Management research in India: Current state and future directions

Abstract

Concerned over the lack of high quality, context specific management research in India, and the predilection of Indian researchers to follow Western models of research and publication blindly, the authors take stock of Indian management research in this round table discussion and debate some of the relevant issues. Urging Indian researchers to strive for the levels of rigour of the Western models, they make a case for confident indigenous scholarship to suit the development and educational requirements of the country, following contextrelevant constructs and methodologies in research and developing curricula, materials and modes of dissemination independently. These ideas were also explored at the second Indian Academy of Management Conference held at IIM Bangalore in December 2011.

Sacred activism through seva and khidmat: Contextualising management and organisations in South Asia

“…We concur with Khatri et al's (2012) call for context specific management research, and urge all researchers, not only Indian researchers, to strive for indigenous scholarship which is relevant while at the same time learning from Western paradigms and positivist research. The South Asian diaspora and their management practices is another promis-ing avenue as also, survival inequality and the many faces of eve in investigating the nuanced lives of working women and men of South Asia.…”

Perceived Managerial and Leadership Effectiveness Within South Korean and British Private Companies: A Derived Etic Comparative Study

“…The pertinence of these theories and concepts to the three source studies from which empirical data for our present comparative study have been obtained is reinforced by Luthans, Rosenkrantz, and Hennessey ' s ( 1985 ) argument that managerial effectiveness is composed of two criteria for getting the job done: (a) through high-quantity and -quality standards of performance, and (b) through people, which requires their satisfaction and commitment. Assuming the latter criterion holds true, then the more that a manager exhibits behaviors that are "in-fit" with the individual ILTs held by his or her respective constituencies, the more satisfied and committed they are likely to become; and this will more likely lead to the manager ' s reputational effectiveness being enhanced.…”

“…Global evidence suggests that a majority of management research conducted in non-Western cultures, although limited, has been "normal science" (Kuhn, 1996 , p. 5) based on the dominant North American positivist ( functionalist) research paradigm (Khatri, Ojha, Budwar, Srinivasan, & Varma, 2012 ;Panda & Gupta, 2007 ). Moreover, the preference of most indigenous researchers and Western scholars who explore local phenomena in Eastern countries, particularly in Asia, is to conduct "deductive" inquiries using existing theories and constructs derived from Western research (see Leung, 2007 ;Leung & White, 2004 ;Li, 2012 ;Tsui, 2006 ;White, 2002 ).…”

Examining the Nature and Effects of Psychological Contract: Case Study of an Indian Organization

“…In international management literature, concerns have been raised about the suitability of Western management models, theories, and frameworks to non‐Western setups. Moreover, the growing dominance of markets like India and China have led scholars to recognize the need to understand and manage differences in the employment relationships in such cultural settings (Khatri, Ojha, Budhwar, Srinivasan, & Varma, ; Roy, Vohra, & Budhwar, ).…”