Editorial - Introduction to the special issue: changing nature of work and organizations in India

Abstract

This special issue of Decision examines the changing nature of work and organizations in India. In 1991, under the mandate of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, as one of the “locomotives of the South” (Brazil, India, China, and South Africa), India introduced the structural adjustment program (Prashad 2013: 28), ushering in an era of neoliberal structural changes marked by intensifying globalization, financialization, and privatization (Harvey 2019). Undeniably, the primary beneficiaries of India’s liberalization have been the new middle class and the business and financial elite (Crabtree 2018; Fernandes and Heller 2006). Visibly, today we have Alexas in our living rooms, e-commerce deliveries at our doorsteps, shopping malls with designer labels, and convenient flight connections to Instagram-worthy selfie spots anywhere in the world. Moreover, this epochal shift has also been characterized by the creation of new Indians, with new dreams, passions, and aspirations, and new subjectivities (Gooptu 2013). As academics in premier management institutions, we see our students increasingly join the global managerial elite, while we frequently train and consult with multinational corporate powerhouses, and are incentivized to converse in international, typically Eurocentric, research spaces.