A Cultural Perspective on Organizational Behavior in India
Author(s)
Sinha, Jai B. P.
Abstract
The role of culture is how people related to their work environment is clearly exemplified in the Indian industrial organizations that provide a ground for the confluence of Western technology and Indian culture. This chapter examines how the recently transplanted Western forms of industrial organizations, which introduced technologically determined formal systems, rules, and regulations, are being often bypassed, diluted, or integrated by traditional cultural influence sin order to get work done effectively at some places and not so effectively at some other places. In these Indian organizations, such areas of organizational behavior as recruitment, appraisal, training, leadership, power, communication, decision making, conflict resolution, work culture, and so on reflect both collectivist and individualist values that interact but more often just coexist, functioning interchangeably as figure and ground in different contexts, primarily because of Indians’ context sensitivity and their “engulfing” and balancing mode of thinking. Given these cultural imperatives and the changing industrial scenario, the chapter entertains the possibility that we can use cultural values to build effective organizations.
