategic choice, synergy between organization elements, and synergy between contextual variables and organizational variables. A model of performance excellence in a competitive domain is presented, which argues that in such a domain inescapable adaptive responses by the organization to a powerful contingency or a strategic choice do not augment relative performance, unless they are supplemented by uncommon but appropriate discretionary responses. Nine alternative paths of exaltation are discussed, namely, stakeholder orientation, corporate social responsibility, strategic domain development orientation, institution building, organizational ethics, spirituality. Several examples are given of organizations that have excelled both on conventional indicators as well as in terms of exalted conduct or contribution. It is argued that in a competitive context exalted conduct or contribution can be pursued by the organization at three alternative levels. At the lowest level it amounts to compliance with legal requirements or strongly held social expectations about moral, altruistic, or socially responsive conducts. At a modest level it can be pursued to cash any synergy exalted conduct or contribution may have with the pursuit of conventional performance excellence. At still higher level sacrifices may well by required in terms of indicators of conventional performance excellence. The pursuit of the sublime along with the mundane increases the organization’s operating complexity and requires more differentiated strategies, structures, know-hows, and rules. For excellence on both mundane as well as sublime indicators, the organization needs to deploy uncommon and complex forms of integration, and needs to pursue creatively strategies and styles that produce additional slack to cushion initial failures. It is argued that certain kinds of contexts reinforce exalted conduct and contribution, such as times of societal regeneration, of disillusionment with capitalism, and social and political ferment. Increased professionalization of the work force may also reinforce such conduct and contribution. The perspective of organizational greatness offers major challenges to both managers and organizational researchers.
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Dec 1, 1997
The performance of a state depends upon how effectively it copes with its crisis points. These cr... more The performance of a state depends upon how effectively it copes with its crisis points. These crisis points can arise because of arbitrariness, excessive bureaucratizaiton, insufficient democratization, insufficient participation of the people in the management of public purpose, incapacity to cope with international expectations, etc. A revitalization strategy for a state needs to be tailor-made to its context, based on an assessment of the state’s performance in a global context. There are special challenges in revitalizing the Indian state. The Indian state is a vast, enormously differentiated, loosely coupled, development-oriented, federal democratic system. An assessment of its performance in a global context supports two contradictory propositions: that the Indian state is a disaster; and that the Indian state is one of the world’s more effective developmental states. The assessment indicates that while there is nothing to be ashamed about the performance of the Indian state after India’s independence, and there are many strengths, there are also many dark spots that need to be tackled, and several options need to be considered for considered for removing these dark spots.
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Apr 1, 1987
The paper defines Organizational Behaviour (OB) and indicates its relevance to management. It bri... more The paper defines Organizational Behaviour (OB) and indicates its relevance to management. It briefly describes some global trends in OB. Next, it discusses trends in OB research in India vis-a-vis quantity of OB research, the OB product-mix, shift from academic to socially relevant research, diversity in the use of research methods, and the emergence of Indian OB models. The paper next indicates cumulation in the areas of work motivation, conflict and conflict management, and the management of organizational dynamics. Finally, after noting the achievements of OB research in India the paper identifies several gaps and suggests several directions future OB research should take. In particular, it pleads for a sharper social focus, involving studies of the organizational consequences of major Indian realities and greater priority to the study of strategic organizations and individuals. It suggests greater effort at relating macro-OB variables to micro-OB variables, at relating macro-OB variables with one another, and the examination of a number of under-investigated micro-OB variables. It pleads for much greater use of natural experiments based research, and concludes by listing the sorts of help practitioners want from OB academics.
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, May 1, 1986
Growing corporate sickness seems to be a global phenomenon, at least in the world’s market-orient... more Growing corporate sickness seems to be a global phenomenon, at least in the world’s market-oriented economies. But the causes of sickness may differ as between Third World countries like India and the developed Western economies. After reviewing Western and Indian work on sickness, the paper presents data on a questionnaire and interviews based study of the major causes of sickness in India, and the mechanisms available to the financial institutions to prevent sickness. The respondents were 36 rehabilitation officers of various Indian banks and financial institutions. A multi-pronged model for preventing sickness is proposed.
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, 1982
Twenty-one subjects were given the divergent thinking task of listing green, funny, and liquid ob... more Twenty-one subjects were given the divergent thinking task of listing green, funny, and liquid objects and asked to think aloud. Their protocols were analysed and five phases and 23 sub-phases of divergent thinking were identified. Ideating was found to be the most commonly utilised phase. Its frequency was negatively correlated with problem structuring and feeling, and positively with evaluating. The most common transitions from each of the five phases were identified, and several recursive problem solving paths were constructed. Contrary to the general presumption of sequentiality among phases of divergent thinking, no notable sequentiality was found. Creative solutions tended to be proceded by redifinition of constraints, listing activity, and playful elaboration of a solution more often than “objective” solutions. Market differences were found in the problem solving style of the subjects. Implications of the findings were discussed.
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Dec 1, 1997
Successful experiments in governance the world over suggest a number of options for revitalizing ... more Successful experiments in governance the world over suggest a number of options for revitalizing the Indian state. Several options are first considered for revamping the political system. These include options for achieving fairer representation in the legislature, for selecting in good and selecting out bad candidates for election, for professionalizing politics, for stabilizing fragile governments, and for professionalizing political executives. Based on the lessons of successful efforts in several Commonwealth and East Asian countries, options are discussed concerning the revitalization of the Indian bureaucracy. These include creative fragmentation of the monolithic bureaucracy, options for strengthening the responsiveness of public agencies to the public, options for revamping justice, options for energizing the management of social development, selective privatization, and selective deregulation. Next, the cancer of corruption and the way corruption manifests itself in developing countries are discussed, and a number of options for vanquishing corruption are presented. The case for a corporatist but democratic Indian state is presented, involving deliberation councils and modifications to comprehensive state planning. The emergent model of the Indian state is compared and contrasted with the model of the state promoted by the World Bank. A case is made for a strong but democratic hub of India’s federal structure. It is suggested that the options for revitalization of the Indian state are extendable to many other developmental states.
Uploads
Papers by Pradip Khandwalla