Culture, organisations and Management.
I shall start with a story that one of my friends and an alumni of our institute quoted in a recent speech. An Indian company was debating whether to allow the families of the employees should be allowed for a one day trip to the company. The company being in the food industry, the question was highly relevant form the hygiene point of view.
The Chairman of the company himself was a highly prominent one who was at the forefront of a revolution in the country. He was for the proposal but had to face stiff resistance to it from a sizeable chunk of the powers that be.
It was pointed out that allowing such a proposal would destroy the organisation, to which the doyen replied. “It would destroy the organization , but save the institution”.
I need not mention who the great man was or which the institution is. I am hinting at another point a little obliquely.
I need not mention who the great man was or which the institution is. I am hinting at another point a little obliquely.
Cut to Hofstede with his country metaphors for some of the countries that capture the essence of organizations in those countries.
Country metaphors as implicit models for organisations
A cultural metaphor is a major phenomenon, institution, or activity in a nation with which most citizens identify cognitively or emotionally and through which it is possible to describe the national culture and its frame of reference. People react according to their mental software. The attitude to what an organisation should be like also seems to be influenced by the two work related value dimensions of power distance and uncertainty avoidance ( Hofstede, 1980) which decides the question of who has the power to decide and what rules and procedures will be followed to attain the desired results.
Country metaphors as implicit models for organisations
A cultural metaphor is a major phenomenon, institution, or activity in a nation with which most citizens identify cognitively or emotionally and through which it is possible to describe the national culture and its frame of reference. People react according to their mental software. The attitude to what an organisation should be like also seems to be influenced by the two work related value dimensions of power distance and uncertainty avoidance ( Hofstede, 1980) which decides the question of who has the power to decide and what rules and procedures will be followed to attain the desired results.
Implicit models of what an organisation should be are influenced by the national cultures of the subjects. In the 1970s Owen James Stevens of the INSEAD business school, reported the implicit organizational model of the French as a ‘pyramid of people’, the Germans as a ‘well oiled machine’, the British, the ‘village market’ (Hofstede, 1991) of India, ‘the extended family’ (Negandhi and Prasad, 1971) and the Japanese, ‘the garden’ (Gannon, 2004).
My points are
1. the metaphor for India is an extended family
2. This is so ingrained in the Indian mind that no amount of training or development activities can remove from the minds of the people the primacy of the family over the organization.
3. Even within the organization, the relations are those that consider primary relations as they are and the formal relations as somewhat grafted on artificially and temporarily.
4. The crucial question is how did the doyen hit the nail so precisely without any extensive research what Hofstede and his ilk so precisely arrived at the Indian Psyche.
5. By extension shouldn’t we as management professionals develop an Indian Management taking into consideration this crucial nature of INDIA?
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