Sumantra Ghoshal 

Sumantra Ghoshal  was recognised for his research and teaching on strategic, organisational and managerial issues confronting global companies.

Sumantra Ghoshal (1948-2004) was the founding Dean of the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad, which is jointly sponsored by the Kellogg School at Northwestern University and the London Business School. Ghoshal co-authored Managing Across Borders: The Transnational Solution, with Christopher Bartlett, which has been listed in the Financial Times as one of the 50 most influential management books and has been translated into nine languages.

Ghoshal graduated from Delhi University with Physics major and at the Indian Institute of Social Welfare and Business Management and worked for Indian Oil Corporation, rising through the management ranks before moving to the United States on a Fulbright Fellowship in 1981. Ghoshal was awarded an S.M. and a Ph.D. from the MIT Sloan School of Management in 1983 and 1985 respectively, and was also awarded a D.B.A. degree from Harvard Business School in 1986. In 1985, he joined INSEAD Business School in France and wrote a stream of influential articles and books. In 1994, he joined the London Business School. Ghoshal was a Fellow of the Advanced Institute of Management Research (AIM) in the U.K and a Professor of Strategic and International Management at the London Business School. He served as a member of The Committee of Overseers of the Harvard Business School.

Ghoshal's early work focused on the matrix structure in multinational organizations, and the "conflict and confusion" that reporting along both geographical and functional lines created. His later work is more ambitious, and hence perhaps more important - the idea that it is necessary to halt economics from taking over management. This, he theorised, is important since firms do not play on the periphery of human life today, but have taken a central role.

His treatment of management issues at the level of the individual led him to conclude that management theory that focuses on the economic aspects of man to the exclusion of all others is incorrect at best. According to him, "A theory that assumes that managers cannot be relied upon by shareholders can make managers less reliable."

Such theory, he warned, would become a self-fulfilling prophecy, a particularly stinging critique of the output of a majority of his colleagues in Business Schools that made him controversial. To his death, his fight was against the "narrow idea" that led to today's management theory being "undersocialised and one-dimensional, a parody of the human condition more appropriate to a prison or a madhouse than an institution which should be a force for good."

In co-operation with Christopher Bartlett, Ghoshal researched successful enterprises on international markets. They found three types of internationalization, differing in structural approach and strategic capabilities. The types were dubbed Multinational, Global and International.

Due to an ever faster changing environment, Bartlett and Ghoshal see a further need for adaptation with a drive toward a company, that masters not one, but all three of the strategic capabilities of the named types. The ideal-type thus created, they dubbed the transnational enterprise.

Books of Sumantra Ghoshal

Ghoshal published 10 books, over 70 articles and several award-winning case studies.

    * The Differential Network: Organizing the Multinational Corporation for Value Creation, a book he co-authored with Nitin Nohria, won the George Terry Book Award in 1997.
    * The Individualized Corporation:A Fundamentally New Approach to Management, co-authored with Christopher Bartlett, won the Igor Ansoff Award in 1997, and has been translated into seven languages.
    * Managing Radical Change, won the Management Book of the Year award in India. He was described by The Economist as 'Euroguru'.
    * Managing Across Borders: The Transnational Solution, a book he co-authored with Christopher Bartlett, has been listed in the Financial Times as one of the 50 most influential management books and has been translated into nine languages.
    * The Strategy Process: Concepts, Contexts, Cases : Global by Henry Mintzberg, Joseph Lampel, James Brian Quinn, and Sumantra Ghoshal, 2002.
    * The Differentiated Network : Organizing Multinational Corporations for Value Creation (The Jossey-Bass Business & Management Series) by Nitin Nohria and Sumantra Ghoshal (Hardcover - Feb 19, 1997)
    * Sumantra Ghoshal on Management : A Force for Good by Julian Birkinshaw and Gita Piramal (Hardcover - Feb 1, 2006)
 

Articles of Sumantra Ghoshal

    * "Beyond Self-Interest Revisited" by Hector Rocha and Sumantra Ghoshal, Journal of Management Studies, 2006 Vol. 43, No. 3, pp. 585-619
    * "Bad Management Theories are Destroying Good Management Practices" by Sumantra Ghoshal, Academy of Management Learning and Education, 2005 Vol. 4 Issue 1, pp.75-91
    * "Unleashing Organisational Energy" by Heike Bruch and Sumantra Ghoshal, MIT Sloan Management Review, Fall 2003 Vol. 45, No. 1, pp. 45�51
    * "What is a Global Manager" by Christoper A. Barlett and Sumantra Ghoshal, Harvard Business Review, 2003 Aug;81(8):101-108, 141
    * "Managing Personal Human Capital" by Lynda Gratton and Sumantra Ghoshal, European Management Journal, 2003 vo. 21, No. 1, pp. 1-10
    * "Beware the Busy Manager" by Heike Bruch and Sumantra Ghoshal, Harvard Business Review, 2002, vol. 80, No. 2, pp. 62-69
    * "Strategy as a Guided Evolution" by Bjorn Lovas and Sumantra Ghoshal, Strategic Management Journal, 2000, vol. 21, No. 9, pp. 875-896
    * "Management Competence, Firm Growth and Economic Progress" by Sumantra Ghoshal, M Hahn and Peter Moran, Contributions to Political Economy, Vol. 18, pp. 121-150, 1999
    * "Markets, Firms, and the Process of Economic Development" by Peter Moran and Sumantra Ghoshal, The Academy of Management Review, 1999, Vol. 24, No. 3, 390-412
    * "Social Capital and Value Creation: The Role of Intrafirm Networks" by Wenpin Tsai and Sumantra Ghoshal, The Academy of Management Journal, 1998 Vol. 41, No. 4, pp. 464-476
    * "Social capital, intellectual capital and the organizational advantage" by Janine Nahapiet and Sumantra Ghoshal, Academy of Management Review, 1998 23(2): 242-266
    * "Theories of Economic Organisation: The Case for Realism and Balance" by Peter Moran and Sumantra Ghoshal, The Academy of Management Review, 1996, Vol. 21 No. 1, pp. 58-72
    * "Bad For Practice: A Critique of the Transaction Cost Theory" by Sumantra Ghoshal and Peter Moran, The Academy of Management Review, 1996 Vol. 21, No. 1, pp.13-47
    * "Building the Entrepreneurial Corporation: New Organisational Processes, New Managerial Tasks" by Sumantra Ghoshal and Christopher A. Barlett, European Management Journal, 1995 Vol. 13 No.2, pp.139-55
    * "Differentiated Fit and Shared Values: Alternatives for Managing Headquarters-Subsidiary Relations" by Nitin Nohria and Sumantra Ghoshal, Strategic Management Journal, 1994, Vol. 15, No. 6, pp. 491-502
    * "Interunit Communication in Multinational Corporations" by Sumantra Ghoshal, Harry Korine and Gabriel Szulanski, Management Science, Vol. 40, No. 1, January 1994, pp. 96-110
    * "Beyond the M-form: Toward a Managerial Theory of the Firm" by Christopher A. Barlett and Sumantra Ghoshal, Strategic Management Journal, 1993 No. 14, Winter, pp. 23-46
    * "Matrix Management: Not a Structure, a Frame of Mind" by Christopher A. Barlett and Sumantra Ghoshal, Harvard Business Review, 1990 Jul-Aug; 68(4): 138-145
    * "Environmental Scanning in Korean Firms: Organisational Isomorphism in Action" by Sumantra Ghoshal, Journal of International Business Studies, 1988 Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 69-86
    * "Creation, Adoption, and Diffusion of Innovations by Subsidiaries of Multinational Corporations" by Sumantra Ghoshal and Christopher A. Barlett, Journal of International Business Studies, 1988 Vol. 19, No. 3, pp. 365-388
 

Awards of Sumantra Ghoshal

His last book, Managing Radical Change, won the Management Book of the Year award in India. He was described by The Economist as 'Euroguru'.

Sumantra Ghoshal 
 

Sumantra Ghoshal was born in India in 1948. Following his graduation from both Delhi University and the Indian Institute of Social Welfare and Business Management, he joined the Indian Oil Corporation. A self-made man, he worked his way up through the ranks of management and in 1981 he moved to the United States after being accepted into the prestigious Fulbright Fellowship. He spent the late 1980s and early 1990s attending the INSEAD Business School in France, where he authored a number of important books and articles before settling in London. It was here that he became a Professor of Strategic and International Management at the London Business School and a Fellow of the Advanced Institute for Management Research as well as being involved in numerous other projects and boards until his death in 2004.

Ghoshal�s early work concentrated on the management theory of global organisations. Together with co-author and management guru Christopher Bartlett, he published works designed to explore and challenge current business thinking on multidivisional and multinational organisations. As his work progressed his views became more controversial. He believed that the antiquated systems that govern business doctrine were �undersocialised and one-dimensional�, describing them as �a parody of the human condition more appropriate to a prison or a madhouse.�

Throughout his career, Sumantra Ghoshal authored and co-authored ten books and many articles. Working with prominent management theorists such as Christopher Bartlett and Nitin Nohria he was awarded accolades such as the Igor Ansoff award (The Individualized Corporation) and the George Terry Book Award (The Differential Network). Other works such as Managing Across Borders have been translated into multiple languages and achieved global sales.

He put forth the '525 rule'. The '525' rule meant that 25 per cent of a company's sales revenue should accrue from products launched during the last 5 years. He was recognised for his research and teaching on strategic, organisational and managerial issues confronting global companies.

Professor Ghoshal died of a brain haemorrhage on March,2004 at Hampstead, United Kingdom.  

References 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumantra_Ghoshal 

http://www.mangurus.com/sections/gurus/?article_id=sumantra_ghoshal&selected_seq_num=17 

http://www.calcuttaweb.com/nri/Sumantra_Ghoshal.shtml