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How did historically marginalized groups learn to become professional managers? This paper studies the identity work of a manager in a colonial work setting, focusing specifically on the aspirational quality of professional identity, and on the forms of subordination enmeshed in organizational work, through a close reading of an autobiography. Beyond Punjab describes the career of Prakash Tandon in the multinational Lever Brothers India. He eventually became its first Indian Chief Executive and a respected public figure. Studies of such colonial work settings can seem indebted to existing research within postcolonial studies in management. But I argue that the dominant attention of postcolonial studies in management has not been on identity work and practices, but the historical enduring force of representations. Therefore this paper offers a complementary engagement, developing Bourdieu's concept of the habitus for a fuller understanding of how managerial identity was constituted in colonial work settings. Implications for contemporary organizations and professional identity in postcolonial societies such as India are discussed.

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The project of identifying voices from the South, and transforming the discipline of organization studies through such engagement, raises important questions of how to assess and categorize disciplinary knowledge adequately for such a purpose. This article discusses two quests for authenticity in the context of Indian management studies, based in claims of epistemic relevance and performative efficacy. In both instances there appears a conscious effort to hear voices of the south. But is it sufficient to adequately re-order management knowledge to the demands of a locale, to make it more authentic? Keywords management knowledge, epistemic relevance, performativity, Indian management, Ashis Nandy, Indian philosophy, Edward Said What ensures the relevance of a body of knowledge to a locale? And in that sense can seeking and hearing voices from the south be sufficient to adequately re-order management knowledge to the demands of a locale?The article is arranged as follows. Section 1 discusses authenticity in terms of enduring questions of relevance of management knowledge to multiple locations. Section 2 presents a localespecific quest for authenticity in management knowledge, the search for Indian management. Section 3 offers a reflexive account of a yoga camp where managerial efficacy is linked to Hindu texts. A discussion of these two examples follows, in section 4, which argues for more critical attention to allied projects in philosophy and postcolonial theory, that shed light on the search for authenticity. The conclusion suggests that requires more critical sensitivity to how the authentic is negotiated in management studies theorizing subalternity.

Philip Dick's science fiction (SF) offers a stimulating critique of modernity. One of his important themes was the gradual replacement of the empathy of humans with the cold logic of machines. Using Arendt (1964), Bauman (1991) and Tester (1997), I argue that managers are prone to moral indifference. This tendency was termed androidization by Dick, the transformation of human beings into machines. Through two novels and a film adaptation, I discuss how his characters combat this tendency, exercising moral agency. I point to the importance of identifying avenues for managers to resist their androidization.

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A classic part of the community development process is people facing an acute economic or social problem connecting with others specializing in conceptual solutions. For example, South Asian villagers confronting chronic poverty may work with non-governmental organizations offering micro-credit schemes. These are two sides of the development relationship, the doers and the helpers. While the doers face problems that are unique to themselves, the helpers offer solutions that tend to be generic, applicable to a variety of contexts. In this paper we seek to bring some conceptual clarity to the relationships between doers and helpers in development, with a focus on the social sector that operates between business and government. We present a typology of the organizational forms involved in development, and then look at the gaps between helpers and doers and the approaches used to bridge them. Roots and roofs In the historical sense, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) tended to be both grassroots doers and their local helpers, functioning in communities (Boli and Thomas, 1999). But when we use the term NGO in the contemporary sense, we tend to think of cosmopolitan helpers: foundations and developmental agencies that function at national and international levels, with activities directed into many localities. It is in this latter sense that NGOs have been 'discovered as a new institutional form of development resource' (Carroll, 1992, p. 1), so numerous as to represent a 'global associa

Purpose This study aims to offer a postcolonial approach that goes past current management history controversies. Design/methodology/approach Discussion of current management history controversies with examples. Findings Post-colonial approaches to management history enable engagement with questions of power and knowledge in the management discipline. Research limitations/implications Further historical research is needed that considers the interplay of disciplinary knowledge and the historical events under question, especially in post-colonial settings. Practical implications It is essential to engage with historical texts and interpretations to better understand the contextual limitations to management as a discipline: a better understanding of disciplinary pasts enables us to better understand the present. Social implications By considering management’s pasts, this paper can acknowledge more closely how the discipline continues to retain colonialist assumptions that need to be challenged and changed. Originality/value Examples of management history from formerly colonized regions.