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CASE OVERVIEW

Life of Arun Borate:

K Born and brought up in Kolhapur, Maharashtra
K B.Tech in Electrical Engineering
K Achiever in aptitude tests and interviews
K Accepted a call from Cognizant for a six figure
salary
K Disappointed to find out his location was
Chennai
K His only hope was his perspective work group
CASE OVERVIEW CONTD.

Life at Cognizant, Chennai:

K His group consisted of residents of Chennai
itself
K All decisions and discussions were done in
their native language that Arun could not
understand
K Arun was not included in a group outing due to
the lingual barrier
CASE OVERVIEW CONTD.
K The whole setting made Arun resent his
office, making him negative and bitter
towards the company
K Bad-mouthing the company and advising
his friends against joining Cognizant
K Eventually, as time passed, Arun got used
to the routine of his job, and also gained
the acceptance of his work group
K After 18 months at work, Arun finally got
an offer for a transfer«
 CASE ANALYSIS:
GROUP DEVELOPMENT STAGES
CASE ANALYSIS:
GROUP DEVELOPMENT STAGES CONTD«
 CASE ANALYSIS:
GROUP THINK
K Phenomenon in which the norm for consensus
overrides the realistic appraisal of alternative
courses of action.

K Occurs when the team consists of adamant or

aggressive members who tend to override the
opinions of other members.
 CASE ANALYSIS:
GROUP THINK

K It can be observed that group think did occur in

Arun·s team.

K Arun could seldom participate in the group

discussions, he quickly gave up his right to voicing
his ideas and let his colleagues run the show.
 CASE ANALYSIS:
SOCIAL EXCHANGE THEORY

K Social exchange theory posits that all human

relationships are formed by the use of a
subjective cost-benefit analysis and the
comparison of alternatives.

K For example, when a person perceives the costs of

a relationship as outweighing the perceived
benefits, then the theory predicts that the person
will choose to leave the relationship.
 CASE ANALYSIS:
SOCIAL EXCHANGE THEORY CONTD..

K In this case, the rest of the team members have a

feeling that the inclusion of Arun in their
informal group is of no benefit to them.

K The cost of a cultural adjustment outweighs the

benefit of having them in their midst. They prefer
to have members who share the same culture and
interests.
 CASE ANALYSIS:
SOCIAL LOAFING
K As a fallout of the deviant behavior exhibited by
Arun, social loafing would occur routinely until the
team was in the forming stage.

K Arun would show least interest in the tasks allocated

to him.

K He would not fill up timesheets. He knew that his

manager or a colleague will fill his timesheet to avoid
losing revenue from the client.

K Arun thought that his deviant behavior was justified.

So it was difficult to convince him against social
loafing.
CONCLUSION
K The case has brought out some obvious problems
that may seem to haunt any office setup.

K Companies today try to strike a good socio-

economic and cultural balance in the office by
hiring employees from varying financial,
educational and cultural backgrounds.

K While this technique assures diversification of

talent and avoids giving an unexpected identity
to the organization, it also brings about tensions
amongst the employees.
CONCLUSION
K The company needs to stress on cultural
sensitivity training programs to arm managers
with a keen eye for such problems and the skills
to defuse such situations.

K Job expectations and constraints need to make

clear to the candidate. Often, the Indian IT
companies provide a vague declaration of the job
details which leads to dissatisfactions amongst
employees once they join the company.

K Deviant behaviours like negative feedback of the

company, absenteeism and irresponsible work
styles should be dealt with seriously.