5 days ago
- Business
- Business Standard
'Western vs Indian': Differing management approaches reflect cultural roots
Western management abhors ambiguity. Indians tolerate and thrive in it
R Gopalakrishnan Mumbai
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Several Indian thinkers (me included) place an emphasis on an 'Indian' way as compared to a 'Western' way of management. They refer to Swami Vivekananda or the Mahabharata to draw lessons. Is this relevant or valid? There is some degree of validity, but only some, particularly in the equilibrium between efficiency and effectiveness.
Our assumptions about life and work are shaped by deep and unmanifest influences of culture, for example, deference to power, authority, and age, as seen in Indian business leaders genuflecting before ministers and bureaucrats. When I saw North Atlantic Treaty Organization chief Mark Rutte, a blunt Dutchman,