Harvard to research Taj?s 26 11 response

Updated on: Friday, January 28, 2011

The heroic response by employees of Mumbai’s landmark Taj Hotel during the 26/11 terror attacks is now a case study at Harvard Business School. The research focuses on the staff’s selfless service for its customers and how they went beyond their call of duty to save lives.

The multimedia case study ‘Terror at Taj Bombay: Customer-Centric Leadership’ by HBS professor Rohit Deshpande documents “the bravery and resourcefulness shown by employees” during the attack.

The study focuses on why Taj employees stayed at their posts, jeopardising their personal safety, in order to save the hotel guests. It also tries to study how that level of loyalty and dedication can be replicated elsewhere. A dozen Taj employees died trying to save the lives of the hotel guests, during the attacks. “Even senior managers couldn’t explain the behaviour of the employees,” Deshpande said .

He added, “Even though the employees knew all the exits in the hotel and could have easily fled the hotel building, some stayed back to help the guests. These people instinctively did the right thing. In the process, some of them, gave up their lives to save the guests.”

A documentary-style account of events, the case study also includes video interviews with hotel staff and footage of the attack. Another key concept of the study is that in India, “there is a paternalistic equation between an employer and employee that creates kinship.”

Harvard to research Taj?s 26 11 response

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