Assistant Professor OB/HRM
IIT Bombay
At the heart of my work is a profound belief in the transformative power of dignity—an enduring commitment made evident in my research, teaching, and leadership. I stand at the confluence of academic grooming that stems from literature and management where thought, feeling, and action intertwine.
The central inquiry centers on the theme: What does it mean to live and labour with dignity in contemporary organizations? It is a question at once philosophical and empirical, abstract and urgent. Dignity is not a fixed attribute but a condition to be cultivated—an atmosphere that allows people to breathe, act, and become. This preoccupation finds scholarly expression in the research on the capability approach, algorithmic management, workplace engagement, and the emotional geographies of organizational life. Whether writing about the subtle tensions within worker cooperatives or the ethical fault-lines in tech-mediated workplaces, I gravitate towards Organizational Theoretical lenses to observe and imbibe.
With over a decade in corporate roles (at SIDBI, SCI, L&T) and half a decade in academia—at IIT Palakkad, TISS, and now IIT Bombay—I earnestly hope to bring a synergy of praxis and theory into the classroom. In the classroom and conference halls alike, I hope to invite learners to ask: what does dignity look like in everyday organizations? How do capabilities, recognition, and digital technologies shape work lives? The hope is to defy the binary modes of thought—melding beauty and rigor, poetry and praxis while enjoying the shared beauty of work and learning. The classroom sessions are designed as not mere sites of instruction, but invitations to think deeply and to feel the moral pulse of the organizational world.
I have contributed to a handful of journals and conferences that resonate with the themes I explore, e.g. IIMB Management Review, Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, and Social Responsibility Journal. I have presented at global forums like EGOS Colloquium (Athens 2025, Milan 2024, Vienna, 2023), BAM (UK 2019), and numerous others. The quiet persistence of my work is not just to study organizations, but listen to them, as one might to a poem, for what is said, and what still longs to be expressed.
Organisations are complex social systems in constant motion, and the humans within them are expected to keep pace. The Human Collective Lab is a qualitative research group asking a simple but urgent question: where does a person anchor their dignity and identity in workplaces increasingly operationalised by technology?
The Lab is grounded in two traditions of organisational thought. From modern institutional theory, it borrows the view of organisations as dynamic, adaptive social structures — resilient, but never finished — that provide stability and meaning while remaining open to change. From systems thinking, it takes the idea that people and organisations are fundamentally interdependent: nothing occurs in isolation, and every part of a system responds to the whole.
Does a person derive dignity as an outcome of their labour — and how does work, in turn, shape the way they see themselves?
Using primarily qualitative methods, the Lab studies the objective and subjective factors — compensation and security on one hand, autonomy, meaning, and respect on the other — that shape how people experience work, with the aim of contributing to a work-world that appreciates the full heterogeneity of human experience.
A multi-site study — spanning a worker cooperative in Kerala, community organisations, and corporate teams — asking how dignity can be built into organisational structures and human-centric workplace design, rather than assumed as a by-product of good intentions.
Building an alternate framework for effectuating CSR in India that connects regulatory compliance, community expectations, and genuine social impact — tested through impact studies with organisations including SARVAM and ULCCS.
Using an inductive qualitative design, this study developed a six-stage recursive process model describing how AI delegation becomes embedded within team routines, role structures, verification practices, and legitimacy norms over time — tracing how algorithmic systems reshape trust and cohesion among colleagues.
The Lab's non-exhaustive research agenda, organised around four themes:
Dignity is treated as the inherent worth owed to every person, regardless of status or role — yet bullying, shaming, and hierarchical structures routinely compromise it. This strand works toward a clearer understanding of how dignity is manifested in organisations, with an eye toward practical metrics for evaluating it.
Algorithmic management streamlines task optimization by replacing human supervisors with data-driven rules — but it also tends to reduce contact among workers, managers, and peers. The Lab explores how this systemic isolation affects relational trust and team cohesion in complex knowledge environments, and how repeated AI delegation shapes collaborative cognitive processes across successive project cycles.
A study of disability employment in India — drawing on interviews with NGOs, employers, placement agencies, and Persons with Disabilities themselves — found a persistent bias toward vocational training over real job placement and career growth. The work produced a Disability Reporting Indicator and an actionable model for more accountable, inclusive hiring.
As management research drifts toward an increasingly quantitative logic, this strand invests in the philosophy and craft of qualitative inquiry itself — restoring attention to the researcher, context, and non-interview data that are often left out of published work.
The Human Collectives Lab welcomes partnerships with organizations to advance research and practice at the AI–Human interface. IIT Bombay, being the home for the Lab, brings with it a plethora of multidisciplinary exchanges. We collaborate on joint research exploring how AI is reshaping work, leadership, organizational design, employee well-being, and dignity at work. The Lab also offers customized Management Development Programmes (MDPs) and executive education to help leaders and organizations navigate the opportunities and challenges of AI-enabled workplaces. Together, we aim to generate impactful knowledge and build human-centered, future-ready organizations. Our Research Partners include Recruit Co, Japan.
Management Development Programmes designed and delivered for leadership, functional, and technical teams across industry and government.
Curated a high-impact MDP on the theme "Leading with Foresight, Responsibility & Transformational Intent in an AI-Enabled World," for Sodexo India Leadership.
A handful of Research Projects designed to study diverse ecosystems were undertaken and a glimpse of those may be found here.
A full list of journal articles, book chapters, and conference proceedings is maintained on Google Scholar. Five recent items are highlighted below.
Shorter, less formal writing on dignity, sustainability, and AI at work — for readers who want the ideas without the journal formatting.