My PhD dissertation was titled, "Working the PPP! Coordination in public-private partnerships". This marked the beginning of my specific interest in public-private collaborations, and more generally kindled my interest in strategic alliances, more generally. And since then my interest has grown, occasionally taking sidesteps to build a deeper understanding.
Some notable publications in this area are listed below.
Unbundling PPPs (WCTRS paper)
Journal of Public Affairs - Hybrid annuity model
Garg, S., & Mahapatra, D. (2019) Hybrid Annuity Model: Hamming Risk Allocations in Indian Highway Public-private Partnerships. Journal of Public Affairs, 19(1), e1890 https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1890
Book chapter- organizational galore
Garg, S., & Mahapatra, D. (2017) Opportunism Galore: The Case of Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway. Handbook on PPPs in Developing and Emerging Economies. Emerald Publishing ISBN 978-1-78714-494-1 https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-78714-493-420171018
Assymetric performance
Cases -- Ivey cases, first page links, and their synopsis from their teahcing notes
Rau-Pithampur case
Delhi-Gurgaon case
Adani Power case
Garg, S & Shivahare.J.P (2024) Gujarat Urja Vikas Nigam Ltd: Discovering Energy Storage Tariffs. Ivey Case Collection W38728
Garg, S (2024) JSTL: Promoter and lender rights in Public Private Partnership Termination. Ivey Case Collection
W34494
Garg, S Habibganj Railway Station Redevelopment: A World-Class Dream Coming True Vikalpa: The Journal of Decision Makers, 48(3), 233-236 https://doi.org/10.1177/0256090923119596
Garg, S (2021) Coastal Gujarat Power Limited: Public Gains Private Losses! Ivey Case Collection 9B21M056
My research interests closely align with my teaching interests, wherein I offer management electives in public-private partnerships, strategic alliances, and ecosystems, most recently.
Decoding digital transformational outsourcing: The role of service providers’ cafpabilities
ABSTRACT: The business process outsourcing industry has got disrupted, first by the significant shift in value creation activities from the clients to the service providers, and second by pervasive digital penetration, resulting in the emergence of Digital Transformational Outsourcing (DTO). Service providers now play a more significant role, making their capabilities important. In the new context, service providers require a uniquely different set of dynamic capabilities to handle end-to-end business functions on behalf of their clients while delivering digital value propositions.
We study 26 of the largest global business process outsourcing providers to conceptualise and identify six dynamic capabilities of service providers salient in the new context, i.e., consultative, orchestration, insights, network management, knowledge access, and standardisation. Interviews conducted with industry experts provided evidence in support of the identified dynamic capabilities. A novel firm capability dataset was created using secondary data, and using fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA), we identify configurations for high and low performance and find them to vary by the firm’s broad/narrow scope.
Mazumder, S & Garg, S. (2021) Decoding Digital Transformational Outsourcing: The Role of Service Providers’ Capabilities. International Journal of Information Management, 58, 102295 (ABDC -A*) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2020.102295
Digital transformational outsourcing: A necessity analysis of service provider capabilities (Paper Copy. Creative commons)
ABSTRACT: Capabilities enable performance, but how does their absence constrain performance? We ask this critical question as firms continuously adapt to the fast-evolving environment, refreshing their capabilities. Studying outsourcing service provider capabilities in digital transformational outsourcing in the IT-enabled business services industry, we explore the capability constraining query by adopting a necessary but not sufficient logic. By developing and testing necessity hypotheses, we identify an inherent hierarchy in dynamic capabilities, depicting how different levels of capabilities constrain performance to varying levels. The above enables us to guide an order of capability development in provider firms.
Mazumder, S & Garg, S (2025)., Digital Transformational Outsourcing: A Necessity Analysis of Service Provider Capabilities. IIMB Management Review D-23-00353 (ABDC- B) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iimb.2025.100571
My interest in management pedagogy emanates from the advantages that alternate pedagogies provide, over conventional class room teaching, which I find boring and monotonous. Personally, I find it hard to maintain my concentration on the speaker for more then 15 mins, and I wonder how would the younger generation be adapting to this challange.
During my teaching, I try and breakup the class into 15 minute slots, and indulge with students in different ways across the time slots, including videos, role plays, short cases, group presentations etc. This interest has also found its way into research, wherein I first wrote out a detailed note on Strategy Simulation Games pedagogy, soon after joining IIM Indore.
Later, I teamed up with colleagues to propose an Integrative Live case pedagogy, wherein proposed how a single unethical instance can be used to bring and demonstrate multiple ethical perspectives to class. We labelled it 'ILC', published it in Journal of Business Ethics, a FT 50 journal, and also hosted workshops at DAVV, Indore; MNNIT, Prayagraj and UG sessions at IIMI, to build deep understanding of business ethics dilemma, cover over 500 students.
Integrative Live Case: A Contemporary Business Ethics Pedagogy,
Venkat, G., Garg, S., & Thapliyal, S. (2019) Integrative Live Case: A Contemporary Business Ethics Pedagogy, Journal of Business Ethics,155(4), 1009-1032 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-017-3514-6
ABSTRACT: Disparate attempts exist to identify the key components that make an ethics pedagogy more effective and efficient. To integrate these attempts, a review of 408 articles published in leading journals is conducted. The key foci of extant literature are categorized into three domains labeled as approach(A), content (C), and delivery (D), and a comprehensive framework (ACD) for ethics pedagogy developed. Within each of these domains, binaries that reflect two alternatives are identified. Approach, the philosophical standpoint, can be theory-laden or real-world connected. Content, the constituencies addressed, can have a focus on breadth or depth. Delivery, the execution of the adopted pedagogy, can be traditional or innovative.
The review of articles also identifies the lack of pedagogies that comprehensively focus on all the binaries across domains. The other substantive contribution of this article addresses this gap by developing a generic pedagogy—Integrative Live Case—based on the ACD framework. Based on an incident that is currently unfolding, this pedagogy allows integration of binaries across the three domains. It also allows for a modular course plan that can accommodate varied pedagogical preferences. Volkswagen Dieselgate is presented as a stylized example to showcase the significant advantages of using this pedagogy.
Having spent 23 years with Indian railways, transport remains my core sector of interest.
COvid 19 and oxygen logistics paper
Braithwaite case
Van Scotter, J., & Garg, S. (2020). Entrepreneurial Tenacity and Self-Efficacy Effects on Persisting Across Industry Contexts. Contemporary Management Research, 15(3), 147-173.
Garg, S., & Garg, S.B.L. (2005), Technology Innovation as an Evolutionary Process, Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management, New Delhi, India. https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/technology-innovation-asevolutionary-process/docview/201693911/se-2
Garg, S. (2022). Braithwaite–in search of a sustainable turnaround. Emerald Emerging Markets Case Studies,
12(4), 1-32. https://doi.org/10.1108/EEMCS-04-2022-0108
Garg, S., & Tripathi, S. (2020) INDIAHIKES – Treading the Untrodden Trail. Ivey Case collection 9B20M051 Winner of the ISB-Ivey Case Competition 2018.
ABSTRACT: The different structural contexts of public and private sector firms frame the specific organizational work environment. However, public-private comparative studies have been unable to isolate how these differences influence aspects of organizational work, such as employee empowerment, with similarities and differences among key constructs. We develop a contingency view of employee empowerment, theoretically arguing and empirically demonstrating how authentic leadership with different levels of organizational politics influences employee empowerment in different contextual settings, namely public vs. private sector firms. We present evidence of a three-way interaction. We surveyed 173 senior Indian managers working in public and private sectors to measure their perceptions of empowerment, authentic leadership, and organizational politics. Employing ordinary least-square regression, we tested for simple and complex interactions. We found that authentic leadership had interactive effects on how organizational politics and public-private differences impact empowerment. The differences in the effect of authentic leadership on employee empowerment between public and private firms became more, with an increase in organizational politics.
Deepak Sardana, Narain Gupta, Ying Zhu, Subhadarsini Parida, Swapnil Garg & Srikanth Paruchuri (2024)Still waters run deep: differences in employee empowerment between public and private sector firms in India, The International Journal of Human Resource Management, https://doi.org/10.1080/09585192.2024.2309150
Exploring the drivers and facets of culture in the formative stage of a public-funded R&D organisation. (Copy of paper)
Ravisankar, J., Mishra, S. K., Garg, S., Thomas, N., & Kumar, K. K. (2023). Exploring the drivers and facets of culture in the formative stage of a public-funded R&D organisation. IIMB Management Review, 35(4), 370-381. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iimb.2023.11.002
Book Chapter on Turnaround
My latest interest i.e., 2024 onwards, lies in energy sector. Though I had been previously looking at the sector from a Public-private collaboration perspective, the interests of PhD scholars working with me have forced me to dig deep into this sector. Taking a deep dive into the literature in the sector, I am still in the process of understanding how the sector works. I do expect to make some significant research congtributions in this domain.