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The purpose of this paper is to unpack the conflation between the silence and purported passivity of the Third World NGOs (TNGOs). Explaining the invisibility of their voices in the critical and post-development perspectives, it locates the inquiry in the context of the action of these TNGOs.

The paper follows the phronetic research approach, which involves a case study of a locally developed Indian NGO. It uses phronetic inquiry along with Ashis Nandy’s notion of “silent coping” as the conceptual framework. To explain the purported passivity of TNGOs in the texts under global circulation, the paper uses Walter Mignolo’s discussion on “texts in circulation”.

The uncertain nature of action – that it begets further action possibilities; precludes the prospect of visualizing such action spaces in the context of their generation. This emergent nature of local action spaces makes it difficult to capture them within the dominating global discursive structures, thereby creating local spaces of agency for the TNGO actors. Selective appropriation of artefacts and texts from the global circulation and the creation of alternate stake structures at the local level support the realization of such action spaces. Further, such local artefacts and texts do not travel into texts circulating globally, thereby rendering the TNGOs invisible and silent in the reading of global texts and leading to the TNGOs being framed as passive.

This paper locates the voices and acts of the TNGOs and highlights the mechanisms that enable them to silently cope with structures of discursive domination, thereby contributing to post-development studies and post-colonial organizational analysis.

Strategic Management.

The case is designed for a) MBA students b) Short-duration executive MBA courses.

The case refers to India’s leading steel company Tata Steel. Tata Tiscon, the steel rebar brand, is the organization’s leading retail brand. The case chronicles the period between the birth of the retail brand in the year 2000, its dramatic rise and dominance, to the end of 2013 when some of its initiatives had failed. Tata Tiscon was established as a pan Indian brand on the dint of a distribution network comprising 33 distributors and over 2000 retailers, many of them exclusive to the brand. The brand spawned a series of innovation in the category like “selling by piece”, fixed price concept and “free” home delivery. Together with its channel partners, the company achieved dramatic success which was reflected in its leading market share coupled with significant price premium in a category where price had traditionally being the only selling pitch. After 2010, the company saw an emerging challenge in the form of a new business model, where some companies were gearing to provide the complete portfolio of construction material including cement, steel, etc., and a turnkey construction solution for house builders. Tata Tiscon responded by attempting to enter the service space by launching a building design solution and later a construction supervision solution. Both of these initiatives failed. The protagonist of the case is Mr Keshav Viswanath (Chief of Marketing for retail business at Tata Steel), who is concerned with the failures of these key initiatives and is wondering how to ensure the “leader” status of Tata Tiscon in coming years.

The students are expected to understand how a core strategy like differentiation is implemented successfully in “practice”; understand the exploitation–exploration dichotomy in an organization; appreciate difference between radical innovation (based on new organizational routines, new business partners and new relationships) and incremental innovation based on fine tuning of existing organizational routines and relationships.

Rebar production: www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6n9sci8j-8; Tata TISCON AV: www.youtube.com/watch?v=89kOUsbnaYQ; TQM – The Toyota Way: www.youstube.com/watch?v=qf3gdrIMxRw; Disruptive vs. Incremental Innovation: www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOOL_GiaLTo; Approach to innovation is dead wrong: www.youtube.com/watch?v=pii8tTx1UYM

CSS 11: Strategy.

This case is about a food brand with franchisee stores which has implemented a brand change initiative in the Indian emerging market.

This case is suitable for MBA level students in courses like strategic brand management, marketing in emerging markets and retail management. Issues relate to brand name change management, building and securing channel cooperation in brand change, channel peculiarities in emerging markets and franchisee institutional support systems in emerging markets like India.

The case documents the process followed by Switz Foods Private Limited (SFPL) in planning for and implementing a “brand-name” change across its 150-plus stores retailing fresh bakery products. The switch away from a 20-year-old food brand that had carved out a place in the popular culture of the community in Kolkata was risky. While opinion inside the organization was divided on whether to use mass media to communicate the brand-name change to its customers, the company finally decided to rely only on in-store signage and product packaging. SFPL took into confidence the franchisee retail store owners, a key stakeholder group with whom it enjoyed a long-term trusted business relation, and relied on their support to implement a smooth transition. It shows how in the context of the bazaars in transition economies, trust-based business relations and word-of-mouth reputation can often provide frugal managerial alternatives.

The three main learning objectives are: planning for a brand name transition, which includes three parts: generating consumer insights and using the data to aid decision-making in choosing a brand name and developing a brand campaign; overcoming network or business partner resistance/uncertainties associated with a brand name transition; managing customer perceptions before and after brand-name transition. Second learning objective included understanding risks in a franchisor–franchisee relationship. Third included appreciating the significance of trust-based relationships in managing transition economies.

CSS 8: Marketing.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the value of decolonial approaches (DAs) such as epistemic locus (Mignolo, 1995, 2000) in studying innovation.

This paper is based on a case study of a stem cell surgical innovation developed in India. A critical hermeneutic analysis method has been followed for data analysis.

Epistemic locus influences the framing of the problem, perceptions of risks/opportunities as well as the envisioning of alternate institutional systems. Persistent and strategic effort at building connections changes local improvisation into a globally legitimate innovation.

It indicates the value of using DAs for innovation studies especially epistemic locus, enactment and connections in understanding knowledge generation and innovation.

Innovation in Global South can be encouraged by giving more space to the innovator to attempt or experiment. More conscious conversation of epistemic locus of the researcher could help.

Countries have to move beyond a mere technological imitation to include discussions on epistemic imitation. Epistemic imitation prevents one from seeing what one has and one only looks at conditions from the eyes of the dominator.

This study documents the development of an innovation from an Indian epistemic locus which differs from a western epistemic locus and the impact this has on an innovation.

The purpose of this paper is to re-examine the Bombay textile mills of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to provide an account of the roots of business–society relationship in India and contribute to postcolonial perspectives on corporate social responsibility (CSR). This search is premised on the understanding that India has embarked on industrialisation from a set of productive relations that differ from European feudalism.

The data for this study have been obtained from published works on Bombay Textile Mills such as Chandavarkar (1994, 2008), Morris (1965), Wolcott (2008) and Clark (1999) and some Annual Reports of Bombay Mill Owners Association. Further Kydd (1920) has been used for history of factory legislation in India.

Evidence suggests that practices in mills were informed by notions of custom and fairness, which resulted in flexible hours, socially acceptable wage outcomes and work sharing. Individual reputations built through use of discretion within networks of patronage spanned both workplace and neighbourhood, interlinking the social, ethical, political and economic lives of owners, jobbers and workers. Jobbers’ authority was earned in return for providing support to a production process, mirroring Birla’s (2009) “layered sovereignty” differing markedly from delegated managerial authority. Workers’ share in surplus value was important along with autonomy, both of which were negotiated through customary networks and protest.

The paper suggests that a postcolonial approach to CSR implies an expansive notion of responsibility that goes beyond a Western focus on wages to encompass worker autonomy and countervailing power. Postcolonial accounts of CSR history can only be understood as emerging from a triadic interaction of imperial interest, subordinated native business and native societal relationships. This contrasts with conventional approaches that look at CSR’s emergence simply as a process internal to that society. Account of Indian CSR trajectory is in part a journey of native business from responsible practices to a messy tessellation of legal exploitation and illegal customary concerns.

The findings of this paper suggest that it is possible that customary practices of care and concern might still be surviving in Indian business even if only in the illegal and informal realm. Thus CSR programs in the Indian context might be useful to bring to centre stage these customary practices.

This study documents the evolution of business–society relations in a post-colonial context and shows how they are different from the Western trajectory.