India Inc. and globalization: The rise of neo-liberalism and a transnational managerial elite?

ABSTRACT

In our paper, we present an empirical study that tests claims regarding the purported impact of economic globalization on business elites, namely that elites become increasingly transnational in their careers and life style and neo-liberal in their action orientations. We draw upon the results of a study that (a) tapped life course data for 100 current top managers in India and (b) implemented a collective mindset analysis using in-depth interviews that were conducted in India with retired and serving senior business managers. Our findings indicate that endogenous institutions have an important and enduring role to play in the shaping of careers, as well as generating embedded cognitive frameworks. Drawing from this exploratory study, we propose a set of hypotheses and a research agenda to argue that socio-cultural mechanisms of selection and socialization must be taken into account in discussions regarding the emergence of a global corporate elite.

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their very helpful comments; to our colleagues who constituted the International Management Studies team at Heidelberg University, to the German Research Foundation and the German Academic Exchange Service, which provided the resources for conducting the empirical research presented in the paper. We are also extremely thankful to the CEOs in India who gave us their time and expressed their views in the interviews that we conducted with them.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Aseema Sinha, Globalizing India: How Global Rules and Markets are Shaping India’s Rise to Power (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 3.

2 Sinha, Globalizing India, 13.

3 2016 DHL Global Connectedness Index.

4 Friedman, Thomas L. The World is Flat, a Brief History of the Twenty-First Century (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005).

5 Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello The New Spirit of Capitalism. (London: Verso, 2005).

6 As depicted in the work of Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014).

7 See Pankaj Ghemawat, Redefining Global Strategy. Crossing Borders in a World Where Differences Still Matter (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business Review Press, 2007).

8 See R.W. Scott, Institutions and Organizations (London, UK: Sage Publications, 1995), 37–40.

9 William Robinson, “Global Capitalism Theory and the Emergence of Transnational Elites,” Critical Sociology 38, no. 3 (2011): 349–63.

10 Leslie Sklair, “The Sociology of the Global System,” in Globalization: The Reader, edited by Frank Lechner and John Boli (New York, NY: Routledge, 2000), 178.

11 Leslie Sklair, “The Transnational Capitalist Class and the Discourse of Globalisation,” Cambridge Review of International Affairs 14, no. 1 (2000): 69.

12 Ullrich Beck, Was ist Globalisierung? Irrtümer des Globalismus – Antworten auf Globalisierung / What is Globalization? Fallacies of Globalism – Answers to Globalization (Frankfurt, Germany: Suhrkamp, 1997); Richard M. Münch, Globale Eliten, lokale Autoritäten: Bildung und Wissenschaft unter dem Regime von PISA (Frankfurt, Germany: Suhrkamp; McKinsey & Co., 2009); William Carroll, The Making of a Transnational Capitalist Class: Corporate Power in the 21st Century (London, UK: Zed, 2010).

13 Leslie Sklair, The Transnational Capitalist Class (London, UK: Blackwell, 2001); Rosabeth Moss Kanter, World Class: Thriving Locally in the Global Economy (New York: Simon and Schuster Inc., 1995).

14 Sabine Dreher “Vom Wohlfahrtsstaat zum Wettbewerbsstaat? Die Bedeutung der Migration für die Globalisierungsdebatte” (From Welfare State to Competition State? The Importance of Migration for the Globalization Debate), Migration im Wettbewerbsstaat (Migration in the Competition State), edited by Uwe Hunger and Bernhard Santel. (Opladen, Germany: Leske + Budrich.2003), 18; Yongyuth Chalamwong, “The Migration of Highly Skilled Asian Workers to OECD Member Countries and its Effects on Economic Development in East Asia” in Policy Coherence Towards East Asia, Development Challenges for OECD Countries, edited by Development Center Studies, Kiichiro Fukasaku, Masahiro Kawai, Michael G. Plummer, and Alexandra Trzeciak-Duval (Paris, France: OECD, 2005), 488.

15 Arjun Appadurai, “Globale ethnische Räume. Bemerkungen und Fragen zur Entwickelung einer transnationalen Anthropologie” in Perspektiven der Weltgesellschaft, edited by Ulrich Beck (Frankfurt-Main, Germany: Suhrkamp, 1998), 15.

16 Beck, Was ist Globalisierung?, 17.

17 Sklair, Transnational Capitalist; William I. Robinson, A Theory of Global Capitalism: Production, Class and State in a Transnational World (Baltmore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004); Carroll, The Making of a Transnational Capitalist Class.

18 Carroll, The Making of a Transnational Capitalist Class, 20.

19 S. E. Sullivan and Michael B. Arthur, “The Evolution of the Boundaryless Career Concept: Examining Physical and Psychological Mobility,” Journal of Vocational Behavior 69, no. 1 (2006): 19–29; D. C. Thomas and K. Inken, “Careers Across Cultures” in Handbook of Career Studies, edited by H. Gunz and M. Peiperl (Los Angeles, CA: Sage, 2007).

20 Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello, The New Spirit of Capitalism (London, UK: Verso, 2005); Christian Schmidt-Wellenburg, “Die neoliberale Gouvernementalität des Unternehmens – Management und Managementberatung zu Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts” / “The Neo-Liberal Governmentality of the Firm – Management and Management Consulting at the Beginning of the 21st Century,” Zeitschrift für Soziologie 38, no. 4 (August 2009): 320–41; Collin Crouch, The Strange Non-death of Neo-liberalism (London, UK: Polity Press, 2011), 92; Wolfgang Streeck, Gekaufte Zeit: Die vertagte Krise des demokratischen Kapitalismus / Purchased Time: The Adjourned Crisis of Democratic Capitalism (Berlin, Germany: Suhrkamp, 2013), 45f, 58f.

21 Markus Pohlmann and Hyun-Chin Lim, “A New ‘Sprit’ of Capitalism? – Globalization and its Impact on the Diffusion of Neoliberal Management Thinking in Germany and East Asian Economies,” Development and Society 43, no. 1 (2014): 1–32, p. 14.

22 Peter Capelli, Harbir Singh, Jitendra Singh, and Michael Useem, The India Way. How India’s Top Business Leaders are Revolutionizing Management (Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press, 2010).

23 See, for example, Tarun Khanna, ed., “The Global Indian Firm,” A Special Issue of The Indian Journal of Industrial Relations 45, no. 1 (July 2009): 1–114.

24 M. Merchant, Aditya Vikram Birla, a Biography (New Delhi, India: Viking,1997); B. Dadabhoy, Jeh, A Life of J.R.D. Tata (New Delhi, India: Rupa and Co., 2005); H. McDonald, The Polyester Prince: The Rise of Dhirubhai Ambani (London, UK: Harper Collins, 1998).

25 See, for example, Robert Gilpin, The Challenge of Global Capitalism: The World Economy in the 21st Century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002).

26 Anthony P. D’Costa, “Compressed Capitalism and Development. Primitive Accumulation, Petty Commodity Production, and Capitalist Maturity in India and China,” Critical Asian Studies 46, no. 2 (2014): 317–44.

27 Jacob John Kattakayam, series editor, Studies in Indian Sociology (New Delhi, India: SAGE India, 2012).

28 See, for example: Susanne Rudolph and Rudolph, Lloyd, In Pursuit of Lakshmi. The Political Economy of the Indian State (Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, 1987); Rajnarayan Chandavarkar, The Origins of Industrial Capitalism in India: Business Strategies and the Working Classes in Bombay (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press., 2003) Dietmar Rothermund, An Economic History of India: From Pre-colonials Times to 1991 (London, UK: Routledge. 1993).

29 K. Inkson, Hugh Gunz, Shiv Ganesh, Juliet Roper, “Boundaryless Careers: Bringing Back Boundaries,” Organization Studies 33, no. 3 (2012): 323–40.

30 This phenomena is observed in Japan, South Korea, and Germany. See, Pohlmann and Lim, “A New ‘Sprit’ of Capitalism?”

31 See M. Imbach, “India’s Conglomerate Captains. Top Management Team Composition and Internationalization At The Tata Group” (dissertation, St. Gallen, 2012), 102.

32 A trend that was also detected in the 2012 study on the Tata Group (Imbach, 2012, p.105).

33 For details of the 2012 report see: http://www.strategyand.pwc.com/global/home/what-we-think/reports-white-papers/article-display/time-for-new-ceos (accessed May 7, 2018).

34 See a number of his writings: D. T. Hall, Careers in Organizations (Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman, 1976); D. T. Hall, “Protean Careers of the 21st Century,” Academy of Management Executive 10 (1996): 8–16; D. T. Hall Protean Careers in and Out of Organizations (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2002).

35 Gita Piramal, Business Maharajas (New Delhi, India: Penguin, 1997).

36 For a brief overview of the study, see: https://hbr.org/2012/01/the-best-indian-ceo-list-youth (accessed May 7, 2018).

37 Ulrich Oevermann,“Die Struktur sozialer Deutungsmuster – Versuch einer Aktualisierung”/“The Structure of Social Interpretation Patterns – an attempt at a review),” Sozialersinn 2, no. 1 (2001): 35–81, p. 38.

38 Emile Durkheim, “Individuelle und kollektive Vorstellungen.”/“Individual and Collective Representation, in Soziologie und Philosophie / Sociology and Philosophy (Frankfurt, Germany: Suhrkamp, 1967), 78f.

39 Vilfredo Pareto, Vilfredo Paretos System der allgemeinen Soziologie/Vilfredo Pareto’s System of General Sociology (Stuttgart, Germany: Ferdinand Enke, 1962).

40 Donald C. Hambrick and Phyllis. A. Mason, “Upper Echelons: The Organization as a Reflection of Its Top Managers,” The Academy of Management Review 9, no. 2 (1984): 193–206, p. 194.

41 Schmidt-Wellenburg, “Die neoliberale Gouvernementalität des Unternehmens.”

42 Schmidt-Wellenburg, “Die neoliberale Gouvernementalität des Unternehmens,” 327.

43 Boltanski and Chiapello, The New Spirit.

44 Crouch, The Strange Non-death.

45 Streeck, Gekaufte Zeit.

46 Ronald Dore, “Financialization of the Global Economy,” Industrial and Corporate Change 17, no. 6 (1 December 2008): 1097–112.

47 Boltanski and Chiapello, The New Spirit, 100–109.

48 Schmidt-Wellenburg, “Die neoliberale Gouvernementalität,” 331.

49 IBM, Capitalising on Complexity. Insights from the Global CEO Study (IBM; https://www.ibm.com/downloads/cas/1VZV5X8J [accessed March 3, 2019]).

50 Schmidt-Wellenburg, “Die neoliberale Gouvernementalität,” 329.

51 Schmidt-Wellenburg, “Die neoliberale Gouvernementalität,” 331.

52 Alfred Rappaport, Creating Shareholder Value: A Guide For Managers And Investors (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1986), 4; Schmidt-Wellenburg, “Die neoliberale Gouvernementalität,” 332.

53 For example, by Gita Piramal.

54 It must be said that in the Indian context, hostile takeovers are rare mostly because there is a dominant shareholder and the prevalence of takeover regulations, which strongly discourage hostile takeovers.

55 David Goldblatt, Jonathan Perraton, David Held, Anthony McGrew. Global Transformations: Politics, Economics and Culture. (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999) .

56 For further publications arising from the project, see the website: https://www.soz.uni-heidelberg.de/1086-2/ (accessed May 7, 2018).

57 Thomas L. Friedman The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century (New York, NY: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2005).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jivanta Schottli

Jivanta Schottli is Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore.

Markus Pohlmann

Markus Pohlmann is professor of sociology at the Max Weber Institute of Sociology, Heidelberg University, Germany.