Arvind K. Birdie, PhD, is an associate professor and acting principal at IIMT School of Management (Oxford Brooks University), Gurgaon, India. Dr. Birdie has been consistently recognized for her teaching abilities. As an avid reader, her strength lies in teaching various interdisciplinary subjects with equal ease. Besides academic teaching and training, she has organized management development programs for corporate and academicians. She is a regular presenter at various international and national conferences and has published several papers in refereed journals. Her areas of interest include leadership, work-life balance, virtual work, and positive psychology. She is taking post-graduate and graduate courses of management for over 12 years. Madhu Jain, PhD, is presently associate professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Rajasthan, Jaipur, India. She is also director of the Department of Life Long Learning, also at the University of Rajasthan, Jaipur, India. She has been teaching and guiding postgraduate, graduate, and PhD students for over two decades and has supervised several research projects at the advanced level as well. Dr. Jain has published nearly 40 papers in scholarly national and international journals and also published four books in the area of psychology. Dr. Jain is associated with many national and international associations. As a student, she was a Gold Medalist and Merit Holder at the graduate and postgraduate level.
Apple Academic Press, Inc., is proud to announce that Dr. Arvind K. Birdie has been honored with the Prof. Mrs. Manju Thakur Memorial Award 2016 for Innovative Contributions in Research/Test Construction/Book Publication for her book, Organizational Behavior and Virtual Work: Concepts and Analytical Approaches. The award was presented during the 52nd National and 21st International Conference of the Indian Academy of Applied Psychology, held at the Department of Psychology, University of Rajasthan, Jaipur, February 23rd-25th, 2017. Our congratulations to Dr. Birdie! This book could not have come at a better time. Currently organizations globally are dealing with a dynamic business as well as a cultural environment that is redefining how organizations will structure and conduct themselves. The book focuses on all the quintessential aspects, like role of leadership, trust, self-efficacy and work-life balance, in an effective manner. A fantastic read for anyone trying to understand and innovate toward building a performance-oriented organization that draws the best from human resource and the IT enablers that are available to be deployed. Unlike other texts on the subject area the book brings a balance of theory and practice. Part 2 offers a critical analysis and presents research that connects practice with theory in a seamless manner. Chapters on work-life balance offer a critical view of this rather ignored aspect. The discussion on managing performance of virtual workers is an aspect that is going to become increasingly important to respond to. The book is a must read for a wide audience of readers, recommend folks to grab a copy in real earnest. - Prof. Sandeep Munjal, Director, Vedatya Institute, Gurgaon, India