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The present study investigated the nature of Public–Private Partnership (PPP) in various subsectors of social and commercial infrastructure in India for better understanding of significant characteristics, attributes and factors governing the public private participation. The Indicator Analysis approach has been adopted to study a total of 119 Public–Private-partnered projects involving four qualitative and three quantitative indicators to help build a detailed profile of partnered projects in various subsectors of social and commercial infrastructure in India. The subnational government has been unravelled as the dominant form of government participation across all the subsectors of the social and commercial infrastructure in India. The infrastructure projects in the subsector of tourism have registered high average cost and time overruns. Further, Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) mode has been identified as the most preferred PPP entry mode in the social and commercial infrastructure in the Indian economy. Since, the Indian economy comprises a large workforce, investment in social and commercial infrastructure projects through PPP mode can tap and harness the demographic dividend, which is critical for sustaining the growth of developing and emerging economies. The study provides a detailed account of qualitative and quantitative information about the nature of social and commercial infrastructure sector that shall facilitate successful implementation of the PPP projects in this soft infrastructure sector, which has a substantial bearing on the economic growth and human development in the Indian economy.

Leadership, human resource management, crisis management, change management and communication.

Executive education; postgraduate; undergraduate.

This case study describes the collapse of Satyam, a leading IT industry service provider from India. Satyam went into a crisis mode after revelation of financial fraud by its Chairman. This resulted in a crisis not just for the company, its clients and employees – but it also had the potential to shake up the entire Indian IT industry the world over, by shattering investor and client confidence in the Indian IT sector. The case provides the students with an inside view of the unfolding of events at Satyam and the people challenges that emerge in a crisis scenario. The case outlines reactions from the industry, government, clients and employees as they tried to make sense of a very chaotic situation, and its multi-level ramifications both within India and outside. The case ends with Thallapalli Hari, the Global Head of Marketing and Communication and ex-head of HR, trying to visualise and prioritise a course of action to propose to other members of the leadership team.

The key aim of this case is to provide a backdrop to the crisis, and also help students put themselves in the role of an HR crisis manager as well as portray the decision making and communication challenges that emerge in chaotic situations. The importance of an immediate and yet strategic response is emphasised and the case is a great starting point to have a discussion on the competencies and skills required in HR to lead under unusual circumstances. This case allows participants to get an in-depth understanding of the collapse of Satyam. The case also illustrates principles of leadership, change management and communication, in particular:

• Leadership: The Satyam story is an HR and leadership crisis nightmare come true. What should an HR leader do when you wake up to find your company with a ruined reputation, minimal financial capital, 53,000 employees on the payroll and more than 500 clients with pending deliverables worldwide. Where do you begin? The case illustrates a situation where immediate action is required to stop the tailspin into which the company was heading.

• Change management: The situation demanded that change be managed from a chaotic system to a stable system. The big issue though remains as to how one can get a system into a state of stability when everything is changing at the same time. Most change management plans have some stable variables, however in the case of Satyam there were multiple changes taking place simultaneously. A combination of change in leadership, client relationships, employee trust and confidence, market reactions together make for a perfect storm. Dealing with even one of these changes is a challenge for a company. In the case of Satyam, its entire existence was at stake.

• Communication: The demands for communicating effectively in a crisis situation are different than communicating under stable systems. The choice of medium, the speed of response, the content all need careful monitoring. Whereas most companies have teams that separately deal with internal and external communication, Satyam provides a unique situation where managing both effectively at the same time was critical to the future of the firm. The stakes for effective communication are much higher under the circumstances. This case can be used in organizational behaviour, human resources and corporate communications modules being taught to under-graduates, post-graduates and for executive education.

Leadership: The Satyam story is an HR and leadership crisis nightmare come true. What should an HR leader do when you wake up to find your company with a ruined reputation, minimal financial capital, 53,000 employees on the payroll and more than 500 clients with pending deliverables worldwide. Where do you begin? The case illustrates a situation where immediate action is required to stop the tailspin into which the company was heading.

Change management: The situation demanded that change be managed from a chaotic system to a stable system. The big issue though remains as to how one can get a system into a state of stability when everything is changing at the same time. Most change management plans have some stable variables, however in the case of Satyam there were multiple changes taking place simultaneously. A combination of change in leadership, client relationships, employee trust and confidence, market reactions together make for a perfect storm. Dealing with even one of these changes is a challenge for a company. In the case of Satyam, its entire existence was at stake.

Communication: The demands for communicating effectively in a crisis situation are different than communicating under stable systems. The choice of medium, the speed of response, the content all need careful monitoring. Whereas most companies have teams that separately deal with internal and external communication, Satyam provides a unique situation where managing both effectively at the same time was critical to the future of the firm. The stakes for effective communication are much higher under the circumstances. This case can be used in organizational behaviour, human resources and corporate communications modules being taught to under-graduates, post-graduates and for executive education.

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The purpose of this paper is to identify the factors that motivate women in India to become self-employed. Further, it demonstrates a systematic application of grounded theory to understand how women entrepreneurs build their ventures’ success in India.

The paper throws light on the key tenets of grounded theory research and explains its use as a rigorous method for entrepreneurship research. Data were collected through 25 in-depth case studies of women entrepreneurs from diverse geographical, social, economical and industrial sectors in one of the world’s fastest growing emerging markets, namely, India.

The results of this inductive approach suggest that women-owned ventures’ path to building success is on one hand, based on their ability to recognize opportunities despite their non-business social network enhanced by their innovation capabilities. On the other hand, it is also based on their ability to find some market niches, i.e., entering into markets untapped by traditional men-owned small businesses. The author concludes that the women entrepreneurs’ paths to building competitive advantage in emerging markets manifests a number of features that are distinct from those of the women-owned businesses from developed countries. This study provides a holistic understanding of women entrepreneurs in emerging markets, an under-researched phenomenon by providing a framework to understand how they build their ventures’ success in a competitive environment.

This paper is intended as a critical review of the factors influencing women entrepreneurship in India, thus the inductively developed framework is not tested.

The main message of the paper is that women entrepreneur’s ability to (simultaneously) sell products or offer solutions to niche segments (demand side) and capabilities to optimize resources by being innovative (supply side) facilitates their path to build success for their ventures. The findings of this study provide guidelines for policy makers in emerging markets to incorporate policies such that will enhance women’s entrepreneurship despite the social constraints faced by these women. The author demonstrates that women’s involvement in developing their businesses provides job opportunities and ensures that women are taking an active part in the development of the national economy.

This study fulfills the need to explore entrepreneurship by women, in emerging economies like India. Moreover, it is probably one of the first few studies in the literature that uses empirical evidence from a variety of settings to identify factors that motivate women in India to become self-employed and provides a dynamic framework on how women-owned ventures succeed.