Unveiling benefits through franchising in Indian power distribution: addressing the resources scarcity

Abstract

PurposeThe Indian power distribution companies are increasingly recognizing franchising for reviving their high loss-making rural pockets. The motivation for franchising has been a reduction of the franchisor's resource scarcity by bringing in operational efficiency and improved service quality to end consumers. However, there is a dearth of evidence on the influence of the franchisee's operations in addressing the resource scarcity of franchisors in predominantly rural areas. This study contributes towards filling the research gap.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative embedded multiple case study was conducted. The cases comprised two rural franchisees operating towards attaining the common goal. The study was built on archival analysis, personal observations and semi-structured interviews with the franchisors and franchisee officials across the organization's hierarchical levels. A conceptual model based on the review of prior literature formed the initial set of coding for the study. The data were presented based on within-case and across-case analysis.FindingsThe analysis revealed that the contract design impacts the requisite operational efficiency achievement. This variation could be elaborated by factors, such as system adaptation across organizational hierarchy, autonomy and independence, review and feedback systems, monitoring, a professional's attitude, bureaucracy, adaption with the local areas, risk sharing, incentives and compensation structure.Research limitations/implicationsThe study findings could be generalized to the extent of similar socio-economic conditions, prevailing governance mechanisms and law and orders. Additionally, since the law does not mandate the regulatory commissions to scrutinize the performance of the franchisees, the study was built on data shared by the franchisees and the discom. Further, this study considered the performance of only two performing franchisees. Matching these actualities with the discoveries of this study remains a continuing project as participation of private players is increasingly being recognized. Therefore, the insights drawn from this study could be used to improve the franchise model and can be scaled up across the nation, regions and sectors.Originality/valueThere is a dearth of literature on franchising in electricity distribution. This study is one of the first studies on studying the franchise system in the electricity distribution sector through the application of a well-accepted management theory.

Can organization team culture benchmark effective teams – performance management concerns, insights and HR implications

“…While the vertical hierarchy was replaced with team structures, the organization has been facing team-related challenges particularly in terms of low engagement of team members, lack of autonomy and confrontation issues over the past few years. Making teams perform is key to the success of the SBUs in order to achieve organizational vision of becoming one of the most efficient power generating companies globally, having an efficient power transmission system, and provider of customer satisfaction through service excellence (Pandey and Ghodke, 2019; Das, 2021; Jha and Singh, 2021; Sengupta and Mukherjee, 2022). In order to achieve its energy vision 2025, the company endeavors to provide an environment in which each team member in the organization strives to be a high performer and is engaged on a continuous basis.…”