Sumantra Ghoshal: The Euroguru who warned of workplace dissonance

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. In the aftermath of a promising young executive’s death by suicide at an audit firm, companies are in the dock for their role in engendering workplace stress. A cacophony of voices rushing to put the blame entirely on them is forcing corporate leaders to scramble for answers.

They couldn’t do better than to turn to the advice of an Indian-born management scholar and writer who, through the 1990s, argued for a kinder corporate culture where compassion and understanding was the cornerstone of the relationship between companies and their employees. The man, Sumantra Ghoshal, would have been 76 on 26 September. He passed away tragically early in 2004 when he was professor of strategic leadership at the London Business School.

But by then he had done enough to be rated among the world’s top management thinkers. Dubbed “Euroguru" by The Economist, Ghoshal wrote and spoke extensively, advising companies that they needed to shift from transactional relationships with their employees to one of mutual respect. It is a message that rings loud amidst the growing debate around the employer-employee relationship.

Also read | The eclectic innovator: Sam Pitroda's unconventional roadmap to success Across the world, the prevailing capitalist model exemplified by modern multinational corporations is facing criticism from its adherents for deviating from the path, and from opponents for revealing its malevolent nature. It was something that Ghoshal constantly warned of, most notably in his book The Individualized Corporation. The Calcutta-born physics graduate studied at Ballygunge High School before, aided by a Fulbright Fellowship and Humphrey Fellowship, he arrived in the US in 1981 and went on to