Senior managers of the Tehri Hydro Development Corporation watch Bollywood films as part of their corporate social responsibility training. Picture by Ashwinee Pati

Bhubaneswar, Jan. 25: Corporate managers have started watching Bollywood films, not for entertainment but to hone their skills in corporate social responsibility.

The Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar, (XIMB) here has included four feature films in the curriculum to impart training to senior managers of Tehri Hydro Development Corporation.

The movies — Well Done Abba, Swadesh, Chak De India and Manthan — are being academically dissected to learn the skills of community mobilisation and institution building.

“Corporate managers prefer to learn by discussing a situation rather than discussing book-based theory. Films provide them with the opportunity to learn how they want to. We have changed the training pedagogy completely to suit the need of the course and also the learning behaviour of senior managers,” said Niraj Kumar, XIMB faculty member.

The module has been broken up into smaller units and each unit is being covered with the help of a feature film.

Well Done Abba is shown to allow participants to learn the context of development, whereas the film Swadesh is being used to make participants understand the basic qualities of a manager. Similarly, Chak De India provides them with an entertaining tool for knowledge regarding the institution building process. “These films have been selected to meet the basic objectives of module. Therefore, so we educate while entertaining them,” added Kumar.

“A film-based class discussion is interesting and involving. I continue to enjoy the sessions without feeling bored or tired said,” said N.C. Joshi, deputy general Manager, HR of THDC and also one of the participants. Participants also find that situations in the film are similar to what they experience in corporate life. “The condition in our area is more or less similar when we started our project in one of the districts of Uttaranchal as it was shown in Well Done Abba. We could identify each character to some one in the project area,” said Rajeswar Giri, senior project manager, THDC.

“A good film followed by detailed discussions in context of what we are doing under CSR is real fun. We see, we learn, we imbibe, and we make those learnings a part of our workings….it looks so simple because of film” said senior manager Amardeep.

“I have been using films for teaching the students of management but using films for the senior managers of corporate world is paying. Participants are enjoying and learning.” said Prof. Kumar.

XIMB is running one year certificate programme on CSR, and R&R Corporate Social Responsibility and Resettlement & Rehabilitation for the managers of Rishikesh based PSU THDC India Ltd. Sixteen managers are attending this year long course, informed Prof. Latha Ravindran, Coordinator of the Programme