An article in the Harvard Business Review once said that the most valuable skill for the 21st century manager is the ability to work across cultures. Around the world, it is increasingly recognized that an understanding of a country's work culture plays a significant part in success at one's job. Every group of people has subtle drivers of behaviour, values and beliefs, an understanding of which could help you navigate your way around the workplace. Indians are no exception. We have some innate strengths that we seldom take credit for. Like the uncommon capacity to deal with ambiguity and to think on the fly; the emphasis we place on forming and sustaining relationships at work; and the willingness to go beyond the call of duty as we see our jobs as an extension of our personal lives. And then there are traits that may confuse the uninitiated at first and need some getting used to - such as saying 'yes' to an assigned task when we actually mean 'no', our flexible attitude to time, and the famous Indian head wag. Based on extensive interviews with corporate leaders - Indians as well as expatriates and repatriates, who offer insider and outsider perspectives on the psyche of the Indian in the workplace - How India Works is a guide to the cultural nuances and complexities of working in India. It will make your life in office a little easier.

Seminar paper from the year 2003 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 1,0 (A), University of Teesside (Teesside Business School), course: International Management Styles, language: English, abstract: Since the liberalisation of India many international players have entered the Indian market either on joint ventures with some Indian companies or independently. India has emerged as a major participant in the global market. For example, in the field of information technology it has become an important force in the world. Given this kind of development, management researchers in the recent past have also started showing interest in the Indian business environment and in finding out effective ways of doing business as well as managing people in their Indian operations. They have realised that many of the management practices and managerial styles as applied in the west can not be transplanted exactly in the same manner in the Indian context. The role of culture as it relates to norms, values and behaviour patterns has become increasingly important in the field of management issues. There is considerable evidence (e.g. of Hofstede and Trompenaars/Hampden-Turner) that people of different regions hold different work-related values. Such knowledge is important for international as well as national companies. Norms and values create assumptions and expectations. If they are not the same for people working together, troubles may arise. Such mismatches of perception are of special interest in the field of leadership, particularly regarding the relationship between leaders and subordinates. The ability to understand and interpret such situations is the basic prerequisite for being able to behave and communicate in an effective manner. After giving basic social-demographic features about the country, this paper examines the impact of culture on the style and process of management and leadership in India. The characteristics of the Indian culture are identified, analysed and interpreted. Culture is described from the general to the specific. Starting with national culture, the cultural dimensions of India are appraised using the models of Hofstede, Trompenaars/Hamden-Turner, Hall, Lewis and Fukuyama, moving on to the business culture and then family culture. The second part of the paper defines and discusses the different leadership styles and their effectiveness in the Indian environment in order to reach a conclusion as to how managers should actually do their job.

An international business expert helps you understand and navigate cultural differences in this insightful and practical guide, perfect for both your work and personal life. Americans precede anything negative with three nice comments; French, Dutch, Israelis, and Germans get straight to the point; Latin Americans and Asians are steeped in hierarchy; Scandinavians think the best boss is just one of the crowd. It's no surprise that when they try and talk to each other, chaos breaks out. In The Culture Map, INSEAD professor Erin Meyer is your guide through this subtle, sometimes treacherous terrain in which people from starkly different backgrounds are expected to work harmoniously together. She provides a field-tested model for decoding how cultural differences impact international business, and combines a smart analytical framework with practical, actionable advice.

Culture, Leadership, and Organizations reports the results of a ten-year research program, the Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE) research program. GLOBE is a long-term program designed to conceptualize, operationalize, test, and validate a cross-level integrated theory of the relationship between culture and societal, organizational, and leadership effectiveness. A team of 160 scholars worked together since 1994 to study societal culture, organizational culture, and attributes of effective leadership in 62 cultures. Culture, Leadership, and Organizations: The GLOBE Study of 62 Societies reports the findings of the first two phases of GLOBE. The book is primarily based on the results of the survey of over 17,000 middle managers in three industries: banking, food processing, and telecommunications, as well as archival measures of country economic prosperity and the physical and psychological well-being of the cultures studied. GLOBE has several distinguishing features. First, it is truly a cross-cultural research program. The constructs were defined, conceptualized, and operationalized by the multicultural team of researchers. Second, the industries were selected through a polling of the country investigators, and the instruments were designed with the full participation of the researchers representing the different cultures. Finally, the data in each country were collected by investigators who were either natives of the cultures studied or had extensive knowledge and experience in that culture. A unique feature of this book is that while it is an edited book and many experts have written the different chapters, unlike other edited books, it is a fully integrated, seamless, and cohesive book covering the many aspects of the theory underpinning the GLOBE.

The promotion of an enterprise culture and entrepreneurship in India in recent decades has had far-reaching implications beyond the economy, and transformed social and cultural attitudes and conduct. This book brings together pioneering research on the nature of India’s enterprise culture, covering a range of different themes: workplace, education, religion, trade, films, media, youth identity, gender relations, class formation and urban politics. Based on extensive empirical and ethnographic research by the contributors, the book shows the myriad manifestations of enterprise culture and the making of the aspiring, enterprising-self in public culture, social practice, and personal lives, ranging from attempts to construct hegemonic ideas in public discourse, to appropriation by individuals and groups with unintended consequences, to forms of contested and contradictory expression. It discusses what is ‘new’ about enterprise culture and how it relates to pre-existing ideas, and goes on to look at the processes and mechanisms through which enterprise culture is becoming entrenched, as well as how it affects different classes and communities. The book highlights the social and political implications of enterprise culture and how it recasts family and interpersonal relationships as well as personal and collective identity. Illuminating one of the most important aspects of India’s current economic and social transformation, this book is of interest to students and scholars of Asian Business, Sociology, Anthropology, Development Studies and Media and Cultural Studies.

In this landmark book, bestselling author, leadership coach and mythologist Devdutt Pattanaik shows how, despite its veneer of objectivity, modern management is rooted in Western beliefs and obsessed with accomplishing rigid objectives and increasing shareholder value. By contrast, the Indian way of doing business, as apparent in Indian mythology but no longer seen in practice accommodates subjectivity and diversity and offers an inclusive, more empathetic way of achieving success. Great value is placed on darshan, that is, on how we see the world and our relationship with Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth. Business Sutra uses stories, symbols and rituals drawn from Hindu, Jain and Buddhist mythology to understand a wide variety of business situations that range from running a successful tea stall to nurturing talent in a large multinational corporation. At the heart of the book is a compelling premise: if we believe that wealth needs to be chased, the workplace becomes a rana-bhoomi - a battleground of investors, regulators, employers, employees, vendors, competitors and customers, if we believe that wealth needs to be attracted, the workplace becomes a ranga-bhoomi - a playground where everyone is happy.

Local culture has long been recognised as a critically important factor in shaping management styles in different Asian countries. This book provides a comprehensive overview of culture and management in major East and Southeast Asian economies. Each chapter provides a survey of the country's history, culture and economy, going on to examine management in the country, together with management education and how management is currently changing. The book will provide an invaluable introduction for students of international management, for those studying management within East and Southeast Asia, and for businessmen trading with the region.