Expatriates in India
Steffan Braasch, Indo-German Chamber of Commerce
This book is a doctoral dissertation by a German student who spent much of 1998 in a survey of 85 expatriates executives working in India, most of them German and American, plus 272 Indians mainly employed by foreign companies. The result is a thorough work that has two components, an empirical survey grounded in strong data, plus an analysis of the emotional makeup of Indians, and their differentiation from western counterparts that blends sociology with psychology, and sometimes appears to be retro-fitted to be empirical conclusions.
The author's style is heavy and sometimes staid but the work breaks fresh grounds portraying how foreigners working in India view their environment. It is of value at a time when globalisation expands the interaction between Indian and foreign businessmen. Its principal conclusions should concern not just those who come to work in India from abroad and the Indian executives in foreign subsidiaries and joint ventures, but all those engaged in the encounters across cultures.
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Indians are portrayed as intensely emotional, which the author ascribes to the exceptional bonding between mothers and their offspring, much stronger than in western society. Another characteristic is a relatively fixed core of values and a flexible surface, which leads to a "chameleon syndrome" of an outward desire to conform and to please the foreigner. There is a strong hierarchical and vertical orientations as well, plus intense power consciousness. The differentiation between apna and paraya leads to in-group collectivism, and a urge to benefit at the cost of other groups. Other unflattering traits: low demand for perfection, passivity, low responsibility assumption and strong upward delegation, plus reduced planning ability.
The second half of the book looks at the way expatriates tend to behave and the ideal manner in which they could be prepared for assignments in India. The profile of expatriates has changed around the world- in place of the earlier "colonial expatriates" those sent out today are career-oriented individuals who come for specific tasks for shorter periods. This leads to quicker turnover and even greater need for preparation. The three characteristics the expatriate needs are authoritativeness, emotionality/ empathy, and leadership. In dealing with Indians he needs to understand the personality makeup and accept that their flexibility factor makes them relatively easily "improvable" provided the effective motivation is applied. This brings the author to his formula "dddP": the expatriate has to adapt to Indian paternalism, through deliberate effort, in a manner that is demanding, and is differentiated for each employee. The book is at its best offering intensely practical advice to foreign companies working in India and bringing expatriates. It should be required reading for newcomers and for the HR departments of such companies.
Much of the advice is relevant for expatriates who come to work in middle or even junior capacities, but the broad assumption is that the expatriate is the boss of the unit. This reflects the inherent continental European bias that they make the best CEOs, and working in junior capacities under a "native" Chief executive is a rarity. It ignores the empirical experience of North America and the UK that Indian management skill is a global resource that so many enterprises are using to advantage. Europe misses out on this at its own cost
The study that is waiting to be addressed is what cultural and personality factors give the very top percentile of Indian managers the ability perform superbly. It may well be that the same surface flexibility and a harder inner core that Braasch notes is part of the strength. NO less relevant is surely the innate cross-cultural ability that all Indians learn from nursery and primary school and in their domestic neighbourhoods - adaptation to other people's customs and ways of living and of thought. Braasch seems to overlook the strong value of this element?.