Prof Chhokar receives the Gielen award at the APA Convention, Toronto, Aug 2009
- Tell us how you got drawn to the work in the area of Cross Cultural Management.
In a way, it was by accident and the existence of an opportunity, but in another way it seems it was a natural progression from some of my earliest research.
Taking the second explanation first, my first research project and also the first publication, done when I was a doctoral student, was to validate a questionnaire in the US and in Europe. The expression, cross-cultural management, was not in use then in management literature but in retrospect, it was a preliminary form of cross-cultural management.
The accident and opportunity arose when the founder of a major cross-cultural research project (The Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness-GLOBE-Project) invited me to join the project as the Country Co-Investigator (CCI) for India
Another factor, perhaps, is my inherent curiosity for other cultures which may have been fuelled by my travels to various other cultures, within India and outside.
- The ongoing research requires a massive degree of coordination among researchers from different countries. How is this achieved?
Coordination was, and continues to be, one of the major challenges in conducting research projects of this magnitude, which had never been attempted earlier. I am still uncomfortable saying that the coordination “has been achieved”. The advent and growth of internet, email, file transfer protocols (FTP), and the spurt in communications technologies has helped a lot. All these were not as developed when we started. Communications and coordination have been the two greatest issues. We tried to communicate as much as possible, even building in redundancies in the process, to ensure appropriate understanding.
A major stumbling block in this particular kind of research is the variety of languages in use in different societies. Even English which is often considered the “language of business” in the world, is inadequate for this kind of work, and not only because French, Chinese, Arabic, Portugese, Spanish are also very commonly used in several countries and in some of them, English is not even understood.
Translations also raised serious problems. Not only that some English words did not have proper equivalents in several other languages, some of the concepts either did not exist in some societies or had a very different connotation. For example, there is no word in Arabic for the word “leader” which is a key concept in this project. The word “leader” is literally translated to “Führer” in German which has come to have a different connotation of a dictator since the time of Adolf Hitler.
To overcome such issues, what needs to be done and what was attempted, fairly successfully I would say, was to keep working at bringing as much understanding as possible among the participants. My personal learning it that email while being efficient in terms of speed, etc. is not a very effective means of communication and coordination. Phone calls are more effective as you do get an idea of the tone of the communication of the other party, but nothing can replace face-to-face meetings and discussions, however expensive they may be.
- What are the implications of this research for academicians and practitioners in India?
India is an extremely diverse and complex society in terms of culture, and that makes the research and findings of the GLOBE Project very relevant to academics and practitioners in India. Academics have a tremendous opportunity to conduct further research in India on the lines of GLOBE because what has been done for GLOBE in India is actually far from adequate. As the chapter on India in the second GLOBE book (Culture and leadership across the world: The GLOBE book of in-depth studies of 25 socieites, 2007, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates) mentions towards the end, India needs a full-blown GLOBE project of its own.
Practitioners have the opportunity to learn about the fundamentals of culture as a phenomenon which has a major role in global and international business, and also specifics of several cultures in the world. The first GLOBE book (Culture, Leadership, and Organizations: The GLOBE Study of 62 Societies, 2004, Sage Publications) presents the quantitative findings of 62 countries, and the second book contains in-depth chapters on 25 countries combining quantitative and qualitative findings. By reading these books and referring to them from time to time, practitioners can learn how to be sensitive to other cultures and to function effectively in them and also to more effectively deal with people from those cultures.
- You have been one of the founders of the Association for Democratic Reforms. You have taken to this public activism with great energy. What has driven you to this activism?
If I may say so, I have not only “been” one of the founders of the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) but I am still one of the founders of ADR. While the start of the involvement in this activity was kind of slow, the energy increased with time, experience, and involvement. While I was generally aware of the poor state of governance in the country, I think I understood more about the specifics and possibly the real, in-depth causes and also possible remedies to improve the quality of governance, as I worked more and more in the area and learnt more about it.
The underlying reasons for taking up such issues is the sense of frustration and dissatisfaction with the sloppiness of the governance systems in the country, and a desire to do something to improve things. Two factors which make me continue doing this is (a) the small successes that we have had in this effort, and (b) the approval or sense of appreciation that we get from citizens from time to time.
- What are the notable changes that you have seen over the years in the Management academia?
Management academia has moved from a focus on deep analysis and basic understanding, to a technique orientation. The focus seems to have shifted to a kind of “how to” approach, with the “why” being either ignored totally or not being paid adequate attention. This is perhaps related to the trend towards short-term orientation that seems to be becoming more important in major parts of the world, over the years.
Another change is the pre-ponderance of the internet. On the side of the students, it results in very heavy reliance on the web for all kinds of information or even completing assignments. For the teachers, there seems to be great reliance on Power Point slides and presentations, as that is how most of the teaching now seems to happen.
Reading of books, even current, what to talk of the classics, seems to be a thing of the past which is sad.
- What would be your advice to the students of management and entrepreneurship in PSB?
Usually, I am very hesitant to give advice, particularly if the person concerned has not asked for it. But taking it to be an unusual situation, I would suggest to students of management and entrepreneurship in PSB to first understand themselves. A lot of students these days take up courses just because it is perhaps fashionable to take these up. As deep an introspection as possible would be of tremendous help in deciding on what kind of a course to take up.
Having taken up management and entrepreneurship, one must understand the difference between management and entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship involves total responsibility which being a manager may or may not. But the most critical ingredient of entrepreneurship, according to my understanding, is innovation—doing, at least some thing differently. This presupposes, what is jargonistically called ‘thinking out of the box’. But my concern is that ‘thinking out of the box’ itself presupposes ‘thinking’ which, it seems to me, is not very common these days.
A lot of the young men and women I know today seem to be looking (a) to make the maximum money, in (b) the shortest time, and (c) with the minimum of effort, and they seem to think that ‘smart-alec’ kind of entrepreneurship is the way to do this. We need to understand that there are really no short-cuts to success. Real success always comes after sustained effort and hard work. I of course wish all the students all the best in whatever they decide to do.
