Indian railways scope and opportunities for research

1. Indian railways scope and opportunities for research B.V.L.Narayana Railway staff college

2. Introduction • Restricted to research in management • Management • Young growing field • Research • Fragmented • Dispersed • Disaggregated • Pluralistic • Positivist dominated

3. Management research • Management research • Started with studies in public domain • More focus on private domain • Western oriented—US dominant • New focus on orient/ east • Is a function of • Volume of business activities • Variation in business activities

4. Indian railways • Large organization • Geographical spread • Multiple sub contexts within common context • Large number of systems • High volume of variation in activities • In public domain, service orientation • mix of oriental and western culture • Great history of achievements • Old organization • Human resource dominant yet technology dependent

5. GIGANTIC DIMENSIONS OF IR 63,500 ROUTE KILOMETERS 48,000 COACHING VEHICLES 7,900 LOCOMOTIVES 2.22 LAKH WAGONS 7133 BLOCK STATIONS 14.20 LAKH WORK FORCE RS. 618 MILLION EXPENDITURE ON STAFF PER DAY RS. 1171 MILLION REVENUE EXPENDITURE DAILY

7. Scope for research • Management research • Needs accumulation, integration of theory • Cross discipline research • Three streams likely (Volberda and Elfring 2003) • Organization level • Boundary conditions • Configurations • Routines • culture • Individual level • Capabilities • Motivation • Community level • Communities of practice

8. Boundary conditions • Organizational forms • Wide variation in organizational forms seen • Consistency of main organizational structure • Matrix organization– mixed M form • Other forms • Evolution of forms • Organizational culture • Flexibility

9. Capabilities • Resource allocation • RAP model • strategy as iterative resource allocation • Strategic resource/ factors • Technology evolution • Technology adaptation • Models of capability development • Dynamic capabilities • Learning • Strategy as learning

10. Configurations • Organizational performance • Strategy implementation • Frame works • Process models • Implementation capabilities as SCA • As systems • Autopoietic systems • Self generation • adaptability

11. Configurations • Learning systems • Absorptive capacity • Knowledge management • Frameworks • Link with performance • Cognitive architectures • Stake holder theory • Stewardship • OCB or Public service motivation

12. Strategy as time • Time • an important variable in research • Part of processual studies • Railways • Consistent performance over 150 years • Research on • SCA • Implementation • Evolution of forms • Learning

13. Individual level • Work place conditions • Interaction between work place and family conditions • Motivation • Linkage to performance • Transfer of training • Individual level learning

15. Scope for research • Scope in railways • LARGE • Huge variation in topics • Large repository of data • Conducive to quantitative and qualitative methods • Ideal for processual studies • Organizational need for research • Easy access • Collaborative effort possible

16. Community level • Do railway men form a community? • If yes –how • How does it impact • Transfer of skills , capabilities, learning • Creation of social capital • Formation of networks and their working

17. THANK YOU