Looking East

The book is an exploration of the relevance of Indian classical wisdom in reorienting modern management. It highlights the urgent need for facilitating an internally directed spiritual dimension to business management, including management education as an alternative to instrumental rationality and extreme materialistic orientation in today’s profit-driven business world.

The book presents spirituality or enlightened consciousness as the essence of a transformational or rather transcendental leader to improve the quality of work-life within by creating a humane and enduring organizational culture. It does this by drawing inspiration from modern Indian leaders like Rabindranath Tagore and Swami Vivekananda. It also offers insights into alternative sources and methods of learning in management and life from ancient Indian wisdom and selected European literature to infuse creativity, joy, meaning and purpose into work and life.

The book facilitates East-West dialogue on value-based holistic management in a globalized business scenario. In the modern business paradigm dominated by western management principles and practices, the book attempts to offer an Indian model of management founded on spirituality, human values and sustainability to deal with the alarming crises in a pandemic-stricken world by suggesting alternative ways of thinking and living for a sane, happy and sustainable future for both our planet and people.

SANJOY MUKHERJEE is Associate Professor of Sustainability and Liberal Studies at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Shillong. A graduate in Mechanical Engineering from Jadavpur University, he completed his MBA from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Calcutta and PhD from Jadavpur University. A former faculty member at the Management Centre for Human Values, IIM Calcutta, his areas of research and teaching expertise include Indian Ethos and Human Values in Management, Business Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility, Wisdom Leadership, Alternative Learning, Management and Liberal Arts, History and Philosophy of Management, Sustainability and Spirituality in Management. His global presence includes conferences and lectures at Oxford Roundtable, Aspen Institute, Academy of Management, UNESCO, Global Ethics Forum, SPES Forum Europe, Corvinus University of Budapest, Norwegian School of Economics, Bergen, Stockholm Business School, Copenhagen Business School, China- Europe International Business School and International Society of Business, Ethics and Economics (ISBEE) among others.