Professionalizing a religio-centric firm through workplace learning

Abstract

Rakesh along with his brothers, Subhash Patel and Mihir Patel, promoted, owned, and ran Steel Tubes and Pipes Ltd (STPL), a medium-sized company that manufactured tubes and pipes made of stainless steel, exotic metals, and carbon. In 2012, the company generated sales revenue of `30,000 million (USD 467 million) with a 16 per cent profit on operating margins. In 2014, it had a capacity for manufacturing of about 30,000 metric tons of pipes (20,000 for welded pipes and 10,000 for seamless pipes) and more than 350,000 tons of carbon steel. Some of STPL’s popular products were high-frequency welded pipes, welded tubes, saw pipes, electric-resistant welded pipes, seamless tubes and pipes, etc. STPL employed around 2,000 full-time employees, including about 700 white-collar employees. The 1,300 blue-collar workers were recruited through over 70 labour contractors,1 who were spread over different villages in Gujarat and Rajasthan. (See Exhibit 1 for the group organogram.) A few daily wage workers were also hired locally to compensate for any shortfall, that is, in case a full-time worker did not report for work. STPL was regarded as a quality supplier in the highly competitive western Indian market. It catered to public, private, and joint-sector companies in power, chemical, petrochemicals, refinery, fertilizer, oil and gas, water distribution, sugar, food and dairy, automobiles, aeronautics, and space technology.