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Context Sensitivity and Balancing in Indian Organizational Behaviour
Author(s) -
Sinha Jai B. P.,
Kanungo R. N.
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
international journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.75
H-Index - 62
eISSN - 1464-066X
pISSN - 0020-7594
DOI - 10.1080/002075997400890
Subject(s) - caste , context (archaeology) , scarcity , embeddedness , sociology , sociocultural evolution , individualism , psychology , knowledge management , ecology , social psychology , social science , political science , economics , geography , computer science , archaeology , law , biology , anthropology , microeconomics
This paper attempts to explain Indian organizational behaviour with the help of two interrelated concepts: context sensitivity and balancing. Context sensitivity pertains to beliefs about person (patra) , time (kal) , and ecological (desh) components of the environment. Balancing is a behavioural disposition to avoid extremes and to integrate or accommodate diverse considerations. Traditional systems such as Hindu religion, caste as a form of social stratification, and agricultural mode of production have interacted with foreign invasions and alien rules to give rise to several sociocultural characteristics: (1) group embeddedness and hierarchy while relating to people (patra) , (2) uncertainty about future and the resultant short‐term perspective while relating to time (kal) , and (3) scarcity of resources, deficient infrastructural facilities, and poverty syndrome while relating to ecology (desh) . Rapid industrialization and the transplant of Western technology and work forms in the last three decades have added individualistic values and Western management practices. While responding to the three components of the environment, people exhibit both a primary expresive mode that is traditional in nature and a secondary expressive mode that is acquired as a result of the transplantation of the Western management system onto a traditional core. Superior‐subordinate relationships, work behaviour, and management practices reflect both the primary and secondary modes in varying degrees.