Pages: 28

No chapter abstract available.

Pages: 84

No chapter abstract available.

Pages: 52

This case is about the behavioural and performance issues that emerge when two different types of personalities interact in a work situation. It would also highlight the impact of leadership styles on subordinates’ performance and ability to manage change at their workplace.

Pages: 43

This case is about the developments in the relationship between two professionals working as subject matter experts (SMEs) at a technical support help-desk (PM Global) which is an outsourced IT infrastructure department of a company called MCI. The work involved is 24/7 and people work and take over from the previous shifts. The SMEs are to support ten technicians on the floor. The customers were MCI employees worldwide. The case is narrated in first person by one of the SMEs about his relationship with another SME called Sunil.

Pages: 53

Sohini Sen, who joined Bheeshma Computers as a senior software engineer, had acquired good technical knowledge from her previous experience. Harish Govil, the senior lead, who was assigned to manage the project being implemented at that time, had considerable experience of working in the company including an onsite stint.

Pages: 50

Business Transformation Systems Limited (BTSL) is a finance and accounts outsourcing services company established about four decades ago by Ritwik Biswas and Rakesh Sharma. Sensing many business opportunities in the IT sector and capitalising on them, BTSL was able expand sizably in the last decade of the twentieth century. Headquartered in New Delhi, its operations are carried out in Gurgaon. Like many of its kind, BTSL also had a functional department structure.

Pages: 58

Galaxy Semiconductors was founded by Pitambar Srinivasan about two decades ago to manufacture computer chips. The company had grown to an employee-strength of 250 and had clients in Europe, the US and the Asia-Pacific region. The three departments of the company (technology, business development and finance) were headed by Rajesh (Vice President), Rahul (Vice President) and Govind (General Manager) respectively. Rajesh was assisted by Sanjay (General Manager of R&D) and Rahul was assisted by Lakshmi (General Manager of marketing and sales). Sanjay, a PhD from IIT, was the most qualified person among the top team, and was also the most innovative. The R&D team, under his leadership, developed a new chip, which the company decided to market globally. Rahul developed a marketing plan for it and Lakshmi conducted the feasibility study, which was highly appreciated by Srinivasan. In order to raise the additional funds required for the project, it was decided to bring in a new partner, which was done by Govind through his contacts. It was felt that the project needed special attention and focused action and so should be organised as a separate division under a Vice President; and all the three GMs were aspiring for that position. Sanjay had the full support of his Vice President (Rajesh) who in turn was very close to the CEO. Lakshmi, on the other hand, did not enjoy the support of her Vice President (Rahul), as he felt that the CEO gave preferential treatment to Lakshmi's ideas compared to his. In fact, he was trying to get her a parallel transfer to Europe. Govind had his claim primarily because of the partnership brought by him for the project. Besides, he had a MBA degree from the same institute (IIM Bangalore) as the CEO and had much greater opportunity for informal interactions with him as his partner in the golf game. Everyone in the top team was waiting for the CEO's decision.

Pages: 55

This case is about the role conflicts faced by Priyanka, a young female manager, because of her close personal relationship with a colleague (Arihant) in another department. Both were employed with G-TAG Electronics at the assistant manager level in the company's Northern Region – Priyanka in the marketing department under Anischit Sharma (Chief Manager of Marketing), and Arihant in the sales department under Navintam Kumar (Chief Manager of Sales). Arihant and Priyanka had a close personal relationship, which was not viewed favourably by their bosses, as the two departments were internal competitors, who were concerned about leaking of confidential information of each other. There were many instances of the two helping each other at work and thus sharing information. They also used to mix work with personal engagements. Once when Arihant had to travel outside on work for 15 days, he persuaded Priyanka to take leave and go with him despite the fact that her own department was loaded with work at that time. Similarly, when the departments were having annual parties separately, Priyanka joined Arihant's department, which was not liked by Anischit, as he could not introduce his entire team to the guests.

Pages: 45

Solutions Credit Rating Agency Pvt Ltd. (SCRA), Lucknow, was the Indian subsidiary of a well-respected US credit-rating agency. Customers from different countries would seek SCRA's services to assess the credit-worthiness of organisations they want to do business with. Once the request comes in, the company must provide a rating within a turnaround time (TAT) of 24 hours, failing which, the matter would be escalated to the higher ups in the US. Hence, the work was quite stressful. Arunesh was one of the four analysts working under manager (Ramnik) and senior manager (Niras). He was recently promoted to the senior analyst role and given independent charge of the UK operations. As he was doing this work very well without any escalations, Niras persuaded him to accept the temporary charge of Australia, promising that a new resource would be recruited at the earliest. Arunesh reluctantly accepted this, as the two countries were in two different time zones and so he had to extend his work-day to 12–13 hours (with no extra remuneration for the extra work). Moreover, for the Australia work, he had to report to Vishram, who worked in a different shift. Arunash worked extra hours and managed the operations in the two countries well, although with great inconvenience to his personal life and health. Since the work was carried out without any escalations, the management neglected the recruitment of the promised new resource for the Australia work, in spite of the repeated requests made by Arunesh. Frustrated by the callous attitude of the management, Arunesh decided to ‘teach them a lesson’. On a day when the work was expected to be at the peak, he took sick-leave, informing only Ramnik and Vishram. There were escalations galore, and the management brought in a resource from another team for the Australia work. While Arunesh did win his battle with the management, he was apprehensive of the long-term implications of this win for his appraisal.

Pages: 47

D & B Tech Limited (DB) has an outsourced project from their US client, CR Auto-Parts, to provide data-based support to their purchasing, sales and finance (PSF) functions. D&B Tech's offshore team for PSF was headed by Seemita (manager), where the team members were Sahaj (senior systems engineer) and Bani and Janet (systems engineers). The team lead, Padmalika, was posted to DB's US office for better coordination with the client. Since Bani and Janet were fresh recruits, Sahaj used to act as the de facto team lead in the offshore office, although for critical tasks like training the fresh recruits, Padmalika would come down to the India office.

Pages: 52

Snigdha was a young graduate electrical engineer recruited in a power utility company and was looking forward to a professionally satisfying career. Though she was recruited for the electrical testing and automation department of the company, her placement was in the automation section and not in the testing section where all her college mates were placed. Snigdha was unhappy about that the decision, which she felt was unfair, as the automation section was neither in her domain nor of her liking. However, she worked hard and performed well on the new technology. In spite of this, she felt her career prospects would be adversely affected as she did not have any professional qualification in electronics or computing.

Pages: 55

Hi-soft Inc is a US-based IT consulting company, headquartered in Stanford. The company's European operations, a relatively small unit with about 100 employees, was not doing well. Rickson, the CEO of the company, promoted Jayme (who has been working as executive assistant for a few years) and posted him to the Director of European Operations role, with a mandate of turning it around and building a new work culture.