Jagdeep S. Chhokar is a teacher, trainer, researcher, and advisor in management, a qualified lawyer, a social activist, and a bird-watcher and naturalist.
Education & Career
A Ph.D. in Business Administration from Louisiana State University, USA, and an MBA from Delhi University, he is also a graduate of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (London) and the Institution of Production of Engineers (London). He also has an LL.B. from Gujarat University.
Prior to becoming an academic, he worked for 12 years in a variety of engineering and managerial positions with the Indian Railways, including four years as an International Marketing Manager with a public sector company.
He taught at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad from 1985 to 2006, and earlier at the Louisiana State University in the US from 1981 to 1984. He has also taught at the Murdoch University and the Curtin University of Technology in Australia for the academic year 1993, and at the Loyola Marymount University in the US during the summer of 1996. He was a visiting professor at the University of New Orleans, USA during the academic year 1997-98. During the summer of 2001, he was visiting professor at the Group Ecole Superieure de Commerce Et de Management (ESCEM) (Campus de Tours), France; and at the International University of Japan (Graduate School of International Management). He has also been Dean (from July 2001 to October 2002) and Director In-charge (July to September 2002) of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.
His professional interests are eclectic covering all aspects of organisational functioning including management and organisational behaviour; organisational structure, design, and development; management and development of human resources; in addition to cross-cultural management, international marketing and management, and strategic management. He is also interested in management in government, in public sector/systems, and industrial and occupational safety.
Other interests
Actively involved in cross-cultural research for the last few years, he is a Charter Member of the GLOBE Network of Cross Cultural Scholars set up in 1994 as part of the Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness Research Program (GLOBE), and is a member of the GLOBE Coordination Team. He is the lead editor of a volume titled Culture and Leadership across the world: The GLOBE book of in-depth studies of 25 societies to be published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates (U.S.A.) in January 2007, comprising chapters on the societal culture and leadership of these countries, written by researchers in these countries who participated in the GLOBE Research Programme.
On electoral reforms and informed choice (freedom of information), he is one of the founding members of the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR). This group is working for electoral reforms through the judicial system by filing Public Interest Litigations in the High Court and the Supreme Court to get relevant laws improved, and on the ground by providing information to voters about the background of candidates contesting elections so that the voters can make informed choices while voting. He has also spoken about electoral reforms in several forums, and has also published articles on it in newspapers and journals including the Economic and Political Weekly, and Seminar .
On bird watching (Ornithology), he is a life member of the Bombay Natural History Society and a member of the Indian Bird Conservation Network. A regular bird watcher, he has also written on bird related issues. One of his articles has been published in the National Geographic Birdwatcher.
Books/ Articles
His research has appeared in journals such as the Journal of Applied Psychology, Columbia Journal of World Business, International Labor Review, Industrial Relations, Journal of Safety Research. He has also contributed chapters to edited books and has written several teaching cases. His writing has also appeared in the business and popular press such as The Economic Times, The Times of India, The Hindu, The Financial Express, The Indian Express, The Tribune.