Aruna Ranganathan

Economic Development Strategies and Macro- and Micro-Level Human Resource Policies: The Case of India’s “Outsourcing” Industry

This detailed case study of Indias “outsourcing” industry illustrates the challenges in linking macro and micro human resource policies with an economic development strategy based on export-oriented services. The rapid expansion in the outsourcing of services to India has raised the possibility that this sector will be a key engine of Indias economic growth. Based on extensive field research carried out over a four-year period, the authors of this study argue that four interrelated human resource policy challenges threaten the outsourcing industrys growth: two “macro” problems (current skill shortages and the inability of the country to produce higher levels of skills for the long-term growth and sustainability of the industry), and two micro problems (very high levels of employee turnover and rapidly increasing employee costs). The authors evaluate current policy responses and suggest options.

Professionalization and market closure : the case of plumbing in India

Professionalization has long been understood as a process of establishing market closure and monopoly control over work; however, in this article the author presents a case in which professionalization erodes rather than establishes occupational closure. She demonstrates how the Indian Plumbing Association (IPA), a newly formed organization of internationally trained plumbing contractors and consultants, has used the rhetoric and structures of professionalization to threaten pre-existing ethnicity-based closure enjoyed by traditional plumbers from the eastern state of Orissa. By employing a discourse of professionalism and by instituting codes, training, and certification programs, professionalization in this case has undermined Orissan plumbers by changing the basis of plumbing knowledge and opening entry to outsiders. The author concludes by suggesting that professionalization is a modern trope that does not necessarily imply monopoly benefits and higher job quality for all the members of a given occupational group.

The Artisan and His Audience: Identification with Work and Price-Setting in a Handicraft Cluster in Southern India

Using ethnographic, experimental, and survey data from a handicraft cluster in southern India, this paper reports on a study of when and why people who identify with their work might sacrifice financial rewards in their economic decisions. Based on findings from ethnographic fieldwork, I hypothesize that the monetary value that individuals who identify with their work seek for their output depends on their audience: when they encounter discerning audiences, who are knowledgeable about and appreciative of their work, they underemphasize financial gains; transactions with non-discerning audiences, however, result in a focus on monetary rewards. I propose that the mechanism underlying this behavior is product attachment: people who identify with their work develop affection for the output of their labor and prefer to transact with audiences who will take care of their products beyond the point of sale, even if doing so results in lower monetary rewards. I substantiate this theory with a field experiment by demonstrating that handicraft artisans in India who identify with their work sell their products at different prices to discerning and non-discerning groups of buyers. This paper contributes to our understanding of economic decision making in the context of meaningful work by highlighting the moderating role of audiences and uncovering the mechanism of product attachment.

Train Them to Retain Them: Work Readiness and the Retention of First-time Women Workers in India

To explore when and why workplace training facilitates the retention of first-time workers from historically underrepresented groups in formal employment, I combine ethnographic fieldwork at an Indian garment factory employing first-time women workers, personnel data over a two-year period, and survey data from a sample of new hires. I find that training is effective at preventing first-time women workers from dropping out soon after they are hired when it is conducted by trainers with many years of experience. Rather than focusing only on job-specific skills, training conducted by experienced trainers includes the basic work-readiness skills of self-presentation, interpersonal communication, work–life separation, and self-reliance needed to survive at work. I find that first-time women workers quasi-randomly assigned to experienced trainers had about a 20-percent greater probability of being retained after three months, and these workers reported that they felt more ready for work than those assigned to less-experienced trainers. My results imply that for the majority of workers from historically underrepresented groups who are entering the workplace for the first time, training is important to foster their retention, and organizations that focus on both the attributes of the people delivering that training and its content have a greater chance of keeping these workers for the long term.