Ramadhar Singh, PhD (Purdue)
Professor (1979-1988), Organisational Behaviour Area (Link)
Ramadhar Singh earned his BA Hons. (1965) and MA (1968) degrees in experimental psychology from the University of Bihar at Muzaffarpur, Bihar, and MS (1972) and PhD (1973) degrees in experimental social psychology from Purdue University at West Lafayette, Indiana in USA. He served as a lecturer in psychology at Patna University (1968-1973), an assistant professor of psychology at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur (1973-79), and a professor of organisational behaviour at Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmedabad (1979-1988). He moved to Singapore in 1988 and retired as a professor of psychology from the National University of Singapore (NUS) in 2010. He spent his sabbaticals at the University of Rochester, New York, USA and the University of Oxford, UK (2003-04) and at Purdue University (2008). During 2010-16, he was the distinguished professor of management at the IIM Bangalore. He has been a distinguished university professor at the Amrit Mody School of Management, Ahmedabad University, Navrangpura, Ahmedabad since July 7, 2016. (Link)
Ramadhar Singh is a fellow of the British Psychological Society (1992), Singapore Psychological Society (1992), Society for Personality and Social Psychology (1992), American Psychological Association (1993), Association for Psychological Science (APS 1993), and National Academy of Psychology (NAoP) India (2008). He had served as a consulting editor of the Asian Journal of Social Psychology, Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, Journal of Theoretical Social Psychology, and Review of General Psychology, and as an associate editor of the Asian Journal of Social Psychology and the IIMB Management Review.
In 2009, NUS students voted Ramadhar Singh as an Inspiring Mentor. In 2013, the APS listed only him from India among the Faces and Minds of Psychological Science (Link), a website of influential psychologists over the world. IIM Indore bestowed upon him its first-ever Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Research (Link) on June 20, 2021, to "...celebrate his commitment to and a quest for knowledge of human behavior in organization and society." IIT Kanpur established an annual Prabha and Ramadhar Singh Distinguished Lecture in Psychology (Link) from January 2022. His American alma mater Purdue University honoured him by the Distinguished Alumni Award in Psychological Sciences (Link; Link; Link) of the College of Health and Human Sciences on March 25, 2022.
What makes Ramadhar Singh unique among Indian academics?
Ramadhar Singh conducted experimental research in management and psychology at the levels of the individual (decision making, impression formation, interpersonal attraction), group (age-related changes, intergroup relations), organisation (diversity, job satisfaction, leadership effectiveness, prediction of performance, reward allocation), and society (cross-cultural differences, justice and fairness, intuitive prosecution, prediction of donation) since 1970. His articles have appeared in prime international journals of psychology (e.g., Asian Journal of Social Psychology, Basic and Applied Social Psychology, British Journal of Social Psychology, Child Development, Cognitive Development, Developmental Psychology, European Journal of Social Psychology, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Journal of Genetic Psychology, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of Research in Personality, Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, Personal Relationships, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Personality and Social Psychology Compass, etc.) and management (e.g., Applied Psychology: An International Review, Journal of Applied Psychology, Omega: The International Journal of Management Science, Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, etc...).
As reported by Kulbhushan Balooni (director in-charge, IIM Kozhikode: 2014-18, currently director IIM Kashipur: 2018-), Ramadhar Singh's writings are so original and basic that they were cited in (1) textbooks of industrial and organisational psychology, management, organisational behaviour, psychology, and social psychology; (2) journals of animal husbandry, biology, communication, economics, finance, law, marketing, physics, physiology, political science, psychology, sociology, and social work; (3) books of political science, communication, marketing, law, public policy, organisational behaviour, and human resource management; and (4) handbooks of industrial and organisational psychology, leadership, and social psychology. In his interview of Ramadhar Singh, Balooni had rightly predicted in 2018:
"...Singh's dedication to psychological sciences and persistence in publishing his findings in international journals have been extraordinary. He has had an enormous influence on management thought and practice. More important, his multidisciplinary influence is likely to grow even more over the coming years" (p. 143).
Ramadhar Singh's life reinforces an important message: Where there is will, there is a way.
To celebrate the 2022 Purdue University Distinguished Alumni Award to Ramadhar Singh, Vishal Gupta, an associate professor of organizational behaviour and chair of the Ashank Desai Centre of Leadership and Organisation at IIMA, has highlighted Singh's key scholarly roles and contributions to the literature while he was at the Institute, and his post-IIMA career and the recognition that has come his way, at this link.
(Biography provided by Vishal Gupta in 2022)
Date of Birth: May 16, 1945
