Introduction

The rise of major emerging markets has been recently paralleled by calls for a better understanding of indigenous management concepts and practices in those economies (e.g., Welge and Holtbrügge 1999). The goal of this paper is to respond to this call by advocating for the adoption of a historical hybridity perspective. Drawing selectively on postcolonial theory, we suggest that a historical hybridity perspective serves as a crucial heuristic tool to understand the nature of contemporary management in India and its globalization related transformation. We illustrate the analytical value of a historical hybridity perspective in the example of a global practice transfer, local mismatch, and transfer outcome which we observed in a German subsidiary in India.

Indian management research has seen in recent years a debate on the question to what extent Indian management is likely to be transformed by its new global context (Sinha 1999; Narayanan 2001; Davis et al. 2006). Clearly, the government-induced reforms towards a more market-based system that started in India in the early 1990s have not only ignited a remarkable leap in economic development, but also forced Indian businesses to compete in a changing, global environment. Consequently, the contemporary Indian management, be it in Indian firms and even more so in Indian subsidiaries of MNCs, is bound to face a multitude of influences, both local and global. Against this background, recent literature has frequently used the term hybrid in association with the transition of Indian management (e.g., Gopalan and Stahl 1998; Gopinath 1998; Chatterjee and Pearson 2000; Neelankavil et al. 2000; Kakar et al. 2002; Davis et al. 2006). These contributions are suggesting that the Indian management is moving towards unique hybrid forms of management that blend traditional Indian elements of behavior with a selection of global best management practices. Studies have found, for instance, a ‘duality of managerial values’ that would be partially drawn from managers’ own cultural background and from international parameters (e.g., Bedi 1991; Neelankavil et al. 2000; Sinha 2002).

We argue that while this literature has very much advanced our understanding of the contemporary and globalization related transition of Indian management practices by seeing them as blends of global or Western and indigenous influences, it has tended to neglect the already hybrid nature of what is indigenous as well as of what is seemingly Western or global (Shimoni 2011). Moving beyond the confines of a contemporary hybridization perspective, we selectively draw on postcolonial theory and advocate for a historical hybridity perspective as a heuristic device to understand Indian management and its globalization related transition. Using the example of a transfer initiative in a German MNC in India, we illustrate that the added value of adopting a historical hybridity perspective lies not only in a richer understanding of the causes of mismatches between the transfer content and local behavior, but also in capturing the nature of transfer outcomes which are defying a simple Eastern-Western or indigenous-global dichotomy.

In our view, adopting a historical hybridity perspective informed by postcolonial theory makes two crucial contributions. The first contribution rests on challenging a historical and essentialist notions of contemporary hybridization perspectives on Indian management and builds on complementing the predominant contemporary hybridization perspective with a historical one. The second contribution is more general and involves challenging essentialist notions underlying indigenous management perspectives. While the importance of context is commonly recognized in indigenous management studies, the issue of how to define what is indigenous and what it is not becomes especially problematic in postcolonial scenarios where much of the status quo can at least in part be related to the colonial condition. Our approach suggests that management concepts and practices in postcolonial contexts can be better captured by notions of ‘hybridity’ or ‘inbetweenness’ that account for the continuous confluence of multiple historical and contemporary influences. Hence, a broader aim of this paper is to pose the fundamental question of how useful the notion of indigeneity is in the postcolonial contexts of many emerging markets.

Our paper is structured as follows: In the literature review in Sect.  2 we discuss recent Indian management research. This is followed by an introduction of the historical hybridity perspective informed by postcolonial theory. Section 3 presents the research method of our study. The paper proceeds in Sect.  4 by presenting the case of a global practice transfer in a German subsidiary in India. Section 5 provides an interpretation of the case findings adopting a historical hybridity perspective as a heuristic device. The paper concludes in Sect. 6 comprising a summary of findings, a discussion of future research, managerial implications and limitations of the paper.

Literature Review

Contemporary Hybridization Perspectives on Indian Management

Recent Indian management research has predominantly adopted a contemporary hybridization perspective, centering on the question to what extent Indian management culture reflects forces or elements of globalization or westernization. Specifically, studies that discuss the hybridization of the Indian management have documented how the rise of globalization has induced a shift from a principally Indian management culture to one comprised of both Indian and international features (e.g., Gopalan and Stahl 1998; Gopinath 1998; Chatterjee and Pearson 2000; Neelankavil et al. 2000; Kakar et al. 2002; Davis et al. 2006). This hybridization perspective builds in part on the insight that top executives in India have often received their management education at well-known Western institutions while, at the same time, top leadership positions (typically that of the CEO) remained occupied by members of the founding family. The hybridization perspective on Indian management has not been restricted to the top management, however. Chatterjee and Pearson (2000) found that traditional Indian values are increasingly giving way to more ‘global’ value archetypes. When looking, for instance, at the composition of mid- and high-level employees, most now come from the upper and middle classes of urban India rather than belonging to the traditional owners’ business community, and have enjoyed education at institutions which have also significantly exposed them to Western management values (Boer and van Deventer 1989). A similar perspective is adopted by Gopalan and Stahl (1998), who studied the transferability of American management concepts to India. They argue that the increased acquaintance with Western education, the Internet, and the English language is causing Indian managers to develop a hybrid approach to management that combines indigenous and Western approaches. For example, while some Indian values, such as loyalty and idealization of leaders, are seen to persist despite the Western imperative because they foster effective business relationships, others, such as preferential hiring, are expected to disappear in favor of Western methods.

The result of increasing westernization has generally been described as hybrid or the coexistence of dual behavioral modes in Indian management practices. Neelankavil et al. (2000) suggest, for example, that Indian management culture has evolved into a hybrid approach that consists of a primary mode of behavior supported by the traditional Indian system, as well as a secondary mode driven by Western influences. Along the same lines, Sinha’s work (2002) provides a cultural framework describing primary and secondary modes of value expression; primary modes are supposedly grounded in traditional Indian culture, while secondary modes are brought about by the subjection to Western management concepts. In this context, a number of recent studies have also emphasized the conflict between newly imported and traditional practices. An example is the struggle taking place within the Indian Human Resource (HR) function between existing strong social traditions (such as the importance of social contacts, relationships, and one’s affiliation to a particular group) and the pressure to move to modern professionalism by formalizing and rationalizing management systems (e.g., Budhwar et al. 2006; Bhatnagar et al. 2010). In a similar way, Mishra et al. (2012) discuss the discordance between the contemporary pressure on HR to become a strategic asset and its traditional tendency to play a predominantly short-term and reactive role.

It should be noted that there is also a number of studies that is rather skeptical about the prospect of Western or global practices having a deep impact on Indian management (e.g., Sinha 1995; Kakar et al. 2002). Sinha (1995) contends that the westernization of Indian managers is a mere surface phenomenon that does not change their core personality. Kanungo and Mendonca (1994) and Budhwar and Khatri (2001) find in the context of HR an ongoing precedence of familial, communal, or political considerations over contemporary job performance practices. Thus, Indian culture, these scholars argue, continues to have a pervasive if not overriding influence on the conduct of business and the perceptions of managers.

Finally, the persistence and use of traditional Indian management practices has been rated in different ways. On the one hand, scholars argue that organizations in India should localize their practices in line with their national culture and institutions to achieve high performance and firm effectiveness (e.g., Budhwar and Sparrow 2002; Björkman and Budhwar 2007). Bhatnagar and Som (2010) argue, on the other hand, that following established practices may impede efforts to employ innovative, cost-effective, efficient, and more metric-driven management systems.

To summarize, in an effort to describe the post-liberalization development of Indian management practices, the majority of contributions has used the notion of contemporary hybridization to describe the transition of the Indian management in response to globalization. While differing in their evaluation to what extent global or Western management practices have taken root in Indian management, there is a generally shared perception that current management practices can best be described as mix of global or Western and traditional or indigenous elements. Hence, with some notable exceptions (e.g., Virmani 2007; Budhwar et al. 2011), Indian management literature has recently adopted contemporary hybridization perspectives with little systematic recognition of the historical hybridity of management in India. What remains downplayed or disregarded in this perspective, is that Indian management practices have already long before the advent of market liberalization in the 1990s been an amalgam of different historical influences. As we will show in our case discussion, this is a missed opportunity as a historical hybridity perspective offers a richer understanding of local mismatches and outcomes of global practice transfer, that is, an understanding that defies simple indigenous-Western or indigenous-global dichotomies. In the next section, we will selectively draw on postcolonial perspectives and suggest a historical hybridity perspective as a heuristic device to analyze Indian management and its globalization related transition.

Hybridity in Postcolonial Theory

Like most theoretical strands, postcolonial theory is no homogenous body (see Ashcroft et al. (2002) for a good overview). Nevertheless, it is probably fair to say that contributions from postcolonial theory generally share the goal to deconstruct colonial discourses that are seen to constitute and meant to legitimize colonial hegemony in the past and present. A crucial vantage point of postcolonial theory has been associated with the work of Edward Said (1978, 1993). In his seminal book Orientalism, Said (1978) argues that Western contributions on the Orient involved perceiving non-Western cultures as not only substantively different but as culturally inferior and backward providing the ideological basis for their colonization. In Culture and Imperialism Said explicates this as follows:

Neither imperialism nor colonialism is a simple act of accumulation and acquisition. Both are supported and perhaps even impelled by impressive ideological formations which include notions that certain territories and people require and beseech domination, as well as forms of knowledge affiliated with that domination. (Said 1993, p. 8)

While the work of Said was seminal in deconstructing colonial discourses, his work also contributed to what one might label reverse Orientalism, that is, building in part on colonial ascriptions and turning them into notions of superiority of the colonized. In this context, Sen (2006) suggests that the acknowledgement of foreign superiority by the colonized mind led to an adapted self-perception among the colonized inducing them to compete on the grounds of spirituality rather than materialism. While the work of Said is widely recognized as foundational for postcolonial theory, it has also been criticized for reifying essentialist distinctions and thereby perpetuating a binary perspective of Western vs. Eastern or Occident vs. Orient (e.g., Gandhi 1998; Loomba 1998). Frenkel and Shenhav (2003) summarize this critique as follows:

It has been argued that, while it is politically important to consolidate and essentialize the struggle against colonialism and its aftermath, the use of a binary perspective masks the hybrid nature of both the colonial encounter and the postcolonial condition. Accordingly, while it is true that the colonizers used binary distinctions to describe the differences between colonizer and colonized (the logic of the observed), it is essential that we do not perpetuate this binarism in our conceptual schema (the logic of the observer). (Frenkel and Shenhav 2003, pp. 857-858)

The seminal works of Gayatri Spivak (1999) and particularly of Homi Bhabha (1994a, b, 1996) mark a departure from early postcolonial theory’s binary perspective. Bhabha (1994a, b) argues that the colonial encounter defines a ‘third space’ in which ‘hybridity’ or ‘inbetweenness’ emerges from the interplay of the colonizer’s request for cultural emulation (understood as ‘mimicry’ by Bhabha) and the responses of the colonized. From the colonizers perspective the colonial encounter involves the imposition of the colonizers behavior and identity upon the colonized. This effort is ambiguous, however. While the colonized are meant to adopt the colonizers culture, they can never fully succeed in their effort as this would jeopardize the colonizers legitimacy of domination (1994b). Turning to the colonized, Bhabha (1994a, b) concedes that even though the colonial encounter is marked by power asymmetry, the colonized are neither powerless nor passive. Instead, the colonized creatively draw on different cultural frameworks to resist, translate and negotiate the behavioral models and identities assigned by the colonizer (Frenkel 2008). Ultimately, the colonial encounter not only transforms the identity and behavior of the colonized but also of the colonizer. Similar to Spivak, who frames the transformation of the colonizer and colonized as a mutual one, Bhabha argues that neither the colonizer nor the colonized can lay claim to essential identity or authentic roots after their encounter (Frenkel 2008; Özkazanc-Pan 2008). The quintessence of Bhabha’s insights into postcolonial encounters and the concomitant emergence of hybridity is that it calls into question “the naturalized and ahistorical conceptualization of nationhood in general and national culture in particular” (Frenkel 2008, p. 927). In recent years, insights from postcolonial theory found increasing attention outside anthropology and cultural studies and moved into organization and management studies (Frenkel and Shenhav 2003; Jack et al. 2011; Nkomo 2011; Alcadipani et al. 2012; Boussebaa et al. 2012; Witte 2012). Particularly, the field of International Management (IM), given its attention to cultural differences and the nation-crossing nature of MNCs, suggested itself for adopting postcolonial perspectives. In this context, Özkazanc-Pan (2008) and Frenkel (2008) presented extensive proposals for a postcolonial research agenda in IM. For example, Özkazanc-Pan (2008, p. 969) suggested to “examine hybrid management ideas/practices that emerge through encounters rather than static, nation-based cultural differences”. In a similar fashion, Frenkel (2008) proposed to apply the Bhabhaian epistemology of ‘third space’ to understand processes of knowledge and practice transfer in MNCs. Paralleling recent responses to these calls (Shimoni and Bergman 2006; Mir and Sharpe 2009; Fougere and Moulettes 2011; Shimoni 2011; Boussebaa et al. 2012), we also see the postcolonial perspective as instrumental in questioning recent research on Indian management and understanding its globalization related transformation—as we will exemplify in a case of practice transfer later on. Seen in the light of postcolonial theory, much of recent research on Indian management reifies binary perspectives. Specifically, while recognizing the hybrid outcomes of contemporary management transformation in India, this literature’s take on contemporary hybridization is largely based on essentialist dichotomies of Western and non-Western, traditional vs. modern as well as notions of superiority and inferiority positively biased towards either ‘Western’ or ‘Indian management’. Put differently, there is only little recognition that both the Western and the non-Western, in this case the Indian, reflect historical hybridity as part of a long history of colonial encounters.

In the analysis of our case study below, we wish to complement the prevalent contemporary hybridization perspective with a historical hybridity heuristic which is informed by postcolonial theory. The key aspect that we wish to adopt relates to the theory’s sensitivity to the role of history in understanding the potentially hybrid and non-essentialist nature of both global transfers and local responses. However, while we embrace postcolonial theory’s anti-essentialists stance on hybridity, we share the concern of some scholars (e.g., Friedman 1994; Hutnyk 1997) that the concept of hybridity may not be capable of entirely escaping the essentialist foundations it seeks to overcome. Indeed, one cannot deny that the idea of hybridity as the mutual transformation of different cultures has the implication that there must be pre-existing identities or behavior (however hybrid these may have been) from which to draw. Consequently, for analytical purposes our case study too cannot fully do without essentialist reference points—past and present—to identify elements that interact and transform into new hybridity.

Finally, we would like to caution the reader that we do not wish to employ the full analytical, methodological (e.g., discourse analysis) and ideological (deconstruction of hegemony) repertoire of postcolonial theory. Rather than looking at how the intercultural encounter as part of our case gives rise to a discourse on identity unfolding between the colonizers and colonized, we look at transfer intent, local responses and hybrid outcome in behavioral terms. Also, while recognizing that domination efforts and resistance to such efforts play into the transfer, response and outcome found in our case, we are unable to trace this process with our data.

Research Method

Case Selection

Based on the goal of contributing to a better understanding of management in India and its globalization driven transition, we sought to find a case that epitomized such transformative circumstances. Herein we conceived such a context to be ideally represented by the situation of a subsidiary in India in which Indian management routines are exposed to Western/global influences in the form of a cross-cultural encounter and practice transfer. Exploring hybridity and how it has come about is essentially a matter of understanding the qualitative nature of organizational phenomena. Given this research focus, we opted for a qualitative research design implying “procedures for ‘coming to terms with the meaning, not the frequency’ of a phenomenon by studying it in its social context” (Marschan-Piekkari and Welch 2004, p. 6). Within the spectrum of qualitative methods we employed a case study which has been rated ideal for cross-border or cross-cultural research contexts because it “provides excellent opportunities for respondents and researchers to check their understanding and keep on asking questions until they obtain sufficient answers and interpretations” (Ghauri 2004, p. 111). We followed the case selection logic of finding a ‘representative case’ (Yin 2009). We were looking for a case displaying an instance of global transfer and local response within the managerial context of an MNC in India to explore the extent to which a hybridity perspective informed by postcolonial theory would prove instrumental in gaining a richer understanding of Indian management transition. To identify such a case we drew on a larger comparative study conducted earlier on the transfer and adaptation of production systems in the Indian automobile industry. Reviewing the different cases in our portfolio (Fiat India, Skoda India, Maruti-Suzuki, Mercedes-Benz India), we identified Mercedes-Benz India (MBI) as particularly suitable for the purpose of this paper because it not only satisfied the requirement of being representative but also because this case provided the best quality of data among the four cases that where available.

Data Collection

The data collection of the MBI case rested on triangulation (Miles and Huberman 1994). The multiple sources of data collection involved observation, documentation and guided open-ended interviews (Eisenhardt 1989; Patton 1990; Yin 2009). The study was conducted in 1999, 2002 and supplemented by follow up interviews in 2009. On these different occasions a total of 41 open-ended and semi-structured interviews were conducted at the company. The main focus of the original study was to understand cross-cultural conflicts and solutions in the transfer of production systems in multinational corporations. Interviews were conducted across the organizational hierarchy (from managing director to production workers) and in different functions with a focus on production (please find in Table 1 an overview of all production interviews conducted and reference codes for the discussion). In addition, documents were collected such as shopfloor displays (please refer to two of these, display 1 and 2 in the case discussion below).

Table 1 Overview production interviewees and reference codes for discussion
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To better understand the Indian business environment and institutional environment, additional interviews were conducted (please refer to Table 2).

Table 2 Overview of interviewees in business environment
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Data Analysis and Limitations

Eisenhardt (1989) notes that data-analysis is on the one hand the most difficult step of research and the least codified one on the other. Following Eisenhardt (1989) and Eisenhardt and Graebner (2007) the data analysis commenced with detailed and descriptive ‘case write-ups’. Before these write-ups were made, field notes, transcribed interviews and documents were thoroughly read and manually coded. During this process, interviews were decomposed and chunks of coded interview-sections grouped according to both predefined analytical dimensions and emergent categories. Predefined categories involved, for example, ‘transfer intention’, ‘transfer content’ or ‘adaptation of transfer content’. Emergent categories included, for example, the ‘family model’. In a subsequent step, initial write-ups were further reduced and condensed into shorter case profiles (Miles and Huberman 1994). This process was supported by extensive efforts of data display as suggested by Miles and Huberman (1994).

Despite careful research design and analysis of the original research project, the interpretation of the case study presented below suffers from some data related limitations. While similar in focus, the original data collection was not geared towards a postcolonial perspective (Becker-Ritterspach 2009). Also, while an Indian supervisor and shopfloor worker was interviewed, their answers had to be translated from Marathi to English. This translation was facilitated by Indian managers at MBI. Given this condition, interviews with supervisors and workers were not only short but also appeared to reflect a high degree of social desirability. We therefore had to disregard them.

Generalization of Findings

While case studies cannot provide ‘statistical generalization’, they can offer ‘analytical generalization’ (Pauwels and Matthyssens 2004). Analytical generalization involves generalizing “a particular set of results to some broader theory” (Yin 2009, p. 43). With regard to our paper this ‘analytical generalization’ refers to the general heuristic value or applicability (Halkier 2011) of a historical hybridity perspective within the context of indigenous management research.

Case Study: Mercedes-Benz India

The case we would like to present here is Mercedes-Benz India (MBI). MBI is an assembly plant located near Pune which was founded in 1994. Facing initial difficulties in the market, the company turned profitable in the 2000s. At the time of research the company employed around 350 people and produced about 1,500 cars annually from completely knocked down (CKD) kits. The following discussion focuses on the local response and outcome of a shopfloor-related transfer initiative by German management (please refer to Table 3 for a summarizing overview of the transfer intention, local work behavior and transfer solution).

Table 3 Transfer intention, local work behavior and transfer solution
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The German Transfer Intention

The German transfer intention to MBI’s shopfloor mainly focused on soft work roles as these were hailed most crucial for ensuring the quality of a luxury product. While the transfer of work roles was not formally defined as a standard, there was a clear intention to transfer work behavior in line with German work roles onto the shopfloor (MBI 1). Specifically, the transfer intention revolved around the work roles of supervisors, workers and their interaction. German managers expected Indian supervisors to work closely in a team with workers (called operators in the plant). Supervisors were called upon to coach and train the operators with their ‘own hands’ and to remain close to the production line to be able to actively participate in solving line related problems (see Fig. 1 below). Importantly, supervisors were perceived as having a crucial linking role between the management levels, on the one side, and the operator level, on the other.

Fig. 1
figure 1

Clearly defined functions for our supervisors. (Source: Copy from shopfloor display at MBI)

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On the part of operators the expectation was to cooperate smoothly with supervisors and to turn to them should problems surface. In addition, they were called upon to take direct responsibility to ensure quality in their line station and to practice 5S in their line section (MBI 5). Hence, despite the absence of formally defined standards there were very specific behavioral expectations with regard to work roles of supervisors and operators and supervisor-operator relations.

Local Work Behavior

The realization of the work roles expected by German management faced some substantial mismatch with the Indian work context. Contrasting with the expected work roles, Indian supervisors were seen to perceive themselves as managerial superiors of the operators. Instead of a more cooperative attitude, the supervisor-operator relation was seen as a hierarchical superior-subordinate relationship. Supervisors expressed a ‘white-collar’ work identity. Relatedly, supervisors were reluctant to be close to the production line and to get physically involved in the manufacturing process.

We have the problem with our employees of not being willing to work with their hands, with our supervisors in particular. In this respect the mentality or the approach is totally different from Germany. In German the Meister or the Group-Meister is directly recruited from the worker level, that is, by taking evening courses, Meister-courses, by being supported by the superior. This is totally different here. The system is such that the superior has visited a higher school and becomes a supervisor even though he never worked with his hands. (MBI 3)

There is a management level in India which I see very critical and that is for me the Meister-level which doesn’t exist here. Here we have the supervisors and there is a clear divide between the ones beneath and the ones above. And back home in Germany we have the Meister who has a very, very high importance in managing things in that he is a link between workers and management. And he is a man who understands both. And the interface here is a very dangerous one. That is, those below know how it works, they are just meant to work, and the supervisor is already a studied man and walks around with a tie and a shirt, is another breed of human and also doesn’t want to dirty his hands. This is culturally a big topic and management has to pay a lot of attention here. Here is my closest attention. (MBI 1)

Operators for their part did not experience their supervisors as competent coaches as the latter were lacking practical skills and know-how in manufacturing. As supervisors saw themselves as managers and were perceived by operators as managerial superiors with little practical competence, supervisors could also not play the linking roles between management and operators.

However, similar to the supervisors, the operators equally rejected particular aspects of their tasks profiles as perceived by German managers. A case in point was the implementation of housekeeping as part of the Japanese 5S concept. In this context cleaning the factory floors provoked resistance as the activity was not perceived as belonging to their task profile as ‘operators’. Similarly, strong responsibility taking at the operator level proved difficult to implement. A common concern among Germans was that decisions were permanently re-delegated upward.

The biggest difference, I would say, with regard to working style, between German and Indian, I think it is the delegation of responsibility. Indians, I think it is rooted in the structure, this father figure, that always the elderly, the father or the grandfather has the saying. This is why Indians very much like to delegate the responsibility upward to the next level. (MBI 3)

While Indian employees were generally positive about more decision and responsibility taking, they experienced expectations of self-directed work and responsibility taking in stark contrast to what they were used to in other firms (MBI 6).

The Family Model

Over time MBI’s shopfloor management saw three modes to address the mismatch between the German transfer intention and local work behavior on the shopfloor. The first involved German managers trying to lead by example.

No one likes to work here with their own hands and this is something I try to show them. I have here my blue overall in my desk. (MBI 3)

German manager involves himself with the group more; I can very well give the example of Mr. H. who was Divisional Manager of the trim line. He used to get into the group, never wanted anybody to come to his cabinet (…), he used to go down. (MBI 7)

Similarly, young engineers with little practical work experience were directly sent to the production line when they entered the company as fresh trainees.

At the moment we have two management trainees with us for the next year. This is the highest standard in terms of university education. The first thing we gave them is a blue uniform so as to work with their own hands, just to get the feeling for it. (MBI 3)

The second mode involved replacing supervisors and promoting operators to supervisors. This, however, was seen as an exceptional solution rather than the rule (MBI 3). The third and probably most important mechanism involved employing the Indian metaphor of the ‘family’ for shopfloor work roles. Over time, MBI developed a so-called ‘family model’ (MBI 1, 2, 3) (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2
figure 2

Family organization principles. (Source: Copy from shopfloor display at MBI)

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The ‘family model’ was essentially a team-based work concept of about 15 operators. The supervisor was also called the ‘family father’. Like in a typical Indian family, there was an ‘eldest son’ (selected by the ‘father’) who acted as the ‘deputy’ in the father’s absence.

We use this concept of family because we believe the operators are children. Here the immediate supervisor becomes the father and the next higher person we call a grandfather. So here the greater emphasis has to be from the father to the children. So that is the reason, they work as team, they are a group. (MBI 7)

The family group had a clear hierarchy with the ‘father’ having far reaching administrative and operational responsibilities for his ‘children’. In like manner, the main responsibility did not rest with individual operators but with the ‘father’ and the ‘eldest son’. German management saw the family-concept was a powerful metaphor to change the local behavior in line with the work roles and identities expected by them. The idea of family and children served to reduce the gap between supervisors and operators by fostering the idea of a social unit with common goals. The idea of family and children also allowed for reducing the supervisors’ hands-off approach by emphasizing that the father has to lead by example, showing the work to his children ‘with his own hands’. The German production head explained this as follows:

Therefore, I highlight especially the supervisors. This is also why he is the family father on the line and to lift him out and to call upon him to serve as a link and to make him personally demonstrate the work. (MBI 1)

The idea of ‘father’ and ‘eldest son’—roles strongly associated with responsibility taking in Indian society—also served allocating responsibility onto the shopfloor.

We also have our family principles. There we tried to take the Indian mentality into account. I think that it is very important for us to say, that is, the father figure, especially the supervisor on the line; well, it was very important, that the supervisor really is the father of the family and that, when he is not there that there must be someone—the eldest son for example—who looks after things. Well, that is something they understand. (MBI 5)

The family concept comes from the Indian culture, no doubt about that, that’s from here. You know, the philosophy that someone has to be responsible for an area, you know. I mean a ‘self’-responsibility you know. I don’t see any other way to build such a high quality. (MBI 3)

While the family model mainly served as a metaphor to address the supervisor role and the supervisor-operator relationship, there was a different approach to solving the operators’ rejection to housekeeping activities. In this regard German managers stated that the introduction of proper cleaning machines helped to introduce the practice. Essentially the measure aimed at replacing the perception of cleaning with that of machine operation.

Half a year later I said: Well, now everyone cleans his work place! And I was well aware from colleagues that this was going to be a problem because it is really the lowest to clean the floor. And in order to forestall any discussion, I organized beautiful Kärcher cleaning-machines and said: You are not cleaning, you are operating a machine! It was a big fight but now we do it and it works. (MBI 3, 4)

Discussion

The case of MBI showed an intercultural mismatch between the German transfer intent and local behavioral responses. The case also showed that the family model was employed to solve the intercultural mismatch between German expectations and local understanding of work roles and work identities. In the following discussion we adopt a historical hybridity perspective for the interpretation of our findings. We suggest that the local mismatch with German work role and work identity expectations becomes understandable by looking at the interplay of specific historical influences in India. We also suggest that the postcolonial notion of ‘hybridity’ or ‘inbetweenness’ is instrumental in capturing the transfer outcome. Before focusing on specific historical conditions that appear crucial for the interpretations of our findings, we begin our discussion with some broader introduction to the historical influences on contemporary management in India.

A Historical Hybridity Perspective on Indian Management

A historical perspective on hybridity in the Indian context requires taking a look at history in general and the effects of the recent colonial past in particular. Looking at Indian history as one of foreign invasion, ranging from the Aryans during 1500–1200 BC, to Alexander the Great in 325 BC, Genghis Kahn in 1221 AD, the Mughals and European influence starting in the fifteenth century, we can expect different periods of invasion and colonial rule to have left discernible traces on Indian society, economy and management.

For the purpose of our paper, it is particularly useful to identify specific historical influences that can be related to India’s contemporary business environment and present day management concepts and behavior. Clearly, the further away the past the more cumbersome and difficult it becomes to identify such relationships. Nevertheless, there have been efforts towards this end. Agrawal and Agrawal (2005) suggest, for example, that Mughal dynasties had a substantial impact on the Indian business environment as they encouraged the growth of indigenous production systems and stimulated industrial development. It was particularly under the ruling of Akbar the Great that the Mughals abandoned their Persian heritage and merged with the Indian culture, introducing a management system built on patronage that would have a lasting effect (Agrawal and Agrawal 2005). Following their Mughal predecessors, the British reinforced the principle of patronage in Indian management culture (see also Bhagwati and Desai 1970; Jones 1989). The British were also seen to have enforced socio-cultural categories of caste, region, birth and religion which play decisively into Indian management and work practices until this day (see also Virmani 2007).

Understanding Local Work Behavior: The Interplay of Historical Influences

Moving away from a rather broad historical hybridity perspective, we focus in the following section on the Indian education system and key principles of the caste system, reflecting colonial as well as more ancient historical conditions. While not claiming that these are the only historical conditions relevant to our case, we believe that their influence and interplay is crucial to explain local work roles and identities as experienced by German management. We will start our analysis by taking a closer look at the Indian higher technical education and vocational training system.

India’s technical education and industrial skill formation system as it currently exists was largely founded under British rule (Thete 1999) and can be traced back to the ‘English Education Act’ of 1853. In the wake of this Act, its revisions and combined with infrastructural needs and later war efforts, the colonial administrators engaged, supported or simply allowed the establishment of universities, engineering colleges and industrial training schools that to this date resemble structural traits of the British higher technical education system (IISC 2012). For example, a key trait of the system is its discontinuous nature, implying that different educational trajectories pose alternatives that generally do not build on each other. Similar to the British system, the Indian technical education and vocational training is constituted by three tiers (e.g., Palit 1998; Thete 1999; Chandra 2003; Becker-Ritterspach 2009), the lowest one of which consists of skilled worker training, usually taught at Industrial Training Institutes (ITI). The second level involves technical programs taught at the so-called Polytechnics which produce technical engineers commonly known as diploma holders, while the highest level constitutes graduate and post-graduate education in engineering and technology, taught for instance at Engineering Colleges or the much respected Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT). The vertical discontinuity residing in the system results both from the sharp differences in practical and theoretical training among these levels and the financial aptitude required for the higher ones, making upward development, while theoretically possible, a practical rarity.

Interviews with a range of vocational training experts (e.g., Director Training, Ministry of Labour & Employment on vocational training system, 2003) suggested that diploma engineers and engineering college graduates have hardly any practical training which contrasts with ITI graduates—the qualification of operators at MBI—who develop at least some practical skills as part of their curriculum. This feature of the Indian system is again very similar to the British in which the link between academic knowledge and practical experience tends to be utterly weak (e.g., Sorge 1995; Whitley 1999; Tregaskis et al. 2001; Delmestri and Walgenbach 2005; Whitley 2007). The result is that diploma engineers—the qualification of supervisors at MBI—generally develop a managerial work identity with a low affinity vis-à-vis physical involvement in manual or manufacturing activities. Interestingly, such attitudes towards manual work are even prevalent among ITI graduates. Ramaswamy comments on this phenomenon that “labels such as ‘operators’, ‘technician’ and ‘craftsman’ are increasingly the mean or minimum expectation, especially in high technology industry where the more conventional ‘worker’ is itself an opprobrium” (Ramaswamy 1996, p. 35). Against this background we come to understand why MBI’s workers rejected housekeeping tasks as part of their work role. The overall result of the British-based education system is that the different educational trajectories create a professional distance between Polytechnic trained supervisors (mostly graduates) and ITI trained operators.

However, this professional distance that is created by the Indian higher education system is additionally enforced by traditional principles of social stratification (Desai and Kulkarni 2008). In other words, the professional distance is complemented by a social distance which has its key roots in the Indian caste system. There is much debate on the origins of the Indian caste system (Das and Dutta 2008). Castes find their first mentioning in Hindu religious text (the Vedas) which date from as early as 1500 BC (Flood 1996). Building on the seminal contributions of Bouglé (1997) and Dumont (1997), the caste system can be described as a system of social stratification that rests on the principles of endogamy, occupational specialization and hierarchy (Gupta 1991). In his work The Essence and Reality of the Caste System, Bouglé (1997) argued that the “spirit of caste unites these three tendencies; repulsion, hierarchy and hereditary specialization, and all three must be borne in mind if one wishes to give a complete definition of the caste system” (p. 65). Drawing on Bouglé’s classical contribution, Dumont (1997) goes further to reduce the principles of the caste to the fundamental opposition of the pure and the impure. He argues that “this opposition underlies hierarchy, which is the superiority of the pure to the impure, underlies separation because the pure and impure must be kept separate, and underlies the division of labor because the pure and impure occupations must likewise be kept separate” and adds that “[t]he whole is founded on the necessary and hierarchical coexistence of the two opposites” (Dumont 1997, p. 477).

Now, while there is much debate on the question how rigid, fixed and hierarchical the caste system has historically been (e.g., Srinivas 1966; Gupta 2000; Shah 2010), on the question to what extent the Portuguese and the British colonizers have impacted the system (e.g., Sinha and Kanungo 1997; Dirks 2001) as well as the question whether caste can be conceived as a ‘system’ in post-independence India (Srinivas 1966), there is evidence to suggest (e.g., affirmative action such as caste-based reservations) that the category of caste is still socially relevant to this date. By the same token, there is evidence that caste-system related principles are, at least to some extent, at work in India’s modern industrial sector. Hereditary specialization finds, for example, its contemporary expression in continuing links between caste backgrounds and educational levels, occupations and labor market access (e.g., Dupont 1992; Bronger 1996; Panini 1996; Deshpande 2001; Munshi and Rosenzweig 2006; Deshpande and Newman 2007; Jodhka and Newman 2007; Madheswaran and Attewell 2007; Das and Dutta 2008; Desai and Kulkarni 2008; Saha 2012). Similarly, the opposition of the pure and impure has survived in the modern work context by not only producing a social distance between different employee categories (D’Costa 2003) but by also conditioning a general preference for mental work over manual/physical work (Gosalia 1992; Panini 1996; Ramaswamy 1996; Okada 1998; Das and Dutta 2008; Shah 2010).

Overall, the interplay of the British-based education system and the stratification principles of the caste system, which may have been additionally enforced by the Indian Civil Service under British rule (Chhokar 2007), give rise to strong socio-professional demarcations between different employee categories involving a low prestige for manual/physical work roles (Becker-Ritterspach 2009). In the case of MBI, indications were that such social demarcations played into the distance between operators and supervisors, operators and cleaning staff and the willingness of different employee categories to engage in manual work or cleaning.

Hence, a closer look at the education system and the principles of the caste system provides us with crucial insights to understand why the supervisors in our case were reluctant to work closely with operators and to get closely involved in production activities. It also unveils why operators were designated ‘operators’ and not ‘workers’ and why operators for their part rejected housekeeping activities. In other words, the local work behavior experienced by German managers can be understood against the background of historical hybridity reflecting different historical influences, that is, both ancient Indian stratification principles and the more recent British colonial institutions.

Understanding the Outcome: From Contemporary to Postcolonial Hybridity

From a contemporary hybridization perspective, the family model at MBI can be seen to reflect a combination of Western, or more specifically German, and Indian elements (Becker-Ritterspach 2009). In more concrete terms, while the goal to foster close supervisor-worker relations, hands on coaching by the supervisors and responsibility delegation onto the shopfloor was a clear reflection of the German industrial and vocational training context (e.g., Drexel et al. 2003; Delmestri and Walgenbach 2005), its family-based structureFootnote 1 (father–eldest son relationship in particular) and its hierarchical nature were more reflective of the Indian context (Ramaswamy 1996; Sinha and Kanungo 1997; Mandan 2000). However, while such a perspective serves as an analytical starting point, a postcolonial hybridity perspective sensitizes us to the already hybrid nature of the interacting cultural elements and more so to the transformational nature of the transfer outcome.

Regarding the former, we already discussed in the last section that the local Indian work behavior can be seen as an outcome of interplay of multiple historical influences. Along similar lines, we could also argue that the global influences observed in our case were by no means homogenously Western. On the one hand, we saw that the transfer content reflects German contextual origins of shopfloor relations and roles, which might be very different from say British ones (the latter might have been much closer to local Indian practice). On the other hand, we also saw that the German transfer content was not homogenously German as evidenced by the German management’s emphasis on teamwork and particularly the introduction of the Japanese 5S concept. These interpretations suggest that if we only adopt a contemporary hybridization perspective that treats global and local practices as homogenously Western or Eastern we might forgo important nuances that are vital in understanding intercultural mismatches as well as their possible solutions.

By the same token, the postcolonial concept of ‘hybridity’ or ‘inbetweenness’, may be more appropriate to capture the transformational nature of the resultant family model. While not being able to trace the processes of mutual transformation (probably involving resistance, negotiation and translation), the family model suggests that both German expectations and Indian behavior were transformed in the intercultural encounter. From the German perspective, the hierarchical emphasis of the family-model meant above all a departure from more equality-based team concepts and more independent team-member roles as introduced in MB’s home plants (MBI 3). After all, the family-team was very much a hierarchical structure, with the supervisor being the head and holding key responsibilities and administrative duties. From the Indian perspective, the transformation was mainly manifested in an enhanced shopfloor orientation of supervisors and a more intense interaction between supervisors and operators. The overall outcome was the emergence of the family shopfloor model as a novel organizational template that could be described with the postcolonial notion of ‘inbetweenness’; a third culture emerging from a third space if we like.

Conclusion

The goal of this paper was to contribute to both a better understanding of management in India and its globalization related transition. At a more general level we aimed at challenging essentialist notions that underlie indigenous management perspectives. With some exceptions (Virmani 2007; Budhwar et al. 2011), the literature on Indian management and its globalization related transition has followed rather ahistorical and essentialist notions of both Indian and global or Western management. Trying to move beyond this perspective, we illustrated in the example of a transfer effort in a German subsidiary in India, that the local behavior and emerging transfer outcome can be better explained by adopting a historical hybridity perspective informed by postcolonial theory. Specifically, the local behavior and the rejection of German work role expectations can be explained against the backdrop of different historical influences such as the core principles of the ancient caste system and the more recent British-based education system.

Capturing the emerging transfer solution also defied a simple, binary Western vs. Indigenous perspective, as the German transfer expectations reflected in part Japanese shopfloor management practices and the Indian work behavior British patterns of skill formation. Also, while one could identify in our case German and Indian elements from a contemporary hybridization perspective, the postcolonial idea of a ‘third space’ in which ‘inbetweenness’ or ‘hybridity’ emerges, seemed more appropriate to capture the transfer outcome. The family model, in particular, suggested a mutual transformation of both German expectations and local responses culminating in a novel organizational template that is not simply a side by side of different elements. In other words, our case illustration suggested that while understanding the hybridization of Indian management as a mix of traditional Indian and contemporary Western or global standards might serve as an analytical starting point, it may be more appropriate to adopt a historical and non-essentialist hybridity perspective to capture local management practice in India and its transition as a result of global transfer or local emulation efforts.

Now, in the wider context of indigenous management research, the notion of historical hybridity raises the question of how to define the indigenous. If we are indeed to define indigenous as that which is utterly native, classifying what is indigenous and what is not becomes inevitably problematic since most matter can ultimately be traced to stem from somewhere else, especially in postcolonial scenarios. Along this line of thinking, one could even wonder whether there is an indigenous, or as in our case, an Indian culture at all (Ramanujan 1990). Regardless of the answer to this question, the problem with defining the indigenous as it stands is that indigeneity as a theoretical concept is unreceptive to the dynamic process that culture really is. A better conceptualization of indigeneity should thus give some acknowledgment of the dynamic nature of culture. Despite its theoretically contested position, that is, the fact that even the concept of hybridity itself evokes the myth of pure indigenous cultures existing prior to hybridization, a hybridity perspective as a heuristic provides us with a tool to account for the fluid substance that culture is. Such a notion is also in line with recent perspectives on globalization and culture. Pieterse (2004, p. 4) argue, for example, that the development of ‘translocal mélange cultures’ is a process bound not just to globalization as we commonly conceive it, but to the entirety of human history (see also Kraidy 2005).

Limitations, Future Research and Managerial Implications

Before highlighting future research and managerial implications of our approach, we would like to discuss three limitations of our paper. First, while we think to have illustrated that the historical hybridity perspective is a valuable heuristic allowing for an ‘analytical generalization’ (Pauwels and Matthyssens 2004; Halkier 2011) beyond this case and while we assume that other production-oriented firms from Germany are likely to experience similar patterns of mismatch, our case study approach does not permit a ‘statistical generalization’ of the specific transfer mismatch and outcome pattern found in this case (Yin 2009). Second, from a postcolonial perspective, an ethnographic approach involving more in depth observation would have been enriching for our study. It would have allowed us to trace in more detail how the German transfer effort, local responses and outcomes were underwritten by power struggles and contested discourses. Third, although this paper sheds some important preliminary light on the workings of specific historical factors in shaping the contemporary behavior in the Indian management context, our analysis only focused on a limited range of historical influences. Such an analysis could certainly be extended in breadth and depth in future research.

Regarding further research we would like to advocate an extended use of a historical hybridity perspective to understand the idiosyncratic nature of management practices in different emerging market contexts. This calls for a particular attention to the colonial past and the institutions that are inherited from it. Clearly, the idea that history matters is nothing new in international business research (Jones and Khanna 2006). It should also be noted that scholars have expressed the importance of historical institutions for the economic development and development policy of former colonies (e.g., Bayly 2008; Woolcock et al. 2009). However, we still know very little about how the colonial past and the institutions inherited from it have shaped these countries’ management practices and their globalization related transition. In this context we would like to call for two specific directions for future research.

The first involves societal level analyses that focus on how the confluence of different historical and contemporary influences has shaped typical patterns of organization and management in different emerging economies. Methodologically we think that Redding’s (2005) approach based on country comparisons and ‘thick descriptions’ of different socio-economic systems serves as an ideal starting point for such analyses (see also Jackson and Deeg 2008). The strength of Redding’s (2005) approach lies in its holistic take on determinacy accounting for the interplay of history, culture and societal institutions. For instance, in an effort to understand and identify different patterns of historical hybridity of management in emerging markets, it could be revealing to compare countries with both similar and dissimilar colonial legacies in combination with other cultural or historical influences such as postcolonial political systems, economic policy and reform. A comparison of different colonial legacies could not only involve looking at different colonial experiences in terms of the country of origin of the colonizer but also in terms of duration and changes in colonization.

As a second research direction, we would like to propose more firm level analyses that focus on how historical and contemporary influences interact in different types of firms to produce different patterns of hybridity or management transition at the micro-level. Methodologically this would again ideally rest on qualitative comparative case studies (Yin 2009) as these provide rich, yet systematic accounts of how context variation is associated with variation in management practices. For example, developing a more differentiated picture of management transition in India in response to globalization would involve comparing different kinds of firms (e.g., public sector undertakings, old business groups, recent startups or foreign owned firms) that are exposed to similar kinds of global influences (e.g., market liberalization). Within the research context of our case study a related and particular interesting issue would be to understand to what extent mismatches or synergies found in transfer processes from developed to emerging market contexts in MNCs can be associated with a shared colonial heritage or past colonial ties. For example, we would expect that the transfer of British work roles and identities may have caused less intercultural mismatch than the German ones did in our case. This assumption is based on the reasoning that professional demarcations tend to be more pronounced in British than in German industrial organizations (Sorge 1995; Delmestri and Walgenbach 2005) and, therefore, more in line with the Indian context. That is, given the colonial heritage of a similar vocational training and higher education system, one would expect more compatibility between British and Indian work roles and professional identities. At the same time, intercultural encounters between managers associated with former colonizers and colonized may involve different kinds of cultural sensitivities and transfer conflicts. Clearly, much more research is required to substantiate assumptions about the impact of history and colonization on the match or mismatch in intercultural encounters. Overall, a research agenda more sensitive to history and colonization would provide us with a richer and more differentiated understanding of the nature of management in emerging markets and how it is further transformed by contemporary globalization.

Finally, moving beyond an emerging market focus, a historical hybridity perspective also calls for more attention to the hybrid constitution of global or Western management (see for example Djelic (1998) on the influence of the American corporate model on Germany, Italy and France following the Second World War). It also involves seeing their hybridity not as a coincidental mélange of cultural influences, but as one that is equally an expression of historical and contemporary ‘dominance effects’ (e.g., Frenkel 2008; Jack et al. 2011; Özkazanc-Pan 2008; Smith and Elger 2000).

At last, we would like to discuss three potential managerial implications of adopting a historical hybridity perspective. First, the historical hybridity perspective with its critique of essentialist understandings of management practices challenges Orientalist notions of an a priori superiority of Western management practices. If this insight is taken seriously, particularly by Western managers working in postcolonial contexts, they may not only be able to avoid local resentment and resistance but to leverage local managerial capability from the outset (Shimoni 2011). Second, our case suggests that a historical hybridity perspective offers analytical tools to understand and potentially predict intercultural mismatches. Specifically, an analysis of the interplay of different historical institutions in India and their influence on local work roles and identities could have helped German managers to predict the mismatches experienced in the transfer process. At the same time, the perspective may serve to identify solutions to intercultural mismatches once they occur. After all, the perspective sensitizes managers for the diverse local institutional repertoire allowing for a more systematic selection of those institutional alternatives that are able to accommodate the different expectations involved in an intercultural setting. An example of such an institutional alternative was the family model at MBI which served as a solution to intercultural mismatches. Third, a historical hybridity perspective, with its notions of ‘third space’, ‘inbetweeness’ or ‘hybridity’, suggests to expatriate and local managers alike that practice transfer and integration in intercultural settings is hardly imaginable without mutual transformation of transfer content and receiving context (Becker-Ritterspach 2006). Hence, instead of seeing deviations from both, original transfer intentions and arrived local practices as dreadful aberrations, they should be seen as prerequisites for cross-cultural practice transfer and integration bearing opportunities for innovative solutions.

Acknowledgements:

We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their insightful and constructive comments throughout the entire review process. A special thanks also to Knut Lange from the University of Surrey for his advice and helpful comments.