 We are discussing the role of culture in international human resource management and in this topic, we are going to introduce you to the concept of culture as it has evolved in the management literature. So we are going to talk about the history of management thought on culture or the concept of culture in organizations. Earlier in the early school of management thought, which is the classical management thought, in that the importance of environment of an organization, it was not considered to be an important aspect. Early management theorists, they tended to ignore the environment and suggested that there has to be a universal one-best way. So the early management thought that was introduced when in the 1920s, Frederick Taylor introduced the principles of scientific management. In that, Frederick Taylor, you must have read in the subject of management thought that principles of scientific management were based on doing things in the one-best way and that was based on time and motion studies. And that was basically on physical work that when you do labor on any task, then the best way to do that task is the maximum efficient, less time consuming, less effort consuming way. What is that? And you understand it scientifically and then you train the employees that you have to attempt that physical action in this way. All right, so Frederick Taylor's principles of scientific management, father of management thought and he introduced the idea of management in organizations and his idea of management was based on this scientific management principle, which was based on universal laws, that you take it in any environment, you take the laborer in any environment, you take the organization in any environment, in the same way you have to work, which is the one-best way to do that. That was basically the crux of the principle of scientific management. Then the classical school of thought it included Max Weber's concept of bureaucracy that you must have read in the literature of management, that the principles of bureaucracy, rational thought, impersonal environment, selection on the basis of merit and all that. That was also based on the concept that there could be a universal way to organize the organizations and the principle that Max Weber suggested was the principles of bureaucracy based on the rational thought. So that also considered that organizations, they have to be managed in a one particular best way. Then another example of doing things in a very standardized way, regardless of the environment, was actually epitomized in Henry Ford's assembly line. And assembly line, you have seen that until now, in the organizations, in the industry, it is being employed to make production efficient and effective. And in an assembly line, you have seen that people manage it like machines. One person who has been given the task of doing it on the assembly line, he has to work in the same way and he has to do the same work repetitively. So this assembly line, the assembly line is a mechanical way in which your human resource is also mechanically involved in that process. So this classical school of thought in which scientific management was promoted in one best way, this basically ignored the environment and culture. So that was the early history of management thought. Then in the 1950s and 1960s, many students of management, they started to challenge the universalistic view and they started to consider human relations on on humanistic grounds. So, but the human relations movement was also said that you have to design one best way and implement it in one best way. And there is one best way to manage human beings as well. But they pointed out and emphasized that there are human needs and abilities. And the concept of human being rather than machine was introduced in this human relations movement in the 1950s and 60s. Then concurrently, there was emergence of the contingency theory. This was basically it evolved from the fact that the American organizations, they had to compete with foreign with foreign competition and they had to adapt to that foreign competition. So the environment was changing and American organizations, they were also going global and moving into other markets. And from that, from those episodes, it was felt that one best way is not possible. So probably we need to understand that what are the factors which will determine that one particular best way. So that it actually crystallized into the concept of organization fit. Now, what was organization fit? Fit was that the organization has to fit with the external factors and what are the external factors? The external factors are the environmental demands. Now, the environmental demands, they are, as you very well know, that they are based on the social environment, the cultural environment, the economic environment, the political environment. So all these environmental factors, they determine that what kind of organization and organizational structure needs to be implemented. So the contingency theory that brought into the management literature, the importance of the environment, and that was then later on translated into researchers advocating the moderating influences of national culture on the organizations. So that is how the discussion of culture and then national culture that entered into effective management of organizations. First, it was considered that there is one best way. Then it was considered that human beings are there and they can be managed in one best way. Then the contingency theory which talked about organization environment fit. And then when we talked about environment, that meant that we need to take into account the cultural context of the organization and that led us to the discussion of national culture in the management literature. And as it appeared in the management literature, it simultaneously also appeared in the human resource management literature. So that was a basic introduction of how culture has evolved as an important concept in management literature.