East is East? understanding aspects of Indian culture(s) within organisations: a special issue of Culture and Organization Volume 21, issue 5 (2015)

This call is an attempt to rekindle interest in understanding aspects of Indian culture in organisations. Though there have been previous special issues focusing on topics such as India specific management including human resource management practices and Indian firms’ internationalisation strategies (see for e.g. Human Resource Management, 2010; Journal of World Business, 2012), the cultural aspects have been largely ignored. This special issue aims to fill this glaring gap. The World Bank predicts that globally in the near future India will be the second largest economy after China. The recent high growth rates reported by businesses in the Indian economy, while laudable from some perspectives (Cappelli et al, 2010), also need to be sustainable, especially amidst its high cultural diversity. As the world’s largest and most diverse democracy, the Indian society can be best described as an amalgam of multiple cultures, value systems, socio-political and institutional orientations. Collectively, this diversity generates multiple opportunities and challenges for researchers and managers to learn about and embrace Indian cultural aspects in organisations.