Critical Management Studies (CMS)

REMEMBERING ANSHU PRASAD

Raza Mir

Anshuman "Anshu" Prasad passed into the ages on February 6, 2023 after a brief illness. After retiring as Professor of Management at the University of New Haven, he had been living with his wife Pushkala "Pushi" Prasad at Saratoga Springs, NY.

On the flyleaf of his dissertation, Anshu had inscribed the Sanskrit verse Swadeshe Poojyate Rajan, Vidwan Sarvatra Poojyate (The nation worships the king [but] the world worships the scholar). These words appropriately describe him, for Anshu was indeed a true scholar, one who blazed several trails in the field of organizational studies for future researchers to follow.

Leaving comfortable careers in banking behind them, Anshu and Pushi arrived in the US in the early 1980s, continuing a journey of intellectual comradeship by starting as doctoral students at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Taking full advantage of the heterodox and critical-friendly atmosphere at UMass, they both pursued highly eclectic dissertations, which drew considerably from other social sciences.  Anshu's dissertation was titled Institutional Ideology and Industry-Level Action: A Macro Analysis of Corporate Legitimation in the United States Petroleum Industry. A 900+ page opus, it contained multitudes; including an assimilative review of the construct of organizational ideology, a methodological guideline to critical hermeneutics, a summation of institutional theory, an analysis of CEO communications in the annual reports of US oil companies, an analysis on the conduct of document analysis, over 30 pages of references, and most improbably, careful and meticulous statistical analysis. After 30 years, it remains one of the most comprehensive dissertations I have been privileged to read. Indeed, anyone who read that dissertation would have known that a brilliant original thinker had arrived on the firmament of organization studies.

Among several accolades that one associates with Anshu, one stands out. It was he who first discussed the idea of postcolonial theory in organizational studies, in his 1997 article titled "Provincializing Europe: Towards a Post-Colonial Reconstruction" in the journal Studies in Cultures, Organizations & Societies. To be sure, the concept had a long prehistory in the field, but a specific articulation of postcolonial theory came through Anshu's work. His article (which expanded on a 1994 conference paper) was to my knowledge, the first journal publication that explicitly invoked postcolonial theory within organizational studies. It sought to interrogate "Europe's claim to universality as its problematic, and to contend that any serious attempt to reorganize the past and/or the future must subvert the European appropriation of the universal". In the same year, Anshu co-edited a volume on organizational diversity, and contributed a chapter where he on postcolonial theory in the OS realm.

In 2003, Anshu's co-edited book Postcolonial Theory and Organizational Analysis: A Critical Engagement helped formalize theoretical, empirical and intellectual approaches to postcolonial theory. He followed it with two other co-edited volumes: Against the Grain: Advances in Postcolonial Organization Studies (2011) and The Routledge Companion to Critical Management Studies (2015). He co-edited several special issues of journals such as Critical Perspectives on International Business, Organizational Research Methods and Journal of Applied Behavioral Sciences, and co-authored over 50 academic papers. Most of his work was co-authored with colleagues and comrades, most significantly his wife Pushi. I too count myself among his co-authors, on two papers.

We at Organization also published two papers by Anshu. In 2012, he co-authored Toward a critical framework for understanding MNE operations: Revisiting Coca-Cola's exit from India, while in 2014, we published Smoke and mirrors: Institutional entrepreneurship and gender identities in the US Tobacco Industry, 1920–1945. Both papers used empirical data to refract historical data through OS lenses.

Hermeneutician, theorist of ideology, relentless interlocutor of imperialist defaults in organizational theory. Beloved teacher, loyal colleague and comrade, good friend. Fastidious dresser with an impish sense of humor. There are many ways to remember Anshu. And no way to erase memories of a three-decade association.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Prasad, A. (1997a). Provincializing Europe: Towards a Post-colonial Reconstruction: A Critique of Baconian Science as the Last Strand of Imperialism, Studies in Cultures, Organizations and Societies 3: 91–117.

Prasad, A. (1997b). The Colonizing Consciousness and Representation of the Other: A Postcolonial Critique of the Discourse of Oil, in P. Prasad, A. Mills, M. Elmes and A. Prasad (eds) Managing the Organizational Melting Pot: Dilemmas of Workplace Diversity, pp. 285–311. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Prasad, A. (2001). Understanding workplace empowerment as inclusion: A historical investigation of the discourse of difference in the United States. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 37(1), 51-69.

Prasad, A. & Prasad, P. (2002). The coming of age of interpretive organizational research. Organizational Research Methods, 5(1), 4-11.

Prasad A. (2003). Postcolonial Theory and Organizational Analysis: A Critical Engagement, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Banerjee, S. B. & Prasad, A. (2008). Introduction to the special issue on "Critical reflections on management and organizations: a postcolonial perspective". Critical perspectives on international business. 4 (2/3), pp. 90-98.

Prasad, A. (2011). Working Against the Grain: Beyond Eurocentrism in Organization Studies. In Anshuman Prasad (Ed.) Against The Grain: Advances in Postcolonial Organization Studies. Copenhagen: Copenhagen Business School Press, pp. 19-38.

Gopinath, C. & Prasad, A. (2013). Toward a critical framework for understanding MNE operations: Revisiting Coca-Cola's exit from India. Organization, 20 (2), 212–232.

Prasad, P. Prasad, A. & Baker, K. (2016). Smoke and mirrors: Institutional entrepreneurship and gender identities in the US Tobacco Industry, 1920–1945. Organization, 23(2), 227–249.

Prasad, A. Prasad, P. Mills, A. & Mills, J. (2015). Routledge Companion to Critical Management Studies. London: Routledge.

https://journals.sagepub.com/pb-assets/cmscontent/ORG/Anshuman%20Prasad%206%20February%202023%20by%20Raza%20Mir-1676391751.pdf

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Patrizia Zanoni
Utrecht University
Hasselt
+32-11-268672
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Dear Raza, Patrizia and all

Despite being educated at prominent universities, I had not read postcolonial studies nor focused my attention there before meeting Anshuman Prasad. I wonder how many others of us can trace our knowledge and interest to Anshu. In my case, this began by hearing Anshu speak at an ASAC conference in Banff around 2006, which was also the root of a friendship with his wife Pushi Prasad, Professor of Management and Zankel Chair at Skidmore College. I began speaking the word 'postcolonial' in my classes on cross cultural management, quite late, you might rightly judge, but with a true impact among students who were thirsty to hear more. I wonder how wide Anshu's influence reached through processes like these, and whether one could measure this. Certainly through citations of his work but also in hundreds of classrooms, strengthened further in the publishing of his edited work Against the Grain: Advances in Postcolonial Organization Studies, in 2012. Thank you Anshuman Prasad. I was privileged to know you and will continue to draw on your large and profound body of work. Deep sympathies to Pushi, our thoughts are with you. Suzanne Gagnon (Asper School of Business, University of Manitoba)

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Suzanne Gagnon
Associate Professor
Asper School of Business, University of Manitoba
Winnipeg MB
(204) 474-7395
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Original Message:
Sent: 02-14-2023 17:31
From: Patrizia Zanoni
Subject: Remembering Anshu Prasad

REMEMBERING ANSHU PRASAD

Raza Mir

Anshuman "Anshu" Prasad passed into the ages on February 6, 2023 after a brief illness. After retiring as Professor of Management at the University of New Haven, he had been living with his wife Pushkala "Pushi" Prasad at Saratoga Springs, NY.

On the flyleaf of his dissertation, Anshu had inscribed the Sanskrit verse Swadeshe Poojyate Rajan, Vidwan Sarvatra Poojyate (The nation worships the king [but] the world worships the scholar). These words appropriately describe him, for Anshu was indeed a true scholar, one who blazed several trails in the field of organizational studies for future researchers to follow.

Leaving comfortable careers in banking behind them, Anshu and Pushi arrived in the US in the early 1980s, continuing a journey of intellectual comradeship by starting as doctoral students at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Taking full advantage of the heterodox and critical-friendly atmosphere at UMass, they both pursued highly eclectic dissertations, which drew considerably from other social sciences.  Anshu's dissertation was titled Institutional Ideology and Industry-Level Action: A Macro Analysis of Corporate Legitimation in the United States Petroleum Industry. A 900+ page opus, it contained multitudes; including an assimilative review of the construct of organizational ideology, a methodological guideline to critical hermeneutics, a summation of institutional theory, an analysis of CEO communications in the annual reports of US oil companies, an analysis on the conduct of document analysis, over 30 pages of references, and most improbably, careful and meticulous statistical analysis. After 30 years, it remains one of the most comprehensive dissertations I have been privileged to read. Indeed, anyone who read that dissertation would have known that a brilliant original thinker had arrived on the firmament of organization studies.

Among several accolades that one associates with Anshu, one stands out. It was he who first discussed the idea of postcolonial theory in organizational studies, in his 1997 article titled "Provincializing Europe: Towards a Post-Colonial Reconstruction" in the journal Studies in Cultures, Organizations & Societies. To be sure, the concept had a long prehistory in the field, but a specific articulation of postcolonial theory came through Anshu's work. His article (which expanded on a 1994 conference paper) was to my knowledge, the first journal publication that explicitly invoked postcolonial theory within organizational studies. It sought to interrogate "Europe's claim to universality as its problematic, and to contend that any serious attempt to reorganize the past and/or the future must subvert the European appropriation of the universal". In the same year, Anshu co-edited a volume on organizational diversity, and contributed a chapter where he on postcolonial theory in the OS realm.

In 2003, Anshu's co-edited book Postcolonial Theory and Organizational Analysis: A Critical Engagement helped formalize theoretical, empirical and intellectual approaches to postcolonial theory. He followed it with two other co-edited volumes: Against the Grain: Advances in Postcolonial Organization Studies (2011) and The Routledge Companion to Critical Management Studies (2015). He co-edited several special issues of journals such as Critical Perspectives on International Business, Organizational Research Methods and Journal of Applied Behavioral Sciences, and co-authored over 50 academic papers. Most of his work was co-authored with colleagues and comrades, most significantly his wife Pushi. I too count myself among his co-authors, on two papers.

We at Organization also published two papers by Anshu. In 2012, he co-authored Toward a critical framework for understanding MNE operations: Revisiting Coca-Cola's exit from India, while in 2014, we published Smoke and mirrors: Institutional entrepreneurship and gender identities in the US Tobacco Industry, 1920–1945. Both papers used empirical data to refract historical data through OS lenses.

Hermeneutician, theorist of ideology, relentless interlocutor of imperialist defaults in organizational theory. Beloved teacher, loyal colleague and comrade, good friend. Fastidious dresser with an impish sense of humor. There are many ways to remember Anshu. And no way to erase memories of a three-decade association.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Prasad, A. (1997a). Provincializing Europe: Towards a Post-colonial Reconstruction: A Critique of Baconian Science as the Last Strand of Imperialism, Studies in Cultures, Organizations and Societies 3: 91–117.

Prasad, A. (1997b). The Colonizing Consciousness and Representation of the Other: A Postcolonial Critique of the Discourse of Oil, in P. Prasad, A. Mills, M. Elmes and A. Prasad (eds) Managing the Organizational Melting Pot: Dilemmas of Workplace Diversity, pp. 285–311. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Prasad, A. (2001). Understanding workplace empowerment as inclusion: A historical investigation of the discourse of difference in the United States. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 37(1), 51-69.

Prasad, A. & Prasad, P. (2002). The coming of age of interpretive organizational research. Organizational Research Methods, 5(1), 4-11.

Prasad A. (2003). Postcolonial Theory and Organizational Analysis: A Critical Engagement, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Banerjee, S. B. & Prasad, A. (2008). Introduction to the special issue on "Critical reflections on management and organizations: a postcolonial perspective". Critical perspectives on international business. 4 (2/3), pp. 90-98.

Prasad, A. (2011). Working Against the Grain: Beyond Eurocentrism in Organization Studies. In Anshuman Prasad (Ed.) Against The Grain: Advances in Postcolonial Organization Studies. Copenhagen: Copenhagen Business School Press, pp. 19-38.

Gopinath, C. & Prasad, A. (2013). Toward a critical framework for understanding MNE operations: Revisiting Coca-Cola's exit from India. Organization, 20 (2), 212–232.

Prasad, P. Prasad, A. & Baker, K. (2016). Smoke and mirrors: Institutional entrepreneurship and gender identities in the US Tobacco Industry, 1920–1945. Organization, 23(2), 227–249.

Prasad, A. Prasad, P. Mills, A. & Mills, J. (2015). Routledge Companion to Critical Management Studies. London: Routledge.

https://journals.sagepub.com/pb-assets/cmscontent/ORG/Anshuman%20Prasad%206%20February%202023%20by%20Raza%20Mir-1676391751.pdf

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Patrizia Zanoni
Utrecht University
Hasselt
+32-11-268672
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