Current Affairs

Attitudes toward time are culturally conditioned and impact a wide range of business activities. A cultures attitude regarding time can be concrete or abstract, linear or circular. Business anthropologist Edward Hall calls this distinction monochromic versus poly-chronic time. All you want to know about current affairs is now available at just a click away Monochromic time underpins most Western cultures and derives from the Industrial Revolution and the factory system, which tends to be mechanistic and future-oriented. Linear time can be quantified, controlled and parceled out in hours, minutes, seconds, and nano seconds. Time is a valuable commodity in this value system and needs to be used wisely current affairs since it translates into money. Highly conscious of the tyranny of the clock, Westerners plan their schedules in minute detail to avoid any unintended waste of a commodity, which once lost cannot be recaptured. For example, a person waiting for a train in Zurich will complain to a stationmaster if the train is a minute late. Would someone from the U.S. react in a similar way? This view of time can face some severe testing in a country like India, which is largely steeped in a polychromic, elastic view of time, rooted in a centuries-old agrarian view. But, in todays India it is shaped by tradition as well other practical realities. Polychromic time is circular and iterative. The traditional Indian view of time is fluid and flexible; delays in keeping appointments do not carry the same meaning as in the monochromic West. A stated time for a business appointment is a rough approximation, and it is not necessarily construed as an insult to keep someone waiting. Furthermore, in todays India, the vagaries of public transportation, as well as the snarled traffic in most urban areas, create an element of unpredictability in keeping appointments to the minute. Religious fatalism deeply rooted in the Indian psyche could also be a contributing factor. This view of time has an impact on attitudes towards deadlines as well. In the West, a deadline, especially in the business context, is considered sacrosanct. One is expected to state clearly at the very beginning if one cannot meet a given deadline. This is not the case in India. The average Indian, in most cases, will nod acceptance to a stated deadline, but show no qualms about not respecting it. In fact, giving a very definite deadline to someone could be considered rather rude and insulting. Numerous stories of delayed shipments and unmet deadlines are an important reason why Western businesses hesitate to engage in business relationships with India-based firms, or outsource work to Indian suppliers. The Indian will in such cases lay the blame on an intermediary in the supply chain for the delay. One way to overcome these problems is to work with people with an established track record of on-time performance. James Lee explains this phenomenon of failure to keep promises in very plausible cultural terms. In his view, this trait is more common in cultures of low literacy, low economic development, and underdeveloped organizational systems. For instance, many business institutions in India, particularly smaller family-oriented enterprises, still operate on an interpersonal level and an important part of this system is to avoid open confrontation or disagreement on issues.