1925
Born in Jaipur, Rajasthan, on 21 January.
A tribute & reference resource
Dr. Udai Pareek, the father of HRD in India
Before "culture" became a buzzword, Dr. Udai Pareek was measuring it. A psychologist by training and an institution builder by conviction, he spent five decades turning the fuzzy parts of organisational life - trust, initiative, role stress, motivation - into things you could actually observe, name, and improve.
This site is a small, carefully checked map of that work: a glossary of his instruments, formulas, and big ideas, and a few short quizzes built on his real frameworks. No jargon walls, no gates - just the work itself.
A life in brief
A few verified milestones - the short version of a long career.
1968
Publishes his motivational theory of development - the "Development Formula" - arguing that societal development depends on achievement and extension motivation working together, minus dependence.
1974-75
With Dr. T.V. Rao, reviews the performance appraisal system at Larsen & Toubro - an assignment that grows into the design of India's first dedicated HRD department, and the beginning of HRD as a formal function in Indian industry.
IIMA Years
Serves as the Larsen & Toubro Professor of Organisational Behaviour at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, where much of his instrument-building work takes shape.
1985
The National HRD Network (NHRDN) is founded, giving the HRD movement he helped spark a national professional home. It remains India's largest professional body for HR practitioners.
2010
Passes away on 21 March, leaving behind dozens of books, hundreds of papers, and a generation of practitioners who still use his instruments daily.
Start here
Two ways into the work - read it, or try it on yourself.
The Glossary
Twenty-two entries across three shelves: the Instruments he built (OCTAPACE, the Role Efficacy Scale, the Organisational Role Stress Scale, and more), the Formulas & Frameworks he reasoned with, and the Big Ideas underneath it all.
The Quizzes
Five short self-assessments - each under two minutes, each built on one of Pareek's actual frameworks. Find your workplace's OCTAPACE profile, your role efficacy lean, your team's real decision-making style, and more. Results appear instantly; nothing is collected.
The idea that outlived him
Pareek drew a line between managing an organisation and building an institution - one runs on efficiency, the other on mission, values, and impact meant to outlive any single leader. Most of what this site covers is, one way or another, in service of that distinction.
Kartik Mandaville, curator
Founder & CEO of Springworks · Dr. Udai Pareek Scholar 2025-26
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In January 2026, the National HRD Network named Kartik Mandaville a Dr. Udai Pareek Scholar - a recognition instituted in Dr. Pareek's name, conferred on the recommendation of the jury of NHRDN's Udai Pareek Memorial Endowment. In his own words, what made it particularly humbling is that he is the only non-HR professional to have received it.
- Presented on 21 January 2026 in Delhi NCR, at a ceremony commemorating the birth centenary of Dr. Udai Pareek.
- Kartik has committed the award to a simple intent: growing HR and building a better future of work through initiatives that stay true to the spirit of Dr. Pareek's learning.
That commitment didn't start with the award. Kartik built The Shape of Work - a community of over 350,000 HR leaders and professionals - and co-authored The Employee-First Blueprint, a book of frameworks and strategies for employee-first workplaces. This site is one of the initiatives the award made feel necessary.
"Bringing Dr. Pareek's rigorously validated instruments into a modern, easy-to-deploy platform is something we feel a genuine responsibility to do. His work is too important to remain locked inside academic textbooks."
- Kartik Mandaville, Founder & CEO, Springworks