South Asian Journal of Human Resources Management

This article examines factors pertaining to the development of Indian emerging market multinational companies (EMNCs) in African countries. India is a member of the BRICS grouping of developing countries, the others being Brazil, China, Russia and South Africa. Therefore, understanding its role, scale and dynamics of internationalising in the African context is particularly important. The following key areas are examined: the historical and socio-economic context, internationalisation strategies of Indian MNCs in African countries, home and host country factors, labour markets in host countries and human resource management (HRM) approaches of selected Indian EMNCs in particular African countries. Most work on international business and international HRM in Africa focuses on the Sino-Africa nexus. Both China and India are members of the BRICS grouping but have followed different trajectories in internationalising in the African context. This analysis helps fill a gap by evaluating the Afro-Indian relationship in business, particularly EMNCs from India. The analysis finds the following abiding themes in the historical connections and relationships of Indian EMNCs: the role of family-owned businesses, human resource development and long-term host country commitment.

The purpose of this article is to highlight the colonial/neo-colonial roots of most human resource management (HRM) knowledge in South Asia and urge scholars and practitioners in South Asia to develop and promote locally relevant indigenous knowledge and practices. We review the literature on decolonising management knowledge, particularly HRM, highlighting the continued tendency of HRM scholars to, knowingly or unknowingly, sustain colonial practices and promote neo-colonial knowledge and practices. While acknowledging that there may be some potential benefits of borrowing European/US HRM practices in South Asian contexts, we stress the limits of universality of such knowledge and argue for the need to develop alternate context-sensitive indigenous knowledge and practices. We encourage the creation of hybrid knowledge spaces for healthy interactions among diverse, even conflicting, perspectives with the hope of promoting pluriversality in the domain of HRM and management in general.

The textbook construct of a competitive labour market represents an ideal world in which workers and employers have equal bargaining power. Such a construct yields powerful conclusions: Wages are aligned with productivity; employers earn a normal rate of return; there is no involuntary unemployment and working poverty; regulations—such as minimum wages and the presence of unions—impedes the efficient functioning of the labour market. Yet, these conclusions—which have influenced, academic economists, policymakers and redoubtable international agencies—are impaired in the presence of unequal bargaining power of workers and employers. In such circumstances, unscrupulous employers can exploit the vulnerability of workers leading to such deleterious outcomes as working poverty, unsafe working conditions, use of child labour and so forth. This creates the rationale for appropriately designed regulations that seek to create a level playing field between workers and employers and thus facilitate the transition to an ‘inclusive’ labour market.

The development and promotion of legislation and policies promoting gender equity in employment form an essential part of the agenda of international organisations and global forums. However, gender inequity in the labour markets of South Asian countries remains, and the Global Gender Gap Report 2022 predicts that it will take 197 years to achieve gender parity. This article explores some of the changes and challenges of the past 10 years related to gender equity in employment and outlines some of the legislative changes during this time such as the increase in maternity leave and requirement for women on boards. While changes have occurred, many issues of inequity remain. The changes brought about by the government regulations during the pandemic of 2020-2022, including the sudden focus on working from home, has had both positive and negative effects on women’s work and lives.

The Kingdom of Bhutan is an exemplar of ongoing sustainable transformation. From realising over 20% growth in literacy rates in the last 15 years to sustaining an average economic growth of 7.5% per year since 1980 to becoming the world’s first carbon-negative country with forests covering over 70% of the land, Bhutan quietly continues to lead the way with unique foresight and resilience. This tradition of leadership continued in 2020 when His Majesty, the Fifth King of Bhutan’s urgently called upon Bhutanese civil servants to ‘prepare for the future’ as a ‘self-reliant’ nation. In response, the Royal Civil Service Commission of Bhutan launched a development accelerator called the ‘Nurturing Leadership Program’ which leveraged community-based participatory research methodologies to launch 125 innovation projects and build leadership capacity among over 625 civil servants. In total, 98.6% of more than 3,000 stakeholders surveyed at the end of the program agreed that project efforts positively impacted target outcomes, demonstrating that Bhutan can continue its unique role as a human capability incubator by transforming talent, organisation, leadership and HR into a shared and sustained brand of believe.

To commemorate the 10^th anniversary of the South Asian Journal of Human Resource Management, the authors conducted a wide-ranging interview with two towering figures in HR, namely, Prof Dave, considered the father of modern HR, and Dr Santrupt, CEO and board member at the Aditya Birla Group, an Indian multinational and Fortune-500 conglomerate. The purpose was to bring together a globally renowned academic scholar and an international CEO with a strong HR background to discuss the state of HRM. The conversation covered a wide range of topics, including ‘is it the best time for HR; implications of the Asian century; indigenization of HR models; boundaryless organizations; changing demographics and workforce profile; digital divide, and the future of HR in a technology driven world. The YouTube link of the full recorded interview can be accessed at https://youtu.be/WibBq0ux0zk

Organisational justice has attained considerable attention due to work-related uncertainties induced by the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the uncertainty management theory of fairness at work, social exchange theory and norm reciprocity theory, this article investigates the mediating effects of work-related quality of life and job embeddedness on the relationship between organisational justice and job involvement during COVID-19. Data were collected through a survey questionnaire from five IT companies in India. Hayes’ PROCESS macro was used to test the parallel mediation effect in our study. The findings indicate that work-related quality of life and job embeddedness fully mediate the association between organisational justice and job involvement, and the point estimate of the differences between the two mediators confirms that work-related quality of life and job embeddedness are no different from each other, and they mediate the relationship between organisational justice and job involvement in parallel manner. The study highlights benefit that organisations may achieve from devising policies that capitalise on organisational fairness and facilitate working factors for better employee performance amid uncertain situations and shock events such as the current pandemic. The article also discusses other managerial implications to overcome the unwanted effects of employees’ work life uncertainties.

Stress causes serious illnesses and damages employee well-being. The mutual gains human resource management (HRM) framework places HRM practices as the custodian of employee well-being in an organisation. This study presents a mutual gains HRM framework which has three components. First, employees can perceive that their organisation enacts HRM practices from two benevolent intentions (a) to help employees perform better and b) to improve their well-being. Second, these benevolent HRM attributions invoke gratitude among employees. Third, gratitude reduces employees’ perceived stress and improves their engagement levels. Fourth, gratitude mediates the relationship between both benevolent HRM attributions, employee stress and engagement levels. Purposive sampling technique was deployed for the collection of data using structured questionnaire from 294 respondents, working in the telecommunications sector of Pakistan. Measurement and structural model validity were tested through structural equation modelling (SEM) using Mplus 7.0. The findings confirmed theoretical connotations among the constructs. The study contributes to the literature by introducing a new HRM framework mediated by gratitude to reduce employee stress levels and improve their engagement.

Kotak Mahindra Life Insurance Company Limited ((in short, Kotak Life) is one of India’s fastest-growing insurance companies in India. It is well regarded as a reputed, admired and sustainable company that believes in and practices the value of being ‘people-friendly’. Hence, the company invests significant time, effort and money in developing its employees. In this interview, we explore an HR practitioner’s perspective on human capital development and its evolvement in the COVID-19 context in India. Specifically, we interviewed the Senior Vice President Human Resources and Head Organisation Capability and Development and, DE&I of Kotak Life to understand the human capital development process at Kotak Life Insurance. Given that this interview was conducted during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in India, we also explored how the human capital development process was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and, thus, appropriately modified through the medium of digitalisation.