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OC and
Organizational change development
and development in India in India
A case of strategic organizational change
and transformation 485
Jyotsna Bhatnagar
Management Development Institute, Gurgaon, India
Pawan Budhwar
Aston Business School, Aston University, Birmingham, UK, and
Pallavi Srivastava and Debi S. Saini
Management Development Institute, Gurgaon, India

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine developments in the field of organizational
change (OC) with reference to the context of India. It highlights the need to analyze this topic in the
present Indian economic environment and discusses the main developments reported in the Indian
literature on the same.
Design/methodology/approach – Empirical evidence based on a qualitative analysis of a case
study undertaken at a public-private partnership transformation at North Delhi Power Limited
(NDPL) in India is presented.
Findings – The findings focus on trust building and belongingness for the employees, establishing a
high-performance orientation, quality improvements, and the resultant transformations at NDPL.
The analysis indicates a number of ways by which NDPL sought to improve its efficiency in order to
better adapt to the rapidly changing Indian business environment.
Practical implications – Based on the findings, the paper identifies key messages for policy
makers and change agents regarding how to transform companies in the rapidly changing business
contexts of emerging markets such as India.
Originality/value – The paper offers an in-depth analysis of OC practices in a large organization in
India.
Keywords Organizational change, India, Performance management, Transformational leadership
Paper type Research paper

Introduction
Over the past 20 years or so, there has been much debate in Western literature
regarding the most appropriate way to manage organizational change (OC) (Beer and
Nohria, 2000; Dawson, 2003; Kanter et al., 1992; Kotter, 1996; Pettigrew, 1990; Stickland,
1998; Stacey, 2003; Wilson, 1992). Over the years, the scope of OC has increased to
encompass large-scale interventions, including strategic change (Chapman, 2002).
This emphasis in OC literature on strategy may account for recent developments which Journal of Organizational Change
indicate a converging trend in the activities and processes of human resource Management
Vol. 23 No. 5, 2010
management (HRM), human resource development (HRD), and OC and the need to pp. 485-499
ensure coordination and partnership amongst these functions in order to achieve q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0953-4814
competitive advantage in the present dynamic business environment (Ramos and DOI 10.1108/09534811011071243
JOCM Rees, 2008; Ruona and Gibson, 2004; Sparrow and Budhwar, 1997). Considering that
23,5 HRM is a relatively new discipline (especially in emerging markets) and the existence of
a strong variation regarding the practice of HRD and OC in different parts of the world,
more evidence is needed to confirm observations and claims that this convergence is
taking place. Further, keeping in mind the contextual and cultural differences across
nations (Hofstede, 2001), it is imperative to conduct both country-specific literature
486 analysis and in-depth research investigation to obtain a clear picture of OC
interventions and to clarify linkages between OC, HRM, and HRD (Metcalfe and Rees,
2005). This study is specifically focused upon OC in the context of India.
The main aims of this study are twofold: first to highlight key developments in the
field of OC in the Indian context; and second to provide empirical evidence from a
robust case research analysis to explore how OC interventions are implemented in an
Indian setting in order to bring about both individual and organizational efficiency and
effectiveness. The study includes a case study of a public-private partnership OC
transformation at North Delhi Power Limited (NDPL) in India. The next section
considers the changing business environment in India and discusses why documented
analyses of OC interventions in the Indian context are important to theory building and
practice.

Economic liberalization and OC in India

The relatively strong economic performance of the Indian economy in recent years
(IMF, 2007) is an outcome of the economic reforms initiated in 1991. India was forced to
liberalize its economy as in 1990 it reached its worst position and witnessed a
double-digit rate of inflation, decelerated industrial production, fiscal indiscipline, a
very high ratio of borrowing to the gross national product (both internal and external)
and a dismally low level of foreign exchange reserves. The World Bank and the IMF
agreed to bail out India at that time on the condition that it changed from a regulated
regime to a “free market economy”. In response, the government announced a series of
economic policies, followed by a new industrial policy and fiscal and trade policies.
A number of reforms were made in the public sector, trade and exchange policy, the
banking sector, and foreign investment was liberalized (Budhwar, 2001).
However, the liberalization of the Indian economy has resulted in sudden and
increased levels of competition for Indian firms from international firms. At the same
time, it has also created opportunities for resource mobilization from new sources. In the
present environment, HRM issues have become more important, with the firms’ adoption
of strategies of expansion, diversification, turnaround, and internationalization. The
human resources (HR) function is under severe pressure to bring about large-scale
structural changes in order to cope with these challenges. In such conditions, the core
focus of the Indian HR function has been on the development of their human resources in
order to implement major OCs (Budhwar and Sparrow, 1997; Sparrow and Budhwar,
1997; Saini and Budhwar, 2004; Budhwar and Bhatnagar, 2009). In a haste, some Indian
companies tried to adopt the readily available Western interventions to facilitate OC
(Kalra, 2004), but with limited success (Gupta, 1991). In this regard, scholars (Sparrow
and Budhwar, 1997) have raised a serious need for relevant OC interventions which can
enable Indian firms to attain quality improvements, cost efficiency, employee
development, motivation, and successful change programs (Amba-Rao et al., 2000;
Budhwar, 2003).
 Researchers highlight that the role of economy, the position of the state, the ways of OC and
doing business, and the national culture have an impact on the effectiveness of OC development
interventions in different settings (Child, 1981; Golembiewski, 2000). For example,
Golembiewski (1993) finds the value-laden nature of traditional OC interventions to be in India
a serious constraint faced by OC practitioners in Asia (Dietrichsen, 2006). Interventions
in organizations by OC practitioners and managers are perceived to be culturally
biased, hence, to better understand the diversity of OC practices in India it is necessary 487
to appreciate the broader socio-economic and cultural environments that shape them,
while also recognizing the growing diversity of sub-cultural influences (Amba-Rao et al.,
2000). As Ahuja and Khamba (2008) point out, the implementation of OC interventions
in the context of India is often frustrated by the existence of organizational, cultural,
and behavioral barriers rather than by the substance of the change intervention itself.
India has a high-context culture where work relationships are personalized rather
than contractual (Sinha, 2000) and many influences such as authoritarian practices
within the family, the educational system, society’s hierarchical structure, and religious
institutions act together to create a strong sense of dependence (Dayal, 1999). Gupta
(1991) states that in India power in relationships is maintained through renunciation,
giving away, self-sacrifice, and self-denial. While it is difficult to characterize a common
Indian cultural pattern because of its heterogeneous demographics, some generic
attributes are identified (Sinha, 1990). Predominant among these are submissiveness,
fatalism, power conciousness, possessiveness towards subordinates, fear of
independent decision-making, and resistance to change (Sparrow and Budhwar,
1997). Owing to such unique socio-cultural milieu of India (which is further complicated
by its legal, political, and economic set up), it is important to develop specific OD/HRD
interventions to facilitate OC in the present Indian business environment for, as noted
by Ranganathan and Kuruvilla (2008), there is currently an apparent inability of firms
to develop integrated organizational cultures that permit a focus on long-term
organizational performance.
Research literature on OC in India suggests that terms such as OC, change
management and organization development (OD) have been used interchangeably.
Similarly, corporate transformation (Singh and Bhandarker, 1990, 2002; Bhandarker,
2003) and organizational transformation (Apte, 1998) have also been used as a
synonym for change management. A number of scholars have prescribed different
mechanisms, which can facilitate OC in Indian organizations (Blythe et al., 1997; Daniel
and Benjamin, 1992; Prasad and Sayeed, 2006; Sharma, 2007; Singh and Bhandarker,
1990; Srivastava, 2003). For example, Ramnarayan (2003) analyzed OC in several
Indian Government organizations and found that a combination of both psychological
and leadership-related impediments affect the change efforts.
Undoubtedly, successful change management requires effective leadership at the top
(Page and Pearson, 2004; Irani, 2004) and sensitization of the top-level executives
(Singh and Bhandarker, 2002; Bandyopadhyay, 1998). Indeed, institutionalizing and
internalizing such efforts is seen as essential when attempting to bring about change
(Garg and Singh, 2005). Institutionalization means making the change a permanent part
of an organization; internalization of change means stabilization of change
(Pareek, 1987). Pareek’s study suggests six main roles need to be performed for
successful OC and different functions need to be performed by each role. Such proposals
seem to be over prescriptive in nature as they lack clear empirical evidence to highlight
JOCM the applicability of the proposed roles (for a thorough review, see Fisher et al., 1997;
23,5 Gupta, 1991; Nilakant and Ramnarayan, 2006; Ramnarayan and Bhatnagar, 1993;
Sharma, 2007; Suyampirakasam, 2006).
The evidence surrounding Indian firms’ ability to pursue successful OC programs is
patchy (Saini and Bhatnagar, 2005; Bhatnagar and Saini, 2007). Although many Indian
organizations have been using OC interventions (either via their managers as internal
488 change agents or facilitated by external consultants) to bring about changes, very few
cases have been well documented in the existing literature (Bandyopadhyay, 1998).
Also, there is a general tendency to document only the successful OD experiences
though some failures have been highlighted (Gupta, 1991). A well-thought-out strategy
of OC intervention as evolving from the Indian OC literature is then sparse (notable
exceptions being Rao, 1998; Nilakant and Ramnarayan, 1998; Rao and Vijayalakshmi,
2000). For example, Kazmi (2008) has stated that existing strategic change literature is
inadequate in respect of procedural and project implementation in the Indian context.
Similarly, Bezboruah (2008) has called for the development of action strategies to
manage the resistance to change that is likely to represent a significant part of any
change process in the context of India.
In summary, an analysis of the relevant literature highlights that OD interventions
have been practiced in a diversity of Indian organizations over the past few decades.
Second, a number of different OC interventions have been adopted in the Indian context
and there is a scarcity of research relating to transformational OC. Third, there is a
scarcity of OC research in the new Indian economic environment, particularly as regards
public-private partnerships (which are a strong emerging phenomenon in the new
economic environment) and the key issue of how to manage OC in these partnerships.
The present study attempts to explore these themes further by means of a case
study analysis. Reliable information about OC which is drawn from the present Indian
context will not only contribute to the existing academic literature but will also be
useful for organizations which intend to pursue change programs in order to survive
and excel in the present Indian context. Specifically, the main research questions
relating to the case study analysis are as follows:
RQ1. How did the leaders of the organization foster change with a concern for
people and for institutionalizing strategy, systems, and structure in a
public-private partnership context?
RQ2. How was the embedded old culture of poor performance replaced by the new
expectation of high-performance orientation?
RQ3. How did the organization ensure that its HR function was delivering internal
customer satisfaction, and also helping to foster a forward thinking mind-set
of people in the organization?
The methodology adopted for the case study is discussed in the next section.

Methods
To examine our research aims and questions, 30 unstructured in-depth interviews were
conducted with different stakeholders of the case company, namely: CEO, Head of HR,
HR managers, heads of main functional areas, line managers, and customers
of the organization (see Table I for sample characteristics). At least, two authors were
 OC and
S. no. Rank Gender
development
1. CEO Male in India
2. CFO Male
3. GM (operations) Male
4. GM (technical services and project management) Male
5. GM (commercial) Male 489
6. GM (HR) Male
7. GM (BPR) Male
8. DGM (admin) Male
9. Management trainee HR Female
10. Management trainee- HR Female
11. Management trainee- HR Male
12. CEO-cell Male
13. Managers (admin) Female
14. (senior manager: ex-TATA power Mumbai) Male
15. HR manager Male
16. KM officer Male
17. Internal change agent 1 Male
18. Internal change agent 2 Male
19. AGM – systems, North-West area Male
20. BU manager Male
21. HOD – IT manager Male
22. Senior manager (IT) Male
23. Corporate communications Female
24. AGM – key consumer cell Male
25 Manager (admin) Male
26. Manager (industrial engineering) Male
27. Manager (personnel) Male
28. AGM-finance Male
29. Deputy company secretary Male Table I.
30. Joint interaction forum (JIF) member Male Sample characteristics

present in all the interviews and made separate notes. The interviews were also tape
recorded and later transcribed verbatim. Each of the two authors independently
coded the interviews, using a coding scheme that emerged over a period of time and
placed portions of interviews into these codes/themes. Most of the time, these broad
codes/themes mirrored concepts studied in literature, for example, organizational
culture (before NDPL – the case company was formed, and after) from both managers’
and employees’ perspectives; the key HR and strategic OC interventions used for change;
key strategic HR themes (for example, flexibility, empowerment, leadership building,
job enrichment, work culture interventions, human resource information systems
(HRISs), and team building); and the identification of concrete cases and events which
reflect claims of the management in support of these HR/OD interventions.
The qualitative data analysis also consisted of decision stories, development of
systems, profiles, documentation of historical data, archival data, and snapshots of old
and new documents. To analyze each interview, we used a two-step coding system, in
which codes are derived inductively from the interviews and agreed upon by authors.
To do this, the authors created their own case transcripts. In the second step, the authors
compared their independent transcripts in joint coding meetings, wherein independent
JOCM codes were compared and authors determined the final codes to be used in each
23,5 transcript. Given the scope of the project, two joint transcripts emerged. One transcript
focused only on OC interventions while the other transcript looked at strategic HR
interventions. We conducted six such joint meetings and examined the emerging codes,
which were later built into themes. In the current study, we enumerate the first
transcript. Inter-rater reliability was not possible during the primary-coding phase due
490 to the emergent nature of codes. We did follow the secondary-coding process after a
theoretical saturation was reached, where emergent themes were fitting the data
(Butterfield et al., 1996, p. 2484).

The case of NDPL

Sector and organization background
The case study organization is based in the utilities sector in India, This sector is going
through a phase of major transformation. Huge losses incurred by state electricity
boards have placed a heavy burden on the exchequer. Inefficient systems, large-scale
corruption, pilferage of power, inability of boards to collect revenue, and lack of
accountability of employees are some of the reasons for these losses. In the present
economic context, India is not in a position to enjoy the luxury of yesteryears, as was
the case of many national electricity boards over the past decades.
In Delhi, the process of privatization of the utilities sector was initiated in March
1999 with the establishment of Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission. Enactment of
Delhi Electricity Reform Act came into existence in March 2001. Delhi Electricity
Reform Transfer Scheme Rules were announced in November 2001. The process was
completed in May 2002. The Delhi Vidyut (electricity) Board (DVB) had been split into
six companies – three distribution companies, and one each as holding, transmission,
and generation companies. DVB has been reporting very high losses particularly in
distribution in the past. In order to control the losses, it transferred distribution of
power to two private companies from 1 July 2002. On 31 May 2002, DVB signed an
agreement with Tata Power Company (TPC) and Bombay Suburban Electric Supply
(BSES) for distribution of power. In August 2002, the two distribution companies of
BSES were re-named as BSES Rajdhani Power Limited (South-West region) and BSES
Yamuna Power Limited (Central-East region). TPC renamed the North-Northwest
Delhi Distribution as NDPL. Three of the present authors were invited to conduct an
empirical investigation (using participant observation and interviews methodologies)
to understand the change process initiated at NDPL that was designed to reduce losses,
improve efficiency within the organization and customer satisfaction, and increase
revenues and shareholders’ value as per its new strategy. In 2002, the aggregate annual
technical and commercial losses of all state electricity boards reached a massive
Rs 25,000 crores (US$1 ¼ approximately Rs 48.82 in February 2009). The critical
commitment of NDPL was to bring such losses down to 31 percent from a level of
53 percent at the time of privatization with an expected load growth at the rate of
7-10 percent over the next five years.
The organizational structure at the time of takeover was chaotic. For example, in
some cases even the existence of person in whose name the salary was disbursed was
not known. To sort out these structural problems, a manpower mapping exercise
(mainly taking the form of meetings) was initiated for the entire organization in 2002.
Two executives were exclusively assigned to this task. An analysis of the secondary
data, along with detailed discussions with senior executives about the existing patterns OC and
of reporting and manning levels was undertaken. An important outcome of this development
exercise was the appointment of 482 new NDPL employees (which included 300
engineers to facilitate the operations and maintenance work and 15 business graduate in India
students in different functional areas) to expedite the change effort.
As per the memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed at the time of acquisition,
NDPL inherited 5,368 employees from the DVB. The CEO devised an attractive 491
voluntary retirement scheme (VRS). Out of the total DVB workforce, 1,794 employees
sought retirement under the VRS. This included about 90 percent of the meter readers.
The union was involved in the rightsizing process throughout. The DVB-scheme
employees continued to be governed by the old DVB-pay-structure as per the MOU,
and were also entitled to pension and retirement benefits as per the DVB structure.
A number of changes were made to the job titles such as an operator was now called
a “service associate”, and the chief engineer of erstwhile DVB was now considered
equivalent to a deputy general manager.

Role of senior managers as the main change catalysts

The interview data indicate that the top management team respected the CEO of NDPL,
for his charismatic and visionary leadership qualities. His technical competencies and
soft skills proved to be an important change-management asset. Similarly, the
competence, experience, and proactive mindset of the Head of HR effectively facilitated
the articulation and implementation of NDPL’s people management strategy. One of
the main goals of the CEO was to achieve corporate excellence through customer
satisfaction. His strong technical background proved very helpful throughout the
change process. The interviewees cited various examples of this background and
approach. For example, he was seen explaining a circuit diagram to the members in
meetings. Some of his sessions, with the engineers evolved into training sessions as the
situations so demanded. This helped to promote a sense of urgency and the commitment
to change on the part of the senior management. Most of these managers were erstwhile
DVB people.
The CEO’s working style showed his determination to acclimatize the DVB-scheme
employees in the NDPL’s ethos. His belief that corporate performance is determined not
just by customer care, but equally by focusing on employees’ care and their
involvement in decision making was useful in order to promote employee commitment
and, to a great extent, helped to legitimize his change agenda. For example, in the
fortnightly meetings with his team members, the CEO emphasized the need for regular
communication with the employees, which helped in directing the change effort.
Similarly, he instigated a “meet the CEO scheme” to demonstrate his sense of
transparency. His positive stand on three of the burning issues from employees’ point
of view, that is, uniforms, widow fund, and time-bound promotion, could be seen as a
quid pro quo for securing the employees’ consent to the change agenda.

Modernization and rationalization of the performance management system (PMS)

The adoption of performance measurement devices (such as balanced score cards) sent
out signals within NDPL that claims of better performance need to be supported by
reliable data. These efforts included devising the PMS, a system of zonal performance
and sending zonal performance data through e-mail to relevant people and departments.
JOCM The management information system that was built through software programming
23,5 was fully internalized. This was considered as a necessity in order to know how the
organization was performing. The centralized control room located in one of the grid
stations circulated the report on operations to all functional departments via e-mail. A
performance-monitoring cell was specially created to report directly to the CEO. The
respective functional heads prepared the functional reports on a monthly basis for the
492 HRIS. This further established the role of HR as a business partner.
The above strategies led to the building of pressure on weaker zones to improve
their performance and change their existing ways of working. Further, one of the
present authors along with his team conducted work-optimization studies on
“manpower norms” to find out the productivity ratios, working efficiency, and level of
employee engagement. The HR department also undertook a comparative study with
similar utility providers in India such as Tata Power Center, NTPC, and Power Grid to
develop a benchmark for roaster, shift timings, and the manpower requirements for
grid stations. The findings were replicated for district/circle/common functions taking
into cognizance the expected variance in the workload.
The initiative to change the organizational structure gave signals about the core
values of NDPL, most of which had been adopted from Tata Power (the parent company).
Before the takeover, approximately 30-40 people manned maintenance of the area in
each circle. In the post-takeover scenario, only five people manage a circle. This was
possible due to the use of appropriate technology, computerization, and organizational
restructuring. Also, most of the designations were changed from, for example, executive
engineer and assistant engineer, to, for example, manager, assistant manager, office
associate, and work attendant. Unsurprisingly, re-designation did initially arouse
considerable resistance initially from most DVB-scheme employees including senior
officers though this resistance gradually subsided as the change became
institutionalized.
One of the other primary aims of the planned change was to focus on functional
requirements and aligning them with performance demands and customer needs
rather than putting primacy emphasis on hierarchical supremacy. The expected
standards of performance were made clear from the outset. The company’s investment
into welfare issues and improving working conditions helped legitimize the employer
brand of NDPL. The entire change effort demonstrated seriousness of purpose, which
sent a clear message to all that old habits and inefficient ways of working would not be
tolerated. Thus, those DVB-scheme employees who did not want to avail the VRS were
compelled to demonstrate a higher degree of commitment. In this case, when employees
were asked to provide key result areas (KRAs) input and their job descriptions, it led to a
lot of resistance within the rank and file of the organization. The CEO had to work very
hard to get information in this regard. They organized a series of workshops and finally
240 KRAs for 70-90 managerial positions were finalized.
The HR team comprising of four members undertook the manpower mapping which
was technology driven. It also proposed a two-set appraisal system. The first system
was an organizational PMS. This was based on the targets set by the company.
It included business performance such as financial performance, commercial targets
achieved, consumer billing, capital expenditure, and engineering billing. The second
system was an individual PMS. In this system, performance of individuals was judged
on the basis of their KRAs, which were given to executives and downwards to the level
of assistant managers. For each set of position, a certain level of competency was OC and
sought. Poor performance had an adverse affect on employees’ final remuneration. development
The “perform or perish” strategy is still followed at NDPL. A special reward scheme
was introduced to recognize ingenuities and to promote talent. The scheme had four in India
categories of awards namely, “extra kilowatt award”, “extra megawatt award”, “grid
award”, and “the CEO award”. More than 40 awards have been given under the scheme
in the last year. Employees who successfully achieved their targets were rewarded 493
with appreciation certificates and target mementos. Further, special quarterly awards
and monthly awards have been institutionalized and non-performance letters were also
given to employees.
Apart from the above-discussed issues, the company also used benchmarking in
managing business excellence to overcome employee diffidence. As a result, NDPL
improved its functioning on several operational parameters. For example, it
benchmarked itself against the top five utilities in the world. In relation to billing
errors, substantial reduction had taken place since the time of takeover, but they were
still believed to be an area of concern.
Further, NDPL hired a market survey firm AC Nielson – ORG MARG in order
to understand and accurately measure its consumer preferences. NDPL is now
benchmarked on various parameters, for example its equity indices are benchmarked
against international standards. AC Nielson and ORG – MARG now conducts the
market survey every quarter. Issues related to customer-requirement analysis,
reliability of services, price, and ambience of customer care center have been identified
and resultant amendments have been made. For example, avenues for bill payment
have been increased from 22 to 1,150 in two years. Power interruptions have been
reduced from 50 to 16 per year. Average waiting time for bill payment went down by four
times. Customer confidence in paying bills by checks has increased to 50 percent.
In remote areas, where collection centers were less in number, mobile catch vans have
been made available for the collection of bills. The use of the internet by customers to
check and pay their bills was actively encouraged.
These initiatives were followed by regular audits of the distribution network, which
resulted in the rationalization of the system of billing database, replacement of faulty
meters, and aggressive enforcement activities demonstrated seriousness of company’s
purpose to one and all. The performance of the new recruits put pressure on the
DVB-scheme employees to perform or leave. The adoption and implementation of the
Tata Business Excellence Model also facilitated performance.

HRD initiatives as OC interventions

To achieve the above-mentioned ambitions, the company made HRM one of its
strategic priorities by making an investment in training. Training needs analyses were
regularly carried out to assess the skills and knowledge required for different levels
of employees within the organization. For example, initially in July 2002, there were
5,000 employees in the organization and 100 persons were employed only for salary
preparation. Then NDPL management decided to reduce this number and they
introduced computers in the salary department. To facilitate such a move, it was
necessary to train these employees. Further, quality improvement training was
provided to the concerned employees. This improved the general technical proficiency
in the organization.
JOCM Moreover, some old transformers were replaced with new transformers and in this
23,5 regard training was provided to technicians for maintaining the new transformers.
Training for team building was also designed after brain storming session. Since the
creation of NDPL, a record 9,000 plus man days of training have been imparted to 4,500
employees under a planned and sustained training schedule covering operational,
technical, and information technology (IT) skills and also basic programs on
494 consumerism and communication.
Like the CEO, the role of the Head of HR in facilitating the change was important.
Internally, there were burning issues of setting the tone of affection right, caring for
internal people, reducing fear, and increasing trust. The Head of HR expressed the view
that leadership should be marked by a concern for acclimatizing the employees to the
core values of the company. The policies and OC interventions devised and
implemented by the HRM department helped to determine industrial harmony.
Given the context of this case study organization, it is noteworthy that the HR
department reinforced the CEO’s approach to the OC interventions by placing a heavy
emphasis upon communication with all levels of employee. Internal communication
channels were opened through an employee newsletter and a “JIF” designed to
acclimatize DVB-scheme employees into the new organization ethos. The HRM
department also commissioned an independent “employee engagement study” with the
aim of gaining further feedback about employee involvement within the company. In
relation to employee relations, the Head of HR encouraged union leaders to visit the
Tata Steel Plant at Jamshedpur to observe labor-management cooperation. During the
interviews, this initiative was regularly cited by both mangers and union leaders as an
example of a positive HRM action that had helped to develop an atmosphere of
cooperation between managers and union leaders in respect of the OC interventions.

Conclusion and implications

The two main aims of this paper were to highlight key developments in the fields of OC
in the Indian setting and to provide empirical evidence from a case research analysis to
explore how OD/HRD interventions are implemented in India.
The research highlights the growing strategic role of HR in the Indian context and
its crucial contribution to the field of OC. In terms of transformational change, the HR
role is found to be important especially when devising innovative HR practices which
are designed to support business strategy, influence the attitudes and mindsets of
employees, and align business strategy to HR strategy (Bhatnagar and Sharma, 2004;
Bhandarker, 2003). Our findings provide evidence of the growing need within the
context of India to establish the entire HR architecture (Becker, 2001) with an emphasis
on establishing a climate of trust in order to remove fear about the adverse impacts of
change from employees’ minds.
We conclude from this analysis that OC interventions, when associated with HR
departments, require the HR department to move beyond traditional training and
development activities (Rao and Vijayalakshmi, 2000; Sripirabaa and Krishnaveni,
2008) and to engage actively in the internal marketing of OC-related strategy, image, and
initiatives. Such marketing also acts as a showcase to internal customers about the
impact of HR interventions on business performance. Indian academic literature on
organizational development and change supports this finding. For example, Bhandarker
(2003) states that that the slow pace of change is due to inadequate efforts to transform
the attitudes and perceptions of people and convert them into partners in the OC and
transformation process. Yet, the approach should go beyond superficial employee development
participation and towards tapping employees’ competencies for their greater
involvement (Rao and Vijayalakshmi, 2000). in India
Arguably, the establishment of more sophisticated HR subsystems like balance
scorecard approaches and talent management is the need of the time in the present
Indian context. The current study provides evidence in this regard. The 495
implementation of these performance-based systems is not only supported by
leading representatives of the scientific community (Kaplan and Norton, 2000) but also
by management practitioner surveys (Eschenbach, 2001). In the case study reported
above, this approach had an important practical implication for the organization under
question by accelerating its forward thinking strategic role as indicated by the
strategic HRD audit results.
Like most successful organizational transformations, this case study of NDPL in
India reiterates the need to integrate people-related dimensions of change management
strategies. These dimensions include the creation of an efficient top management team,
the identification of core problems, formulating clear targets for change, establishing
clear benchmarks to follow, and designing appropriate OC interventions. Other
literature supports this kind of an intervention. For example, Dayal (1999) states that
OC interventions need to involve the total organization and Ramnarayan and Nilakant
(2006) point out that employees feel more energized when they believe that the changes
are worth undertaking and that they have a role in making contributions. Though
Kotter (1996) does not focus specifically on performance management as a focus area
for change management, it should be noted as a key aspect of change management in
the Indian context, and more so when dealing with a workforce imbued in a strong
bureaucratic culture. Amba-Rao et al. (2000) point out that the abuse of performance
appraisal authority adversely impacts upon Indian employees who have already been
described as low on “efficiency emphasis” meaning “low on initiative for process
improvement”, “low on risk-taking propensity to increase productivity”, and “low on
self-monitoring inclinations” (Sparrow and Budhwar, 1997). It demonstrates that
successful change interventions can occur when management takes a holistic,
performance-driven, and excellence-orientated approach to OC in India.

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Corresponding author
Jyotsna Bhatnagar can be contacted at: jyotsnab@mdi.ac.in

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