The Centre for Development Policy and Management (CDPM) is a unique research and teaching centre at IIM Udaipur with a mandate to conduct cutting edge development-oriented research which is grounded in theory and has strong policy implications. The CDPM aims to create synergetic linkages between development studies and management. Within IIMU, it brings useful insights from the fields of development studies and public policy and makes the management curriculum rich and holistic. It also substantiates the management programme by drawing upon the vision, focus, and objectives of various management fields and developing plans, methods, and processes to integrate them. In turn, it applies relevant management knowledge in analyzing developmental initiatives and social transformation projects of the state, private corporations, non-profit agencies, international development organizations and social entrepreneurs. Currently, there is only one regular faculty member appointed in CDPM. The CDPM 2.0 will consist of faculty comprising interdisciplinary team drawn from different areas within IIMU, proficient in mixed methods research, holistic education, and professional consultancy.
The CDPM envisages to fill a major void in management education and research in India arising due to the underutilization of development-oriented research crucial in solving real-world problems in one of the world’s fastest growing economies and rapidly transforming societies. The problems are related (but not restricted) to sustainable development, climate change, green economy, agricultural transformation and food security, labour migration, livelihoods, gender, education, indigenous knowledge, and ancient wisdom. In doing so, the centre works upon the paradigms of progressive change and critical approaches to development and management studies.
The CDPM aspires to become a home for academics, policymakers, practitioners, and thinkers engaged in research and teaching at the cusp of development studies and management. To achieve this, CDPM will forge strategic collaborations with global and national development think tanks, governmental departments, world-leading universities and institutions, multilateral development agencies, philanthrocapitalists and CSR units.
In line with its vision, the CDPM has identified three key areas for research, consultancy, and training in the short to medium term. These are:
The CDPM 2.0 team will consist of IIMU faculty having deep interest in development-oriented research and teaching. The following faculty members are currently interested in being a part of it, although some others may join later on:
The CDPM will be co-headed by two faculty members for a period of two years. The CDPM 2.0 will recruit a full-time research manager for running the day-to-day operations of the centre (there has been no dedicated research staff/center manager for the last five years, i.e. 2017-22).
From time to time, the CDPM will recruit research associates and research fellows for strengthening its academic profile. The research associates will ideally be graduates or postgraduates with sound research skills (quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods etc.). Research fellows will preferably have a doctoral degree. They could be early career researchers, experienced independent researchers, established academics and eminent scholars. Research fellows will be recruited for a duration ranging from three months to two years, depending on the requirements of the specific research project in which they are engaged. The contract can be extended subject to funding.
For consolidating linkages with the government, CSR units, international development agencies, development research organizations and grassroots organizations, the CDPM will appoint an advisory council. The members of the council will be renowned people from the aforesaid domains. The members of the advisory council will work in an honorary capacity. They will provide instrumental links between the CDPM and the wider development regime.
Additionally, the CDPM will host academics from reputed institutions and university departments world-over willing to spend time in Udaipur during their sabbatical. These positions will be offered on a non-remunerative basis.
1. Governance Challenges in the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS), India (Funding Partner: DAAD Germany, 2017-18)
Prof Saurabh Gupta and his co-authors Dr Rajiv Verma and Prof Dr Regina Birner (University of Hohenheim, Germany) investigated governance challenges in the world’s largest nutritional support programme ICDS. The findings of the research have been published in the journal Development Policy Review; a highly regarded journal referred by development policy makers world over.
Publication
2. Uber for Tractor? Opportunities and Challenges of Digital Tools for Agricultural Machinery Hire in India and Nigeria (Funding Partner: German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development, 2018-21)
This collaborative research project looked at how digitally enabled agri machinery hire services work in practice. The project involved a team of researchers from India, Nigeria and Germany. The findings have appeared in the top-ranking journal World Development.
3. Biomass Value Web: Sustainable Agricultural Transformation in Ethiopia (Funding Partner: German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development, 2017-19)
The research analysed biomass based economic growth from the perspective of food security and sustainable livelihoods in Ethiopia, one of the hungriest and poorest countries in the world. The multinational research team comprised of members from India, Ethiopia, Germany, and Canada. The findings have appeared in two journal articles with high impact factor. One manuscript is currently under review.
Publications
4. Governance and Institutions for Sustainable Agricultural Development in Ghana (Funding Partner: German Federal Ministry of Education, 2017-18)
Prof Saurabh Gupta along with Dr Adu-Gyamfi Poku and Prof Dr Regina Birner studied the governance challenges in contract farming arrangements, and the seed quality and certification process in Ghana. The findings have appeared in three journal articles catering to interdisciplinary research.
5. Competitive Bioeconomy Growth in Nigeria (Funding Partner: German Federal Ministry of Education, 2017-19)
The project explored the diverse usages of maize and their market potential in the context of Nigeria, wherein maize is the most important cereal crop of smallholders. The findings appeared in the form of a journal article.
6. Food Subsidy- PDS, cash, or both?
Should food subsidies availed of by many poor and some non-poor people in the form of subsidized cereals be given to them, instead, in cash? In this paper, Prof Anirudh Krishna (Duke University, USA) and Prof Agrawal contend that rather than asking this binary question, it might be cost-effective and welfare-enhancing to consider: where is PDS, and where might cash be, the better policy response for serving the same need?
7. Skill Development: Vocational Education and Training in India
Skill development has been a major policy agenda of the Indian government. In this paper, Prof Tushar Agrawal and Prof Ankush Agrawal (IIT, Delhi) examine the labour market outcomes of the vocationally trained population in India. Their findings show that the relative returns to vocational education is higher than that to general secondary education.
8. Education and Labour Market in India
Returns to Educatio
The literature on returns to education has focused largely on wage workers, thereby ignoring a sizable section of the workforce that is self-employed, specifically in developing countries like India. In this comparative study, Prof Tushar Agrawal and Prof Ankush Agrawal present the estimates of returns to education for business, farm and wage workers in India.
Gender Segregation and Wage Differentials
In another paper on labour market, Prof Agrawal examines the interrelation between two important dimensions of gender segregation: education and occupation. The paper further investigates the gender wage gap and its determinants in India.
9. Gender and Well-being in the Indian Labour Market: A Comparative Study
Gender, workplace support, and job demands remain under-researched on a cross cultural basis. Drawing from two studies conducted in different contexts (India and the USA) via different methodological approaches, Prof. Dina Banerjee and Prof. Vijayta Doshi compared and contrasted the nature of workplace support and perceived job demands of women workers in both nations. This mixed method study aimed to gauge how well-being of women in the Indian labour market is similar (or not) to that of women in the US labour market.
10. Gender, Leadership, and Identity in India
Women in powerful leadership positions are still a rare phenomenon in India. Then what about women with two leadership positions? What kind of challenges do they face? How do they deal with those challenges? And most importantly how do they navigate and negotiate their ways through multiple identities like a mother, a daughter, a wife, and a leader? Through in-depth interviews with 49 women with dual leadership positions in India this study explored the interplay of identities at the juncture of gender and leadership in India.
11. Gender and Entrepreneurship in India
Although numerical representation of women entrepreneurs in India is on a rise, most entrepreneurs come from a socio-economically deprived background begging the question of whether entrepreneurship truly means empowerment for Indian women or is it simply a response to sheer economic necessities? Moreover, is the situation better for women entrepreneurs with an upper class background? Controlling for class, and collecting data in the form of 33 in-depth interviews, Prof. Dina Banerjee, Prof. Subhadip Roy, and Prof. Subhalaxmi Mahapatra explored the process of women’s entrepreneurship in India, with a special focus on the concept of emancipation.
1. Bribery, Corruption and Bureaucracy in India (Funding Partner: DAAD Germany)
In a first study of its kind in the context of India, this collaborative research project (with Dr Rajiv Verma) analyses the attitudes of the civil services aspirants toward bribery and corruption. The findings of the study have been drafted in the form of a manuscript currently under review in a leading development journal.
2. Realizing Sustainability-Driven Entrepreneurship: The case of agri-tech entrepreneurs in India (Funding Partner: DAAD, Germany)
The research project is a collaborative work with Prof Saurabh Gupta’s external PhD student from the University of Hohenheim, Germany. The research presents exploratory case studies of new entrants to agri business. The data collection is currently underway.
3. Covid-19 & long-term poverty: Evidence from rural Rajasthan
The research project is a collaborative work with Prof. Anirudh Krishna from the Duke University, USA. In this project, Prof Krishna and Prof Agrawal assess changes in structural poverty in a group of seven villages of three districts of southern Rajasthan using the Stages of Progress methodology, using a primary survey conducted by Prof. Krishna’s Team.
4. Women Contractual Workers in the Tea Plantations of Assam, India
Along with Prof. Diganta Das from the Mahapurusha Srimanta Sankaradeva Vishwavidyalaya (Assam), in this study, Prof. Dina Banerjee examines the coping (in fact, survival) mechanisms of the women contractual workers in five tea plantations of Assam. At the confluence of domestic violence, job insecurity, abject poverty, and lack of tribal status, lives of these women is a constant struggle. Data are based on an extensive fieldwork including in-depth interviews, wide-ranging observations, and several archival documents.
5. Casteism within the STEM Academia of India
Despite various Affirmative Action policies, Dalits are still severely underrepresented in high skilled occupational positions in India. This study focuses on Dalit scholars within science, technology, engineering, and mathematic (STEM) academia in India to investigate this underrepresentation. To date, 42 Dalit scholars from eminent science and technology institutes of India participated in the study. Among them 23 individuals have left STEM, a career that they strongly identified with, for various non-STEM fields. Prof. Dina Banerjee intends to find out why individuals leave their STEM careers, also the factors that promote their retention within the STEM academia.
6. Gender, Caste, Class, and Leadership in India
This research explores work-life experiences of Dalit women in India who hold important leadership positions in various organizations. Growing up at the intersection of gender, caste, and class oppression, these women represent an epitome of powerlessness. Contrarily, important leadership positions reflect power. This study explores the challenges that Dalit women encounter as leaders at the juncture of wretched powerlessness and power. Data are derived from the narratives of 91 Dalit women leaders from multiple geographical regions in India.
Saurabh Gupta is a sociologist and social anthropologist by training. At present he co-heads the Centre for Development Policy and Management at the Indian Institute of Management, Udaipur (IIMU). He has previously held academic positions at the Hans Ruthenberg Institute, University of Hohenheim, Germany (2011-17), and the Department of Development Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), UK (2006-11). He has worked as a visiting faculty in international development at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and the Institute of Ismaili Studies, London. He has research experience in South Asia on issues relating to watershed development, natural resources management, state-NGO relationships, governance, and welfare policies. Saurabh has done extensive fieldwork on agricultural transformation in Ethiopia and Ghana, and sustainable livelihoods for Abaca producers in the Philippines. His current research focuses on sustainability-driven entrepreneurship in agri-business sector in India. He is the author of the book ‘Politics of Water Conservation: Delivering development in rural Rajasthan’ (Springer International, 2016), and his research has been published in journals such as the World Development, Development and Change, Development Policy Review, Journal of South Asian Development, Sustainability, Food Security, Water Alternatives, Journal of Cleaner Production, and Sustainable Production and Consumption.
Saurabh received his PhD in Development Studies from the University of London, UK. He holds an MA degree in Sociology from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
Research Specialisation: Governance, Welfare Policies, Natural Resources Management, Agricultural Transformation, Rural Livelihoods, Social Enterprise, NGOs and Civil Society
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Dina Banerjee is a behavioural scientist with sociology as her mother discipline. At present she co-heads the Centre for Development Policy and Management at the Indian Institute of Management, Udaipur (IIMU). Before IIMU, she worked as a faculty in the Department of Sociology and the Organizational Development and Leadership Program, Shippensburg University, Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, USA (2011-2015), and as a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Engineering Education, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA (2009-2011). Her current development-oriented research projects are threefold. First, via an extensive field work in five tea estates of Assam, she explores work-life experiences of the women contractual tea plantation workers. At the intersection of gender, tribal identity, and poverty, the purpose of this project is to delve into the coping mechanisms in the face of severe adversities and the dynamics of agency thereby.
Second, she studies the impact of casteism within the science, technology, engineering, and mathematic (STEM) academia in India, focusing specifically on the attrition and retention-related experiences of the Dalit scholars. And third, Dina examines the interplay of gender, caste, and class in the context of organizational leadership in India. By means of in-depth interviews with multiple Dalit women who hold eminent leadership positions in various organizations , this study investigates the challenges that leaders face and how they navigate and negotiate their ways through leadership expectations vis-à-vis gender, caste, and class identities.
Her papers are published in journals like Personnel Review, Gender, Work, and Organization, Journal of Entrepreneurship in Emerging Economies, Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering, The Journal of Leadership Education, Sociological Viewpoints, Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, Reflective Practice: International and Multidisciplinary Perspectives, International Journal of Contemporary Sociology, and International Journal of Contemporary Sociology: A Discussion Journal of Contemporary Ideas and Research.
Dina did her PhD in Sociology from Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA. Her first Masters is in Sociology (specializing in Industry, Labour, and Organization) from the University of Calcutta, Kolkata. Her second Masters is in Public Relations from the Rajendra Prasad Institute of Management & Communications, Mumbai, India. And her third Masters in in Sociology (specializing in Gender) from Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA.
Research Specialisation: Gender, Marginalization, Intersectionality, Trauma, Labour Market, Career, Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Identity, Agency-Structure Interaction, and Work-Life Experiences.
