Topics for Group Discussion

As multinationals enter India in the post-liberalization era, they serve as agents of change in the culture. The sliver of educated, technically trained Indians working for multinationals and larger Indian firms who have to compete in other markets are forced to accept the Western view of time as a precious commodity. Many of the individuals in this segment of the population are educated in the West and return to India with a Western world view and time sense. These individuals should be able to gradually influence ways of doing business, along with attitudes toward time, in India. As the pace of life quickens in Indias large cities, the traditional view of time will place a heavy burden on meeting the demands of a global marketplace. Topics for group discussion related to general knowledge in now available online. Cultures operating on the monochromic time scale are general knowledge considered lowcontext and those on polychromic time high-context. Low-context cultures tend to compartmentalize activities, contextual cues are minimal, and written agreements are heavily detailed. By contrast, high-context cultures rely far less on direct verbal and written communication, make more use of non-verbal and contextual cues, and may seal an agreement with nothing more than a handshake, since the context for the agreement has been painstakingly set by developing interpersonal relationships with the parties to the agreement. In high-context cultures, multi-tasking is a common phenomenon, where meetings are often interrupted; offices are relatively more open with much noise and interference. India falls somewhere in the middle of the continuum between high and low context.In the lower levels of the economic scale, business still revolves around interpersonal relationships, but business on a larger scale is conducted according to Western rules of contractual agreements. However, the power of the agreement is diluted by a legal system, which, though well-established in the British legal tradition, is slow to enforce contractual obligations. For the western businessperson accustomed to the habits of a low-context culture, operating in a high-context environment with its slower pace and numerous delays can be trying at best. An executive of a U.S. consumer-goods company operating in India commenting on the futility of trying to change the attitude to time, says, You cannot force the Indian system, whether it is partners, customers, or government, to operate on your time scale. Changing ones own expectations of the pace of activity and adopting a longer time horizon may be the best strategy to achieve results in this context. In the lower levels of the economic scale, business still revolves around interpersonal relationships, but business on a larger scale is conducted according to Western rules of contractual agreements.