IIM Ahmedabad, which will soon complete fifty years of existence, has been the nation's pre-eminent management institution for several decades now. A little over three years after it was set up, Vikram Sarabhai chose a young corporate executive, Ravi Matthai, to head the team of academics he had assembled at IIMA, many of them trained at Harvard Business School. Matthai was all of thirty-eight years old when he was appointed the Institute's first full-time director. He was not an academic by training. And yet, Matthai turned out to be absolutely the right choice. Building on the foundation laid by Sarabhai, Matthai went on to create a vibrant institution using principles that were highly evolved for his time and quite unique in the world of education. This book tells the story of how IIMA was conceived, its distinctive governance structure, its unique culture --- and how a highly gifted manager created the conditions for its enduring success. It gives the reader a peep into the inner workings of one of India's most admired academic institutions. It shows how IIMA's success was no accident but the result of the vision and dedicated effort of a remarkable leader, a pioneer in management education in India

Over the past decade India has been undertaking a programme of economic reform, and at the same time the economy has been growing at a high rate. As part of the reform programme, and in line with prevailing economic thinking, India has been privatising its large, ungainly public sector. One assumption underlying this programme is the dogma that public sector enterprises are doomed to inefficiency, and that competitive market forces can be relied on to make firms more efficient once they are privatised. But is this really true? Combining rigorous data analysis with case studies to provide a balanced evaluation of the process of deregulation and privatisation within the overall context of economic reforms, the author demonstrates, remarkably, that, contrary to the prevailing view, private sector firms do not outperform public sector firms across all sectors. He also shows that revenue-raising considerations have weighed more heavily with the government than efficiency objectives. Overall, this study of the reform process in India, with its unique longstanding mix of private and public sectors, will be of great interest to all those studying reform and transition worldwide.

Over the past decade India has been undertaking a program of economic reform, and at the same time the economy has been growing at a high rate. As part of the reform program, and in line with prevailing economic thinking, India has been privatizing its large, ungainly public sector. One assumption underlying this program is the dogma that public sector enterprises are doomed to inefficiency, and that competitive market forces can be relied on to make firms more efficient once they are privatized. But is this really true?
Combining rigorous data analysis with case studies to provide a balanced evaluation of the process of deregulation and privatization within the overall context of economic reforms, the author demonstrates, remarkably, that, contrary to the prevailing view, private sector firms do not outperform public sector firms across all sectors. He also shows that revenue-raising considerations have weighed more heavily with the government than efficiency objectives. Overall, this study of the reform process in India, with its unique longstanding mix of private and public sectors, will be of great interest to all those studying reform and transition worldwide.

Corporations are crucial to society's well-being. Yet, not many have chosen to adapt themselves to the expectations of employees and the society at large. Prof. Ram Mohan identifies the three main problems that ail companies and illustrates the ways in which these can be combated. Most companies are still run from the top and make very little attempt to involve employees at the lower levels in decision-making. Executive compensation has spiralled steeply in recent years because the process of determining it is seriously flawed. Boards of directors are ineffective and have abetted the cult of the charismatic CEO who is expected to work wonders. Rethinc contends that the solution lies in the near-total dismantling of hierarchy, or the creation of a 'bossless' organization. In such an organization, the structure is flat, employees operate through self-driven teams, there is peer review, power rests on one's contribution and not one's title, and the organizational purpose goes beyond the making of profit and several other features. Once all this is done, we will have an achieving organization that is also a humane one, in which the employees are raring to get to work every day.

In 2007, the world economy was hit by a banking crisis which originated in the US. It is yet to recover fully from the impact of the crisis. This book seeks to address issues thrown up by the banking crisis, better known as the sub-prime crisis: Why do banking crises happen so often and why is their impact so severe? What were the main causes of the sub-prime crisis? In terms of bank regulation, what steps have been taken to prevent such crises in the future and make banking safer? Is banking today indeed safer than in 2007? If not, what are the issues that remain to be addressed in regulatory terms? The book is aimed primarily at students of business management, economics and international economics and at bank executives. The objective is to help them understand the sub-prime crisis, why it is so important to make banking safer, where the banking sector was in 2007 and where it is now. It should also be of interest to general readers who are curious to know what the sub-prime crisis was all about.