Mohan Thite

Leadership styles in information technology projects

This paper discusses an empirical research aimed at identifying successful leadership styles for managers of Information Technology/Systems projects. The research examined the suitability of transformational leadership in conjunction with other critical success factors. The results indicated that a combination of transformational and technical leadership behaviours augment the effectiveness of transactional leadership leading to high project success. While recognising that there is no one leadership style that is effective in all project situations, the study recommends an underlying yet flexible style characterised by organisational catalyst, intellectual stimulation, behavioural charisma, and contingent reward behaviours for enhanced leadership effectiveness.

Strategic positioning of HRM in knowledge‐based organizations

With knowledge management as the strategic intent and learning to learn as the strategic weapon, the current management focus is on how to leverage knowledge faster and better than competitors. Research demonstrates that it is the cultural mindset of the people in the organisation that primarily defines success in knowledge intensive organisations. This article highlights the importance of people management in the knowledge economy, explores major challenges to human resource management (HRM) in managing knowledge workers, and identifies some key HR strategies for effective people‐centric partnership in knowledge management, namely, trusting HR philosophy, institutionalising learning to learn, and fine tuning HR systems in recruitment, retainment, performance and reward management of intellectual capital in a multi‐national context. This article reflects the key themes from the authors recent book, Managing People in the New Economy, published by Sage.

Identifying key characteristics of technical project leadership

This paper explores the nature and importance of leadership in technical projects. It argues that there is a need to develop a leadership model incorporating the distinguishing personality and occupational characteristics of technical professionals. It tested the applicability of Bass and Avolio’s transformational leadership model in an information systems project environment along with technical leadership scale derived from the technical leadership literature. The results indicated that a combination of transformational and technical leadership behaviours augments the effectiveness of transactional leadership leading to high project success. While recognising that there is no one leadership style that is effective in all project situations, the study recommends an underlying yet flexible style characterised by organisational catalyst, intellectual stimulation, behavioural charisma, and contingent reward behaviours for enhanced leadership effectiveness.

Human resource issues, challenges and strategies in the Indian software industry

This paper explores the burgeoning Indian software services industry by focusing on one of its critical challenges: human resource management. Using in-depth interviews of various stakeholders from a representative range of Indian software services organisations, the authors investigate characteristics of Indian software professionals and some of the key human-resource related issues and challenges in the industry: namely, voluntary attrition, reluctance to make a transition from technical to management positions, lack of managerial skills, difficulties with teamwork, work preferences and maintaining work-family balance. Finally, organisational strategies to effectively manage and motivate software professionals, such as moving up the value chain, creating learning opportunities, bifurcated career path, facilitating wealth generation and conducive work environment are explored.

Help Us But Help Yourself: The Paradox of Contemporary Career Management.

Today’s boundary‐less and knowledge‐based economy with its focus on learning organization delivers a contradictory message to employees in managing their careers. On the one hand, contemporary organizations expect and demand that employees adopt a lifelong learning approach, be global‐oriented, successfully manage the dynamics of diversity in the work and marketplace, work in self‐directed teams, develop a feel for and rapid response to fast changing customer expectations and so on. On the other hand, organizations are silent on the question of who is going to bear the enormous cost of ongoing technical and behavioral training that the employees need to successfully manage in a global village. While today individuals accept the fact that they can no more expect the organizations to provide them lifelong, full‐time and stable careers, they would certainly prefer not to work for organizations that adopt the “help us but help yourself” attitude to career management. This paper discusses the implications of this paradox on the career management process at the organizational level and reviews best practice scenarios.

Smart cities: Implications of urban planning for human resource development

This paper looks at creative or smart city experiments around the world that are aimed at nurturing a creative economy through investment in quality of life which in turn attracts knowledge workers to live and work in smart cities. It highlights the need for and broad nature of human resource/talent development initiatives at the intermediate level, that is regional and city level, as opposed to organizational and national level. Using the literature on economic geography, it provides a useful theoretical framework to cross organizational boundaries and look for factors that influence the decision of knowledge workers in choosing a location to live and work. The implications of urban planning on the theory and practice of human resource development are explored.

Expatriates of host-country origin: ‘coming home to test the waters’

Expatriates are an integral part of any multinational companys (MNC) staffing strategy. However, the high failure rate of expatriates has forced these firms to look at alternate or complementary staffing strategies. This paper focuses on one such strategy, i.e., transferring people of host-country ethnic origin from parent-country to manage host-country operations. The purpose of this exploratory study is to ascertain whether and how MNCs have used expatriates of host-country origin (EHCO) as a global staffing strategy, in the context of India, and the extent of its success both for the individuals and the organizations concerned. Based on a survey and in-depth interviews of human resource managers of 15 MNCs with operations in India, the study concludes that EHCOs are more willing to accept expatriate assignments than parent-country nationals (PCNs); however, their success on the assignment depends on the breadth and depth of their experience both in the parent and host country. With regard to their work effectiveness vis-à-vis PCNs, no significant difference was found. Managerial implications of this staffing strategy are explored and future research directions identified.

The next available agent: Work organisation in Indian call centres

We examine the employee perception of work organisation in four large Indian call centres to investigate causes of employee dissatisfaction and turnover. We find that profound mismatch between the offshored labour market and the labour process pose fundamental challenges that may not be susceptible to easy HR fixes.

Work organization, human resource practices and employee retention in Indian call centers

The literature on call centers often highlights the centrality of HR in stemming employee attrition but is mainly grounded in the realities of in-house call centers in the western economies. In this empirical study of four large Indian call centers we examine specific aspects of HR practice for their effect on retention in the very different context of Indian labor markets. The relationship between HR practices and the realities of the call-centre labor processes operating within a buoyant labor market that offers plentiful job alternatives are explored. The findings suggest that the contribution of HR to employee retention is a necessary but not sufficient condition for retention in the context of Indian call centers.

Leadership: a critical success factor in IT project management

Research on critical success factors in IT project management is increasingly recognising the importance of nontechnical factors, such as leadership. However, most of the current literature on technical project leadership is characterised by personal experience of writers resulting in fragmented advice. The current study sought a three dimensional (self, subordinate and superior) perspective of successful leadership characteristics in IT project management by testing the validity of transformational leadership theory supplemented by technical leadership related items. While recognising that there is no one leadership style that is effective in all project situations, the study recommends an underlying but flexible style characterised by organisational catalyst, intellectual stimulation, behavioural charisma and contingent reward behaviours for enhanced leadership effectiveness.