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The origins of corporate social responsibility (CSR) have been widely attributed to the work of scholars, and business managers as well, in North America and Western Europe. Inevitably, however, as the economic interaction of individual firms and entire nations has grown over the past several decades — call it globalization — so too has the concept and the practice of CSR spread throughout the world. It is certainly time to explore how CSR is being incorporated into the practice of business management in other regions and other countries. Therefore, in this chapter we will focus on Asia: specifically on Japan, South Korea, India, and China. It is interesting for academicians to understand how CSR is being absorbed and adapted into the business cultures of these four countries. Perhaps of even greater importance, it is vital that business managers know what to expect about the interaction between business and society as well as the government as their commercial activities grow in this burgeoning part of the world.

For each of these four countries, we will provide an overview of the extent to which CSR has become a part of the academic community and also how it is being practiced and incorporated in everyday management affairs. We will see that there are very significant differences among these countries which lead to the natural question: why? To answer this question, we will use an eight-part analytical framework developed specifically for this purpose. We will look at the history, the dominant religious beliefs, the relevant social customs, the geography, the political structures, the level of economic development, civil society institutions, and the “safety net” of each country. As a result of this analysis, we believe, academicians can learn how CSR is absorbed and spread into commercial affairs, and managers can profit from learning more about what to expect when doing business in this increasingly important region.

This study seeks to contribute to the relatively sparse literature on how emerging market firms (EMFs) acquire firm-specific advantages (FSA), how they adjust their organizational structures, processes, HR policies, leadership and cultures in the internationalization process, and how they interact with their domestic institutional context.

We report the results of a survey sent off to the most internationalized Indian firms, measured by foreign income. Our survey includes 26 variables measuring individual aspects of organizational innovation.

Our respondents report significant changes along all 26 organizational variables over the period investigated (2003–2008). Based on self-reported assessments by top managers, our findings suggest: first, that Indian firms are rapidly transforming their organizations, second, that Indian executives are increasingly confident that they will be able to compete successfully on an international scale, and third, that Indian firms may increasingly benefit from organizational innovation complementing their low cost advantages.

First, our sample size is relatively small at 76. Second, the ratings on the organizational variables we studied are based on self-reporting. Finally, our survey especially captures developments at the largest and most international Indian companies.

With its organization-wide scope of analysis, our study may guide EMF managers looking at organizational innovation in the internationalization context.

This paper elucidates the interplay of Indian firms’ internationalization and organizational innovation.

Research and innovation are a major national priority in India and are conducted across a diverse group of institutions. While Research Management (RM) activities were previously integrated into researcher and other roles in India, there is now recognition that RM services rendered by professionally trained staff can reduce the administrative burden on researchers, thereby enhancing the ease of doing research. This chapter provides context on the complex higher education and research ecosystem in India, outlines the circumstances leading to the development of RM support at Indian institutions, and highlights the contributions of the India Research Management Initiative in creating a community of practice for RM. The chapter concludes with some projections for the future of RM in India.

Purpose: Although the transnational mobility of youth is prevalent across the globe, the policies and strategies used by developing countries to promote youths’ transnational mobility remains unclear. This chapter aims to discuss a few emerging trends and concerns related to youth transnational mobility and human capital accumulation. It focuses on the specific case of youth transnational migration from India. As such, this chapter considers the factors that have led to the construction of aspirations for transnational migration among Indian youth.

Study approach: In this chapter, we examine youth transnational mobility by synthesising the major literature available in the area of globalisation and transnational migration in the developing countries context. The study also incorporates the policy debates and secondary data evidence in these domains to substantiate the arguments.

Findings: Mainly focussing on the internal state of affairs of India, this work highlights three critical issues (a) new norms and practices of human capital accumulation within India’s knowledge economy; (b) understanding state and formal-informal ‘commoditised’ market dynamics in the changing aspirations for global human capital formation, specifically through transnational migration; and (c) examining the upshots of youth transnational mobility in terms of the production of relatively new forms of caste and class inequalities within Indian society.

Originality: This conceptual piece of work is an initial foray to unpack the complexities of Indian youths’ migration for specialised forms of human capital accumulation in a global landscape. The study motivates future policy-oriented interdisciplinary research on education and transnational mobility, specifically in empirical research projects.

Maladies afflicting the higher education system in developing countries are well represented by what is happening in India and have been discussed in detail by many researchers and educationists (Anandakrishnan, 2008; Balram, 2005, 2008). The Government of India has formulated different projects and programmes for improving the education scenario in the country. The successive education commissions from Radhakrishnan (1949) through Kothari commission (1966) discussed various issues related to the higher education system and suggested many steps to resolve them. Recently, the Committee to Advice on Renovation and Rejuvenation of Higher Education (2009) headed by Yash Pal discussed the challenges faced by the Indian higher education system and recommended complete revamping of the higher education system and evolving it as an Indian model. The National Knowledge Commission (NKC, 2006–2009) in 2007 while recommending several measures to keep up the pace of higher education with the developments of knowledge society and knowledge economy observed that ‘We recognize that a meaningful reform of the higher education system with a long-term perspective is both complex and difficult. Yet it is imperative.’ The view that the reforms cannot easily be carried out is more strengthened by the fact that the vision and recommendations of the Kothari Commission of 1966 (based on which the 1968 educational policy was formulated) are still valid and useful even now (Sam Pitroda, 2007).