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Technology-mediated learning (TML) is gaining popularity among business organizations for upskilling their employees. However, high dropout rates have limited its effectiveness. Thus, we explore, if and how personalization of TML can improve its adoption and effectiveness in workplaces from the lens of the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT2) theory.

An exploratory sequential mixed-method design was used for this study. Study 1 included interviews (N = 27) of Learning and Development (L&D) leaders and employees (learners) of large global organizations, about their experiences with TML. Emergent themes led us to our research model, which integrates constructs of personalization, technology adoption and transfer of training (TT). In Study 2, a cross-sectional study was conducted. Data were collected from employees who have experienced TML (N = 406) and analyzed using PLS-SEM.

Findings suggested that personalization of TML positively influenced intent to use TML and transfer skills, thereby improving TML effectiveness and proving its relevance in workplaces. Precisely, personalized TML recommendations from managers impacted (1) behavioral intention (BI) and TT directly; (2) BI through performance expectancy (PE); (3) TT through social influence and BI individually; and (4) TT through PE and BI sequentially. Likewise, allowing employees the flexibility to choose TML based on their interests influenced (1) BI directly and via hedonic motivation (HM) and (2) TT via HM and BI individually and sequentially.

Using our model, L&D practitioners may design and personalize their TML ecosystems to foster adoption and transfer of training in workplaces.

Personalization of learning in workplaces has received scant attention; thereby, our study expands existing knowledge in this relatively nascent field of research.

Organizational behavior, Organizational leadership, Organizational transformation.

First year management students in the course Organizational Behavior (OB). Final year management students in the elective course on leadership and change management. Middle level managers who are working in industry, in the management development program related to change leadership and change management.

This case deals with the transformation of the public distribution system (PDS) under the leadership of Dr Raman Singh. The PDS system was an inefficient system and the food grain supply intended for the poor was diverted by intermediaries before reaching the intended beneficiaries. Having experiences in central government ministries as a cabinet minister, Dr Raman Singh decided to transform the PDS. The challenges faced were primarily from that of the reticent bureaucracy and dealing with them requires patience and the skills of a transformational and motivational leader which Dr Raman Singh possessed.

This case intends to develop understanding of various dimensions related to transformational and motivational styles of leadership. Further, it intends to develop understanding of crucial institutional and organizational changes and how leaders bring about these changes in sync with technological and process changes.

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CSS: 6: Human Resource Management.

Person-environment (PE) fit theory suggests that value congruence (fit) leads to the job pursuits intention (Cable and Judge, 1996) which is also influenced by cultural norms (Ma and Allen, 2009). Due to stringent job market condition along with its people, as a part of collectivistic culture, having poor self-concept consistency, value congruence may unfold different phenomenon in Indian context. Therefore, the present study intends to explore the existing fit theory on different cultural norms and different job market condition with entry-level job pursuits as participants.

The fit was measured both objectively and subjectively in a mixed method research design. Top 100 institutes ranked in NIRF (National Institutional Ranking Framework) (under Management category) were approached for data collection and 41 institutes agreed to participate. Data were collected in four phases from 2,714 entry-level job pursuits and domain experts based on web-based job advertisements. Krippendorff's alpha was calculated for measuring objective fit, and the subjective fit was measured through quadratic structural equation modeling with response surface analysis.

Findings revealed lack of value congruence objectively; and no influencing role of subjective fit in job pursuits intention. This indicated that neither Indian employers nor entry-level job pursuits were concerned about value congruence. The post-hoc analysis suggested that poor self-concept consistency as a cultural norm led to such atypical findings.

The present study suggests that fit may lead to different phenomena of entry-level job pursuits intention with different contextual and cultural norms.

Despite the popularity of gig employment amid the changing business landscape, gig scholarship is somewhat limited and the untold reality about gig is yet to be fully revealed. This study aims to critically address the nature of gig employment, its ambiguities, evolution, theoretical premises and the appropriate future road ahead.

This paper adopts a dual analytical approach – bibliometric and thematic analyses. After incorporating the exclusion–inclusion criteria, the authors identified 2,135 articles for the bibliometric analyses by using VOSviewer. Additionally, for the deep-delving synthesis, the authors conducted thematic analyses following Braun and Clarke (2006), based on 351 papers.

The findings revealed that gig work, in its different forms, is emerging as an alternative work arrangement with respect to the future of work. This study also identified multilevel perspectives of gig employment along with its holistic nomological network. Finally, this study offers some critical research directions that should help enhance the theoretical and practical strengths of this nascent scholarship in future.

The review findings are limited in nature owing to the paucity of quality research papers published in the said domain.

The paper brings more clarity to what gig is and isn’t, along with its critical perspectives from multilevel lenses.

This paper identifies critical perspectives related to gig work and suggests appropriate directions for future gig work related scholarship.

This study aims to examine a dual-pathway model that recognizes two distinct (formal and informal) but complementary mechanisms of knowledge exchanges – knowledge sharing and knowledge helping. It also investigates how team members use their limited human and psychosocial capital for prosocial knowledge effectiveness.

A survey-based approach was used to examine the hypotheses of the study. A moderated-mediation model was proposed and tested using bootstrap approach.

Knowledge sharing and knowledge helping were found to be the significant links through which human capital (capability) and psychosocial capital (motivation and efficacy) significantly predict prosocial knowledge effectiveness. Post hoc analysis suggests that human capital through knowledge sharing influences team learning, whereas the psychosocial capital through knowledge helping influences team leadership.

The present study found two distinct but complementary and yet necessary mechanisms of knowledge exchanges to be linked as the important outlay for the human and psychosocial capital to be effective in the prosocial knowledge behaviours.

Rapid advancement of data science has disrupted both business and employees in organizations. However, extant literature primarily focuses on the organizational level phenomena, and has almost ignored the employee/individual perspective. This study thereby intends to capture the experiences of mid-level managers about these disruptions vis a vis their corresponding actions.

In a small-sample qualitative research design, Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was adopted to capture this individual-level phenomenon. Twelve mid-level managers from large-scale Indian organizations that have extensively adopted data science tools and techniques participated in a semi-structured and in-depth interview process.

Our findings unfolded several perspectives gained from their experiences, leading thereby to two emergent person-job (mis)fit process models. (1) Managers, who perceived demands-abilities misfit (D-A misfit) as a growth-alignment opportunity vis a vis their corresponding actions, which effectively trapped them into a vicious cycle; and (2) the managers, who considered D-A misfit as a psychological strain vis a vis their corresponding actions, which engaged them into a benevolent cycle.

The present paper has major theoretical and managerial implications in the field of human resource management and business analytics.

The findings advise managers that the focus should be on developing an organizational learning eco-system, which would enable mid-level managers to gain their confidence and control over their job and work environment in the context of data science disruptions. Importantly, organizations should facilitate integrated workplace learning (both formal and informal) with an appropriate ecosystem to help mid-level managers to adapt to the data-science disruptions.

The present study offers two emergent cyclic models to the existing person–job fit literature in the context of data science disruptions. A scant attention of the earlier researchers on how individual employees actually experience disruption, and the corresponding IPA method used in the present study may add significant value to the extant literature. Further, it opens a timely and relevant future research avenues in the context of data science disruptions.

Ethical leadership and decision-making, engaging and managing multiple conflicting stakeholders.

Utkal Alumina International Limited (UAIL), an ambitious Greenfield project of Hindalco Industries Ltd. faced the challenges of conflicting multiple stakeholders and collective resistance that did not allow UAIL to be commissioned for almost two decades. The case portrayed the journey of a new leader of UAIL in the path of transforming collective resistance to collective collaboration. In the case, the author was introspecting about how far the author could achieve the objective of collective collaborations through stakeholders’ engagements and what would be the next path of the journey.

MBA and executive development programs.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 6: Human Resources.

Today’s pressing global societal challenges are urgent and require substantial solutions and innovations that tackle the roots of a problem. These challenges call for new forms of leadership, stakeholder engagement and innovation. This paper aims to examine whether, why and how business leaders engage in social innovation. The authors argue that leadership perspective and motivation are important drivers for developing substantial social innovations suited to resolving societal challenges at their roots. More specifically, the authors propose that intra-personal factors (degree of care and compassion), an inter-relational perspective of leadership (shareholder versus stakeholder) and the corresponding leadership motivation (personalized versus socialized) may unveil what quality of social innovation (first-order versus second-order solutions) is pursued by a business leader. Implications for future research and practice are provided.

The authors revisit the concept of social innovation and explore its connection with care and compassion. They suggest a series of propositions pertaining to the relationship between different configurations of leadership and different forms of social innovation.

Responsible business leaders with an integrative leader trait configuration (stakeholder perspective, socialized motivation, high degree of care and compassion) are more likely to foster substantial second-order social innovations for uprooting societal problems than business leader with an instrumental leader trait configuration (shareholder perspective, personalized motivation, low degree of care and compassion). An organization’s stakeholder culture plays a moderating role in the relation between leadership and social innovation.

This paper reveals a path for conceptualizing leadership in social innovation from a stakeholder perspective. Future research should investigate the role of business leaders, their mindsets, styles and relational competencies in co-creation processes of social innovation empirically. If the development of substantial second-order social innovations requires leaders with a stakeholder perspective and socialized approach, then this has implications for leader selection and development.

This paper advocates for new kinds of leaders in facilitating and sustaining social innovations to tackle global societal challenges.

Grounded theory (GT) is a very crucial qualitative tool in research inquiry. It embraces systematic, inductive, and comparative inquiry method to construct a theory. GT is mostly appropriate to investigate organizational phenomena, which involves a change process. In this chapter, the authors focus on the emergence of GT as a research inquiry tool with the focus how GT evolves from classis grounded theory to constructivist ground theory. In the detailed method of GT, a focus is given on coding method along with theoretical sampling and theoretical saturation points. Despite being a powerful technique, GT has drawn a number of criticisms. Majority GT researchers consider the technique as an inductive method with a few exceptions, where it has been deliberated as a deductive method. However, in the line of Corley (2015), it can be argued that GT should be considered as a methodological approach to study inductive phenomena having less understanding of theoretical perspective. Chapter concludes with identifying future scope of study in the field of GT.

The aims of the article are to not only review existing competency models and offer a comprehensive performance-linked competency model towards sustaining competitive advantage, but also validate the proposed model in an Indian textile organisation.

The article operationalises the term “competency” and intends to develop a comprehensive performance-linked competency model after analysing the existing models with respect to competitive advantage; and the model has been validated empirically in an Indian textile company using data envelopment analysis (DEA), cross-efficiency DEA, and rank order centroid (ROC) methods.

It reveals that the comprehensive performance-linked competency model focuses on competency identification, competency scoring and aligning competency with other strategic HR functions in a three-phase systematic method which will subsequently help the organisation to sustain in the competition. It has further been shown how using DEA, cross-efficiency DEA and ROC, an organisation can align individual performances and their competencies in terms of efficiency.

If the number of competencies get increased, DEA cannot be used.

This can be applied to industry for more efficient and effective performance measurement tool.

The paper enables organizations to systematically manage their employee competences to ensure high-performance level and competitive advantage.