Indian ethos for management means the application of principles of management as revealed in our ancient wisdom brought forth in our sacred books like our Gita, Upanishads, Bible and Quran. There are 6 basic principles, which come to light in the holy books applicable in today’s management world. They are : Each soul is a potential God Holistic approach Equal importance to Subjectivity/Objectivity Karma yoga Yogah Karmasu Kaushalam Co-operation 1. Each Soul is a potential God A human being has a soul, a spark of the Divine. The divine resides in the heart of a person. The Divine means perfection in knowledge, wisdom and power. Therefore a human being has immense potential power or energy for self — development. Thus human efforts can achieve even an apparently impossible goal and convert the impossible into a reality. The partnership of God and Man can bring about extraordinary or miraculous results;Continue reading
Business Ethics
A comparative study of Value System of Japan, China , America and India
In order to understand the members of a particular society, it is required to have some idea of their daily lives , their tradition , their beliefs , their way of looking at the world , their value system. Values determine what is right and what is wrong for an individual , for a group of people ,for the people living in a particular nation. Individual’s value system decide the dos and the don’ts in their life. It forms the foundations of their characters. Depending on their value system , in a given situation they behave in a particular manner. The culture of various countries differ. There may be some similarity, but they are not the same. The values, beliefs and notions of Japan differ that of America, china or India. An organization is a part of the society . therefore, as far as an organization in aContinue reading
Case Study on Corporate Governance: UTI Scam
Of all the recent encounters of the Indian public with the much-celebrated forces of the market, the Unit Trust’s US-64 debacle is the worst. Its gravity far exceeds the stock market downswing of the mid-1990s, which wiped out Rs. 20,000 crores in savings. The debacle is part of the economic slowdown which has eliminated one million jobs and also burst the information technology (IT) bubble. This has tragically led to suicides by investors. And then suspension of trading in US-64made the hapless investors more dejected at the sinking of this “super-safe” public sector instrument that had delivered a regular return since 1964. There is a larger lesson in the US-64 debacle for policies towards public savings and public sector undertakings (PSUs). The US-64 crisis is rooted in plain mismanagement. US-64 was launched as a steady income fund. Logically, it should have invested in debt, especially low-risk fixed-income government bonds. Instead,Continue reading
Securities Scams In India
Securities Scam 1992 In April 1992, press reports indicated that there was a shortfall in the Government Securities held by the State Bank of India. Investigations uncovered the tip of an iceberg, later called the securities scam, involving misappropriation of funds to the tune of over Rs. 3500 Crores. The scam engulfed top executives of large nationalized banks, foreign banks and financial institutions, brokers, bureaucrats and politicians: The functioning of the money market and the stock market was thrown in disarray. The tainted shares were worthless as they could not be sold. This created a panic among investors and brokers and led to a prolonged closure of the stock exchanges along with a precipitous drop in the price of shares. Soon after the discovery of the scam, the stock prices dropped by over 40%, wiping out market value to the tune of Rs. 100,000 crores. The normal settlement process inContinue reading
Case Study: The Enron Accounting Scandal
As 2002 began, energy trader Enron Corp. found itself at the center of one of corporate America’s biggest scandals. In less than a year, Enron had gone from being considered one of the most innovative companies of the late 20th century to being deemed a byword for corruption and mismanagement. Enron was formed in July 1985 when Texas-based Houston Natural Gas merged with InterNorth, a Nebraska-based natural gas company. In its first few years, the new company was simply a natural gas provider, but by 1989 it had begun trading natural gas commodities, and in 1994 it began trading electricity. The company introduced a number of revolutionary changes to energy trading, abetted by the changing nature of the energy markets, which were being deregulated in the 1990s and thus opening the door for new power traders and suppliers. Enron tailored electricity and natural gas contracts to reflect the cost ofContinue reading
Recent Developments in Corporate Governance
The Department of Company Affairs, in May 2000, invited a group of leading industrialists, professionals and academics to study and recommend measures to enhance corporate excellence in India. The Study Group in turn set up a Task Force, which examined the subject of Corporate Excellence through sound corporate governance and submitted its report in Nov. 2000. The task force in its recommendations identified two classifications namely essential and desirable with the former to be introduced immediately by legislation and the latter to be left to the discretion of companies and their shareholders. Some of the recommendations of the task force include: Greater role and influence for nonexecutive independent directors Stringent punishment for executive directors for failing to comply with listing and other requirements Limitation on the nature and number of directorship of managing and whole-time directors Proper disclosure to the shareholders and investing community Interested shareholders toContinue reading