The paper goes beyond critique to read institutional approaches, specifically institutional logics of CSR in India and their management by Indian firms, from a post-colonial location, to explore decolonising possibilities. Drawing on post-colonial approach of catachrestic reading, it reads institutional logics of CSR literature to argue against a linear hierarchical travel of western CSR logic into India, which is then adapted/adopted/translated or decoupled, along with the secondary status this implies for India; and suggests that Indian and western CSR logics are (...) competing logics. It argues that these competing logics are non-core, but significant and need to be managed by Indian firms. An exploratory survey supports this argument. It also suggests a few testable propositions for CSR institutional logics using “deferment of routine development” and “strategic ambiguity in meanings” as mechanisms. In addition, it shows that decolonising purpose can also be realised by having cross-paradigmatic engagements with mainstream management and organisation studies scholarship such as institutional approaches. (shrink)

An empirical analysis of the relationship between “objectively assessed need” and the formation of NGOs in Andhra Pradesh, India, suggests that the former is not a significant trigger for the latter. The formation of NGOs appears to be a response to perceptions of need that are so far removed from the local level that they fail to prioritize amongst levels and locations of poverty. In the absence of objective feedback mechanisms, the global—and therefore indiscriminate—perspective of international funding sources may help (...) explain the lack of correspondence between need and NGO location, combined with the inevitably limited and blinkered knowledge of regional disparities that can be obtained through local NGOs. This preliminary “epistemological” approach to the question of the sub-optimal formation of NGOs is buttressed by consideration of the factors that may bring perception, reality, and organizational responses into better alignment when natural disasters occur, namely the factors that make natural disasters compelling news stories, unlike chronic underdevelopment. (shrink)

An empirical analysis of the relationship between “objectively assessed need” and the formation of NGOs in Andhra Pradesh, India, suggests that the former is not a significant trigger for the latter. The formation of NGOs appears to be a response to perceptions of need that are so far removed from the local level that they fail to prioritize amongst levels and locations of poverty. In the absence of objective feedback mechanisms, the global—and therefore indiscriminate—perspective of international funding sources may help (...) explain the lack of correspondence between need and NGO location, combined with the inevitably limited and blinkered knowledge of regional disparities that can be obtained through local NGOs. This preliminary “epistemological” approach to the question of the sub-optimal formation of NGOs is buttressed by consideration of the factors that may bring perception, reality, and organizational responses into better alignment when natural disasters occur, namely the factors that make natural disasters compelling news stories, unlike chronic underdevelopment. (shrink)

The case recounts the ongoing conflict between Vedanta Alumina and the indigenous people and environmentalists over the mining and refining of aluminium at Niyamgiri in Orissa in India. Vedanta Alumina is a subsidiary of FTSE listed Vedanta Resources Plc. The company acquired a license for mining alumina from the state owned Orissa Mining Corporation and began work on the project that would make it the world’s largest integrated producer of aluminium. Sincethe very beginning, this project has faced stiff resistance from (...) the endangered indigenous tribes of the area and the environmentalists for its adverse impact. The case depicts the several ups and downs of both the company and the resistance movement and the methods employed by each of them during the decade old struggle that has been fought over continents and is now a very charged political issue in India. The case also illustrates how the state and political leadership has, at times supported the indigenous people, and at other times the corporate interests. (shrink)

The case recounts the ongoing conflict between Vedanta Alumina and the indigenous people and environmentalists over the mining and refining of aluminium at Niyamgiri in Orissa in India. Vedanta Alumina is a subsidiary of FTSE listed Vedanta Resources Plc. The company acquired a license for mining alumina from the state owned Orissa Mining Corporation and began work on the project that would make it the world’s largest integrated producer of aluminium. Sincethe very beginning, this project has faced stiff resistance from (...) the endangered indigenous tribes of the area and the environmentalists for its adverse impact. The case depicts the several ups and downs of both the company and the resistance movement and the methods employed by each of them during the decade old struggle that has been fought over continents and is now a very charged political issue in India. The case also illustrates how the state and political leadership has, at times supported the indigenous people, and at other times the corporate interests. (shrink)

NGOs are popularly viewed as altruistic and responsive to the needy. However, the availability of donors is a primary trigger for the formation of NGOs. This finding need not dispel the impression that NGOs are altruistic enterprises, though altruism is primarily an individual-level characteristic, but when it leads to the formation of an NGO, the organization will usually require funding, and donors appear to use the existence of other NGOs as a heuristic indicating the need for more NGOs. Thus, the (...) number of NGOs formed in an area is an ecological-level characteristic that may create the impression of self-interestedness, but one that is not necessarily inconsistent with the altruism of the individuals involved. (shrink)

NGOs are popularly viewed as altruistic and responsive to the needy. However, the availability of donors is a primary trigger for the formation of NGOs. This finding need not dispel the impression that NGOs are altruistic enterprises, though altruism is primarily an individual-level characteristic, but when it leads to the formation of an NGO, the organization will usually require funding, and donors appear to use the existence of other NGOs as a heuristic indicating the need for more NGOs. Thus, the (...) number of NGOs formed in an area is an ecological-level characteristic that may create the impression of self-interestedness, but one that is not necessarily inconsistent with the altruism of the individuals involved. (shrink)