Abstract
Indian companies have become very important in the global business world. Since the 1990s, this fact has received increasing attention from researchers, popular writers and consultants. Besides legal issues and economic facts, cultural difference is a recurring item in this literature. More specifically, the focus is on the Indianness of the Indian way of doing business. This article is a first step towards the process of examining two of the alleged aspects of this Indianness—one is paternalism and the other is hierarchy.
Introduction
Since the 1990s, the fact that Indian companies have become very important in businesses globally is receiving increasing attention from researchers, popular writers and consultants (see, for example, Bal, Narayanswami, & Sikka, 2008; Bhadoria, Goyal, Kumra, & Rajpal, 2016; Choudhary, Kshirsagar, & Narayanan, 2012). They describe the ‘Indian way of doing business’ and a recurring theme in their writings is the influence of the Indian culture (see, for example, Cramton & Hinds, 2007; Hofstede, 1983, 1990; Lakshman, 2015; Nambiar, 2002; Sinha, 2014). When authors discuss this theme, they frequently indicate two aspects of ‘cultural differences’ between Indian business and business in other countries: first, the idea that Indian companies resemble a family led by a patriarch and, second, the idea that Indian companies are very hierarchical and its leaders are authoritarian. In this article, I will focus on these two aspects and closely examine the way in which they have been described.
A Family with a Fatherly CEO
Many researchers mention that the organization of Indian companies resembles that of a family life (see, for example, Aycan, 2006; Deresky, 2017; Rodrigues, 1996; Sagie & Aycan, 2003). The father-like attitude of the business leader, who treats his employees as though they were his children, is often referred to. Illustrations range from the CEO praising his employees publicly for good results, to the manager showing anger or disappointment if employees do not perform as expected, to the boss giving presents and inviting employees to family functions. Further, some of the authors point out that decisions by Indian business leaders are made the way a father would make them: he listens to what his children have to say and then takes the decision.
A term often used to characterize the attitude of this ‘fatherly CEO’ and the associated close relationships is ‘paternalism’. A paternalistic CEO or manager cares about his employees, makes sure they feel and function well, and the employees, on their side, reciprocate the warmth of the boss by performing well. This leadership style has been described positively, involving ‘guidance, protection, nurturance, and care from the superior towards his subordinates’ (Aycan et al., 2000, cited in Sagie & Aycan, 2003, p. 462). Saini and Budhwar, two authors who have published extensively about Indian management, describe paternalistic leadership as follows:
[…] acknowledging contributions of workers by praising them openly; giving interest-free loans to workers; […] showing faith in the suggestion scheme and some semblance of employee involvement (EI) through open communication; personal involvement in the job design of managers and supervisors; and his involvement [as a boss] in all crises situations in the organization (Saini & Budhwar, 2008, p. 14).
In such circumstances, a leader should behave as a kind father does, claims Erin Meyer in The Culture Map (2014), her recent bestseller:
Your team may follow your instructions to the letter, but in return, you must show a consistent paternalistic kindness. Protect your subordinates, mentor and coach them, behave as a kind father would to his children, and always look out for their interests. (Meyer, 2014, p. 257)
The fatherly leader is said to be personally involved in crisis situations and in the recruitment of people for top positions. He (or she) is closely committed to what is happening with the company and does not delegate key decisions. Apparently, this style of leadership is not only typical of India but also of many other countries:
[M]any Mexican companies take a more paternalistic approach in their relations with their employees. This often means providing services that are not traditionally considered the responsibility of employers throughout much of the West. For example, many Mexican employees will expect the company to provide transportation to the work site. This is often accomplished by subcontracting privately owned buses to travel through the neighborhoods of the employees and gather the workers each morning. Many firms also provide cafeterias and feed their employees lunch each day. (Steers, Sanchez-Runde, & Naroon, 2010, p. 188) [In China:] The dominant management style of the gong-si is patrimonialism, which includes paternalism, hierarchy, mutual obligation, responsibility, familism, personalism, and connections. As a result, typical Chinese family business [sic] are often characterized by power and influence being closely related to ownership, autocratic leadership, and a personalistic style of management designed in part to pay honour to the founder or leader. (Steers et al., 2010, p. 179–180) Not surprisingly, major Japanese keiretsu (as well as smaller firms) make use of a group mentality and paternalism in structuring their firms and managing their people. Everyone “belongs” to the company—and the company belongs to them. By contrast, Germany is a more individualistic country but is still largely egalitarian in nature. (Steers et al., 2010, p. 193)
While current descriptions generally seem positive about paternalism, the last citation hints at an implicit and more pejorative connotation. Often, a paternalistic leader is not the ideal leader in the eyes of subordinates. Consider, for example, this description about management in Nigeria, where paternalism is claimed to be a part of the ‘inefficiency problem’:
In any case, most local and foreign researchers agree that the typical power structure and workflows [in Nigeria] lead to chronic inefficiencies. Top managers are authoritarian, paternalistic, over-worked, highly educated, articulate, and widely traveled. However, they seldom provide much in the way of visionary leadership. (Steers et al., 2010, p. 115)
Culture and Management Trends: France, Malaysia and Nigeria
Descriptions of paternalism are often accompanied by similar messages, which entail the conviction that paternalism is a kind of management to be avoided. It seems to invite an implicit or explicit normative warning: ‘A leader ought not to be paternalistic.’ Let me illustrate what I mean by taking a closer look at older management literature.
An early critic of paternalism was Peter Drucker, one of the most widely known and influential thinkers on management, whose work continues to be used by managers worldwide. Sometimes called the ‘father of post-war management thinking’, he was among the first, after Henry Ford and Frederick Winslow Taylor, to depict management as a distinct function and the manager’s task as a distinct responsibility. Drucker had objections to paternalism:
The tendency of today of so many, especially of our larger, enterprises to assume paternal authority over their management people and to demand of them a special allegiance is socially irresponsible usurpation, indefensible on the grounds alike of public policy and the enterprise’s self-interest. The company is not and must never claim to be home, family, religion, life or fate for the individual. It must never interfere in his private life or his citizenship. He is tied to the company through a voluntary and cancellable employment contract, not through some mystical and indissoluble bond. (Drucker 1954, p. 387)
Drucker called this phenomenon ‘paternal authority’, which meant the kind of authority associated with how a father leads a family. According to him, it does not have a place in corporate life and is better avoided in companies.
The basic assumption has not changed in the period after Drucker wrote about his concerns. In the later literature, we read that ‘participative’ or ‘consultative’ leaders are preferred to paternalistic leaders (see, for example, Aycan 2006; Chevrier, 2009; Deresky, 2017; Rodrigues 1996; Sagie & Aycan, 2003; Tayeb, 2005). Demenchonok invokes Kant to make the point:
Kant developed his definition of individual freedom in opposition to authoritarian paternalism, utilitarian arbitrariness, and the “despotism of paternalistic benevolence.” In contrast to paternalism, Kant elaborates a concept of autonomy, distinguishing its three varieties: moral, utilitarian, and civic. The opposite of paternalism is the rule of law, which is the basis for civil society. (Demenchonok, 2009, p. 281) For Kant, a paternalistic government, treating its citizens like immature children and thus infringing upon their freedom, is “the most despotic of all.” (Demenchonok, 2009, p. 283)
However, some also point to problems with this term: ‘paternalism is a time-worn term that has indefinite meaning in common use’ (Aycan, 2006, p. 446, quoting Jackman, 1994, p. 10). In fact, Aycan (2006) consults Webster’s Dictionary (1975) to define the term as ‘the principle or system of governing or controlling a country, group of employees, etc. in a manner suggesting a father’s relationship with his children’ (p. 446). Pellegrini and Scandura point out that paternalism has only ‘recently been added to the discussion of cultural value dimensions’:
In a paternalistic relationship, the follower voluntarily depends on the leader, and because compliance with authority cannot be perceived as something to be done voluntarily, paternalism has been perceived negatively in the Western context. This has been reflected in metaphors regarding paternalistic leadership, such as ‘benevolent dictatorship’ (Northouse, 1997, 39), ‘cradle to grave management’ (Fitzsimons, 1991, 48), ‘country club management style’ (Winning, 1994), and ‘noncoercive exploitation’ (Goodell, 1985, 252). However, in Turkey this type of relationship is based on the assumption of power inequality between the leader and the follower, which is socially accepted and not resented by those lower in the hierarchy. (Pellegrini & Scandura, 2006, p. 267)
In line with these authors, others have also objected to the negative perception of paternalism (e.g., Jackson, 2015).
These reactions notwithstanding, the core connotation attached to ‘paternalism’ remains pejorative. In the most recent literature, this underlying assumption is often not explicitly mentioned but it is still there. It is still suggested that leadership in general ought to be more ‘participatory’ and less ‘paternalistic’. The only difference between the recent literature and the older literature is the growing political correctness, which adds vagueness to the statements because one is no longer supposed to openly disapprove of other cultures.
Along with the description of paternalistic leadership, a range of other phenomena also comes to be described negatively. The gifts and felicitations, which the fatherly boss gives to his employees, are in fact (inappropriate) ‘favours’. Instead of treating every employee equally, the boss exhibits inequality by giving presents to some and not to others, based on his personal preferences. The close relationships in recruitment turn into ‘nepotism’. According to this description, family members are recruited on a non-merit base, while fair interviews with non-family members are excluded. The extended business networks of the fatherly CEO are depicted as ‘cliques’—social networks that are closed to non-members who would like to participate, but are prevented from doing so—and ‘patronage systems’, where the boss decides about the ‘underlings’. The pejorative connotations of these re-descriptions are self-evident: ‘favours’, ‘nepotism’, ‘cliques’, … are words pointing to how people ought not to behave; every rational and ethical human being is expected to react negatively to such behaviour.
More than half a century after Peter Drucker wrote about ‘paternal authority’ in the 1950s, the literature on culture and management has thus accepted that (a) there is something like ‘paternalism’ in business and that (b) this is a largely undesirable phenomenon. Even though the idea of the paternalistic leader knows of some recent proponents also, and discussions are ongoing, the underlying judgement remains dominant: a leader is not supposed to be paternalistic. Paternalistic authority is objectionable. Given this background assumption, the literature about Indian management, with its many references to paternalistic leaders, cannot but involve a negative judgement about the Indian leader.
Authoritarianism and Hierarchy of Positions
There is a second dominant strand in the literature about Indian management. This aspect also concerns the leaders and leading managers: they take decisions without the consent of their employees. Unlike American leaders, the literature tells us, Indian leaders have a relationship of ‘high power distance’ towards their employees. The idea of ‘power distance’ was developed by Geert Hofstede in the 1980s, who developed a system to measure cultural difference. It was one of his four ‘dimensions’ (to which he later added a fifth), which are still being used predominantly in management literature. Hofstede measured the power distance with questionnaires asking employees whether, for example, they ‘preferred a boss making his decisions in an autocratic or paternalistic (persuasive) way’; whether they ‘were afraid to disagree with their superiors’ and whether they would ‘prefer the boss who makes his decisions in a consultative way’ (see Hofstede, 1983, p. 50–51). Where employees answered ‘yes’ to the first two questions and ‘no’ to the last question, their culture would be categorized by Hofstede as a ‘high power distance’ culture, where the boss decides in an authoritative way and the employees follow him without telling their boss their opinion.
The opposite of ‘high power distance’ is ‘low power distance’, where the boss allows his employees to participate in the decisions. Erin Meyer puts it like this: ‘the ideal distance between a boss and a subordinate is low’ and ‘the best boss is a facilitator among equals’ (Meyer, 2014, p. 243). Instead of the high and low power distance, we also find the terms ‘egalitarian’ versus ‘hierarchical’ in the more recent literature (see, for example, Chevrier, 2009, p. 176). Erin Meyer decides to shift to the latter in her book:
[F]rom now on we’ll use the word egalitarian instead of low power distance and hierarchical instead of high power distance. (Meyer, 2014, p. 124)
Meyer also adds a table with this subject heading, in which we see that India is one of the least egalitarian cultures, and thus, one of the most hierarchical. Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden are the most egalitarian cultures in her table. There are elegant ways of talking about this subject. One could, for example, say that Indian leaders ‘are expected to make decisions with less consultation with lower levels’ (Ahlstrom & Bruton, 2010, p. 233). But the gist of the idea is clear: the Indian management culture allows Indian leaders to be on top of a hierarchy of lower employees, whom they can lead without having them participate in decision-making. Or, to say it more in the manner the child said about the emperor: Indian bosses are dictators, who take decisions according to their own preference, without listening to the employees or inviting their opinions.
In these descriptions, decisions are made top to bottom. The top is the highest manager in the hierarchy, namely the CEO or the president or the manager, and the bottom is the lowest manager, employee or labourer in the hierarchy. Almost every author writing about Indian management tells us that hierarchy and positions are extremely important in India (see, for example, Branine, 2011, p. 478; Budhwar, Woldu, & Ogbonna, 2008, p. 83; Deresky, 2017, p. 458; Mendenhall et al., 2018, p. 413–414; Reiche, Stahl, Mendenhall, & Oddou, 2017, p. 209; Rodrigues, 1996, p. 359). Consultants thrive by repeating this insight: they tell us that it is crucial to know the hierarchy in the relationships in India because it helps us to have a chance of succeeding in business (see, for example,
This theme recurs frequently in management literature about India. Other countries seem to have autocratic leaders too: Mexico, France, the United Kingdom, China and many other countries are described in the same terms (see, for example, Ahlstrom & Bruton, 2010; Aminpour & Woetzel, 2006; Branine, 2011; Deresky, 2017; Moran, Harris, & Moran, 2011). Equally noteworthy is that these authors provide few details when they deal with the theme. Many separate aspects of the Indian hierarchy are brought up in many different combinations and cases: (a) employees obey their superior without discussion; (b) subordinates do not tell their boss what they think; (c) decision responsibilities in India are very strictly divided per position in the hierarchy; (d) at the same time, it is often unclear which decision is taken where. Some Western businessmen have told me that (a) hierarchical levels can be skipped in India—both upwards and downwards—and that (b) positions are not necessarily respected the way they expect them to be.
From these bits and pieces, not much can be inferred with any clarity about the nature, practical characteristics or layers of the hierarchy in Indian management. Explanations only vaguely suggest some links to other phenomena. For example, some authors see a connection with the Indian caste system:
The influences of Hinduism and the tradition of the caste system have created a culture that emphasizes established hierarchical relationships. (Deresky, 2017, p. 155) [T]he legacy of the caste system ensures that businesses are extremely hierarchically structured and that the boss is very definitely the boss. (Worldbusinessculture.com, 2018, subheading ‘India’)
Other authors see a connection with the titles used in the company:
[P]ower distance can create a problem for Western expatriates working in high power-distance countries [sic] such as East Asia, India, and the Middle East. People are usually addressed more formally in these countries, and titles are important, as is one’s position in the organizational hierarchy. To communicate with a colleague high in an organization in a high power-distance society, an expatriate may have to speak through an intermediary, such as that colleague’s assistant or secretary, something that might make North Americans or Australians uncomfortable. (Ahlstrom & Bruton, 2010, p. 395)
These alleged connections are not explained any further: it remains unclear how they explain the structure of Indian management, as compared to the hierarchy in other kinds of management. There is a lack of clarity, consistency and systematicity here, making it impossible to understand the hierarchy which is supposedly typical of the Indian management system and its implications. One merely observes that authors writing about Indian management are convinced about the fact that it is characterized by a distinct hierarchy and that Indian leaders tend to be either ‘authoritarian’, ‘autocratic’ or ‘authoritative’.
The descriptions about the hierarchical organization of Indian management generally appear to be neutral in tone. The following citation, though, illustrates a less neutral assessment that automatically comes with ‘hierarchy’. An autocrat is not the ideal leader a subordinate desires, because his behaviour is an ‘impediment to leadership effectiveness’:
Behaviors and Traits Universally Considered Impediments to Leadership Effectiveness:
Being a loner and asocial (self-protective) Non-cooperative (malevolent) Dictatorial (autocratic)
The hierarchically and authoritatively organized, high power-distance company is contrasted to the egalitarian, low power-distance and consultatively and participatively organized company. This is the second observation: hierarchical management is undesirable. From this, we understand that the literature about Indian management, with its many references to hierarchy, cannot but imply a negative judgement about the Indian way of managing.
Similarities
The two aspects—‘paternalism’ on the one hand and ‘hierarchy’ on the other hand—show significant similarities: both are frequently associated with Indian management; both also occur often in descriptions about other kinds of management; and both are supposedly harmful for management (for example, they cause corruption and inefficiency).
When I discussed these descriptions of Indian management with other members of the research group Comparative Science of Cultures at Ghent University, several facts came to the surface: one was the fact that the descriptions of management are similar across various (non-western) cultures and countries. What if these descriptions did not tell us anything much about India? As a first test, I assembled a number of citations about either of these two aspects, without taking into account which culture or country the citations in question spoke about. Once I removed all references to culture or country, we could not see any difference between citations about India and citations about other cultures and countries. These ‘facts’ about Indian management, it has become obvious to me during the past decade, cannot be facts that distinguish Indian management from other ways of management. To illustrate what I mean, I would like to briefly discuss the results of a workshop held at a conference of the Indian Institute of Management in Kozhikode in December 2018 (‘Society and Management: Indian Culture Vis-à-vis Western Culture’).
Illustration: A Workshop at IIMK
Sixteen slides with 23 citations were displayed at the conference workshop. In the citations, all references to countries, cultures or companies were replaced by a blank, which had to be filled in by the participants. For each citation we invited the participants to write down (a) which country or culture they thought the citation was about and (b) why they thought so. The citations were taken from academic books, international scientific journals and popular sources like business consultant websites. They were about management in particular countries or cultures (Africa, Asia, China, Europe, Great Britain, India, Italy, Turkey), and about management in specific companies by particular CEOs (family companies, Steve Jobs and Apple, Jack Welch and General Electric). Many of the participants had a management background: some were lecturers or professors at management institutes; others were doing a PhD related to management; yet others were managers. Several of the participants had experience with management in a country other than their own. A handful were non-management social science researchers.
When we read the citations for which the participants had completed the blanks and question for each of the slides, it became clear that the participants were hard pressed to identify the country, culture or company the citations were referring to. The answers they wrote were very diverse. See Table 1 for the filled in blanks for two citations—one of which was about Turkish management, the other Indian management. The results contain as diverse answers as India, the United States or ‘any family-owned company’.
Slides 1 and 5 of the IIMK Conference Workshop
Slide 5–Saini and Budhwar (2008, p. 14).
The first citation generated 12 and the second 17 different answers. Some of the answers are rather opposite: ‘Great Britain’ and ‘Japan’, or ‘Microsoft’ versus a ‘small family-owned business’, for instance. These are only 2 of the 23 citations all of which received a similar range of different replies. On average, the blanks were filled in with 12 different answers; one citation had a total of 18 diverse answers, this by only 23 participants. The 18 answers ranged from regions like ‘Middle East’ and ‘European’ over cultural terms like ‘Guanxi’ to sector-specific terms like ‘IT-sector’ and adjectives like ‘successful’ or ‘capitalistic’ (managers). No relation could be found between the answers for one blank. Another example of a collection of unrelated answers can be seen in Table 2.
Slide 8 of the IIMK Conference Workshop
In so far as countries were concerned, the answers ranged from ‘India’ over ‘Asia’ to ‘China–Japan–Korea’, ‘American’, ‘Western’, ‘Europe’ and some specific European countries (Sweden, Norway, Italy and Germany). Other European countries were not referred to; for example, neither France nor The Netherlands were mentioned. Turkey was never mentioned, nor was any African country, even though one of the citations was about Turkey and another about Africa. No clear reasons can be identified for these omissions, from the reasons given by the workshop participants. ‘Latin America’ and ‘Saudi Arabia’ were mentioned a few times, although no citation involved Latin America or Saudi Arabia. No clear reasons can be identified here either.
As far as companies were concerned, the participants’ answers told us something about (a) the nature of a company (‘family owned business’, ‘MNO’, ‘big company in India’, ‘government company’, ‘any company’, …), (b) a position within a company (‘manager’, ‘subordinate’, ‘any office’, ‘middle level manager’, …) or (c) a psychological characteristic of a manager (‘egoistic’, ‘authoritative’, ‘rigid’, …). Here too, no systematicity or coherence could be found in the answers. See, for example, Table 3.
Slide 2 of the IIMK Conference Workshop
In other words, there was no systematicity or coherence in the range of answers given for a specific blank. The same was the case for the citations about Indian management. Here, the answers ranged from ‘American’, ‘European’, ‘any manager’, ‘any team’, over ‘any employee’, ‘Swedish’, ‘Japanese’, ‘Asian’, ‘family-owned business’, ‘liberal’, ‘collective’, ‘junior’, ‘Arabian’, ‘Western’, ‘Chinese’, ‘Microsoft’, ‘Singapore’, to ‘Tata’, ‘British’, ‘South Asia’, ‘General Electric’, ‘Italian’ and ‘Western’. It appeared that a blank that originally contained ‘India’ or ‘Indian’ could be replaced by almost anything. The same can be said for the statements concerning management in other countries. For example, the citation about Turkish management (see Table 1, slide 5) was completed with ‘India’, ‘England’, ‘Japan’ and so on, but never with ‘Turkey’. Another quote, about Chinese management, generated ‘Middle Eastern’, ‘family business’, ‘Italian’ and so on, but not ‘Chinese’. ‘India’ was a recurring answer, regardless of the actual subject matter of the quote. Passages about Italy, China, or any family-owned firm in the world were often surmised to be about ‘India’ or ‘Indian management’. Table 4 gives one example.
Slides 4, 15 and 16 of the IIMK Conference Workshop
Slide 15: Neckebrouck (2017, p. 170, about family companies).
Slide 16: Aminpour and Woetzel, (2006, p.112).
Reflections
What can we conclude from such results? After studying the literature, I came to the conclusion that recurring claims about Indian management cannot be distinguished from those concerning other cultures and countries. The 23 slides illustrate this. While one anticipates that specific cultural differences can be attributed to specific cultures, one discovers that so-called ‘cultural differences’ are attributed randomly to different, unrelated countries and cultures at the same time. While the claim is that there are characteristic differences between Indian management and other ways of management, we see that the ‘Indianness’ could be identified neither in the scholarly literature nor in the workshop. When quotations referred to India, many participants did not answer ‘India’; when quotations were not about India, many participants did. The ‘facts’ about Indian management, at least in so far as paternalism and hierarchy are concerned, do not appear to be facts that distinguish Indian management from other kinds of management.
At first sight, not much more can be inferred from the responses covering a wide range of countries, cultures and styles of managing discussed in the workshop. There is however one particular observation. Certain answers were rarely given for certain blanks. For example, the participants did not relate passages about patriarchal or paternalistic managers to Western countries and managers. Quotes mentioning words such as ‘autocratic’, ‘authoritarian’, ‘hierarchical’, … had the same effect: they would only seldom be attributed to Western countries, cultures or managers. One participant explicitly wrote about this: he or she said that the citation had ‘words not used for Western workplaces’, hence the reason given for the answer: ‘Asian’ (see Table 5).
Slide 10 of the IIMK Conference Workshop
The two aspects found in literature about Indian management, namely paternalism and hierarchy, are also reflected in the workshop results. Quotations with terms connected to paternalism (fatherly attitude, family-like business, treating employees like your son, preferring personal contacts when recruiting, …) and to hierarchy (authoritative boss, submissive employees, lack of individualism, …) all have one or more ‘India’ answers. The pattern is even clearer in the reasons given by participants. Specific reasons reoccurred again and again in more or less the same words: ‘paternalism’, ‘nurturant leadership’, ‘high power-distance’, ‘hierarchy’ and ‘authoritative leader’. It is not the case that participants connect these reasons to India only—they give the same reasons for other (non-Western) countries, cultures and companies too.
Focusing on the ‘India’ answers, a number of reasons can be grouped together: ‘I read/heard about this’, ‘Hofstede says this about India’, ‘I have witnessed this/seen this/it is recognizable for me in India’, ‘I am familiar with this /have experience with this in India’. Here, the participants speak on the basis of what they have experienced, heard or read. The second and third group of ‘India’ answers are more relevant for the purposes of this article. The second group follows the strand of ‘paternalism’ with the connected terms and ideas from the management literature: ‘Indian managers are/business is paternalistic’, ‘nurturant leadership’, ‘informal approach’, ‘social meetings are important’, ‘Using personal contacts is important in India’, ‘Treating employees like your son sounds Indian’, ‘patriarchy’. The third group follows the strand of authoritarianism and hierarchy: ‘There is hierarchy in Indian companies’, ‘India has high power-distance’, ‘Status is important in Indian companies’, ‘There is inequality in Indian society’, ‘Titles are important in India’, ‘There is stratification in Indian society’, ‘There is segregation in India’, ‘India is a tiered society’, ‘Indians give importance to superiority’, ‘Indian employees have difficulties with disagreeing with their superior; it is considered an offense’.
One might conclude that the two aspects are obviously very important in Indian business. This would be interesting, were it not that…the reader will remember that the same reasons were given together with a lot of other countries, cultures or management styles too. For example, ‘stratification’ was the reason for one participant to answer ‘India’, for another ‘China’ and for yet another ‘Japan’. The ‘importance of titles’ was an argument for one participant to write ‘Korea’, another ‘China’, a third ‘Japan’ and two others ‘India’—while the citation was about Turkey. Arguments about ‘high power-distance’ also led to the claim that a quotation was about ‘Steve Jobs’ or ‘any effective manager’. In other words: while we did encounter the two strands on the participants’ responses, it remained unclear how they are connected to Indian management. The two phenomena, ‘paternalism’ and ‘hierarchy’, might relate in some specific way to India, but they might also relate to management in Africa, Latin America, Italy and small family-owned firms. Or to other organizations in other situations. One would not know. Several questions now come up: If what we think we know about Indian management is not about Indian management, then what is it about? And what is Indian management? How can we find out?
The Knowledge in Management Literature
Is it About Asia?
Going back to the literature on cross-cultural management, we notice the same two strands or aspects recur regularly in the literature on Asian countries. Management in China, Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, … is described in terms of the same characteristics: it is supposed to be paternalistic and hierarchical in structure. Of course, some authors are more cautious than others and formulate it in slightly different ways, but the pattern is the same. Decision lines in companies are most easily understood, if one looks at them as though they are families with a father ‘on top’, who decides without participation and consultation of his ‘children’. In fact, if one replaces ‘India’ in this literature with a blank, one could easily assume that the author is writing about any Asian country. So, perhaps, these two characteristics are typical for management in Asia, instead of management in India alone.
Is It About Non-Western Management?
Oddly, though, one finds the same two characteristics in literature about African and Latin American management. Not only Asian countries suffer from paternalism and authoritarianism in management, it appears, but African and Latin American countries do as well. Perhaps, then, these two characteristics are typical for management in non-Western countries, instead of management in Asian countries only.
Or About Southern European Management?
Literature on Southern European management mentions the same two characteristics (see, for example, Ginsborg, 1995). Italian business leaders are described as paternalistic and authoritarian. Portuguese, Spanish and even Belgian CEOs have been characterized as belonging to the same lines, in conversations I had with different people. Are we then looking at characteristics typical to management in non-Western countries and in Southern Europe? This might make sense if we are contrasting the ways of management in these countries to the characteristics of Northern European and North American management.
Or About All Family Firms in the World?
However, the strands of paternalism and hierarchy also occur, even predominantly so in certain cases, in the literature about family firms. Terms such as ‘paternal authority’, ‘favours’ and ‘nepotism’ make up a large part of the descriptions of family businesses all over the world. Is it then correct to say that the two aspects or strands we have been looking at are characteristics typical for management not in only Southern Europe and non-Western countries but also in your typical family firm? Perhaps this makes sense when we contrast this way of management to that of bigger private equity firms and multinational firms. If that were the case, we are now talking about 90% of all companies across the world (Neckebrouck, 2017, p. 59).
Or About All Top CEOs, Including CEOs of Multinational Companies?
Peculiarly, the same two aspects are also mentioned as characteristics of some American top CEOs of multinational companies, such as Jack Welch from General Electric or Steve Jobs from Apple. They act like a father; they love their employees like their children; they recruit through family and friends; and they make decisions on their own, without consulting subordinates or even vice-presidents or board directors. Consequently, these CEOs must also be paternalistic and authoritarian. Are we then talking about all CEOs in the world? Or only about the highly successful ones in the world? But in that case, there cannot be any problem with paternalism and authoritarianism in the sense that they cause inefficiencies in management. Perhaps we are just looking at necessary psychological characteristics of successful CEOs. If this is true, we are now talking about interpersonal or individual psychological differences rather than cultural differences.
The Problem
Surely, there is a problem here. These descriptions appear to be about almost every management: Asian, African, Latin American and even south European. It also happens to be applicable to small family firms and to the CEOs of huge corporations.
People with some experience in management in India will not agree with the claim that the ‘Indianness’ in Indian management consists of a combination of the psychological traits exhibited by Jack Welch and Steve Jobs. There is the conviction that some differences have to do with culture. Westerners working with Indians face frustrations, irritations and, in many cases, difficulties and failures in business cooperation. Indians who work with Westerners also see many of their expectations in daily interactions, emotions and reactions break down. Because of these experiences, we suspect that cultural differences must be at work here. While it is true that people working in different cultures experience a regular breakdown of expectations, attempts to describe these so-called cultural differences lead us into a blurry landscape of ‘differences’, whose nature and characteristics cannot be identified. They may be interpersonal or social differences, national or practical differences, differences in company culture or cultural differences. Or, as we have seen in the above experiment, they end up not being differences at all. The existing literature and informal discourse do not give us clues as to what type of differences we are facing. It appears possible to use each description for any culture.
Certain descriptions, however, are almost never related to certain countries or cultures. That is, when descriptions contain words such as ‘paternalistic’, ‘patriarchal’, ‘authoritarian’ or ‘hierarchical’, we can predict that the countries or culture described are not those of Northern Europe or North America. But even this conclusion leads us into quicksand: Peter Drucker wrote in 1954 that paternalism was a tendency in many companies. Hence, in Drucker’s days it was not unusual to use the word ‘paternal’ or ‘paternalistic’ for a Western business leader. Also, we should not forget about some of today’s most successful CEOs: Jack Welch and Steve Jobs are described as having ‘fatherly love’ for their employees. And they are definitely Western CEOs.
In other words, we are back to square one: the descriptions of the two phenomena—‘paternalism’ and ‘hierarchy’—do reveal some patterns but these remain hazy. The two strands about which this article talks remain what they were—merely strands in the tapestry of management speak. What the phenomena are, when they do occur, whether they really exist, why are they a problem…, are all questions for which answers are currently unavailable. The literature tells us even less as to how these issues are connected to culture.
Given this state of affairs, it makes sense to propose the following: let us start from the ‘fact’ that we lack clarity about the ‘Indianness’ of Indian management. That is, we currently do not have insight into the relationship between Indian culture and Indian management. This implies that we lack understanding of the relationship between culture and management in general: if there was some hypothesis or theory about this relationship, we could have started our research there and used this hypothesis to clarify the case of India. We assume there are cultural differences, but we do not (yet) know what exactly they are and how we can identify them in specific cases. We have ways of speaking about them, but these are not helpful to understand the phenomena we are facing. To put it as clearly as possible: what we have is not knowledge.
How can a domain like ‘cross-cultural management’ flourish, when we do not have the knowledge about the role and impact of cultural differences in management? The only plausible answer is that many of us believe the opposite, namely that we do know something about cultural differences, about Indian management, American management or Western management. This belief is abundantly present in all kinds of literature, including today’s business news. We also saw it in the participants’ answers in the workshop discussed earlier. The number of ad hoc explanations and labels attributed to one or another aspect of a ‘culture’ is astonishing. The same behaviour could be called the African ‘Ubuntu style’, ‘the Chinese Confucian gong-si way of management’, ‘the Mexican familism’ or ‘Indian caste system’. For more than 30 years now, these labels and explanations have been circulating as knowledge about cultural differences, while they are not. My suggestion is to accept this as a fact and start from there.
Conclusion
At first sight, the management literature about Indian management seems to tell us that (1) Indian companies resemble a family with a paternalistic father and (2) Indian business leaders are authoritarian and head hierarchically organized companies. The same characteristics, however, are also ascribed to non-Indian management. This implies that the characteristics are not typically Indian. Further-more, the range and variety of the descriptions indicate that the characteristics are used for Asia in general, for non-Western cultures, for Southern European countries and for specific CEOs. From this it follows that the characteristics are not typically cultural characteristics.
They might be typical for something else: they might be ingredients of a reality created by some people in certain circumstances. The two strands that were the focus of this article—the so-called ‘paternalism’ and the ‘authoritarian hierarchy’ ring a bell somewhere far away, but that far-away place might as well consist of misty memories from lost textbooks. These old descriptions of Indian culture have been taken seriously for decades, if not centuries. Seeing the implausibility of the so-called ‘facts’ and their connection with India, we cannot take them seriously anymore. Whatever they may be, they are not knowledge about management in India. If we take this as a starting point, some questions emerge: What are the descriptions about, if they are not about Indian culture and the Indianness of Indian management? How did they emerge and why are they being reproduced? Whence their resistance to reality for such a long time? What is required to move away from the existent descriptions and move towards knowledge about Indian management and its connection to Indian culture?
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.