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Asian Business & Management Journal Special Issue Call for Papers: Managing
People, Markets and Businesses in the New India

Preprint · June 2021

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 Asian Business & Management

Special Issue Call for Papers:

Managing People, Markets and Businesses in the New India

Guest Editors:
Arup Varma (Loyola University Chicago, USA)
Ashish Malik (University of Newcastle, Australia)
Hemant Merchant (University of South Florida, USA)
Sushanta Kumar Mishra (Indian Institute of Management Indore, India)
Parth Patel (Newcastle University, UK/Australian Institute of Business, Adelaide)

"India is a youthful country. A country with such a major percentage of youth has the
capability to change not only its own but the fate of the entire world".

-- Prime Minister Narendra Modi

India is one of the largest economies in the world and is one of the most important emerging
markets (Shamsi, Panhwar, Iqbal, & Cheema, 2014). It is also the most diverse country in the
world that is home to numerous religions and where indigenous spiritual influences coexist
with modern workplace principles (Malik & Pereira, 2016; Mishra & Varma, 2019). India has
a rapidly expanding economy (Bjorkman & Budhwar, 2007; Singh, Minai, & Varma, 2020),
and the country continues to be an important destination for business in Asia (Budhwar, Varma,
& Kumar, 2019). In fact, India is the single most preferred location in the world for information
technology (IT) services (Malik, 2013; Malik & Rowley, 2015). Indeed, as many as 400 of the
Fortune 500 companies either have their own centres in India or have outsourced their services
to Indian firms (Budhwar et al., 2019). Furthermore, India’s market growth potential is
enormous. The availability of its highly skilled labour pool makes the country an attractive
location for multinational corporations (MNCs) to establish their subsidiaries (Nair, Prabhu, &
Merchant, 2016). Therefore, India presents a natural setting in which to evaluate the role of
competitive strategies and approaches that can effectively respond to the challenges present in
a dynamic, turbulent, and hypercompetitive business environment (Budhwar, Varma, &
Kumar, 2019).

This special issue call for papers on the theme of Managing People, Markets and Businesses
in the New India is timely, as the country seeks to find balance and growth at policy, social,
economic, and political levels. This special issue aims to provide contemporary and
interdisciplinary insights into the practices, approaches, and strategies that define and shape
Indian business as the country seeks to become a global leader once more. We welcome
manuscripts that are based on conceptual/theoretical reviews and/or empirical research (i.e.,
qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-method studies) pertaining to broad topics relevant to the
Indian business context. In line with the broader disciplinary topics from business and
management, which forms the focus of the Asian Business and Management journal, this
Special Issue retains a clear focus on managing people, markets and businesses in the new,
emerging, India from disciplinary areas, such as (but not limited to) human resource
management (HRM), organizational behaviour (OB), leadership, marketing, international
business (IB), strategic management, supply chain management, ethics and corporate social
responsibility (CSR) and so on. For an indicative list of questions, some of the topics that
prospective authors can consider submitting their papers on are:

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 • What are the competitive advantages of Indian MNCs? How do Indian MNCs manage
their subsidiaries in host countries?
• What have we learned about expatriation in the Indian context?
• What kind of leadership styles do Indian managers adopt in various sectors?
• What kind of HRM/management practices are adopted by organizations in India?
• What is the impact of the hyper-competitive work environment on employees’ mental
health and well-being at work in India?
• What skills and mindset should leaders and managers develop and apply to manage
people in the ‘new normal’ in India?
• What are the key HRM functional responses in dealing with social, political, and
economic issues in India?
• What kind of marketing, sales, or advertising practices are most prevalent in India?
• How do Indian organizations promote gender equality?
• What supply models does foreign MNCs need to consider when operating in India,
given India’s cultural diversity?
• What are the pros and cons of managing logistical operations in India?
• What kind of CSR approaches are adopted by Indian organizations?
• How has India evolved (socially, politically, economically) as an emerging market?
• What challenges and opportunities does this evolution pose to for-profit and non-profit
enterprises? How are businesses in India (~ locals and MNCs) responding to this
evolution?
• How does “Indian” management differ in its approach from “West-centric”
management? Which approach is “better,” and under what circumstances?
• Have Indian businesses adopted indigenous (Indian), modern (West-centric), or a
hybrid set of approaches?
• Have Indian and non-Indian companies learned from each other? If so, what?
Moreover, how does this learning translate into the superior performance of these
companies?

The above is an indicative list, and we are open to submissions that investigate research on the
Special Issue theme. We welcome a range of paradigmatic assumptions, quantitative and
qualitative studies, conceptual and review papers, and methodological perspectives.

Submission Process:

To be considered for this special issue, final manuscripts must be submitted by 30 June 2021
via https://www.editorialmanager.com/JABM/default.aspx. The submission system will be
open from 31st March 2021. To ensure that all manuscripts are correctly identified as being
submitted for this special issue, please select ‘SI: Managing People, Markets and
Businesses in the New India’ when you reach the “Article Type” step in the online
submission process. Authors should prepare their manuscript according to the guidelines of
Asian Business & Management, see:
http://www.palgrave.com/gp/journal/41291/authors/presentation-formatting.

Submitted papers will be reviewed through a double-blind peer review process. We welcome
your submissions.

For inquiries, please contact Arup Varma at avarma@luc.edu.

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References:
Bjorkman, I., & Budhwar, P. (2007). When in Rome? Human resource management and the
performance of foreign firms operating in India. Employee Relations, 26(6): 595-610.
Budhwar, P., Varma, A, & Kumar, R. (Eds.), 2019, Indian Business: Understanding a Rapidly
Emerging Economy. London: Routledge, ISBN 978-1315268422
Budhwar, P., Varma, A., Singh, V., & Dhar, R. (2006). HRM systems of Indian call centres:
An exploratory study. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 17(5): 881-897.
Malik, A. (2013). Post-GFC people management challenges: A study of India’s information
technology sector. Asia Pacific Business Review, 19(2): 230-246.
Malik, A., & Rowley, C. (Eds.). (2015). Business models and people management in the Indian
IT industry: From people to profits. UK: Routledge.
Malik, A., & Pereira, V. (Eds.). (2016). Indian culture and work organisations in transition.
UK: Routledge.
Pereira, V., Malik, A., & Froese, F. J. (2017). National Business Systems in Asian Countries:
Impact on Human Resource Management, Employment Relations Practices and Organisation
Behaviour (Vol. 13). Emerald Publishing.
Nair, K., Prabhu, J., & Merchant, H. (2016). Mapping institutional influences on multinational
firms’ R&D investments in emerging markets: The case of India. In H. Merchant (Ed.),
Handbook of Contemporary Research on Emerging Markets (pp. 139-152), Northampton, MA:
USA.
Mishra, S. K. & Varma, A. (2019). Introduction: Spirituality and organization. In S. K. Mishra
and A. Varma (Eds.), Spirituality in management: Insights from India (pp. 1-6), Palgrave
Macmillan.
Shamsi, A. F., Pahnwar, I. A., Iqbal, B., & Cheema, K. (2014). Indian as an emerging economy.
Transnational Corporations Review, 6(1): 15-25.
Singh, S., Varma, A., & Minai, M.H. (2020). India rising: How human resource management
policies and practices are helping shape the new India. Personnel Review, 49(7), xx-xx.
Varma, A., & Budhwar, P. (Eds.), (2013), Managing Human Resources in Asia Pacific. (2nd
edition - Routledge). ISBN: 978-0415898652.
Varma, A., & Budhwar, P. (Eds.), (2020), Performance Management: An Experiential
Approach. Sage: London, ISBN-13: 978-1473975743.

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 Editor Bios:

Arup Varma is Distinguished University Research Professor at Loyola University Chicago.

He has published over 60 research papers in leading journals and 40+ book chapters. He has
co-edited special issues of several journals including Human Resource Management, Journal
of World Business, Journal of International Management, and International Journal of Human
Resource Management.

Ashish Malik is an Associate Professor at the University of Newcastle, Australia. Ashish

serves as an Associate Editor at Journal of Business Research, IIMK Society Management
Research and Asian Business & Management as well as is on the editorial boards of Human
Resource Management Review and Journal of Knowledge Management. His research appears
in several A/A* journals.

Hemant Merchant is a professor of Global Business at the University of South Florida

(USA). He is interested in uncovering the ‘performance drivers’ of firms who compete in
emerging markets. Dr. Merchant currently serves as a Consulting editor at Journal of
International Business Studies (the top-ranked International Business journal). Until recently,
he was the Editor-in-Chief at Journal of Asia Business Studies.

Sushanta Kumar Mishra is a Professor in the OB &HRM area at the Indian Institute of
Management Indore. His scholarly work has been published in top journals in the HRM
domain. Currently he is an editorial board member of the Academy of Management Learning
and Education.

Parth Patel is an academic in International Management & HRM. He has worked with
Newcastle University, UK, and the Australian Institute of Business in Adelaide. Dr Patel
researches in the areas of emerging markets, multinational enterprises and international HRM.
He is currently the communications editor for Asian Business & Management journal.

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