Entrepreneurship, corporate governance, and Indian business elites

Despite the rhetoric of borderless transnational corporations driven by the homogenising trends in globalisation, nation states and national identities continue to play an important role in structuring national managerial mentalities and dispositions. In this paper, we examine the entrepreneurial spirit of Indian industrialists and the emerging importance of corporate governance for globalising Indian businesses. We argue that corporate governance regimes and the entrepreneurialism exhibited within a national context are, to a considerable degree, self referring, being supported and informed by pre-existing social structures, norms and practices. We explore the corporate lives and careers of the directors of the SENSEX (top 30) companies from a practice perspective, and show that corporate governance and entrepreneurialism emerge as mediating symbolic forms embedding national values, institutional practices, and individual dispositions. The data and arguments presented in this paper stem from a larger, ongoing study into entrepreneurship, corporate governance, and Indian business elites; our preliminary analysis suggests a complex web of connections between these social elements.