Malik, A.

Pereira, Vijay

English

Portsmouth University Research Portal (Pure)

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East is East? Understanding Aspects of Indian Culture(s) within Organisations 
 
A Special Issue of Culture and Organization 
Volume 21, issue 5 (2015) 
 
Special Issue Editors 
Vijay Pereira, University of Portsmouth, UK 
Ashish Malik, University of Newcastle, Australia 
 
“No culture can live, if it attempts to be exclusive.” 
 
(M.K. Gandhi, cited in Uyesugi and Shipley 2005, 305) 
 
This call is an attempt to rekindle interest in understanding aspects of Indian culture in 
organisations. Though there have been previous special issues focusing on topics such as India-
specific management including human resource management practices and Indian firms’ 
internationalisation strategies (see for e.g. Human Resource Management, 2010; Journal of 
World Business, 2012), the cultural aspects have been largely ignored. This special issue aims to 
fill this glaring gap. The World Bank predicts that globally in the near future India will be the 
second largest economy after China. The recent high growth rates reported by businesses in the 
Indian economy, while laudable from some perspectives (Cappelli et al, 2010), also need to be 
sustainable, especially amidst its high cultural diversity. As the world’s largest and most diverse 
democracy, the Indian society can be best described as an amalgam of multiple cultures, value 
systems, socio-political and institutional orientations. Collectively, this diversity generates 
multiple opportunities and challenges for researchers and managers to learn about and embrace 
Indian cultural aspects in organisations.  
     The spectacular growth of India’s information technology, pharmaceutical and 
telecommunications industries heralds openness, transparency and organisational success (see for 
example, Budhwar and Varma 2010; Pereira and Anderson 2012; Malik 2013). However, the 
nation’s extremely complex and relatively less transparent political and institutional governance 
structures (Transparency International 2013), and its cultural diversity, pose challenges for work 
and organisation. Moreover, today, India as a nation is transitioning from its long established 
value and belief systems to emerging cultural systems that have been diffused or that have 
converged from around the world, over time. As more transnational corporations seek to 
establish their presence and practices in India, the need to develop a better understanding of India 
and its cultural roots is critical for the successful social, political, and economic integration of 
these firms. In addition, large Indian organisations are internationalising and spreading their 
operations across the globe. As a preliminary step, this requires an understanding of the 
traditions through which such shared values and knowledge were created and disseminated 
within the Indian community and organisational settings. It is only then that one can start to 
develop an appreciation and understanding of Indian cultural aspects within organisations.  
     Of course one of the controversies around the notion of culture in organisations and nations 
surrounds its rational and systemic conceptualisation (Alvesson, 2002). Such approaches view 
culture as an entity that can be measured or indeed manipulated. The rational and objective 
approaches to culture in organisations and societies, such as those dimensions proposed by 
Hofstede, have attracted significant critiques (eg, Brewis and Jack 2009; McSweeney 2002). 
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Other scholars have highlighted the ethical tensions that exist in postcolonial studies of culture 
(eg, Prasad 2003; Said 1978), particularly as the colonising nations focus on a discourse built on 
ethnocentric orientations and related political gains. More recently, evidence from India’s 
information technology sector (Kumar and Puranam 2012) debunks the negative cultural image 
portrayed by popular culture studies that argue Indian firms do not innovate. Kumar and 
Puranam provide evidence of process, product and business model innovations as having 
elements of individual and group cultures embedded in each. The above suggests that an 
objective and popular ‘think of culture’ approach is much less preferable than one which invites 
us to ‘think culturally’ (Calas and Smircich 1997, 33).  In view of the above, this special issue 
invites contributions that ‘think culturally’, considering culture as socially situated and 
something that is ‘in-transition’, rather than something that is rigid and stagnant. This debate can 
be enhanced by how people come to understand themselves as ‘cultured’. How are they 
mobilised or immobilised by certain commitments/attachments to cultural representations in 
organizations?  Such an approach also requires an awareness of cognitive and affective domains 
of learning. In India, for centuries, the development of knowledge, values and their  propagation 
has been undertaken orally in the form of parables and fables (Pio 2007; Ryder 1925) following 
the tradition of a Guru (teacher) - shishya (learner) relationship. Further, the social and cultural 
fabric of India is interwoven by centuries of colonisation, by diverse colonisers, as well as now 
the wellspring of modern, vibrant, young and democratic India. Thinking culturally therefore 
requires inquiry through different lenses to comprehend the cultural amalgam that is India. We 
invite theoretical, methodological and empirical submissions that address (but are not limited to): 
 Postcolonial discourses of culture in Indian organisations 
 Indian culture/s ‘in-transition’ versus an extant ‘thing’ or ‘entity’ in organisations 
 The importance of cultural literacy in organisations in India 
 Phenomenological approaches to understanding culture/s in organisations in India 
 Cross-cultural approaches to understanding Indian culture/s in organisations 
 Cultural integration approaches by Indian and foreign organisations 
 Convergence, divergence and cross-vergence of Indian culture/s within Indian MNEs  
 The role of the Indian diaspora worldwide (in cultural assimilation in organisations abroad) 
 The utilisation of Indian cultural approaches by foreign MNEs in host and other countries 
 Unbundling of the complexities and diversities of Indian culture/s in organisations 
 Dispersal of cultural elements by Indian organisations in the process of internationalisation  
 Cultural challenges within organisations for overseas Indian immigrants and foreign immigrants 
in India 
 
The above is an indicative list and we encourage innovative interpretations of the call. We 
welcome papers that draw insights and approaches from across a range of social sciences and 
humanities including contributions from anthropology, sociology, philosophy, politics, art 
history, communication, film, gender studies, cultural studies paradigmatic assumptions and 
methodological perspectives as long as the submissions directly address this special issue’s 
theme of understanding aspects of Indian culture(s) within organisations.  
 
Submission and informal enquiries  
 
Please ensure that all submissions to the special issue are made via the Scholar One Culture and 
Organization site at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/gsco. You will have to sign up for an 
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account before you are able to submit a manuscript. Please ensure when you do submit that you 
select the relevant special issue (volume 21, issue 5) to direct your submission appropriately. If 
you experience any problems please contact the editors of this issue. The deadline for manuscript 
submission is 3rd September 2014.  
 
Style and other instructions on manuscript preparation can be found at the journal’s website: 
http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/gsco20/current. Manuscript length should not exceed 8000 
words, including appendices and supporting materials. Please also be aware that any images used 
in your submission must be your own, or where they are not you must already have permission to 
reproduce them in an academic journal. You should make this explicit in the submitted 
manuscript. Please direct informal enquiries to the special issue editors Vijay Pereira at 
vijay.pereira@port.ac.uk  and Ashish Malik at ashish.malik@newcastle.edu.au 
 
References 
 
Alvesson, M. 2002.  Understanding organisational culture. London: Sage  
Brewis, J. and Jack, G. 2009. “Culture”, In Handbook of Critical Management Studies, edited by 
M. Alvesson, H. Willmott and T. Bridgman. Oxford: Oxford University Press.  
Budhwar, P., and Varma, A. 2010. Doing business in India. London: Routledge. 
Calas, M., and Smircich, L. 1987. “Organisational Culture: A Critical Assessment”. In 
Handbook of Organisational Communication: An Interdisciplinary perspective, edited by F.M. 
Jablin et al., 228-264, London: Sage. 
Human Resource Management 2010. “Special Issue: Emerging patterns of HRM in the new 
Indian economic environment.” 49(3). 
Journal of World Business 2012. “India Special Issue.” 47(1). 
Kumar, N., and Puranam, P. 2012. Inside India: The Emerging Innovation Challenge to the 
West. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press. 
Malik, A. 2013. “Post-GFC people management challenges: A study of India’s information 
technology sector.” Asia Pacific Business Review, 19(2): 230-246. 
McSweeney, B. 2002. “Hofstede’s model of national cultural differences and their consequences: 
A triumph of faith- A failure of analysis.” Human Relations, 55(1): 89-118. 
Pereira, V., and Anderson, V. 2012. “A longitudinal examination of HRM in a human resources 
offshoring (HRO) organisation operating from India.” Journal of World Business, 47(2): 223-
231. 
Pio, E. 2007. “Gurus and Indian epistemologies: Parables of labour intensive organizations.” 
Journal of Management Inquiry, 16(2): 180-192.  
Prasad, A. ed. 2003. Postcolonial theory and organizational analysis: A critical engagement. 
New York: Palgrave. 
Ryder, A. 1925. The Panchatantra, University of Chicago Press (Translated in English). 
Said, E. 1978. Orientalism: Western conceptions of the orient. London: Penguin. 
Smircich, L. 1983. “Concepts of culture and organisational analysis.” Administrative Science 
Quarterly, 28(3): 339-358. 
Transparency International. 2013. Corruptions perception index. Retrieved July 24, 2013, from 
http://www.transparency.org/ 
Uyesugi, J., and Shipley, R. 2005. “Visioning diversity: Planning Vancouver's multicultural 
communities.” International Planning Studies, 10(3-4): 305-322. 


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Concepts of culture and organisational analysis.”

Corruptions perception index. Retrieved July 24, 2013, from http://www.transparency.org/

Doing business in India.

Gurus and Indian epistemologies: Parables of labour intensive organizations.”

Hofstede’s model of national cultural differences and their consequences: A triumph of faith- A failure of analysis.”

Inside India: The Emerging Innovation Challenge to the West.

Organisational Culture: A Critical Assessment”.

Orientalism: Western conceptions of the orient.

Post-GFC people management challenges: A study of India’s information technology sector.” Asia Pacific Business Review,

Postcolonial theory and organizational analysis: A critical engagement.

Special Issue: Emerging patterns

The Panchatantra,

Understanding organisational culture. London: Sage Brewis,

East is East?:understanding aspects of Indian culture(s) within organisations: a special issue of Culture and Organization Volume 21, issue 5 (2015)

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East is East?:understanding aspects of Indian culture(s) within organisations: a special issue of Culture and Organization Volume 21, issue 5 (2015)

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