When Isolates Seek Identity

Subrata Banerjee THE management profession in our country is both old and young. This apparent contradiction was well explained by M Chakravarty at the first-ever National Management Convention, sponsored by the All-India Management Association, at New Delhi, from February 12 to 14. He pointed out that till the beginning of this century, whilst business in England was still family owned and managed, a commercial service was established in India for the managing agencies set up to manage, provide knowhow and secure capital for the business houses. This was indeed the first experiment with absentee owners and local professional managers. It was a highly successful experiment indeed as far as the interests of the owners were concerned. The managing agency system was really a natural development of the growth of finance capital and the export of capital, two of the specific features of imperialism, as defined by Lenin.