From East to West-Has the Twain Met? Linkages Between Context Sensitivity and Soft Systems Methodology more

Syst Pract Act Res DOI 10.1007/s11213-006-9024-6 ORIGINAL PAPER From East to West- Has the Twain Met? Linkages Between Context Sensitivity and Soft Systems Methodology∗ Madhu Ranjan Kumar · Shankar Sankaran Received: 28 November 2005 / Accepted: 3 June 2006 C Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 2006 Abstract This paper links context sensitivity of Indians to mode 2 of Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) bringing out the similarities between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft and the primary mode and secondary mode of behaviour of context sensitivity respectively. Both SSM and context sensitivity consider the totality of environment before selecting the most appropriate behaviour. In the Indian context, the three dimensions of context sensitivity— person (patra), time (kal) and ecology (the pattern of relationships people have with their social and physical surrounding) (desh) are the three coordinates along which SSM’s standard of facts and values change. The unbundling of the changing standard of SSM along the three dimensions of person, time and ecology and across the two polarities of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft provides a model which is used to explain the recent economic rise of India. Keywords Context sensitivity . Adaptability . Appreciative system . Soft systems methodology ∗ An earlier and shorter version of this paper titled ‘Context sensitivity: An Indian version of soft systems’ has been presented at the ALARPM Congress 2006. M. R. Kumar ( ) Chief Materials Manager, Indian Railways, 50, Diesel Locomotive Works, Banaras, India 221004 e-mail: madhu ranjan@yahoo.com S. Sankaran Senior Lecturer University of Technology, Sydney, Australia e-mail: shankar.sankaran@uts.edu.au Springer Syst Pract Act Res 1. Introduction Senge (1990) has been critical of the lack of systemic thinking in the western world. Senge’s systemic understanding of the world is expressed as: ‘the nature is not made up of parts. It is made up of wholes within whole.’ This echoes with an ancient vedic mantra of India: That is whole. This too is whole (Om poornamada, Poornam-idsm). Take away whole from whole (Poornasya Poornamadaye). What remains is still the whole (Poornameva Vishashyate). (note: The sentences in the parenthesis are the original vedic verses in Sanskrit. The Sanskrit word ‘poornam’ means complete or whole) Beer (1994) also underscores the systemic approach of the classical Indian thinking in his analysis of Gita. He interprets verse 3.27 of Gita into cybernetic language as: Output is a self-regulating black box of input variety. It speaks of the self-determination of the system from its own nature. He concludes that this verse of Gita speaks of the implicit (emphasis in original) control in nature which cybernetics discovered 5000 years later (Beer 1994, p. 85). He also links his viable systems model (VSM) with the vedantic creation model called sristi. This paper attempts to uncover this systemic Indian mind set through the construct of context sensitivity (Sinha and Kanungo 1997) by identifying the conceptual similarities between context sensitivity and Checkland’s soft systems and Vickers’s appreciative systems. In the process, this paper argues that the current economic rise of India is attributable in part to the context sensitive mind set of Indians. 2. Context sensitivity According to Sinha and Kanungo (1997) context sensitivity refers to the adaptive nature of an idea or behaviour in a context. A context sensitive behaviour is situationdriven. Related to the concept of context sensitivity is that of ‘balancing.’ Balancing is the behavioural manifestation of a context sensitive mentality. People who are sensitive to their contexts are also aware of their diverse demands. Therefore, they have to strike a balance among the diverse demands of environment by adapting their behaviour to them. Sinha and Kanungo (1997) provide a socio-historic reason behind the context sensitive behaviour of Indians: The traditional systems of Hinduism, castes and agricultural mode of production have interacted with the events of foreign invasions, alien rules, and the exposure to the West to create a context sensitivity which takes into consideration the person-related (patra) and temporal (kal) aspects and the ecology (desh) of the environment while responding to a given situation. Here ecology means the pattern of relationships of people with their social and physical surrounding. A behaviour that can be considered appropriate for a given time, place and persons may not be considered appropriate for another time, place and person. A few anecdotes may explain context sensitivity better. One of the authors was a student in an Australian university. There were other Indian students also in that university. One teacher at university was of Indian origin. It was noted that when the teacher of Indian origin Springer Syst Pract Act Res would come to the group of Indian students, they would get up as a mark of respect to him. On his part, the teacher too, would wave them to sit down. Showing respect to a teacher is a typical Indian trait. However the same group of students would not get up when any other teacher would come up to them. Because the teachers of Australian origin did not expect them to get up, the Indian students did not feel the necessity of getting up on their arrival even though the Indian students might be quite respectful to them. This is an example of behaving differently with different persons in the same situation - the person (patra) based manifestation of context sensitivity. The temporal (kal) related dimension of context sensitivity is manifested by way of behaving differently with the same person or situation at different points in time. For decades, two sons of a prominent Indian business tycoon were living with their parents, wives and children like an Indian joint family. In public the two sons—now in their mid forties—were a model of sibling affection. Professionally too, within a span of 30 years, the business tycoon and his two sons had created the second largest industrial empire in India that was the envy of the rest of Indian industrialists who in generations could not create what the threesome created in a matter of 30 years. However within a year of the death of the business tycoon, his two sons split up after a series of very acrimonious and very public spats. But it did not embarrass their common acquaintances. Rather, some of them including an ex. Chief Minister of an Indian state trooped in to decide how to split the business assets between the two. It is to be noted that no mediation was warranted as far as their personal split was concerned. The mediation was only for the division of assets. As if the society accepted that the death of their father signified an event whereby they have crossed one time period (kal) of their life and entered another time period of their life. Thus, the same two persons, in the same situation of running a business empire could behave differently in the changed times caused by the death of their father. Ecology (desh) means the pattern of relationships of people with their social and physical surrounding. A group of Indian managers including one of the authors once visited USA as members of an official delegation. This group consisted of managers from the lowest to the highest rung of an Indian bureaucratic organisation. Indian bureaucracy and Indian society are highly hierarchical (Khandwalla 1999; Sinha 1995). However a few days into USA, the junior members of the delegation began calling their seniors by their names—something the junior members could never have imagined to do in India. Few weeks later, when the group returned to Indian, the status quo ante was restored—the juniors began to ‘sir’ the seniors! One of them remarked, “I am surprised, how I was able to call my boss by his name in USA”! This is an example of change in behaviour due to ecology (desh) dimension of context sensitivity—the change in the pattern of relationships of people with their social and physical surrounding made them develop different understanding of ‘appropriate behaviour.’ 2.1. Philosophical underpinning of context sensitivity The authors argue that the context sensitive nature of Indians can be traced to their mental orientation of being able to work at different levels of reality. The philosophical underpinning for different levels of reality is reflected in Taittiriya Upnishad—an ancient Indian scripture— which had identified five levels of reality (Radhakrishnan 1949, p. 43). According to Jain and Kussman (1994) the lowest level reality can be identified with matter and food (anna). This reality is at the empirical level limited by space and time. The next level of reality is life (prana). Life is different from matter and food, yet it is the essence of matter and food (Koller 1982, p. 101). It is akin to saying that matter and food have given rise to the life form of Springer Syst Pract Act Res reality. The third level of reality is mind (manas). Mind is different from life yet it is the essence of life. It is the rudimentary form of awareness which humans share with animals. It is akin to saying that life has given rise to the mind form of reality. The fourth level of reality is intelligence (vij˜ ana). Mind has given rise to intelligence which is about unn¯ derstanding the world. While human beings have largely mastered the material world, the life and the working of mind, he has not yet mastered the reality at the level of intelligence or understanding. Therefore he is not the master of his/her act (Radhakrishnan 1949, p. 43) because there is a struggle of opposites in the world of experience. The ultimate reality—the fifth and the highest—is above all opposites (Gita verse 2.45 interpreted by Radhakrishnan 1949, p. 43). Thus it is the endeavour of each person to attain the ultimate reality which is called joy or bliss (anand). ‘This ultimate reality is boundless. Therefore all possibilities can coexist without excluding or compromising one another. Thus opposites can coexist and even enrich one another with all their differences’ (Jain and Kussman 1994, p. 96). Thus, for Indians, no description can convey the entire truth about anything. However, the deeper the level of reality the more fully one participates in the truth of being (Jain and Kussman 1994, p. 96). Embree (1989, p.13) echoes the same when he says (For Indians) there is the concept of many levels of truth, the assertion that while there is ‘truth’ in the sense of an overarching reality and there are ‘true’ actions, there are many possibilities and contradictions, all of which may be true in some sense. . . . It is not mere accident that Mahatma Gandhi titled his autobiography as ‘my experiments with truth.’ Thus each perspective provides a partial glimpse of reality-–these viewpoints can even be opposing. A new viewpoint may render the older one less dominant, but the older viewpoint is not therefore rejected. Both coexist (Jain and Kussman, 1994, p.103). Carl Jung has said, “It is bewildering to see how fragments of Western science live peacefully with what we, short-sightedly, would call superstition. Indians do not mind seemingly intolerable contradictions’ (quoted in Sinha and Kanungo 1997, p. 1995). On the same lines, Radhakrishnan (1949, p. 143) has said, ‘In its anxiety to lose nothing in the march of ages, to harmonize every sincere conviction without renouncing any, it (Hinduism) has become an immense synthesis combining within itself varied elements and motives’. In such a situation, there cannot be an abstract formulation of law. Laws are thus applied as applicable to each new case. Therefore, it is not surprising that Nakamura (1964, p. 115) holds the view that ‘Hindus distrust any abstract formulation of law applicable to all cases. They want to consider each case on its individual merit’. Thus there can be different levels of truth as truth can take many shade and interpretations. Derne (1992, p. 266) reflects the same opinion when he says that ‘North Indian Hindu . . . do not recognize institutional standards as right in an abstract way’. Indians de-emphasize individual autonomy in explaining each individual action. (Derne 1992, p. 261). Everyone assesses his/her own context and acts accordingly. In this situation, there is nothing objective or ‘hard reality’ about what a person sees or does. The understanding that no belief can be declared absolutely true or absolutely false is also found in other religions of Indian origin e.g. in Buddhism and Jainism. In Buddhism there are two levels of reality (Mullin, 1999) and Buddha often compared reality to mirages, magic illusions or dreams (http://www.purifymind.com/InterdependenceBudd.htm). Similarly, in Jainism the theory of Syadvada (may be) says that all knowledge is probable and relative; therefore another person’s point of view is as true as one’s own (Jain and Kussman 1994, p. 103). Springer Syst Pract Act Res Table 1 Mode 1 Methodology-driven Intervention Sometimes sequential SSM as external Source: Checkland and Scholes (1990) Dimensions of SSM types Mode 2 Situation-driven Interaction Always iterative SSM as internalised model 3. Similarities between context sensitivity and soft systems methodology This paper now argues how the philosophical underpinning about the absence of a hard reality in an Indian’s psych is conceptually similar to the appreciative systems of Vickers and Checkland’s soft systems methodology (SSM). Appreciative systems are the interconnected set of largely tacit standards of judgment by which we both order and value our experience. People appreciate the facts on personal, institutional and cultural factors (Vickers, 1970). The appreciated world is a world of represented contexts (Vickers 1970, p. 97). According to Vickers, organisational members set standards or norms rather than goals and the focus on goal is replaced by one on managing relationships according to the standard or norm generated by the previous history of the organization. Independent of Vicker’s appreciative systems, Checkland also developed his understanding of such systems which are not goal seeking. He called the methodology of understanding such systems as soft systems methodology (SSM). For Checkland, SSM is a process to articulate Vicker’ s concept of appreciative systems (Checkland 2003, p. 17). Going back to context sensitivity, if everyone assesses his/her own context and acts accordingly resulting in nothing objective or ‘hard reality’ about what a person sees or does, then there is no real world that a person is attempting to map. On similar lines, Checkland’s soft systems methodology does not attempt to model the real world. The mode 2 of SSM is situation-driven and always iterative (see Table 1) wherein a person internalises what he/she sees, understands it and then acts according to his/her understanding of the situation or should we say according to his/her understanding of context. Little wonder in an unstable, messy India which has handled events of foreign invasions, alien rules, and numerous cultures, the context sensitivity is echoing what Checkland calls SSM for studying ‘ill-defined, messy problems of this world’ (Checkland 1994, p. 80). It is possible to formally integrate context sensitivity and balancing within SSM. In order to integrate context sensitivity within SSM, let us first see how mode 2 of SSM draws from Vickers’s concept of appreciative systems (Checkland 1994): In Vickers’s appreciative system, the worldview of a person is represented by the interacting flux of events and ideas. They are represented by ‘two-stranded rope,’ the strands being inseparable and continuously affecting each other. There is a recursive loop in which the flux of events and ideas generate appreciation. Appreciation leads to action. Both appreciation and action also contribute to flux. A person appreciates the flux of events and ideas and makes judgment about it based on his/her own standard (or norms) of facts and values: standards of what is—the facts, and standards of what is good or bad, acceptable or unacceptable—the values. Also the very act of using the standard may itself modify them. Thus, there is no ultimate source for standards by means of which what is noticed is deemed good or bad, important or unimportant. The source of the standard is the previous history of the system itself (emphasis in original). Springer Syst Pract Act Res time the flux of events and ideas Action Appreciation: • Perceive • Judge, in terms of facts and value • Envisage desired relationship Standards (of fact and value) Fig. 1 The structure of an appreciative system. Source: Checkland (1994, p. 83) Action results from the meaning which members of an organization attribute to their act and to the acts of others. Meanings are socially sustained and meanings are socially changed. This discussion on appreciative system is pictorially shown in Fig. 1. The standard here is defined as an individual’s judgment of what is good or bad, acceptable or unacceptable and Vickers says that the source of the standard or norm is the previous history of the system. A question arises at this stage: Is it possible to represent the previous history of the system in some frame of reference? That is, is there any culturally, socially constructed frame of reference within which a person assesses and modifies his/her standard or is it that the standard just evolves from a random drift and the resultant temporary mental amalgamation of previous history? The authors argue that at least in India, the three dimensions of context sensitivity—person (patra), time (kal) and ecology (desh) provide the frame of reference within which an Indian defines his/her standard. Thus though the ‘standard’ keeps changing, the changes in the standard are along the three coordinates of ‘person,’ ‘time’ and ‘ecology.’ A person’s belief and values can be placed on these three coordinates. Further, while adjudging the world as per the three components of standard, a person in India expresses a primary expressive mode which is traditional in nature and also a secondary expressive mode that is acquired as a result of the transplantation of the Western management concepts onto a traditional Indian core (Sinha and Kanungo 1997, p. 100). A primary mode of behaviour is triggered by indigenous traditional influences. The secondary mode of behaviour comes from more recent Western influence and exposure to the principles of modern organisational management (Sinha and Kanungo 1997, p. 99). This is conceptually similar to what Tonnies has called ‘Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft’ (Checkland 1994; Loomis 1955, p. 77). Gemeinschaft is the natural living community of family or tribe in Springer Syst Pract Act Res which a person is born and Gesellschaft is the formally created group as when a person joins a company. Gemeinschaft shows those relationships which develop on ‘natural will.’ ‘Natural will’ implies that people are not treated as means to another end. Means and ends are taken together. On the other hand, Gesellschaft depicts such relationships which are based on ‘rational will’ where people are treated instrumentally, as objects/means to another end. A market is a typical area for such relations. In Gesellschaft, relations are short term lasting for the time during which a person fulfils the function of achieving an end through another person. In Gemeinschaft, relations are expected to last longer. It is not an exchange relationship where through the instrumentality of an interaction, an end is fulfilled. For example, the relationship between a shopkeeper and a customer is a Gesellschaft relationship where they are interacting to fulfil the roles of a seller and a buyer. The relationship does not last any longer. But in Gemeinschaft, people treat each other as ‘persons’ and not as roles (Vat 2004, p. 945). Therefore relationships between a father and a son, a teacher and a student are Gemeinschaft relationships. Checkland (1994, p. 78) says that the traditional organizational theory has emphasized the Gesellschaft aspect of the organization which has led to hard system thinking. But the actual behaviour of members of organisation is a mixture of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft. On the same lines, ‘context sensitivity’ of Sinha and Kanungo (1997) recognize both the Gesellschaft and the Gemeinschaft based responses of a person. What they consider as the primary expressive mode of a person is the Gemeinschaft based response and what they consider as the secondary expressive mode is the Gesellschaft based response of a person. The authors now argue that it is along this continuum of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft that the coordinates of person, time and ecology get differentiated. This argument is pictorially shown in Fig. 2. Figure 2 splits the standards of fact and value into three components of time, person and ecology and also positions them along the Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft continuum. Thus what has been referred to merely as ‘standard’ in Checkland’s model (see Fig. 1) has now been unbundled using Sinha and Kanungo’s notion of context sensitivity. How a person is going to perceive, judge and respond to the environmental cues depends on the relative salience along the Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft continuum of his/her understanding of 1. the persons he/she is interacting with (patra—person) 2. the occasion he/she is facing (kal—temporal) 3. the social/physical environment he/she is placed in (desh—ecology). The above argument will be made clearer by explaining the three examples of context sensitivity given in section 2 in terms of Fig. 2. Because of the Gemeinschaft value called hierarchy manifested in relation to behaviour with persons (patra), the Indian students displayed their primary mode of behaviour of ‘getting up’ in deference to the Indian teacher. Because of the Gesellschaft value called egalitarianism, the same students displayed their secondary mode of behaviour of ‘not getting up’ before the Australian teachers. Because of the Gemeinschaft value called ‘past and present orientation’ the sons of the business tycoon displayed their primary mode of behaviour of ‘living with the past’ (their parents). After the death of their father (end of a time phase—kal), because of their Gesellschaft value called ‘future planning,’ they broke their umbilical chords with past and displayed the secondary mode of behaviour of parting ways so as to chart the course of their respective business empires in their own preferred ways. Gamer (1999) has said, ‘we are born into families, whose good we pursue until we seek our own independence and begin our own families.’ Springer Syst Pract Act Res Historical influence (Gemeinschaft) Behavioural Manifestations Contemporary influence (Gesellschaft) Relating to people (patra) Primary Mode Secondary mode Hinduism Caste Agricultural mode of production Invasions Alien rules In-group embeddedness -------Individualism Hierarchy ------------- Egalitarianism Technological and industrial expansion Modernization Relating to time (kal) Primary Mode Secondary Mode Past & present -----------------Future planning orientation Avoidance -------------------------Taking risk We stern management education Relating to ecology (desh) Primary Mode Secondary Mode Moralism --------------------------- Pragmatism Poverty syndrome --------------- Growth oriented (Gemeinschaft) (Gesellschaft) Fig. 2 Unbundling of standards of fact and value into three components of time, person and ecology and their positioning along the Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft continuum. Source: developed from Sinha and Kanungo (1997) and Checkland (1994) Because of the Gesellschaft value called ‘pragmatism’ the members of the Indian delegation did not want to look stupid in the social and physical surrounding of USA (the ecology-–desh component of context sensitivity), they displayed the secondary mode of behaviour by addressing each other by their names. Because of the Gemeinschaft value called ‘moralism’ (we ought not to address our seniors by their name—an Indian trait), the members of the Indian delegation displayed the primary mode of behaviour by once again ‘sirring’ their seniors on their return to India. Taking the comparison between SSM and context sensitivity further, both context sensitivity and SSM are adaptive. Both take the soft system and not the hard system around them in consideration. A context sensitive mindset like SSM is not goal seeking. In both, goals emerge out of the process of accommodation. The goals may change with time. What Checkland calls ‘action’ is akin to ‘balancing’ of Sinha and Kanungo. Action arises from meaning which members of an organization attribute to each other’s act (Checkland 1994, p. 78). The action is based on accommodation between different conflicting perspectives. Action is what is culturally feasible for a particular group of person in a particular situation with a particular history (Checkland 1994, p. 94). ‘Balancing is also trying to seek a middle Springer Syst Pract Act Res time the flux of events and ideas Action Balancing of behaviour or coping with the environment Appreciation: Perceive Judge in terms of fact and value Envisage desired relationship Standards of fact and value Gemeinschaft Gesellschaft Fig. 3 Integration of mode 2 of SSM with context sensitivity and balancing path which in general avoids the extreme path. It tends to accommodate between different environmental contexts’ (Sinha and Kanungo 1997, p. 96). Now it is now possible to integrate mode 2 of SSM with context sensitivity and balancing. It is pictorially shown in Fig. 3. It shows that context sensitivity is the mental map which provides a different response in each situation depending on the user and the nature of the situation. And providing a different response in each situation depending on the user and the nature of the situation is what Checkland calls SSM. In spite of above integration of context sensitivity with the soft systems methodology, there are differences between them. The difference lies in that while SSM gives rise to action, context sensitivity gives rise to coping. It has been shown in Fig. 3. Because of the action learning approach, SSM is today a methodology which is relevant more in an organizational situation. But because of the behavioural science approach, context sensitivity is relevant more in an individual situation. The learning through SSM can be both at the individual level and at the group level. However, through context sensitivity, the learning is generally at individual level. Soft system methodology (SSM) has been advocated as a flexible approach to problem solving in complex organizational situations, context sensitivity is a flexible approach to social interaction in complex social situations. SSM has an action bias—it decides about an individual’s action after considering the environment in its totality from his/her point of view, context sensitivity has an interaction bias—it decides about how a person interacts with his/her environment Springer Syst Pract Act Res after considering the environment in its totality. But both emphasize accommodation with the totality of situation and both lead to adaptive behaviour. The emphasis on the totality of situation is because both have their origin in systemic thought. Perhaps it is this systemic understanding of the world inbuilt into the Indian psych through religious scriptures (see Section 2.1) that has made them understand the schemes of the world as soft systems. Basham (1967, p. 344–345) interprets the Indian perspective on action as: ‘In every circumstances there are actions which are intrinsically right (and) the right course must be chosen according to circumstances’. It can be rephrased in the language of SSM as: ‘In every circumstances, there are more than one world-view and the action to be taken is the one which is both desirable and feasible for a particular group of persons in a particular situation’ (Checkland 1994, p. 86). 4. Context sensitivity as an intervening factor in management of change in India This paper now uses the argument developed above to explain a finding which went against the grain of the existing literature. Literature has generally referred to resistance to change (Hersey et al. 2002) more so in bureaucracy (Watson 1966; Khandwalla 1999). However, in a survey-based review of ISO 9000 implementation in six units of Indian bureaucracy, no resistance to change was reported (Kumar 2006). The lack of resistance to change was also found in action research based implementation of ISO 9000 in other units of Indian bureaucracy. The consistent lack of resistance to change needed an explanation which the existing literature could not provide (Kumar 2006, p. 239). This paper argues that it was because of their context sensitive dispositions that the Indian employees were amenable to change. The model developed in Fig. 3 provides the theoretical basis for this. A context sensitive behaviour is situation-driven. Therefore one is flexible and does not feel the need to offer any resistance to change—why, because if the context has changed, so has the internal model of action. Or talking systemically in terms of Fig. 3, the standard of facts and values—which interprets the cues of the external world—had got modified along the three dimensions of person, ecology and time. This made the employees more flexible. However, in the above referred research, it needs to be explained how the context got changed. The first change in context was that the boss—subordinate relationship in the organisation got repositioned as a guru-shishya (teacher-student) relationship (Kumar 2006, p. 203– 206). In terms of Fig. 3, this meant that for the Indians, the context got shifted towards the Gemeinschaft end of the continuum along the dimension of ‘person’ (patra) because traditionally, Indians have a preference for being guided by gurus (teachers)(Sekhar 2001, p. 361). The teacher-student relationship made the situation conducive for learning and therefore conducive for change. The second change in context was that the need for customer satisfaction was not inculcated with its economic logic but with its Gemeinschaft logic. In a conventional approach to customer satisfaction, customer needs are to be understood and satisfied because it is the customer who gives us business and a dissatisfied customer can mean winding up of business. Thus it is the fear of retaliation by the customer which makes one satisfy him/her. Thus under the veneer of customer satisfaction, in reality, it is a ‘war like situation’ (Truzzi 1971) between me and my customer. This can be termed as the economic logic behind customer satisfaction. To paraphrase it in the language of Tonnies (Loomis 1955), this is the Gesellschaft—‘rational will’—for customer satisfaction because customer satisfaction is looked upon as a means to achieve the end objective of remaining profitable in business. However, it may not be internalised in a traditional society like India where duty and obligations are considered superior virtues than hedonism (Sinha 1995). Thus it can Springer Syst Pract Act Res mean a double handicap. First, the customer’s desire for his/her satisfaction can be construed as his/her hedonism and thus looked down upon; second, here customer satisfaction is not being internalised as one’s duty or obligation towards society. So it does not resonate with the ‘natural will’—the Gemeinschaft of the employees. The following paragraph explains how in Fig. 3, the context got changed towards the Gemeinschaft end of the continuum along the dimension of ‘ecology’ (desh). The ethical relevance of customer satisfaction was developed as follows: In the action learning cycle 1, one of the staff had mentioned about how banks had decided that they would encash a cheque in 10 min. This logic was taken further: In his/her day-to-day life an Indian goes to a bank, to a municipal office, to an electric supply company office or to a hospital. The common theme in all these institutions is that he/she is a customer and he/she wants his/her problem to be addressed efficiently. However, the general experience in India is that interaction with these institutions leaves a bad taste in mouth. If the staff in the Indian bureaucracy are explained that the common theme lacking in these organizations is a customer orientation, then they should be able to understand its relevance as a duty or obligation towards society so that they, as members of the society, can collectively have a better life. . . . Since Indians are prone to think in totality rather than in a reductionist way, the understanding of customer satisfaction as a duty valid across different organizations will make them understand the big picture and their own role in that big picture (slightly paraphrased from Kumar 2006, p. 213). It is to be noted here how customer satisfaction resonates with the ‘natural will’ of people if inculcated as another manifestation of people’s collective duty towards each other, towards their kin and towards their societal members. It is no longer a means to attain the end objective of getting more business or retaining the customer. Gamer (1999) has said, ‘change must proceed in conformity with social righteousness and the spirit of a given people.’ In reflections after the change, the members of the bureaucracy said that as long as what was being changed did not militate against their inner values (read—against their standard of Gemeinschaft), they did not feel the urge to resist change. This shows that there can be culture specific differences in a society’s response to change. The above emphasis on the Gemeinschaft based standard in place of Gesellschaft based standard is an issue we shall come back to a little later. 4.1. From context sensitivity to adaptability—the reason behind India’s recent economic rise? From the above specific example of ‘change in context’ in a short span of time, this paper now takes up the changing contexts of Indians with respect to an organization (say a factory—as a metaphor) since India’s independence in terms of Fig. 3 and juxtaposes them within an appreciative and soft systems framework. It is shown in Table 2. Then the paper argues how the context sensitivity of Indians has been a key reason behind the current economic rise of India. For a factory, Table 2 shows the Gemeinschaft standard of Indians and the varying Gesellschaft standard of Indians along the three dimensions of context sensitivity at three stages since the time India became independent. For the sake of brevity, only the more salient Gesellschaft standard has been indicated in Table 2. Four things are to be noted here. First, much like the soft systems, different group of persons were allowed to have different perceptions about what is the ‘real’ objective of a factory in India without trying to analyse and define what should be the ‘real’ goal of a factory as perhaps would have been Springer Table 2 Gesellschaft standard of facts and values At the time of independence (1947) (B) From sixties to eighties (C) From nineties to now (D) Changing Gesellschaft of Indians about a factory over the last 60 years along the three dimensions of person, time and ecology Springer The three Gemeinschaft standard of facts and dimensions of context sensitivity values (A) Person (patra) Groups and pride in groups defined along regional and caste lines Time (kal) Ecology (desh) Changing world view about a factory We the socialist Indians must take Re-emergence of groups but defined A group of fragmented along professional lines e.g. care of all our countrymen who individuals shattered by have just one identity and engineers, doctors etc. Pride defined centuries of alien rules need to common aspiration as the Indian in terms of membership of be guided about how to rebuild national professional groups e.g. ‘I am a the country hence emphasis on doctor’ central planning (an example of hard systems thinking) Past, present and future overlap but Past, present and future overlap (the Lives in the past thus conscious of Short term orientation to the future is the most significant and work-–must maximize my theory of karma) the misdeeds of colonial rules. the past least significant thus ‘take Therefore wanted to make up for today’s output. Hence excessive emphasis to near future, factory’s risk and win tomorrow’ is the new this in double quick time by mantra long term viability suffered rapid industrial advancement Simple living, high thinking (high Extreme inequality and poverty, a Social justice overrides everything It is a pragmatic world so do not harp on poverty, talk about growth which moral preaching) feeling of parochial patriotism so else hence bank nationalisation, will eradicate poverty, thus ‘high increased job reservation for the government emphasis on a thinking’ now means higher level of backward class citizens ‘self reliant’ India output and not just high moral preaching Harbinger of a new India- (the Harbinger of a new India and Harbinger of a new India, A group of persons engaged in an temples of modern employment generator, capacity employment generator, capacity ordained activity which finally builder, national integrator etc builder, national integration and results in an ordained output for the India-–Nehru) profit generator factory and an ordained reward for the employees Syst Pract Act Res Note: In the last row, the most salient worldviews are shown in italics. Syst Pract Act Res The flux of events and ideas unfolding through time Appreciation: Harbinger of a new India Action Build factories ( th e t e m p l e s of modern India – Ne h r u ) Action Nat io n a liz e factories, loan melas (carnivals) by bank, emphasis on distribution o f wealth (Garibi hataoeradicate poverty -Indira Gandhi) Appreciation: E mployment generator, capacity b u il d e r , national integrator etc Standards of fact and value T I M E PE RSON T I M E P ERS O N Time 1947 Standards of fact and value T I M E PER SON T I M E P ER S O N Time 1960-80 continued Gemeinschaft Gesellschaft (A) (B) Gemeinschaft Gesellschaft (A) (C) The flux of events and ideas unfolding through time Appreciation: Harbinger of a new India Action Run factories on economic l in e s Standards of fact and value continued T I M E PE R SON T I M E P ERSO N Time 1990-2005 Gemeinschaft Gesellschaft (A) (D) Fig. 4 The systemic variation in appreciation about a factory in India over time leading to different actions Source: developed from Checkland (1994, p. 84) Note: A, B, C and D in this figure correspond to the respective columns of Table 2 done in a Western country. The resulting action (the output) of a factory was therefore an accommodation of these different perceptions (see Fig. 4). Second, as the action changed the flux of events and ideas they in turn changed the appreciation (or the world view) of the Indians towards a factory and hence changed their Gesellschaft standard much in line with Vickers reasoning that the very act of using the standard may itself modify them. Figure 4 also shows how the process of enquiry (about the objectives of a factory) itself became systemic. This changed the actions of a factory and thus to that extent, learning took place amongst the different stakeholders—the employees, the owner, the government, the customer etc—of the factory. Third, in all these changing world views about what a factory is, the older views were not jettisoned, but newer views were added in line with the Indian tendencies to concurrently hold even contradictory points of view (see Section 2.1 above). The relative salience of an Springer Syst Pract Act Res older view however decreased. For example in 1947, the most salient Gesellschaft world view about a factory was that it was looked upon as a harbinger of new India—the temples of modern India as Nehru the then Prime Minister of India called them. A factory was something which would catapult India into the league of industrial nations (see row B in Table 2). By the eighties, the same factory, in addition to being looked upon as a harbinger of new India, was also looked upon as a employment generator, capacity builder and a place to foster national integration (see row C in Table 2). Today, the same factories are additionally being looked upon as a source of profit generation (see row D in Table 2). Profit generation is the most salient Gesellschaft worldview about a factory in contemporary India. Fourthly, for an Indian, the current Gesellschaft standard for a factory has much in common with the Gemeinschaft standard for a factory (In Table 2, compare column A with column D). Let us recall that at the end of Section 4, the emphasis on the Gemeinschaft based standard in place of Gesellschaft based standard was a key reason for the lack of resistance to change in an Indian bureaucracy. So what have been the changes in the Indian’s context in the last 60 years? India got independence in 1947. At that time it was industrially backward. Yet it was able to create a massive industrial base within 20 years of independence. It was able to appreciate that in the changed context, rapid industrialization was the path to progress. But, Indians were not handling the industrial assets efficiently in a western-economic sense—perhaps because they were not expected to look at it only economically—after all India was a socialist welfare state. Thus between sixties to eighties, a number of factories were nationalized, banks were directed to distribute loans almost as freebies (see Fig. 4). But once that approach was jettisoned in the early nineties, instead of getting overwhelmed by the supposedly more efficient economic order of the Western countries, Indians have been able to profit from it— look at the transfer of jobs to India from USA (Forrester Report 2005; Sheshabalaya 2004, Prestowitz 2005). Today, Indians have made their mark as software experts, as knowledge workers, in BPOs and India is a preferred destination for setting up manufacturing outposts— the changed context told the Indians ‘work better’ and they immediately rebooted themselves for this—no resistance to change- because I do not look back to justify my looking forward. It is perhaps this lack of resistance to change or more formally the adaptability of Indians which explains why India has been able to do well in many industry segments which emerged post 1990. This is the social manifestation of an individual’s context sensitivity. If members of a group have been culturally cued to pick up the contextual signals for the performance of their activities, then they do not feel the tug of history which can pull them back from that activity. Members of the group do not feel any excessive need to justify whatever they have been doing till then. When you do not suffer from the need to justify your past or current activities, you are temperamentally more amenable to change your current activity into any other activity as the goal changes (which was never predefined in the first place). Earlier I was doing a job with one mindset—call it a conservative Indian, socialist welfare mindset—because that was expected of me in the context in which the work was then defined. Now if a new set of activity looks justifiable in a new context, I may as well do this and do this with full gusto—whether it is working in a government bureaucracy or whether it is working in a highly competitive world-class organization in India. I only need to reboot myself. Researchers from other streams have also referred to the adaptability of Indians. Ronald (1988, p. 271) found that Indians have ‘radar sensitivity’ which alerts them to what is expected in any group or situation. He explains this to ‘a profoundly internalised ego-ideal (of Indians) that is strongly oriented towards having appropriate attitudes and actions in different social contexts’ (Ronald 1988, p. 202). According to him this has resulted in superior adaptability of Springer Syst Pract Act Res Indians even when they are working in western societies (Ronald 1988, p. 202). Derne (1992, p. 270) conceptualises Indians as people who find their real selves in acting in accordance with situational demands. To work according to situational demands also have the sanction of Indian scriptures. In Mahabharat—an ancient Indian epic, Vyas—a sage, explains to King Yudhisthir of Hastinapur that at times what is considered a righteous behaviour can be considered a non-righteous behaviour and vice-versa (Shantiparv verse 34.20, 37.8). In fact chapter 35 of Shantiparv of Mahabharat explains in detail the situations under which what is normally considered a non-righteous behaviour can be accepted as a righteous behaviour and vice-versa. In India, the equivalent word for religion is dharma. Dharma means ‘that which holds.’ Thus a person who follows dharma is a person who is able to hold himself/herself in the changing world where different thoughts and worldviews have been allowed to co-exist. Koller (1982, p. 62) explains, “The various senses of dharma all refer to what must be done to maintain and support the individual, the family, social class, and the whole society.” This approach to religion (or dharma) is much different from the general understanding of religion which means following a particular kind of faith and worshipping as per that faith. This shows how in hinduism religion is understood as making proper responses to the varying environment so as to maintain one’s balance. 4.2. From India to East Asia: A more adaptable culture as a source of competitive advantage At a more general level, it may possible to extend this argument of adaptability to other context-sensitive East Asian countries. Hampden-Turner and Trompenaars (1993) introduced the dimension of universalism vs. particularism to differentiate between whether people follow rules regardless of the circumstances (universalism) or whether their response takes into account the particulars of circumstances (particularism). The Asian cultures like Japan, China and India are ‘particularists’ (Hampden-Turner and Trompenaars, 1993). However, because of their stable environment, the Western world in general and the English speaking nations in particular have been able to adopt a universal standard to following of rules (Ramsey 1999). According to Ramsey, the excessive reliance on application of universal standards, individualism, analysis and achievement have given rise to what Senge (1990) calls ‘learning disabilities’ of the Western world. Ji et al. (2000, p. 953) have found that the persons from the East Asian countries like China, Japan and South Korea are more holistic and more attentive to their social environment than the Americans. According to Ji et al. (2000), this is because the emphasis of Western culture is on what Hui and Triandis (1986) have called ‘primary control’ which makes a westerner believe that (s)he can change the environment as per her/his choice instead of coping with it. On the other hand, the emphasis on the East Asian culture is on ‘secondary control’ which aims at accommodation of personal needs as per the environmental demands. It is this constant accommodation of an East Asian individual to his/her environment which builds progressive learning into his/her actions and therefore makes him/her appreciate the world from constantly varying standard of facts and values much like the Indians. Hampden-Turner and Trompenaars (1993) have shown how shared expectations lead to business success and how East Asian cultures are transforming the rules of business (Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner, 1998) leading North and Hort (2002) to comment that culture can be a competitive advantage. Towards the later part of 20th century, Japan and more recently, India and China have given the Western economies a run for their money (Fang and Hall 2003; Prestowitz 2005). Is context sensitivity one of the cultural reasons for the quick emergence of these East Asian economies from relative obscurity less than Springer Syst Pract Act Res 60 years ago? An exploratory attempt has been made in this paper in the Indian context with the metaphor of a factory. This paper now argues that because the Western world suffers from ‘illusion of control’ (Langer 1975, p. 313), it has given rise to what Vickers (1970) calls a ‘trap.’ Vickers (1970, p. 15) says . . .The nature of the trap is a function of the nature of the trapped. To describe either is to imply the other. . . . we the trapped tend to take our own state of mind for granted-–which is partly why we are trapped. The ‘trap’ of being a ‘universalist’ and the tendency to master the environment are the cultural reasons behind the learning disabilities which Senge (1990) is talking about. Today, this ‘trap’ has resulted in the relative decline of the Western dominance of the world. ‘No degree of technological innovation and no scale of technological effort can rescue the West from its self-set trap’ said Vickers in 1970 (Vickers 1970, p. 27). 35 years later, the world is watching it happen. To paraphrase Baeck (2000), the claims of Western rationality to universal legitimacy are gradually being undermined by its incapacity to cope with Asian cultures of ‘social rationality’ or should we say ‘context sensitivity.’ 5. Conclusion Khandwalla (1992, p. 267) has said that far too much social science remains compartmentalized, so that insights from studying the family or group are seldom used by organization theorists and vice versa. Such insights from one kind of collectivity can, at least, supply provocative hypotheses for other kinds of collectivities. A deliberate attempt was therefore made in this paper to link the terminology of organizational study (SSM) to that of collectivity (context sensitivity). Via the construct of context sensitivity, this paper has linked the ‘multiples levels of reality’ of the Indians with Checkland’s SSM and Vickers’ appreciative systems. 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