Skip to main content

The present state of the Corporate and two fundamental issues

The present state of the Corporate and two fundamental issues

Yesterday Kingfisher went off the sky, today it's the turn of Jet, and tomorrow (God forbid) another!
Who's at fault? Employees? Company decision-makers? Shareholders? Governments? And the list goes on.

I ain't here to find where the fault lies; there're many who're already doing it. Rather, I'm rekindling two issues that have been ignored by practitioners and academics alike, since quite some time.

As management is neither a science nor an art, but a practice; I'll discuss the practitioners' issue first.

So, here's the first one. It pertains to the practitioners. It hovers around the classic question posed by Socrates in the fourth century BC: How 'one' should live? The question isn't how I should live? Or, how you should live? But, how 'one' should live? The 'one' that Socrates mentioned is the human, i.e., homo sapiens. Homo sapiens isn't the homo economicus or the self-interested utility-maximising agent! Or, borrowing the words of Amartya Sen (1977), s/he isn't a "rational fool?" While the homoeconomicus are plenty across the corporate corridors, where are the homo sapiens and their craving to live humanely? Even in the name of CSR, all they want is economic returns on investment! Have you seen a homo sapiens in the recent past?

The second one is in the context of the academics. It hovers around the classic article written by Late Prof. Sumantra Ghoshal in 2005 entitled: Bad Management Theories Are Destroying Good Management Practices! Yes, you've heard it right. Prof. Ghoshal's article is critical about the way management research is being conducted in the B-school ivory towers, away from the field, with the help of say CCTV footages entailing eye-tracking clips to understand and explain consumer behaviour! In that article, Ghoshal posed the question: How long can researchers deem the human consciousness (intentionality) as an externality? For, it is merely treated as a control variable in various management modeling endeavours? Control variable? Are you kidding me? Be it finance, HR, marketing, or operations, the crux of management studies is to study the (human) intentional aspects underlying corporate decision-making. No?

There are many other issues, but the fundamental issues posing an existential threat to the management community hover around the following questions:
1. The Socratic question: How 'one' should live?
2. The Ghoshalian critique: How long can management researchers deem the human consciousness (intentionality) as an externality?

Till the aforesaid issues are resolved, I won't be surprised to witness many more Kingfishers, Jets, and others going off the sky.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hypocrisy and being critical could be just millimetres apart!

Hypocrisy and being critical could be just millimetres apart! People hate subsidies. They say it takes us toward the Stone Age. But many of them, at least from my generation, have forgotten that they could complete higher studies with the meagre salary that their parents used to earn in the eighties and early nineties. Many of those cheap educational programs came from subsidies. (Though, I can understand the millennial generation hating subsidies because they hardly have enjoyed them.) Second, people hate political and corporate leaders who talk about philanthro-capitalism. However, when Michael Porter lectures about creating shared value, i.e., simultaneously creating economic and socio-environmental values, the very same people applaud in the audience. (Though I can understand the millennial generation getting confused encountering this new form of capitalism.) Third, people look at Prof. Md. Yunus and Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam with awe and appreciation for their gener...
Post a Comment
Read more

Making business ethics a core course in B-schools

In many B-schools, business ethics (BE) is being introduced as a core course. One needs to analyse the demand side and supply side to find its true relevance for managers. The demand side practitioners emphasize on bottom-line. It's not that they don't prefer ethical decision-making but they just don't know whether the other person is ethical or not. Consequently, the demand side mostly tries to give lip-service to it to cut cost and remain a going concern. The supply side mainly comprises of consultants and B-school faculties who generally try to operationalise BE as CSR or a means to mitigate various (extra) costs like government regulations/interventions, hue and cry by civil society activists, etc., in the events of unethical business practices. Furthermore, who head the CSR projects in organizations; well, they are mostly the superstars with expertise in core functional areas like marketing, finance, and so on. Hence, the bottomline thinking slowl...
Post a Comment
Read more