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The Propertyless Manager: Culture & Ethics in India

The document discusses the historical and cultural foundations of ethics in Indian management. It outlines concepts from ancient Hindu texts like the Bhagavad Gita and the writings of Manu that emphasize duty and accountability. The ideas of the Mauryan and Buddhist eras also stressed managing resources ethically without harming others. Akbar established systems that allowed ethics to flourish by defining clear roles and frameworks for managers. Gandhi believed politics and business should work together for national development. Overall the document traces the development of an ethical approach to management and business in India from ancient texts to modern times.

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22 views

The Propertyless Manager: Culture & Ethics in India

The document discusses the historical and cultural foundations of ethics in Indian management. It outlines concepts from ancient Hindu texts like the Bhagavad Gita and the writings of Manu that emphasize duty and accountability. The ideas of the Mauryan and Buddhist eras also stressed managing resources ethically without harming others. Akbar established systems that allowed ethics to flourish by defining clear roles and frameworks for managers. Gandhi believed politics and business should work together for national development. Overall the document traces the development of an ethical approach to management and business in India from ancient texts to modern times.

Uploaded by

vinit_shah90
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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THE PROPERTYLESS MANAGER:

CULTURE & ETHICS IN INDIA

• The Gita concept --- Doing one’s duty without seeking


for the fruits
• Manu’s precept--- Of inheriting debts as well as
property
• Mauryan idea--- Of accountability provides a basis for
Gandhi’s belief
• Gandhi’s belief---- That politics and business must
work hand in hand for the development of the nation.
Ethics in the Gita
• In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna laid down the
rights and obligations of each one of us.
• Krishna says that a manager must look upon the
task that he has been set, or that he sets himself,
not in terms of personal gain or profit but purely
in terms of its fulfillment and the satisfaction that
this gives him. There can be no better definition
of an ethical manager
• E.g. Mr. Prakash Tandon and Lord Heyworth
meeting from Hindustan Lever
Manu & Inheritance
• In the Aryan ethical code, there were rights and
obligations for the sons who inherited their
father’s property. They also inherited his debt
and the debt went down to two generations, so
that if the first generation did not clear it, the
second generation had to do so. This is similar to
Roman law which, 1300 years later, laid down
similar obligations. Manu created our caste
system and gave a separate function to the
trader or the merchant
Buddha’s theory
• He said, the trader is like a honeybee, which
sucks honey out of the flower but does not
harm the flower. Buddha, of course, did not
realize what we moderns know, namely, that
the bee actually helps the process of
fertilization. What Buddha did see was that
while taking profit out, no harm must be done
as one might do when in quest of personal
gain.
Mauryan Accountability
The concept of accountability of mangers was
laid down for the first time .
• In a complex, but carefully defined,
operational framework, the Artha Shastra lays
• it down as a duty of a manager that he should
be subject to an audit, that his accounts
should be looked at every now and again for
their clarity and truth
• In later centuries, India suffered various
invasions
• Ethics weakened because the trader was often
held to ransom and had recourse to extortion
so as to be able to fend for himself
• Hence Ethics no longer played the same role.
Akbar and the Operational
Framework
• However, ethics did come back in Akbar’s time
because Akbar gave us something indispensable for
regular ethical functioning –

• A clear and stable commercial set up.

• We in the management know today that there can be


no proper performance of duty, no ethical and social
responsibility unless the framework in which one
operates has been well defined, for quite often it is the
vagueness that leads to loss of ethics.
The British period
• Akbar laid down an excellent land revenue
system
• British emulated Akbar in three things:
• 1) in giving India unity and a wholeness,
• 2)A land revenue system and
• 3) Trying to bring about Hindu –Muslim unity.
British successful in first two but failed in the
last
The British period(cont)
• This brings us to the British East India
Company, where ethics wavered.

• The British government operating till 1947


gave India a complex but a good system of
rights, obligations, duties, an operational
framework, such as we had in Akbar’s time
and Mauryan time.
Gandhi’s philosophy & New India
• The British rulers had looked down upon trade and industry
because traders came from a class of society where trading
was considered to be an occupation suitable for the lower
classes of society.

• But Gandhi belonged to the trading community himself, so


he renewed the nexus between government and trade and
industry of the Mauryan times and Manu’s time.

• He openly joined with the business community; he felt


there should be interaction between the administrators,
the intellectuals and the businessmen, who should no
longer be sidelined.
What is Ethics ?
• It is a set of standards , or a code , or value
systems , worked out from human reason and
experience , by which free human actions are
determined as ultimately right or wrong ,
good or evil.

• If an action agrees with these standards , it is


ethical: If it does not agree , it is unethical.
Ethical Standards
• Ethical standards arise or are set in order to
reach an ultimate goal
• All men experience certain needs and strive
for certain goals
• Fulfilling goals is Happiness
• Fulfilling needs is Pursuit of Happiness
• As human goal changes or is refined the
ethical standards also changes or is refined .

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