INTERFACES HRD Practices and Philosophy

presents articles focusing on

managerial applications of
management practices,
theories, and concepts
of Management in Indian
Organizations
Anil Kumar Singh

Executive The managerial philosophy of a company is generally based upon the top management’s
assumptions about people working in the organization. It reflects the attitude of the top manage-
Summary ment towards the human resources of an organization. Managerial philosophies of companies are
embedded in the society. McGregor (1960) has labelled these managerial philosophies as ‘Theory
X and Theory Y.’
This paper is an attempt to identify the relationship between human resource (HR) practices and
the philosophy of management of the Indian business organizations. For this, the different variables
of HR practices were studied and the management’s philosophy was identified by measuring beliefs
of top management about employees in the organizations. The sample for the study consisted of
95 respondents from two private sector organizations and 119 respondents from two public sector
organizations.
The findings of the study indicate that the variables of HR practices (planning, recruitment, and
selection) were highly but negatively related to the philosophy of management in the private sector
organizations. This meant that the Indian organizations were practising traditional philosophy of
management in such organizations. The prevalence of traditional managerial philosophy focusing
on managerial control has always dominated the managerial community in the sense that it is more
prevalent and is more ‘tightly’ linked to managerial practice. As new managerial ideologies evolved,
the older ones “never disappeared; instead, images and practices central to each were gradually
institutionalized” (Barley and Kunda, 1992).
The philosophy of management showed a blurred picture in the public sector organizations.
Though the top management’s views and balance sheet emphasized the belief of the organization
towards Theory Y, the analysed responses proved that management philosophy was not clear to
managers working in these organizations.
In fact, the Indian public sector organizations started as welfare organizations. However, the
impact of market economy has led to a competitive environment. Though the public sector
organizations have started realizing the impact of competition, it is difficult for them to understand
when they lost their focus on the managerial philosophy.
The following key issues emerged from the study:
¾ Organizations will have to design managerial philosophy which is sensitive to human
existence.
¾ The managerial philosophy in the organization has an impact on the organizations of the
future.
¾ HR concepts that get packaged along with modern managerial philosophy are likely to
revolutionize the workplace.
KEY WORDS
¾ The bottom line is that people want to be cared for and respected.
Human Resource On their part, organizations want commitment and integrity. A successful combination of
Development committed people and a benevolent organization could well be the way for organizations in this
competitive environment in India.
Managerial Philosophy
Theory X Note : This paper is a part of a larger research project on HR practices in the public and private sector organizations
in India.
Theory Y

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T
he changes in the market scenario have necessi-
tated the Indian industry to look inward for the
development of human resources (HR). If the
Indian organizations are to develop and maintain their
competitive edge, the potential value of the employees
needs to be increased by enhancing and linking their
skills and capabilities in tune with the contemporary
requirements of the market. Barney (1991) felt that firms
could develop strategic capability and, for attaining this,
the strategic goal will be to create firms which are more
intelligent and flexible than their competitors.
The human resource management (HRM) function
has emerged as one of the most important areas of
organizational practice. It has not been developed in
isolation but rather in the context of industrial change
and economic development. The uniqueness of HR
requires a totally different type of attention from man-
agement. The HR function has the characteristics that
provide the greatest challenge as well as the opportu-
nity. A company’s HR is fragile, relationships are deli-
cate, contributions are unpredictable, and stability is
uncertain. Youndt (2000) felt that since employees are
free, within limits, to leave their firm, there is a signifi-
cant risk of organizations incurring an intellectual capi-
tal loss unless individual knowledge is transferred,
shared, transformed, and institutionalized. The crucial
inputs to an organization include, among others, its
human resources. People bring to their jobs diversity of
skills, needs, goals, and expectations. Barney (1991)
proposes that sustainable competitive advantage is
attained when the firm has a human resource pool that
cannot be imitated or substituted by its rivals. The
employees are socialized into the organization first by
way of recruitment and then through continuous func-
tioning in the organization. According to Schuller (2000),
“skills, knowledge, and competencies are the key factors
in determining whether the organizations and nations
will prosper.”
The interface between the individual and the or-
ganization is critical to full utilization of human re-
sources. The individual and the organization establish
a ‘psychological contract.’ The individual member ex-
pects to make contributions to the organization and
receives certain rewards in return. The organization
provides certain rewards and expects in return certain
contributions from the individual. This interface can be
effectively handled with the help of HR planning, work
analysis, career development, leadership, job motiva-
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tion, appraisal-reward process, and a favourable organi-
zational culture. As suggested by Spindler (1994), psy-
chological contract creates emotions and attitudes which
form and control behaviour. Sims (1994) felt that ba-
lanced psychological contract is necessary for a continu-
ing, harmonious relationship between the employee and
the organization.
The idea that individuals are capable of develop-
ment is founded on the conviction that people are
important and their involvement is necessary for an
organization to be effective. This conviction is translated
into practice through a variety of programmes that
facilitate individual development and lead to better
adjustment with the environment. Thus, human resources
are a company’s most valuable and strategic asset and
the focused involvement of the top management with
institutionalized leadership down the hierarchy is a pre-
requisite to attract and retain people. The patterns of
work relationships at work reflect the HR philosophy.
The managers who are encouraged to follow the role
model of their seniors perpetuate the philosophy and
practices of HR. In the process of organizational
socialization, they internalize the values and attitudes
of their leaders. The entire process is thus institution-
alized. Schein (1990) indicates that people identify with
the visionary leaders — how they behave and what they
expect. Enterprise vision and mission will not become
a reality unless employees are involved and integrated
with the company’s goals. HR provides the enabling
work climate of the organization comprising of mana-
gerial values, attitudes, and styles.
With the ‘license system’ being replaced to a great
extent by the ‘market system,’ the new economic envi-
ronment is primarily marked by the freeing of shackles
for entrepreneurship and economic growth. The chal-
lenge of human resource development (HRD) practices
would be to create an environment of resilience which
can successfully accommodate and assimilate changes
in systems, structures, technologies, methods, etc. The
pressures of change are most likely to be felt by those
who have to lead and manage the change process in such
a volatile economic environment. HRD would have the
ability to attract and retain people and is the key to
manage this macro change—both in terms of pace and
rate. The change leaders would be confronted with the
need to reorient culture, thinking, and paradigms. The
challenge is for the change agents to get individuals who
would have a sense of belonging and commitment to the
HRD PRACTICES AND PHILOSOPHY OF MANAGEMENT
organization and who would welcome the impending
changes. Hamel and Prahalad (1991) contend that a firm
would achieve competitive advantage if it can obtain
and develop human resources which would enable it to
learn faster and apply its learning more effectively than
its rivals.
Managing in a turbulent environment is not easy
and managers are constantly looking for new concepts,
tools, and techniques to help them cope with the demand
of accelerating change. There are 25 leading manage-
ment tools and techniques and according to an annual
survey, the average company used 11.8 of these tools
in 1993, 12.7 in 1994, and 13 in 1997 (Micklethwait and
Wooldridge,1996; Rigby, 1998). Unfortunately, mana-
gers often find that the management tools that they
adopt are not magic bullets. A study by Rigby (1998)
found that 77 per cent of the executives reported that
these tools promised more than they delivered. This
finding is consistent with other accounts of implemen-
tation failure across the range of managerial innovations
(e.g., reengineering, TQM) and technological innova-
tions (e.g., flexible manufacturing technologies, enter-
prise resource planning systems) where failure rates are
above 50 per cent. The result is that managerial inno-
vations become management fads which are tried and
then abandoned. These failures may be attributed to an
organization’s HR practices and the underlying philoso-
phy of management (Barley and Kunda, 1992).
HRM DEBATE AND HR MODELS
The debate about HRM could be regarded as an outcome
of the current interest in corporate and business strategy.
Strategic management has assumed an overwhelming
significance among practitioners partly as a result of
being heavily promoted in the management literature
(Peters, 1988; Peters and Waterman, 1982). Mintzberg
(1978) and Porter (1985) have also contributed to the
populism of the concept of strategy in the HR lexicon.
A number of researchers abroad (Ichniowski, Delaney
and Lewin, 1989; Ichniowski, 1990; Huselid, 1993) and
in India related a comprehensive measure of HR prac-
tices to the firms’ financial performance (Rao, 1982; Rao
and Pereira, 1987; Business Today, 1996; Singh, 2000). The
impact of HR practices on organizational level outcomes
such as productivity, turnover, performance, and prof-
itability was an important research issue in the early
nineties. Most of the work was undertaken to study the
relationship between HR practices and firm level out-
VIKALPA • VOLUME 30 • NO 2 • APRIL - JUNE 2005
73
comes like productivity, turnover, and market value
(Becker and Gerhart, 1996; Becker et al., 1997).
In the US, there are two opposing models of HR:
the Harvard model (Beer et al., 1985) which stresses on
the developmental aspects of HR and the Michigan model
or the ‘matching model’ (Fombrun, Tichy and Devanna,
1984) emphasizing its utilitarian/instrumental functions
in the achievement of managerial objectives. Arguments
made in related research are that a firm’s current and
potential human resources are important considerations
in the development and execution of its strategic busi-
ness plan. This literature, although largely conceptual,
concludes that HRD practices can help create a source
of sustained competitive advantage.
The Harvard model is conceived as an analytical
framework which is premised on the view that if general
managers develop a viewpoint of how they wish to see
employees involved in and developed by the enterprise,
they would solve most of the problems of HR. Compared
to the matching model, this model is termed as the ‘soft
variant.’ It stresses on the human aspect of HR and is
more concerned with employer-employee relationship.
It also highlights the interests of different stakeholders
in the organization,
This model allows for multi-level analysis of these
outcomes. It can provide a useful basis for comparative
analysis of HRM (Poole, 1990). Such an approach is
completely missing in the matching model. The main
criticism of this model is that it does not explain the
extensive relationship between strategic management
and HRM (Guest, 1991).
The Michigan model is based on the paradigms
developed by Chandler (1962) and Galbraith and
Nathanson (1978). It is argued that an organization’s
structure is an outcome of its strategy (Chandler, 1962).
This argument was extended by linking different per-
sonnel functions such as career paths, rewards, and
leadership styles to the organization’s mission (Galbraith
and Nathanson, 1978).
The matching model has been criticized as being too
prescriptive by nature mainly due to the fact that its
assumptions are too unitarist (Boxall, 1992). It empha-
sizes a ‘tight fit’ between organizational strategy and HR
strategies and, while doing so, completely ignores the
interest of employees and hence considers HR as a totally
passive, reactive, and implementationist function. The
model’s emphasis on tight fit makes the organization
inflexible and incapable of adapting to the required
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changes and hence is a ‘misfit’ in today’s dynamic
business environment. The very idea of the model to
consider and use human resources like any other re-
sources in an organization seems unpragmatic as it misses
the human aspect.
Despite many criticisms, the matching model pro-
vides a good framework to theory development in the
field of HRM. It also provides a promising schema to
look at the HR practices in universal and generic term.
It, however, ignores the cultural processes.
The matching model and the Harvard analytical
framework represent two very different emphases — the
former is closer to strategic management literature while
the latter to human relations tradition.
Some aspects of the basic philosophy of ‘soft HRM’
can be traced back to the writings of McGregor (1960)
who, as mentioned by Truss (1999), even used the ter-
minology ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ to characterize the forms of
management control. McGregor’s Theory X describes
the ‘control’ model of management (Walton, 1985) while
Theory Y emphasizes the importance of integrating the
needs of the organization and those of the individual
— the principle of mutual trust again being expressed
by Walton (1985). The soft model of HRM traces its roots
to the Human Relations School. It involves “treating
employees as valued assets, a source of competitive
advantage through their commitment, adaptability, and
high quality of skills, performance etc.” (Storey, 1992).
HRM as a concept emerged in the mid-1980s with the
efforts of the writers of management of that decade
including Pascale and Athos (1981) and Peters and
Waterman (1982) who listed the attributes which they
claimed as characterizing successful companies. The
‘school of excellence’ writers may have exerted some
influence on management thinking about the need for
strong culture and commitment (two features of HRM)
but, they were ‘right enough to be dangerously wrong’
(Guest, 1993).
It has, however, been observed that “even if the
rhetoric of HRM is soft, the reality is often hard with
the interests of the organization prevailing over those
of the individual” (Truss,1999). Gratton et al. (1999)
identified a combination of soft and hard HRM ap-
proaches in the eight organizations studied.
The Western countries, especially the US, have done
a lot of empirical studies in the area of HR practices. In
India, on the other hand, no attempt has been made to
systematically evaluate the extent of HRD function or
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its components or practices, its expected impact on the
organization, and its internal working and support
provided to it by the management (Pareek, 1997). In an
era of competitive market, implementation of HRD
practices without extensive empirical studies may turn
out to be disastrous for the Indian organizations.
MANAGERIAL PHILOSOPHIES
The managerial philosophy is based upon the top
management’s assumption about people working in the
organization. Whether managers are aware of these
assumptions or not, they decide how to deal with their
superiors, peers, and subordinates. In the words of Schein
(1970), the kinds of assumptions a manager makes about
the nature of people will determine his managerial
strategy and his concept of the psychological contract
between the organization and the employee. Schein (1970)
also felt that the tradition of philosophy of management
underlies the doctrine of rational-economic man derived
originally from the philosophy of hedonism which ar-
gued that man calculates the actions that will maximize
his self-interest and behaves accordingly. The economic
doctrine of Adam Smith which was built on this assump-
tion led to the theory that relationships in the market-
place between organizations and customers or buyers
should be left alone because the separate pursuits of self-
interest would regulate market relationships. The ideas
of Adam Smith propounded in his Wealth of Nations have
served for about two hundred years as the basis of our
capitalistic system.
The modern philosophy of management is based
upon an optimistic view of the nature of men and women.
They are considered to be potentially creative, trustwor-
thy, and cooperative. McGregor (1960) has labelled this
managerial philosophy as ‘Theory Y.’ The traditional
managerial view that the average human being working
in an organization has an inherent dislike for work,
avoids responsibility, lacks ambition, and wants to be
closely directed is termed ‘Theory X.’ Faced with this
fundamental ‘fact,’ the only option open to management
is to exercise close control and to coerce and threaten
people working in the organization in order to attain the
organizational objective. A basic tenet of the traditional
point of view is that the authority of the employer is
supreme, is synonymous with power, and that authority
comes from the top and is transmitted down through
the organization structure. Control is exercised through
command. The power and the right to make decisions
HRD PRACTICES AND PHILOSOPHY OF MANAGEMENT
must be centralized at the top.
‘Theory Y’ holds that all motives — economic, social,
egoistic — must be activated. The employee is highly
motivated to work when he derives satisfaction from
doing it himself. Emphasis is placed upon activating the
higher needs such as responsibility, recognition, achieve-
ment, and innovation. People are taught to accept
responsibility and exercise self-control. The philosophy
of management reflects the attitude of the top manage-
ment towards the human resource of an organization.
Argyris (1964), McGregor (1960), and others felt that
the jobs in modern industry are so specialized that they
neither permit the people working in the organization
to use their capacities nor enable them to see the rela-
tionship between the job done by the human beings
working in the organization and the overall organiza-
tional mission. In the self-actualizing man theory, the
contract involves the exchange of opportunities to obtain
intrinsic rewards (satisfaction from accomplishment and
the use of one’s own capacities) for high-quality per-
formance and creativity. Herzberg, Mausuer and
Snyderman (1959) found that the self-actualizing man
felt good about his job which invariably had to do with
accomplishments and feeling of growth in job compe-
tence. Pelz and Andrews (1962) confirmed the findings
that productivity and creativity are strongly related to
challenge, job accomplishment, and autonomy.
In summary, the assumptions underlying the con-
cept of self-actualizing man emphasize on higher order
needs for autonomy, challenge, and self-actualization.
Such needs exist in all men and become active as lower
order security and social needs come to be satisfied.
Organizations and managements have both tended
towards a simplified and generalized conceptualization
of man. Consequently, many decades of research has
resulted in vastly complicated models of man and at-
titude of the management towards the human resources
of the organization. Schein (1970) felt that man is a more
complex individual than the rational-economic, social or
self-actualizing man. Not only is he more complex within
self, being possessed of many needs and potentials, but
is also likely to differ from others in the patterns of his
own complexity. It has always been difficult to gener-
alize about man.
The top management of an organization makes
assumptions about the human resources. Managerial
effectiveness will depend on the degree to which these
assumptions fit empirical reality. Historically, the as-
VIKALPA • VOLUME 30 • NO 2 • APRIL - JUNE 2005
75
sumption about people in organizations largely reflected
philosophical positions on the nature of man. On the one
hand, there is a genuine interest in human beings and,
on the other, there are fears about the consequences of
human growth and deep pessimism about human beings
changing their behaviour.
Tannenbaum and Davis (1969) do see a trend to-
wards acceptance of ‘Theory Y’ as a philosophy of
management. They assert that growing evidence sug-
gests that humanistic values not only resonate with an
increasing number of people but are also highly consist-
ent with the effective functioning of organizations built
on the newer organic model.
Hofstede (1987), who surveyed employees from 50
countries, suggests that American management theories
are not universally applicable. He points out that
McGregor’s ‘Theory X’ and ‘Theory Y’ reflect the Ameri-
can’s cultural emphasis on individualism and hence do
not apply in South East Asia. According to him, people
in South East Asia behave as members of a family and/
or group and those who do not are rejected by the society.
Haire, Ghiselli and Porter (1966) found that the Indian
managers report the highest degree of fulfilment of
security needs as compared to the managers in any other
country; the lowest degree of fulfilment of esteem and
autonomy needs; and the second lowest fulfilment of
self-actualization needs in comparison with managers
from all the other 13 countries. This points to the fact
that people working in the Indian organizations are in
the category of ‘Theory X.’
The liberalization, privatization, and globalization
of the Indian economy has resulted in a competitive
market economy. The need of the hour is to attract high
level of initiative and innovation. Before recasting the
philosophies and practices, there is a need to understand
the philosophy of management of Indian organizations.
The initial stimulus came from the realization that the
paternalistic philosophy of management in the past gave
little momentum for growth in future. Managements had
developed plans for growth but they have now realized
that they had not developed the attitudes and skills
within them to take initiatives, make decisions, and take
risks (Theory Y).
While there is empirical evidence of relationship
between the philosophy of management and organiza-
tional culture, in the Indian context, one finds little
evidence of research on the relationship between the
philosophy of management and HR practices. It is in this
75
context that this paper examines the relationship be-
tween HRD practices and the philosophy of manage-
ment. In other words, it explores the impact of HRD
practices on the philosophy of management and, at the
same time, maps the attitude of the management to-
wards employees working in the private and the public
sector organizations.
HRD PRACTICES AND MANAGEMENT
PHILOSOPHY IN INDIA
The objectives of this study are to:
• examine the assumptions of the top management
about the people working in the organization
• understand the social organization through HRD
belief and the philosophy of management in the
organization
• examine the nature of differences in the philosophy
of management subscribed to by the organization
towards employees working in the public and the
private sector
• examine the nature of relationship between HRD
practices represented by planning, recruitment, se-
lection, performance evaluation, training and de-
velopment, career management and rewards and
the philosophy of management in the private and
the public sector organizations.
We hypothesize that HRD practices in terms of
planning, recruitment, selection, performance evalua-
tion, training and development, career management,
and rewards are significantly related to the philosophy
of management.
Measures
Measure of Human Resource Development Practices
For the purpose of measuring HRD practices, the ques-
tionnaire developed by Gordon (1986) was used. The
questionnaire was standardized and spilt half reliability
was calculated to be 0.81. It consisted of 69 items includ-
ing the following variables:
Human resource planning: The items focused on the
process of analysing an organization’s human resource
needs and developing the activities necessary to satisfy
these needs under changing conditions.
Recruitment: The items focused on identifying and
attracting candidates for current and future jobs.
Selection: The items focused on obtaining employees
who are most likely to meet the desirable standards of
performance.
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Training and development: The items related to the set
of activities designed to increase an individual’s skills,
knowledge or change an individual’s attitudes to pre-
paring individuals to assume higher level or different
responsibilities.
Performance evaluation: The items focused on measur-
ing and evaluating an employee’s past performance
against a standard of performance.
Career management: The items related to the process of
designing and implementing goals, plans, and strategies
to satisfy the organizational needs while allowing indi-
viduals to achieve their career goals.
Rewards: The items focused on repaying equitably for
a service based on the quality of service.
Measure of Philosophy of Management
The management belief questionnaire examined the
theory and beliefs of managers regarding the top man-
agement’s philosophy on people working in the organ-
izations. Haire, Ghiselli, and Porter developed this
questionnaire in 1966 and surveyed the attitudes of 3,000
managers in 14 different countries across the world. This
questionnaire consisting of eight items is used in this
study to examine the philosophy of management to-
wards people working in the organizations.
The questionnaire probed four areas of manage-
ment belief system:
• belief in individual’s innate capacity for initiative,
individual action, and leadership
• belief in the value of sharing information and ob-
jectives
• belief in participative management
• belief that individual control should be by self-
control rather than control by supervisors.
Characteristics of Organizations Studied
The sample consisted of 214 participants working in four
different organizations — two belonging to the public
sector and two belonging to the private sector (see Box
for a profile of the organizations). There were 95 re-
spondents from the private sector organizations (Organ-
ization ‘A’ and Organization ‘C’: 54+41) and 119 from
the public sector organizations (Organization ‘B’ and
Organization ‘D’ = 68+51).
All the organizations in the sample were either
listed in Group A of the Bombay Stock Exchange or
contributed significantly to the development of the nation.
At the time of selection, all the companies were profit-
making organizations. The sample size consisted of
HRD PRACTICES AND PHILOSOPHY OF MANAGEMENT
Box: A Profile of the Sample Organizations Table 1: Correlations between HRD Practices and the
Philosophy of Management for the Private Sector
• Set up primarily to meet the needs of the power sector in the
country, Organization ‘A’ had grown to become India’s leading
engineering company. It is among the top ten best employers Variables Philosophy of Management
in India and the only public sector organization in the top ten Planning -.23
list. Recruitment -.23
• Organization ‘B’ has global recognition and is ranked the ninth Selection -.23
highest in terms of total electric power generated and the Performance evaluation -.07
second most efficient among the top ten worldwide thermal
Training and development -.24*
power generating companies.
Career management -.11
• Organization ‘C’ is India’s largest private sector enterprise in
the area of electrical engineering. In 1985, the Managing Rewards - 27*
Director of Organization ‘C’ identified the need for a change No. of cases = 95.
in the mindset of employees and articulated new values for *1-tailed significance = -.01.
the organization such as concern for customers, people, and
cost. He also conducted an organization-wide communication Table 2: Correlations between HRD Practices and the
exercise for sharing a vision of renewal of the organization. Philosophy of Management for the Public Sector
The main message in the communication exercise was
excellence through concern for QPCE — Quality, Productivity, Variables Philosophy of Management
Cost, and Employees.
Planning .09
• Organization ‘D’ is one of the largest producers of paper. It
Recruitment .15
has always relied on its strong cash generation and leveraging
capacity to grow. Most of its expansion schemes have been Selection .19
financed by internal accruals and borrowing and it has not Performance evaluation -.01
raised any money from its shareholders except in 1994. The Training and development -.16
organization has a personnel department and its managerial Career management -.02
staff and workers are provided housing, education, free Rewards .17
electricity, and water.
No. of cases =119.
executives in various positions (right from entry level
economy, especially after liberalization and globaliza-
to top position). We collected the data personally and
tion, it is a cause for concern that Indian private sector
also by mail using non-probability incidental sampling
organizations still have faith in ‘Theory X.’
with an assurance that information obtained would be
The philosophy of management projected a blurred
kept confidential. The sample size comprised of all
picture in the public sector organizations. Though the
management levels but most of the respondents were
top management’s views and the balance sheet empha-
from middle level management with an assumption that
sized the belief of the organization towards ‘Theory Y,’
they would possess an accurate perception of HRD
the response showed that the management philosophy
practices employed in their organizations. The sample
was not clear to managers working in the organization.
also included other departments such as production,
Contrary to the hypothesis, the results showed that
marketing, finance, HRD, etc. The purpose of including
there was no significant relationship between the vari-
managers other than the HRD function was to get an
ables of HR practices and the philosophy of management
honest account of HRD practices in their organizations;
in the public sector organizations whereas, in the private
it was felt that their personal involvement in policy
sector, the variables of HR practices, particularly train-
formulation would be much less than the HRD depart-
ing and development and rewards, were highly but
ment.
negatively related to the philosophy of management.
Thus, the hypothesis has been partially proved by this
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION study.
We analysed the data and computed the correlations The issue of HRM practices in large business organi-
considering that our main objective was to examine the zations was explored in this study to determine whether
nature of relationship between various aspects of HR organizations were practising traditional or modern
practices and the philosophy of management. The find- philosophy of management. The findings pertaining to
ings are presented in Tables 1 and 2. private sector organizations reflected that Indian organi-
The perceived negative correlation of philosophy of zations were practising traditional philosophy of man-
management with HRD practices showed that the pri- agement. The traditional philosophy of management
vate sector organizations still had belief in ‘Theory X’ depends primarily upon economic motivation, i.e., ‘the
of McGregor. In the fast changing scenario of the Indian carrot and stick’ policy — the rewards go to the perform-

VIKALPA • VOLUME 30 • NO 2 • APRIL - JUNE 2005 77

77
ers who are retained and promoted while those who are
less efficient are not rewarded and, at times, demoted,
laid off or discharged.
The results are paradoxical: on the one hand, while
managers believed in shared objectives, participation,
and individual control, yet they tended to have serious
doubts about the capacity to demonstrate initiative,
individual action, and leadership.
The top managers of the public sector and their
public documents show belief in modern philosophy of
management; however, the survey results project a
blurred picture of the philosophy of management. It has
also been observed by Micklethwait and Wooldridge
(1996) that managers often find themselves “living in
dual world: the real world and the world of officially
sanctioned ideology. Thus, they talk about ‘empower-
ment’ but habitually hoard power or they proclaim that
they are ‘reengineering’ their organizations when they
are really just firing a few of the lacklustre workers.”
Haire, Ghiselli and Porter (1966) suggested that
managerial beliefs can be better understood by having
a knowledge of cultural traditions. They felt the need
to consider both economic and cultural traditions as they
were broadly taken as determinants of managerial
philosophies, values, and the concept of man.
Looking back, the origins of the modern Indian
organization can be traced to the British rule. The British
were the first to introduce the Western type of admin-
istration in India. The belief that the colonizers are
superior to the colonized on the scale of social evaluation
is part of the colonial psychology which legitimizes
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of HR practices, his areas of interest are HRD/HRM, corporate
social responsibility, and ethics.
e-mail: anil@shtr.org
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