July | 2010 NHRD Network Journal 1 CHANGES IN HUMAN RESOURCE PRACTICES IN LARGE RAPID GROWTH FIRMS IN THE INDIAN SOFTWARE SERVICES INDUSTRY PADMAJA PALEKAR and Dr VASANTHI SRINIVASAN About the Authors Ms. Padmaja Palekar is a doctoral student at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore in the OB & HRM area and expects to graduate in March 2011. She has presented her research at various international and national conferences, the most recent being the International Human Resource Management Conference at Birmingham, UK in June 2010, and the conference on Global competitiveness through human resource management organized by IIMB Management Review. Her proposal has been accepted for presentation at the prestigious SMS conference to be held in Rome in September 2010. Vasanthi Srinivasan, a product of XLRI, has pursued the Fellow Program in Management, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore. She is currently the Associate Professor in the Department of Organizational Behaviour & Human Resources Management, IIM – Bangalore. Dr. Srinivasan is the Chairperson in The Centre for Corporate Governance and Citizenship. She is a Life Member of the National HRD Network India and a Member of the National Institute of Personnel Management, Bangalore chapter. She is also a Member of the CII Bangalore sub committees on Corporate Social Responsibility and Disability. She is the Regional co-coordinator for the South and East Asia on the Global Survey of Business Ethics Ms. Vasanthi Srinivasan has contributed to various articles and publications in national and international forums. Introduction I n the last decade and a half, India has emerged as a major exporter of software on the international map. The software services industry has grown from USD 4 billion in revenues in 1998 to a USD 64 billion industry in 2009, employing over 2 million people. Its contribution to India’s GDP has gone up approximately five times from 1% to 5%, in the last decade (Nasscom, 2008). Arora et al (2001) in their study on the Indian software industry concluded that the industry is characterized by services rather than product orientation, export oriented, and largely managed by professionals and entrepreneurial managements. This