<iframe src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/ns.html?id=GTM-PHTV9K7" height="0" width="0" style="display:none;visibility:hidden">
Loading
Skip to Main Content
Product cover image for Singh & Kaur Partners: Power Struggles and Skepticism amid Change

Singh & Kaur Partners: Power Struggles and Skepticism amid Change

Rakshit Agarwal, Rahul Chandra Sheel

Product #:W39077
Supplier:Ivey
Discipline:Human Resource Management, Organizational Behaviour/Leadership
Setting:India, 2020
Details:Case (PDF) • 9 pages • 2025-04-28

Subjects:

Change managementResistance to changeOrganizational changeOrganizational cultureOrganizational behavior

Industries:

Business services sector

Geography:

IndiaAsia
Your Price:$9.71

Purchase this material with a free Educator Account and enjoy more benefits:

  • Free Educator Copy
  • Free Teaching Notes
  • Build your coursepack
  • Discounted academic price

In mid-2022, Simerneet Singh, founding and managing partner of Singh & Kaur Partners, a leading full-service law firm headquartered in Bangalore, India, faced mounting internal resistance after introducing a new group of non-legal professionals to drive practice development. Seeking to enhance collaboration and client management, the firm had also rolled out a data management tool designed to consolidate client and prospect information. However, the Legal Practice Development (LPD) Group struggled to gain legitimacy amid entrenched power dynamics, and the adoption of the tool met with skepticism. With competition in the Indian legal services industry intensifying and client needs evolving, Singh had to decide how best to manage stakeholder concerns, build support for the new initiatives, and position the firm for sustainable growth.

Learning Objectives

This case is suitable for courses on organizational behaviour, organizational change and development, strategic human resource management, and power and influence, at both graduate and postgraduate levels, as well as in executive education programs. It offers insights into managing change within a professional service firm, highlighting the sources of resistance and the challenges of fostering a collaborative culture amid entrenched power dynamics. Students can diagnose the ongoing change through the lenses of structure, systems, and strategy, while analyzing the conflicting powers and influence among stakeholders. The case encourages application of change models such as Kotter’s eight-step change model, Burke–Litwin’s causal model, and Kirkpatrick’s evaluation model. A more advanced analysis allows students to connect organizational change and development to broader human resource management and organizational behaviour themes, including compensation and rewards, organizational structure and design, and motivation theories.

After working through the case and assignment questions, students will be able to do the following:

  • Understand the complexities and challenges involved in implementing change in a professional service firm.
  • Apply change management theories and models to diagnose and address the issues in the case.
  • Appreciate the crucial role communication plays in generating internal buy-in for a change.
  • Understand the effect of intra-firm power dynamics on change implementation.
  • Understand the various impacts organizational change has on different stakeholders.
  • Understand the various inducements that can motivate stakeholders to accept change.
Loading
Case Study: Singh & Kaur Partners: Power Struggles and Skepticism amid Change (English version) | Ivey Publishing