Corruption In Organizations: A Behavioural Perspective in the Indian Context

@ bhagwad.com

Most of our management concepts and theories have hardly anything to deal with Corruption. Many of our so-called Consultants and Management Gurus do not dare to tread upon such concepts. Probably, they think that it is outside the realm of their elitist body of knowledge and would rather dismiss this word by calling it a “Social Evil”. 

Dear reader, let me sound a word of caution - this social evil has become a phenomena that is ‘widespread’ and ‘dominant’ and has gained great powers to influence whatever under the name of ‘management concepts’ that we have ever known till date!!

Why Jan Lokpal Is Not Sufficient?

"In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of

In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of"

Confucius

The deepening interest on Jan Lokpal (Citizen's ombudsman Bill) has no doubt captivated the Indian masses. A society burdened with a corrupt administrative heritage is now seeking redress. While differences continue to persist between the government and civil society, there is much awaited expectation among the general public that longs to put an end to corruption.

The government would obviously like to closely guard its citadels of power and keep its key officials ‘immune’ to any prosecution process. The Jan Lokpal on the other hand likes to see strong powers in its hands to take action against erring officials, bureaucrats, judiciary and politicians. But where this debate on exposing government officials to punitive measures would lead to is a bit uncertain. Let’s assume for a while that the Jan Lokpal, as proposed by the civil society, gets accepted and takes a formal structure. Will it be sufficient to put an end to corruption? What would be the ultimate outcome? In other words, what do we want to achieve by putting corruption to an end?

Japan Nuclear Fallout: Global Carbon Emissions Likely to Rise

Fukushima Nuclear Disaster

Japan's nuclear crisis has started rubbing on to nuclear programs of other countries. Germany has already announced its plans to close down its nuclear plants by 2022. Italy's people have recently voted to block revival of its nuclear power plants. Italy's nuclearpower plants were shut down by a 1987 referendum after the Chernobyl disaster.

Elsewhere, notably in United States, public pressure on governments to close nuclear plants is also on the rise. There are concerns about safety, social and environmental costs and ambitious civil nuclear plans in the fast growing economies of China and India. 

Read the full post at blog.thinktosustain.com

We Live In A Spam World

@ www.glasbergen.com

Bothered about getting cranky calls from over-enthusiastic sales persons in the middle of a meeting? or are you getting more annoyed these days by the spam mails that creep into your inbox?. If you are an average internet user - one who just loves to hit the net 2-3 hrs a day and possesses a strange gadget with innumerable and audacious powers (called mobile), I'm sure you would be at the receiving end and would know what I am talking about !

Its SPAM - everywhere !!

Igniting Passion: Motivating Employees Intrinsically

This is an experiment told to me by my Prof in a management class about an experiment carried out on chimpanzees. 

The chimps were divided into two groups – say, A and B, and kept in two different large rooms. They were given canvases, some paint brushes and color vials. 

When one of the chimps of group-A managed to take color from one of the vials and made a stroke on the canvas, it was immediately rewarded by a banana. The others in the group followed suit and were also rewarded. This carried on for sometime and whenever the chimps made a stroke, they would get bananas. This excited the chimps initially.

At the same time, in a different location, the chimps of group B also started off exploring the new things given to them and made some strokes on the canvas with their brushes. But they did not receive any reward. They started making strokes after strokes on the canvas. The new colors made them more inquisitive and excited other chimps too as they made number of color combinations out of the same set of colors.

Wither Indianness ?

This article takes stock of the changes in the Indian mindset and its relentless vigour to hob-nob with the glitterati of the new society.

Recently one of my senior colleagues frantically called me up from abroad and told me that he is coming back to India with his family. I was surprised – not because he is coming back but because of the reason that he had labored hard to get to the States and was doing well, so what made him feel like returning to homeland now all of a sudden. Later I found that he was finding it difficult to manage his children. Born in a foreign country, they had slowly started adopting the culture of the land. This transformation was not liked by the couple who could barely find time to teach their children the right type of values. After numerous efforts and failures, they decided to come back.