This qualitative study reminisces about the experiences of working women in Vadodara during the lockdown from April to May 2020. It articulates their voices of how they understood themselves during the lockdown and relates their ongoing internal dialogue to the larger conversation on what it means to be a woman in the feminist, gender studies, and in the sociology of work literature. Indian women operate within an intersectional space between Western individualism and persistent patriarchal traditional gendered roles. Their sense of who and what they are, arises through their performative acts of their many roles as daughters, wives, mothers, and daughters-in-law. Therefore, their context becomes essential in understanding their lived experiences. Every woman in this study played multifaceted roles during the lockdown, which was not acknowledged by others around them thereby making them feel undervalued. The existential question of who and what am I, which was always in the background, now screamed in their mind. Loneliness and emotional turmoil grew in them, as the interactions within and beyond the house became indifferent, infrequent, and recreative opportunities receded. Work and childcare pressures were harsh on their time and emotions. The fear of getting infected in an earmarked COVID-19 hotspot wasThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution -NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and no modifications or adaptations are made.

The self is both a sociological and a psychological construct. It is investigated in this paper from the perspectives of sociology of work, critical management studies and employment relations. Accordingly, drawing upon ethnographic research, this article seeks to unravel how an employee defines herself or himself in two realms—the organizational and the personal—respectively against the background of changing Indian IT industry marked by uncertainty and rising job insecurity. It examines how these two realms converge to bring about an individual’s sense of ‘dasein’ or being. The self is entwined in the value chain of the Indian IT labour process and, within it, soft HRM discursive practices seek to constitute and mould the ‘disciplined confessional self’ who is supposed to be not only autonomous but a proactive and proactive team player. This article identifies the sources from which the self finds definitions and validation in the liquid modern context of the ‘gig economy’. It seeks to reflect upon the ramifications arising out of the interplay between Western and Indian managerial repertoires and, finally, the interplay of caste and class against changing Indian societal norms and expectations. In doing so, it looks at the micro and macro means through which the self seeks to obviate its incoherence and find resonance and fullness. Given the volatile political economy of the Indian IT industry labour process, much of the work is repetitive and fragmented, and individuals feel alienated and burnt out after the initial excitement of experiencing the Sapient or Cisco way of life. They adopt various coping mechanisms reminiscent of Burawoy’s (1985) respondents to fight job insecurity and to secure their peer group’s acceptance. Thus, the onus of negotiating inherent dualities for finding meaning in the organizational realm, and yet leaving room for a transcendental individual coherent self whose larger ‘internal conversation’ transcends the existential concern of the structured antagonism of the wage–employment relationship, lies upon the individual rather than the organization.

India has witnessed rapid growth and development in the employment and industrial relations landscape post the liberalization of the Indian economy in the 1990s, which has had far reaching implications on Industrial Relations. These cumulative changes have implied that there is a lacuna in our understanding of the aspirations of the Indian workforce and the subsequent changes that the field of Indian Industrial Relations is undergoing. Forum for Industrial Relations at XLRI (FIRE@X) organised the 6th Bi-annual National Industrial Relations conference organized at XLRI, Xavier School of Management, Jamshedpur on 11-12 January 2014 on the theme "Changing workforce and transforming IR Scenario". This conference served as the meeting point of leading industrialists, academics and trade union leaders to share their ideas and experiences and debate on the practices and policies. This article is a commentary on the conference that was organized.

This critical reflective paper draws upon my reading, studying and teaching employment relations (ER) and human resource management (HRM) over the years, from a sociological perspective. I make a compelling case for ER as a research activity, an organisational habit and a way of reflexive thinking. There is a false perception that ER is outdated. Indifferent to fads, ER endeavours to see clearly and speak the truth fearlessly and excavate the challenges and possibilities of the socio-economic exchange within any employment relationship. ER’s real strength is its granular holistic, multi-layered understanding of the totality of the wage-effort bargain. It has always been interdisciplinary because it draws from a vast canvas of sociology, economics, political economy and even psychology. Tracing its trajectory, I map the context in which ER evolved from Fordism to Post-Fordism, how HRM tried to take its place, and why it cannot do what ER does. It is only with this critical sceptical inquisitive spirit of ER that an effective emotionally intelligent transparent HR-lifecycle with a well-thought-out employee voice mechanism can craft better workplaces. ER in India speak for gig workers and other casualised employment and intervenes urgently on their behalf by bringing their concerns to academic discussion and advocating change. In conjunction with critical management studies, the sociology of work and ER in India must go to the nub of inequality. It must reach out to broader constituencies to mitigate workplace inequalities in different situational and longitudinal work contexts.

The article endeavours to understand the intellection, implementation and ramifications of change management on workers and managers through changes in the mode of work organisation and on organisational culture. It is a qualitative ethnographic study that tries to communicate the non-linear, partial nature of the change management process and the challenges that underpin its implementation in the Indian context. This paper makes a contribution to the larger intellectual conversation by going beyond the existing literature's commentary on the impact of lean manufacturing on employees, from merely a cause and effect standpoint. It does this by drawing attention to an indeterminate subjective space that underpins interaction of employee aspiration, and work related viewpoints, corporate image, infrastructural constraints and the mode of work organisation that lean manufacturing seeks to modify. This indeterminate subjective space of organisational interaction between multiple stakeholders determines the outcome of change management. It also brings out the importance of context in impacting senior management's decision making in its implementation of change management.The main impediments underlying the implementation of change management in the case study firm and India, comprised of limitations of personnel, infrastructure, market compulsions, supply chains and varying management repertoires and individual aspirations.The implementation of lean manufacturing in the case study firm was exacerbated by varying working arrangements prevalent within the same plant and degrees of automation and advancement in the same plant. Corporate and plant level management spoke of empowerment, participative management and long-term developmental objectives. In the same breath, there were more immediate economic and cost reduction imperatives for it to consider such as outsourcing and closing of its production shops. These counteracting measures in conjunction with the difficult Industrial Relations history of the plant made attempts to secure the wholehearted acquiescence of workers difficult. Poor communication and multiple anxieties of various stakeholders about their careers and relevance made the outcome the change management programme partial and unrealised. Finally, the paper has also highlighted the problems inherent in lean manufacturing and added voice to the sobering critique of lean manufacturing. Management and Labour Studies 40(1&2) 109-144