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Enhancing European Competitiveness by Leveraging Highly Skilled Indian Professionals

Final Report Summary - EU COMPETITIVENESS (Enhancing European Competitiveness by Leveraging Highly Skilled Indian Professionals)

Work Package Planned Date of Completion: Current Status

WP1: Orientation phase = completed
WP2: Contribution of Indian professionals = completed
WP3: Parameters of psychological contracts = completed
WP4: Instruments to measure psychological contracts = partly completed
WP5: Measuring psychological contracts = partly completed
WP6: Analysis of current HRM policies in Western Europe = Not started
WP7: Framing futuristic HRM policies = Not started
WP8: Developing toolkits to implement new HRM policies in organizations = Not started

WP1: According to the plan, the research should have commenced by November 2010. However, the research actually commenced with transfer of knowledge activities from December 2010, with a delay of 1 month. However, we started with the WP1 and training courses in January 2011 until mid-February 2011 staying at the locations of Kienbaum, Nyenrode and TECG. Status: completed.

WP2: Research has been conducted and is written down in the paper "The Contribution of Indian Professionals"which has been approved by EU. Moreover an adjusted version has been also accepted by the Journal of Business and Globalisation in August, 2012. This Journal is read as well by scholars as by practitioners who are interested in developments in the field of business and globalization. Also the knowledge from this phase has been brought in several sessions at the conference “The Academy of Management” held in Boston at which scientists and practitioners from several nationalities are sharing knowledge and thoughts. Hence, with the outcomes of this first phase we have made efforts to disseminate knowledge to the business world. Status: Completed.

WP3 “Parameters of the Psychological Contract” was completed and a report is written on it. This report was finalized at the end of September, 2012. With the developed instrument we want to start the validation and measurement amongst highly educated Indians and Western Europeans after the completion of the report in relation to the two prior phases. Status: completed.

W4 “Measuring Psychological Contracts” had some difficulties because the firm with which the consortium has concluded a agreement for measurement decided to withdraw. Hence, the consortium looked for other parties and one party was willing to participate in WP4. The status is that the consortium collected the data and are now analysing this. Completion is expected in July 2013. Status: in progress.

After the submission of the first mid-term report, our partners KMC and TECG announced to stop with the project due to the fact that Laura Boege (TECG) left her organization to work abroad and KMC decided to stop the contract with Julia Richter. Because of the economic turmoil and conditions which affected the selection and recruitment industry severely, both companies decided on to withdraw from this EU-project and to stop the the collaboration with Nyenrode. At that moment, Nyenrode went looking for other international partners but unfortunately failed to find a suitable partner before the expiration date of this project. Hence, no work packages were conducted after the first term, and no budget was used. In the following section an overview of the circumstances from July 2013 onwards are listerd.

- In July 2013, the new CEO Walter Jochman of KMC (Kienbaum Management Consultants), raised doubts whether to continue with the involvement of Julia Richter as a project member and to stay involved in the project for the second term. Many correspondence between Nyenrode and KMC was conducted about the necessity of the involvement of KMC in the period July-October 2013. However, in November 2013, KMC announced that they had decided to step finally out of the project.

- In September 2013, the CEO Hans Jonkers of TECG (The Executive Consulting Group) announced that Laura Boege, who was a project member, resigned and moved to another employer. In first instance, TECG notified that they would look for a replacement. In November 2013, TECG announced suddenly that Laura Boege wouldn’t be replaced.

- In October 2013 the consortium submitted the periodic report including the project and financial progress till August 2013. The possibility of KMC stepping out of the consortium was mentioned in that report. Also, we had a phone call with the then Project Officer Joanna Sowinska in February 2014 on the situation (KMC and TECG leaving the consortium) and our efforts to look for another partner.

- Confronted with both partners stepping out of the project, Nyenrode decided to freeze the project and to look in 2014 for an international partner. Although, some parties showed some interest, they all were finally not willing to step into the project. The main reason was that they couldn’t invest time in the project because of the bad economic conditions.

- As such, the project is still on hold without any progress. The disintegration of the consortium and the withdrawal of the team members Julia Richter (KMC) and Laura Boege (TECG) urged us first to look for new partners. Due to the fact that we didn’t succeed in this, the project didn’t progress in the aftermath of the mid-term evaluation. Thus, no studies were conducted, no reports were prepared, secondments and recruitments didn’t happen, and no finance was utilized in this period.