MNCs grapple with culture

Realising the vast potential of Indian market, about 3000 MNCs have set up shop here, but not all is smooth.

Multinationals in India
Managing the Interface of Cultures
Jai B P Sinha
Sage India
2004
Management
Pages: 290
Price: Rs 350
ISBN: 0761932054
Paperback

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Realising the vast potential of Indian market, about 3000 multi-national companies (MNCs) have set up shop in the country and grappling with the stubborn Indian work culture that is particular about respect for seniors and disfavours finicky attitude and excess time consciousness.

The experience of the restrictive phase before liberalisation had amply proved that isolating the country from global market led to inefficiency, complacency, obsolesce in technology and slow rate of development, says a book.

The profit-oriented MNCs on their part are hesitant and shy in parting with their technology and prefer to use their expatriates to oversee the operations in India.

"Multinationals' perspectives and strategies for managing global, home and host cultural influences assume a different significance and raise diverse issues if placed in the larger Indian societal context", says the book titled Multinationals in India: Managing the Interface of Cultures.

The author, Jai B.P. Sinha, says a research of five multinationals drawn from three cultural zones, namely, British-American, Scandinavian and Pacific Rim countries, revealed that as they became borderless, they lost allegiance to the socio-economic imperatives of the host country.