Dr. Swapnil Sahoo.
I study how organisations—from young ventures to multi-generational family firms—find ways forward when resources are tight. I also experiment carefully with AI in strategy teaching. I am on the faculty at Great Lakes Institute of Management, Gurgaon and earned my Ph.D. at XLRI Jamshedpur.
The organisations that shaped my work
Great Lakes Gurgaon, XLRI Jamshedpur, XIMB, Wipro, Accenture, Cognizant, Mahindra, 42Gears Mobility
Currently
Gurgaon, India
Years experience
Conference presentations
Lives reached / yr (Karma Yoga)
Karmabhoomis (field sites)
Active research streams
01 / About
A short bio.
I am an Assistant Professor of Strategy at Great Lakes Institute of Management, Gurgaon, where my work includes teaching, academic programme design, social-impact initiatives and institutional strategy. I earned my Ph.D. from XLRI Jamshedpur, specialising in Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Great Lakes is accredited by AACSB and AMBA.
I came to academia after 17 years in industry, with strategic roles at Wipro, Accenture, Cognizant and Mahindra. Most recently, as Global Partnership Head at 42Gears Mobility, I worked with senior leaders across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. I still bring that operator’s habit to the classroom: ideas have to survive contact with decisions, people and constraints.
My research begins with a question I kept encountering in practice: how do organisations manage to do more with less, and why are some able to keep doing it? I study that question through frugal innovation, jugaad, bricolage, effectuation, family firms and neurodiverse teams.
Education
- Ph.D. · XLRI Jamshedpur
- MBA (Finance & Marketing) · XIMB
- B.Tech (Electronics & Telecom) · Utkal University (ITER)
At a glance
- Assistant Professor · GLIM Gurgaon
- PhD supervisor · Strategy & Entrepreneurship
- Best Paper · IIM Kashipur (MERC 2023)
- Speaker · AOM 2025 · BAM 2025
02 / Research agenda
Doing more with less.
These four lines of inquiry return to the same practical question: what do people and organisations actually do when the resources they need are not available?
Doctoral dissertation · XLRI Jamshedpur
Entrepreneurial Resourcefulness in Resource-Constrained Environments
This dissertation remains the foundation of my current research. Several papers presented at AOM Copenhagen and BAM Kent in 2025 grew from it.
Entrepreneurial Resourcefulness
I study how founders and family firms put scarce resources to work, and where bricolage, effectuation and dynamic-capabilities theory help explain what they do.
Neurodiversity & Dynamic Capabilities
How cognitively diverse teams notice opportunities, act on them and adapt—including my work on the "spiky profile" in entrepreneurship theory (BAM 2025).
Frugal Innovation, Jugaad & Bricolage
How people create useful, affordable solutions when money and infrastructure are scarce, especially in family enterprises and emerging markets.
Effectuation & Family Business Dynamics
How governance, trust, succession and AI adoption shape innovation in family enterprises across generations.
03 / Selected publications
In print.
Peer-reviewed journals, Springer book chapters, teaching cases, and signed essays in the national press. Click any item for the source record.
Entrepreneurship Under Constraint: How Bricolage Transitions into Effectuation in Family Businesses
with Munish Thakur · Academy of Management Proceedings
Evaluating the Efficiency of Van Dhan Yojana Using DEA: Strategic Insights for Tribal Development
with N. Mishra & N. Mishra · International Research Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies
Impact of Institutional Pressures and Security on Blockchain Technology Adoption and Organizational Performance: An Empirical Study
The Journal of Technology Transfer · Springer
An Overview of Ethics and the Indian Philosophy
In: Applied Ethics and Rationality (SAPERE, Vol. 74) · Springer · ed. Kuruvilla Pandikattu
Pulling the Chariot Together: Jagannath, Collective Spirituality, and the Future of Inclusive Organizations
In: Inclusive Spirituality and Ethical Leadership · Spirituality Centre, XLRI · ed. Kuruvilla Pandikattu SJ · pp. 49–58
Three short-form strategy cases on Indian companies, published in Business Standard Smart (2026).
Case · 2026
How Granules India Rebuilt Trust Through Radical Transparency
Business Standard Smart
Case · 2026
How Cycle Pure and Wagh Bakri Built Moats Out of Value
Business Standard Smart
Case · 2026
Silence as Strategy: How Zerodha and Razorpay Won Without Noise
Business Standard Smart
CSR Times · Feb 2026
Why Budget 2026 Must Be a Doctrine of Defence, Not Just a Statement of Accounts
India Today · Dec 2025
VRS or Early Retirement? Why Your PF Needs a New Story for a New Life
Indian Express · Nov 2025
CAT 2025: How to Master the 40-Minute Race Per Section
BW Education · Jul 2025
Neuroscience of Learning in an AI Era
DataQuest · Feb 2025
How Entrepreneurs Are Building a More Secure Digital Future
NDTV · Sep 2025
India's employability gap & Yogya Bharat Mission
Business Standard · Jul 2025
Depositing big cash sums: tax rules & I-T notices
GoodReturns · Jul 2025
Why earning just over ₹50L can be a net loss
India Today · Jul 2025
Who is poor? Income inequality & the PPP debate
Business Standard · Jun 2025
RBI MPC meeting highlights
CNBC TV18 · Jan 2025
Budget 2025 expectations & the steel industry
Times Now · Jan 2025
Economic Survey 2025 live commentary
Financial Express · Jan 2025
Budget 2025: transforming India's education landscape
Business Standard · Jan 2025
Budget 2025 expectations: geospatial & satellite tech
04 / Conferences & talks
Where I present the work.
Conferences are where unfinished ideas meet hard questions. This record includes the papers, doctoral work and collaborations I have taken into those conversations.
- AOM 2026Philadelphia, PA, USA · 4 Aug, 1:15–2:45 PM · Marriott Downtown, Franklin 8
Entrepreneurship Under Constraint: How Bricolage Transitions into Effectuation in Family Businesses
86th Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management
BAM 2025Kent Business School, UK4 papers · dissertation clusterDrawn from the doctoral dissertation, "Entrepreneurial Resourcefulness in Resource-Constrained Environments."
- ·Thriving with Less: Family Entrepreneurship in Institutional Voids
- ·Towards a Unified Theory of Entrepreneurship: A Neurodiverse Promise of the Spiky Profile
- ·Conceptualising Family Business Resourcefulness in Resource-Constrained Environments
- ·Resourcefulness of Family Business in Penurious Environments
- AOM 2025Copenhagen, Denmark · Jul 25–29
Conceptualising Family Business Resourcefulness: A Socio-material Perspective on Family Firm Advantages in Resource-Constrained Environments
85th Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management
- XLRI · 2024
Cultivating Trust: Human Capital and Organizational Citizenship Behaviour in Family Enterprises
International Industrial Relations Conference · with Leeds University Business School & Friedrich Ebert Stiftung
- XLRI · 2024
Navigating the Maze: Corporate Bribery and Ethical Choices in Indian Family Firms
International Conference on Enabling Social and Business Responsibility
- XLRI · 2024
Conceptualizing Family Business Resourcefulness (FBR) in a Resource-Constrained Environment
Doctoral Colloquium on AI & Sustainability
- MERC 2023 · IIM Kashipur🏅 Best Paper in Track
A Study of How Family Involvement Impacts Sustainable Innovation in Family Firms
Entrepreneurship Track 1
- SBM 2023 · IIT Roorkee + ASU
An In-depth Analysis of the Impact of Family Involvement on Sustainable Innovation in Family Firms
- POMS India 2023 · XLRI
Exploring the Innovation Heritage: Family Involvement in Propelling R&D within Family Enterprises
- IIT Kharagpur · 9th MDC
Bibliometrics Analysis of Family Firms Internationalization
05 / Teaching
Strategic Management, Business Simulation and GenAI for Business.
I teach through cases, simulations, fieldwork and, where it genuinely helps, AI. These pages collect the briefs, session material and practice activities my students use.
Programme
1-Year MBA
Sessions, cases and reading lists for the experienced PGPM cohort.
Open page
Programme
2-Year MBA
The strategy and entrepreneurship modules taught across the PGDM terms.
Open page
Experiential Leadership
Karma Yoga
Students work with community partners, test useful interventions and reflect on what responsible leadership asks of them.
Open page
Strategy Capstone
Business Simulation
Twenty connected sessions in which choices in strategy, finance, markets, operations, people and ESG affect one another.
Open page
Teaching Resource
Case Study Preparation
Practice for structuring consulting cases, doing the analysis and explaining the recommendation clearly.
Open page
MBA & PhD
AI Mini Hackathon
The July 2026 build programme in which the incoming PGDM cohort turned student problems into testable GenAI prototypes.
Open page
Career
Placements
Choose roles carefully, make the CV evidential and rehearse stories until they sound like your own.
Open page
“Strategy is taught best in the same key it is lived — under constraint, with imperfect information, and in the company of people who disagree well.”
06 / PhD supervision
Working with me.
I supervise doctoral and pre-doctoral work in strategy, entrepreneurship and organisation theory. I take on only a few researchers in each cycle because close reading, candid feedback and regular conversation take time.
Send a 1-page proposalWhat I look for
- · A research puzzle, not only a topic
- · Methodological seriousness
- · Reference integrity (no fabrications)
- · Patience for revision
How I supervise
- · Weekly written check-ins
- · Theory-first, then design
- · Co-author when warranted
- · Honest, constructive critique
Open topics
- · Family business resourcefulness
- · AI in management education
- · Frugal innovation in services
- · Neurodiversity & capabilities
Before you write
- · Read two of my papers
- · Draft a 1-page concept note
- · State your research question crisply
- · Tell me why now, and why me
07 / Executive education
Learning built around the work leaders face.
I adapt these management-development modules to the decisions, constraints and participants in the room. The examples below include public-sector and community work.
Programmes conducted
Creativity in Problem Solving & Task Prioritization through Visual Thinking
A 1-day programme for the Indian Revenue Service at the National Academy of Direct Taxes, Delhi Campus — co-facilitated with Prof. S. K. Palhan. Participants left with visual problem maps and 30-60-90-day execution plans.
Experiential Learning for Underprivileged Students & Volunteer Teachers
Story-based values learning, creative puzzles, STEM demonstrations and team games — with replicable classroom activity templates left behind for the teachers.
Modular MDP curriculum
Module 01
Strategic Formulation & Leadership
- Top-down & bottom-up formulation
- Stakeholder influence on strategy
- Strategic leadership
- Vision & mission as design choices
Module 02
Implementation & Org Design
- Capabilities for execution
- Role of middle managers
- Structure & resource allocation
- The 7S framework
Module 03
Leading Teams & Change
- Communicating strategy
- Inspirational leadership
- Negotiation & influence tactics
- Pervasive commitment
Module 04
Performance & Control
- Balanced scorecard
- Management control systems
- Performance dashboards
- Finance vs. operational control
Module 05
Advanced Strategic Contexts
- Contextual intelligence
- Technology adoption
- Internationalisation & liability of newness
Custom
A programme for your context
I co-design programmes with companies, government academies and family-business owners. We begin with the decisions participants need to make, then choose the cases, exercises and follow-through that will help.
Discuss a programme08 / Gallery
People, rooms and shared work.
A small record of classrooms, field visits, conferences and celebrations with students and colleagues.
AACSB peer review visit · Societal impact in dialogue
With Dr. Raju Balakrishnan and Great Lakes colleagues—connecting Karma Yoga and the Sustainability CoE with SDG 4 and SDG 11.
Ideas in motion · Interactive classroom dialogue
Great Lakes community · In the field
A moment of recognition · The Gauntlet
At the judging table · CREST 2025
CREST 2025 · The Gauntlet
Strategy in dialogue · PGDM classroom
From problem to prototype · AI Mini Hackathon
AI Mini Hackathon 2026 · Awards and applause
Students and faculty celebrate a winning prototype team at Great Lakes Gurgaon. Event media shared by the Great Lakes Gurgaon programme team; photographer not identified.
From prototype to podium · AI Mini Hackathon 2026
A student team marks its achievement together on campus. Event media shared by the Great Lakes Gurgaon programme team; photographer not identified.
The room where ideas become working demonstrations
09 / Get in touch
Let’s talk.
Write if you are considering PhD work, planning an executive programme, inviting a speaker or simply want to share something relevant. I read my own email.
swapnil.sahoo@greatlakes.edu.in
Book a 1:1 mentoring slot
A focused conversation about a career decision, research idea or strategic question.
Subscribe to the newsletter
My notes on AI safety, security and academic life, published on Substack.
Official faculty page
Great Lakes Institute of Management, Gurgaon.