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Case The Letter War PDF
Case The Letter War PDF
JittuSingh
Introduction
Established in 1945, Nalanda is a renowned
institute for graduate and postgraduate
courses in several professional disciplines.
Located on a compact, picturesque campus,
it has steadily built up an international reputation for the high quality of its educational
programmes.
Nalanda is a fully residential institute. All
its full-time students (around 500) and its
faculty (averaging 50) live on the campus in
residences meant for them. Without exception, they take special pride in the institute's
unique campus culture. Its distinguishing
features are strong camaraderie, close and
informal relationships between faculty and
.>tudents,and a value system that emphasizes
*This case has been written by Jittu Singh, Professor at XLRI Jamshedpur
based on a real incident; however, all identities have been disguised.
GLOBAL
BUSINESS
REVIEW,
9:2 (2008):299-309
SAGEPublications LosAngeles/London/New
Delhi/Singapore
001: 10.1177/097215090800900209
(Contact:
jittusingh@xlri.ac.in.).
It is
Financial
Controller]
Administrator
..
..
.
..
Chairpersons of Committees
Admissions
Student Affairs
Student Placement
Distance Learning Programmes
Continuing Education
Programmes
Doctoral Programme
Others
Faced with his first crisis since his appointment as director, Dr Ghosh was visibly on
tenterhooks. After a rushed breakfast, he
walked briskly from his on-campus residence
to the Institute's administrative complex, ran
up the flight of steps leading to his office, and
entered it gasping for breath. He had only
15 minutes left before a scheduled meeting
with Mr V. Jacob (Financial Controller) and
Dr P. Khan (Chairperson of the Doctoral
Committee-or CDC).
As his secretary brought him a cup of
steaming coffee, he settled down and reviewed once again a series of pungent letters
exchanged between Dr Khan and Mr Jacob.
He was worried that the controversy between the two was getting out of control, and
needed to be checked promptly-before
it
spilled over to muddy the campus' harmonious life.But he was still not sure how to handle
the delicate professorial egos involved.
The first salvo in the 'letter war' was fired
by Dr Khan, who was in the second year of
P. Khan
At the receiving end, Mr Jacob (who had
earlier held responsibility
for Student Affairs, played several games regularly with
students, was working
towards a doctoral
degree in finance, was involved only marginally in teaching programmes,
and was regarded by few as somewhat opinionated)
found the tone of Dr Khan's memo highly aggressive and offensive. Enraged, he decided
to repay in kind. He shot back the following
reply almost instantly (and marked copies
to all on Dr Khan's circulation list-plus
his
own office staff):
Dear Dr Khan:
I hate to engage in arguments
and
counter-arguments.
Whatever be your line
of thinking on organization and the functions therein, my views on academic and
managerial functions at Nalanda are:
GlobalBusinessReview,9:2 (2008):299-309
....
1.Who (or what) do you hold accountable for triggering the conflict described in the case?
2. What led to an escalation of the conflict?
3. What differences do you see between
the roles of 'sanctioning' and 'disbursing' authorities? Should they be
combined into one office-or remain
separate?
4. From the communication
point of
view, how effective ~ere the e-mails exchanged between Dr Khan and
MrJacob?
On a more general note, what are the
advantages/ disadvantages of e-mail
vis-a-vis conventional memos (off-line
and on paper) and face-to-facemeetings?
5. What do you think of Dr Khan's e-mail
to the director and to his colleagues on
the CDC?
6. What would you have done differently if you were in the shoes of Dr Khan,
Mr Jacob, and Dr Ghosh?
7. As a common mentor to Dr Khan and
Mr Jacob, what advice would you give
to them now?
8. Had Dr Ghosh turned to you for advice
about the best way of handling the dispute, what would you have suggested?