The New York Times reports that despite the challenge women face to become leaders of banks in New York and London, many women fill senior positions in India. “HSBC, JPMorgan Chase, Royal Bank of Scotland, UBS and Fidelity International in India are run by women. So is the country’s second-biggest bank, Icici Bank, and its third-largest, Axis Bank.”

Chanda Kochhar, chief executive of Icici Bank

This may come as a surprise, for many families in certain parts of India favor boys over girls. According to female professionals in the industry, “India provided the right combination of supportive, mostly male, managers and a diverse work environment that did not require them to be ‘one of the boys’ to succeed.” The freedom from conforming to a stereotypically masculine banker persona, which is prevalent in Western banks, has allowed women to climb the ladder in their own way, which isn’t to say that they are exempt from hard work and long hours.

A managing partner from head-hunting firm EMA said that “bosses sometimes gravitate toward women in India because they think ‘women are less corruptible, more straightforward and above board most of the time.’” How does this view of women differ in other cultures?

How do you think Indian culture influences the success of women in this industry? How does culture in other parts of the world make it more difficult for women to attain the same positions? The article reminds us that “there are no women leading major American or European banks, and no woman has ever run a Wall Street investment bank.”

Click here to read the article.

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Reuters

The Wall Street Journal reports that Google faces a new challenge in India with its social networking site Orkut. There, freedom of speech, a constitutional right, is not completely and literally free, but subject to certain rules that are intended to maintain cultural standards tied to India’s numerous ethnic and religious groups.

“The nation of 1.2 billion is the world’s largest democracy and in principle affords free speech to its citizens. But the country has a volatile mix of religious, ethnic and caste politics and a history of mob violence. So, the government has the authority to curtail speech rights in certain cases. India’s Constitution encapsulates that gray zone: Free speech is subject to ‘reasonable restrictions’ for such purposes as maintaining ‘public order, decency or morality.’” Oftentimes, the robust democratic system leads Indians to violent, chaotic protests in the streets.

How does Google, an American company, know when to remove objectionable material, that could lead to public outcry, from it’s many websites? Their policy is to “review material flagged by Indian users of Orkut and other Web services it owns, such as YouTube…The company pledges to abide by the laws of the countries it operates in. In India, that means making some content inaccessible from the local versions of its sites…” Censorship is not typical of democracy, but the nature of Indian culture influences the strong hierarchy of the country, and the power vested in authorities.

Understanding the vagaries of Indian culture and society is important for businesses operating in the country to comprehend and incorporate into local policy. Are there other areas of the world where social networking websites can potentially endanger public safety as in India, or is this unique? How does this compare to recent elections in Iran and the use of Twitter and Facebook to spread news outside of the country?

Click here to read the article online.

RW3 CultureWizard

At a media conference in New Delhi this week, Indra Nooyi, CEO of PepsiCo, said “We feel that solutions which have been devised by us around the world, cannot be imposed here. The company needs to find unique solutions for India.” She also noted that the country was in the top three markets for the company, and that they intend to foster a cultural awareness of India to produce the most relevant products. For global corporations, culture becomes an ally when marketing and selling to diverse populations. We’ve seen how PepsiCo approached China (click here to read a related post).

What do you think it takes to achieve success in the Indian consumer market?

Click here to jump to the article on the Hindustan Times website.

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