University of Minnesota - UMN Executive Leadership Insights
Doing Business in India
Book

Doing Business in India

Rajesh Kumar and Anand Sethi
Palgrave Macmillan, 2005
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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Applicable

Recommendation

This short book first explores India’s history and cultural background, and then provides guidelines for doing business in India. The historical background may seem remote from day-to-day business considerations, but, in fact, it is essential to understanding the apparent anomalies of Indian negotiating styles, management behavior, government policies and so forth. getAbstract urges readers to be patient with the book’s small type and sometimes convoluted sentence structure, for if you are, you will discover much to reward you. The authors examine business challenges in India, including strategic planning, personnel management, government relations, negotiations and conflict resolution. Any manager investing in, working in or outsourcing to India will find this book very useful.

Summary

History in Brief

India experienced its first industrial revolution in the fourth millennium B.C. By the second millennium B.C., Indians were trading textiles and precious metals with the West. India survived Alexander the Great, heavy trade with Italy and China, spice trading with the Arabs and the Portuguese, and colonization by the English. In fact, Great Britain instituted the world’s first protectionist trade barriers to protect English textile makers against Indian competition. The then-agricultural country won its independence from the British Empire in 1947. The next year, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru - in light of the British socialist tradition - set up government monopolies in key industries and imposed onerous economic controls that discouraged private sector business. Only in 1980 did India begin to slough off socialism’s regulatory fetters; by the 1990s, foreign investment was pouring into India.

Culture and Business

India is culturally part of the West. Its language, Sanskrit, is Indo-European and, thus, closely related to Greek, Latin and European languages. Like other Westerners, Indians are analytical, emotional and assertive. Yet, India...

About the Authors

Rajesh Kumar is associate professor of international business at the Aaarhus School of Business in Denmark. He has published widely in leading international journals. Anand Sethi is managing director of a leading Indian business consultancy.

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