Studying Sonia

Students to pore over Sonia Gandhi's actions as a case study.

After hogging the headlines over the "office-of-profit" issue, Congress leader Sonia Gandhi will now be studied as a case of "value based leadership" at S P Jain Institute of Management and Research Studies (SPJIMR).

The institute intends to devise a full-fledged case study on Gandhi's response to the office-of-profit controversy for its management students to analyse, discuss and gain from. The much talked about Ambani brothers feud too will be made into a case study for students.

The decision to take contemporary examples from the Indian scenario as case studies came after the positive response it received from its students on a Greg Chappell and Sourav Ganguly case study last year, which linked a contemporary issue in the world of Indian sports with established concepts of organisational behaviour in management.

The institute has decided to develop more and more case studies by drawing examples from the goings-on of contemporary India.

Incidentally, a sequel to the Chappell-Ganguly issue is also being planned that allows the viewpoints of both "" the team's ex-captain and coach, to be analysed in an attempt to understand how the team could sustain its performance under such conditions.

"With so much happening in India, it is easier for students to understand and analyse the issues. The basic idea is to draw parallels from various fields to explain leadership and team performance in organisations," says Lata Dhir, professor in organisational behaviour at SPJIMR.

Also planned: a case study on why employees jump from one organisation to another. "We always look at the two Ts of management: technology and technique. We need to add one more T which stands for trust in business management," says Dhir.