Culture and Accounting

[Narayan S. Raja]

Dr./Ms./Mr. Shalin,

Interesting project; I wish you all the best.
However, to me it seems like drastic oversimplification
to postulate that "India is high on Power Distance and 
Masculinity," or, perhaps, high on Collectivism.

Firstly, to take an analogy, India is, in my
opinion, more comparable to the entire
collection of countries called "Europe,"
rather than to any single country.  Can
one say "Europeans are high (or low) on
Power Distance," ignoring the difference
between Russians, Norwegians, Greeks, and
Irish?  It would be equally simplistic
(actually, much more simplistic) to ignore 
the cultural diffences between Bengalis, 
Kashmiris, Tamils, and Punjabis.

Secondly, even when it comes to dimensions
like Individualism and Collectivism (which,
according to some scholars, may be separate
dimensions rather than the two ends of a
continuum), I would tend to question the
assumption that India is high on Collectivism.
It seems to depend on what aspects of life
you look at.  In many ways, I find the 
U.S. much more Collectivist than India!

As regards traditional Indian Accounting
schemes -- again, I would guess that there
is more than one; but anyway, they do exist.
I would guess that most of the "traditional"
business castes of India (e.g., Marwaris,
Banias, Chettiars) used to follow some
traditional Accounting scheme.  For example, 
"traditional" Gujarati businesspeople have/had 
their own method.

All the best,


Narayan Sriranga Raja
Institute for Astronomy
Univ of Hawaii.