Sumantra Ghoshal (1948-2004) was an academic

and management guru. He was the

founding Dean of the Indian School of Business in

Professor Sumantra Ghoshal

(1948-2004)

1

Hyderabad, which is jointly sponsored by the Kellogg

School at Northwestern University and the London Business School.

Sumantra Ghoshal, reknowned management guru, was born in 1948 in

Calcutta. He graduated from Delhi University with Physics major. Took a

job at Indian Oil Corporation and rose through the management ranks before

moving to the USA on a Fulbright Fellowship in 1981. There, he managed

to produce two PhD dissertations at once, initially at MIT's Sloan School of

Management, then also at Harvard Business School. Joined INSEAD

Business School at France and wrote stream of influential articles and

books.  In 1994, he joined London Business School. Sumantra was a Fellow

of the Advanced Institute of Management Research (AIM) in the U.K and a

Professor of Strategic and International Management at the London Business

School. He served as a member of The Committee of Overseers of the

Harvard Business School and was the Founding Dean of the Indian School

of Business in Hyderabad.

Ghoshal co-authored Managing Across Borders: The Transnational

Solution (Bartlett & Ghoshal 2002), with Christopher A. Bartlett, which has

been listed in the Financial Times as one of the 50 most influential

management books and has been translated into nine languages.

Professor Ghoshal published 10 books, over 70 articles and several award-

winning case studies. Managing Across Borders: The Transnational

Solution, a book he co-authored with Christopher Bartlett, has been listed in

the Financial Times as one of the 50 most influential management books and

has been translated into nine languages. The Differential Network:

Organizing the Multinational Corporation for Value Creation, a book he co-

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authored with Nitin Nohria, won the George Terry Book Award in

1997. The Individualized Corporation, co-authored with Christopher

Bartlett, won the Igor Ansoff Award in 1997, and has been translated into

seven languages. His last book, Managing Radical Change, won the

Management Book of the Year award in India. He was described by The

Economist as 'Euroguru'.

Sumantra Ghoshal put forth the '525 rule'. The '525' rule meant that 25 per

cent of a company's sales revenue should accrue from products launched

during the last 5 years. He was recognised for his research and teaching on

strategic, organisational and managerial issues confronting global

companies.

Professor Ghoshal died of a brain haemorrhage on March,2004 at

Hampstead, United Kingdom. 

A soft-spoken physicist from Calcutta, Sumantra Ghoshal (1948-2004)

began his career with Indian Oil Corporation. When he moved on to

management academia he had had a solid grounding in corporate life. After

gaining doctorates at Harvard and MIT, he worked at INSEAD, a leading

European business school in Fontainebleau, France, and London Business

School before dying at the age of 55.

Ghoshal’s influence far exceeded his written output. He was an inspiring

lecturer, a popular colleague and a gentle man. He first made his mark in a

seminal critique of the widely used matrix form of organisational structure in

which managers reported in two directions—along both functional and

geographic lines. Written with his close collaborator, Christopher Bartlett,

3

the article argued that this dual reporting leads to “conflict and confusion”.

In large multinationals, “separated by barriers of distance, language, time

and culture, managers found it virtually impossible to clarify the confusion

and resolve the conflicts”.

Bartlett and Ghoshal argued that companies need to alter their organisational

psychology (their shared norms and beliefs) and their physiology (the

systems that allow information to flow around the organisation) before they

start to redesign their anatomy (the reporting lines). Their work set off a

search for new metaphors for organisational structures, borrowing in

particular from psychology and biology—for example, the corporate DNA

and the left brain of the organisation.The most important source of a nation’s

progress is the quality of its management.

Typical of Ghoshal’s colourful communication was what he called his

“springtime theory”. He would tell his audiences about his annual visit to

Calcutta to see his parents in July. “Imagine the heat,” he would say, “the

humidity, the noise, the dirt. It sucks up all your energy, drains your brain,

and exhausts your imagination.” And then he would take them to the forest

of Fontainebleau, near INSEAD, where he was a professor at the time, and

point to “the smell of the trees, the crispness in the air, the flowers, the grass

underfoot. How one’s heart lifts up, how the energy and creativity bubble

away.” Go through the door of any business, he would say, and you can tell

whether it is Calcutta or Fontainebleau. A manager’s task is to create a

working environment that is like Fontainebleau, not Calcutta.

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Shortly before he died, Ghoshal wrote one of his most contentious papers, in

which he suggested that much of the blame for corporate corruption in the

early 2000s could be laid at the feet of business schools and the way they try

to teach management as a science. Such a method has no room for morality.

Thus, argued Ghoshal, “business schools have actively freed their students

from any sense of moral responsibility”. Ghoshal’s criticism of business

education mirrors that of Henry Mintzberg (see article) and Warren Bennis.

Despite the enormously high regard in which managers held Ghoshal’s

seminal work, “Managing Across Borders”, Bartlett (his co-author) said

after his death: “Borders never meant much to Sumantra.” He was more

inspired (and inspiring) as a teacher and conversationalist than as a writer.

EARLY LIFE

Ghoshal was born in Calcutta.He graduated from Delhi

University with Physics major

and at the Indian Institute of

Social Welfare and Business

Management and worked

for Indian Oil Corporation,

rising through the

management ranks before

moving to the United States on a Fulbright Fellowship and Humphrey

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Fellowship in 1981. Ghoshal was awarded an S.M. and a Ph.D. from

the MIT Sloan School of Management in 1983 and 1985 respectively, and

was also awarded a D.B.A. degree from Harvard Business School in 1986.

CAREER:

In 1985, he joined INSEAD Business

School in France and wrote a stream of

influential articles and books. In 1994, he

joined the London Business School. Ghoshal was a Fellow of the Advanced

Institute of Management Research (AIM) in the U.K and a Professor of

Strategic and International Management at the London Business School. He

served as a member of The Committee of Overseers of the Harvard Business

School.

BIOGRAPHY:

Sumantra Ghoshal was born in Calcutta in 1948. After a Bsc in physics at

Delhi University and a period at Indian Oil, he was awarded a Fulbright

Fellowship in 1981. He completed PhDs at both MIT Sloan School of

Management and Harvard Business School, where he met Chris Bartlett,

with whom he would collaborate extensively. In 1985 he joined the faculty

of INSEAD, rapidly becoming a full professor. The Economist christened

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him the "Euroguru". He moved to London Business School in 1994 to

become Professor of Strategic Leadership. Having already produced 15

cases, and wrote another 22 at LBS. He produced 12 books, including the

groundbreaking Managing Across Borders (1989). Instrumental in setting up

the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad, he was its founding Dean. One

notable aspect of his work was his growing focus on the critical influence of

human nature and the individual in the life of corporations.

QUOTES:

"Sumantra Ghoshal was one of the most outstanding professors

with whom I have had the honour to work. His enthusiasm and

dynamism were inspiring, as was his unstinting drive for

excellence in management education and research."

(Dr Laura D Tyson)

Dean of London Business School

"Sumantra Ghoshal operated beyond standard academic work. He was a

storyteller, a framer of events, a wonderful talker, with 'fire' in his eyes. The

way he presented reality made for real theatre - in the ancient Greek sense

of the word. This made him, if anything, even better in the classroom than on

paper. Ghoshal was equally respected by students, executives and

colleagues alike and worked intensively with them, so as always to leave a

mark and co-authored several cases with his students."

(Ludo Van der Heyden)

Solvay Professor of Technological

Innovation at INSEAD and co-Dean from

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(1990-1995)

"I collaborated closely with Sumantra Ghoshal during the final six years of

his life. I recall his gift of being able to foster those people around him, 'to

inspire them, to reach out.' The book A Bias for Action, we co-authored, was

published just after he died. Sumantra, himself, was the most impressive

example of the people of 'purposeful action identified in the book as being so

critical to the flourishing of successful organisations. Such people exhibit

two traits: they are highly energetic and they are extremely focused. This

intense focus was particularly evident while working, when nothing could

distract him."

(Heike Bruch)

Professor of Leadership,

Universität St Gallen

"Sumantra was an extraordinary talent who has left an indelible mark on his

field and on all those who had the chance to meet him. That includes, of

course, many of us at INSEAD who will surely remember his contributions

both in his scholarship and his personal presence."

H. Landis Gabel

INSEAD Deputy Dean,

Dean of Faculty 

Prof. of Economics & Management

"Sumantra Ghoshal was a giant among business school faculty in Europe.

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Although I am really only qualified to speak of his capabilities in the field of

business case writing which were extraordinary, I am told by others who

have worked closely with him, that his commitment to excellence also

extended to research and teaching, areas in which he was widely

acknowledged to be a master. Europe can claim to have lost one of a very

small number of genuine world-class academics with complete all-round

talents."

Jeff Gray

Director ECCH

GHOSHAL’S LEGACY

Ghoshal's early work focused on the matrix structure in multinational

organizations, and the "conflict and confusion" that reporting along both

geographical and functional lines created. His later work is more ambitious,

and hence perhaps more important - the idea that it is necessary to halt

economics from taking over management. This, he theorized, is important

since firms do not play on the periphery of human life today, but have taken

a central role.

His treatment of management issues at the level of the individual led him to

conclude that management theory that focuses on the economic aspects of

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man to the exclusion of all others is incorrect at best. According to him, "A

theory that assumes that managers cannot be relied upon by shareholders can

make managers less reliable."

Such theory, he warned, would become a self-fulfilling prophecy, a

particularly stinging critique of the output of a majority of his colleagues in

business schools that made him controversial. To his death, his fight was

against the "narrow idea" that led to today's management theory being

"undersocialised and one-dimensional, a parody of the human condition

more appropriate to a prison or a madhouse than an institution which should

be a force for good."

BIBLOGRAPHY

Ghoshal published 10 books, over 70 articles and several award-winning

case studies. Some of these books and case study are:

The Differential Network: Organizing the Multinational Corporation

for Value Creation, a book he co-authored with Nitin Nohria, won the

George Terry Book Award in 1997.

The Individualized Corporation:A Fundamentally New Approach to

Management, co-authored with Christopher A. Bartlett, won the Igor

Ansoff Award in 1997, and has been translated into seven languages.

10

Managing Radical Change, won the Management Book of the Year

award in India. He was described by The Economist as 'Euroguru'.

Managing Across Borders: The Transnational Solution (Bartlett &

Ghoshal 2002), a book he co-authored with Christopher A. Bartlett,

has been listed in the Financial Times as one of the 50 most influential

management books and has been translated into nine languages.

The Strategy Process: Concepts, Contexts, Cases : Global by Henry

Mintzberg, Joseph Lampel, James Brian Quinn, and Sumantra

Ghoshal, 2002.

The Differentiated Network : Organizing Multinational

Corporations for Value Creation (The Jossey-Bass Business &

Management Series) by Nitin Nohria and Sumantra Ghoshal

(Hardcover - Feb 19, 1997)

Sumantra Ghoshal on Management : A Force for Good by Julian

Birkinshaw and Gita Piramal (Hardcover - Feb 1, 2006)

Sumantra Ghoshal managed to produce two PhD dissertations at once,

initially at MIT's Sloan School of Management, then also at Harvard

Business School. Joined INSEAD Business School at France and wrote

stream of influential articles and books.  In 1994, he joined London Business

School. Sumantra was a Fellow of the Advanced Institute of Management

Research (AIM) in the U.K and a Professor of Strategic and International

Management at the London Business School. He served as a member of The

Committee of Overseers of the Harvard Business.

The Individualized Corporation, co-authored with Christopher Bartlett, won

the Igor Ansoff Award in 1997, and has been translated into seven languages

11

He was recognised for his research and teaching on strategic, organisational

and managerial issues confronting global companies.

When he moved on to management academia he had had a solid grounding

in corporate life. After gaining doctorates at Harvard and MIT, he worked at

INSEAD, a leading European business school in Fontainebleau, France, and

London Business School before dying at the age of 55.

Ghoshal’s influence far exceeded his written output. He was an inspiring

lecturer, a popular colleague and a gentle man. He first made his mark in a

seminal critique of the widely used matrix form of organisational structure in

which managers reported in two directions—along both functional and

geographic lines. Written with his close collaborator, Christopher Bartlett,

the article argued that this dual reporting leads to “conflict and confusion”.

In large multinationals, “separated by barriers of distance, language, time

and culture, managers found it virtually impossible to clarify the confusion

and resolve the conflicts”.

The most important source of a nation’s progress is the quality of its

management.

Typical of Ghoshal’s colourful communication was what he called his

“springtime theory”. He would tell his audiences about his annual visit to

Calcutta to see his parents in July. “Imagine the heat,” he would say, “the

humidity, the noise, the dirt. It sucks up all your energy, drains your brain,

and exhausts your imagination.” And then he would take them to the forest

of Fontainebleau, near INSEAD, where he was a professor at the time, and

point to “the smell of the trees, the crispness in the air, the flowers, the grass

12

underfoot. How one’s heart lifts up, how the energy and creativity bubble

away.” Go through the door of any business, he would say, and you can tell

whether it is Calcutta or Fontainebleau. A manager’s task is to create a

working environment that is like Fontainebleau, not Calcutta.

Shortly before he died, Ghoshal wrote one of his most contentious papers, in

which he suggested that much of the blame for corporate corruption in the

early 2000s could be laid at the feet of business schools and the way they try

to teach management as a science. Such a method has no room for morality.

Thus, argued Ghoshal, “Business schools have actively freed their students

from any sense of moral responsibility”. Ghoshal’s criticism of business

education mirrors that of Henry Mintzberg and Warren Bennis .

Despite the enormously high regard in which managers held Ghoshal’s

seminal work, “Managing Across Borders”, Bartlett (his co-author) said

after his death: “Borders never meant much to Sumantra.” He was more

inspired (and inspiring) as a teacher and conversationalist than as a writer.

BOOKS BY SUMANTRA GHOSHAL

A Bias for Action: How Effective

Managers Harness Their Willpower,

Achieve Results, and Stop Wasting

Timepublished on 7/1/2004

World Class in India: A Casebook

of Companies in

Transformationpublished on

4/15/2002

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Managing Across Borders : The Transnational Solution (1988)

Transnational Management (1990)

Organization Theory and the Multinational Corporation (1993)

The Individualized Corporation (1997)

World Class in India: A Casebook of Companies in Transformation

Managing Radical Change(co-authored with Gita Piramal)

ARTICLES

"Beyond Self-Interest Revisited" by Hector Rocha and Sumantra

Ghoshal, Journal of Management Studies, 2006 Vol. 43, No. 3, pp.

585-619

"Bad Management Theories are Destroying Good Management

Practices" by Sumantra Ghoshal, Academy of Management Learning

and Education, 2005 Vol. 4 Issue 1, pp. 75-91

"Unleashing Organisational Energy" by Heike Bruch and Sumantra

Ghoshal, MIT Sloan Management Review, Fall 2003 Vol. 45, No. 1,

pp. 45-51

"What is a Global Manager" by Christopher A. Bartlett and Sumantra

Ghoshal, Harvard Business Review, 2003 Aug;81(8):101-108, 141

"Managing Personal Human Capital" by Lynda Gratton and Sumantra

Ghoshal, European Management Journal, 2003 vo. 21, No. 1, pp. 1-10

"Beware the Busy Manager" by Heike Bruch and Sumantra

Ghoshal, Harvard Business Review, 2002, vol. 80, No. 2, pp. 62-69

"Strategy as a Guided Evolution" by Bjorn Lovas and Sumantra

Ghoshal, Strategic Management Journal, 2000, vol. 21, No. 9, pp.

875-896

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"Management Competence, Firm Growth and Economic Progress" by

Sumantra Ghoshal, M Hahn and Peter Moran,Contributions to

Political Economy, Vol. 18, pp. 121-150, 1999

"Markets, Firms, and the Process of Economic Development" by Peter

Moran and Sumantra Ghoshal, The Academy of Management Review,

1999, Vol. 24, No. 3, 390-412

"Social Capital and Value Creation: The Role of Intrafirm Networks"

by Wenpin Tsai and Sumantra Ghoshal, The Academy of

Management Journal, 1998 Vol. 41, No. 4, pp. 464-476

"Social capital, intellectual capital and the organizational advantage"

by Janine Nahapiet and Sumantra Ghoshal,Academy of Management

Review, 1998 23(2): 242-266

"Theories of Economic Organisation: The Case for Realism and

Balance" by Peter Moran and Sumantra Ghoshal, The Academy of

Management Review, 1996, Vol. 21 No. 1, pp. 58-72

"Bad For Practice: A Critique of the Transaction Cost Theory" by

Sumantra Ghoshal and Peter Moran, The Academy of Management

Review, 1996 Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 13-47

"Building the Entrepreneurial Corporation: New Organisational

Processes, New Managerial Tasks" by Sumantra Ghoshal

and Christopher A. Bartlett, European Management Journal, 1995

Vol. 13 No.2, pp. 139-55

"Differentiated Fit and Shared Values: Alternatives for Managing

Headquarters-Subsidiary Relations" by Nitin Nohria and Sumantra

Ghoshal, Strategic Management Journal, 1994, Vol. 15, No. 6, pp.

491-502

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"Interunit Communication in Multinational Corporations" by

Sumantra Ghoshal, Harry Korine and Gabriel Szulanski,Management

Science, Vol. 40, No. 1, January 1994, pp. 96-110

"Beyond the M-form: Toward a Managerial Theory of the Firm"

by Christopher A. Bartlett and Sumantra Ghoshal,Strategic

Management Journal, 1993 No. 14, Winter, pp. 23-46

"Matrix Management: Not a Structure, a Frame of Mind"

by Christopher A. Bartlett and Sumantra Ghoshal, Harvard Business

Review, 1990 Jul-Aug; 68(4): 138-145

"Environmental Scanning in Korean Firms: Organisational

Isomorphism in Action" by Sumantra Ghoshal, Journal of

International Business Studies, 1988 Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 69-86

"Creation, Adoption, and Diffusion of Innovations by Subsidiaries of

Multinational Corporations" by Sumantra Ghoshal and Christopher A.

Bartlett, Journal of International Business Studies, 1988 Vol. 19, No. 3, pp.

365-388

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