Sustainability of the Indian railways turnaround: a stage theory perspective

Abstract

Turnarounds are like exciting thrillers which describe dramatic recovery of declining organizations. Since such recoveries have great relevance for the economic development particularly of developing countries facing resource scarcity, researchers with increasing interest have enriched the turnaround literature, especially in the last four decades. Research has highlighted many facets of turnaround. These include turnaround actions, strategies, types, elements, stages etc. Though the research covers largely the private sector entities, but effort, though little, is not nonexistent for the public sector. The paper examines a large complex departmental commercial organization of the Government of India and its much-talked about turnaround in the theoretical perspective of stage theory. The paper not only fills up the gap of research in public sector but also uses the established stage theory model to answer the question of sustainability of the Indian Railways turnaround. The analysis goes back to the theoretical propositions which are by and large supported by the analysis of the turnaround of the Indian Railways.