In Part 2 of our episode on Prasad, we shift our attention to his 2003 book chapter titled “The gaze of the other: Postcolonial theory and organizational analysis” that synthesizes the foundational works of postcolonial theory and tie it to cross-cultural challenges faced by contemporary organizations. We also discuss the implications of the theory in the two decades that followed given the significant global changes that have occurred. How well does the theory hold up given that some of its premises might have shifted?

Anshuman Prasad (1954-2023) was a leading scholar and development of postcolonial theory and bringing it to the domain of management and organization studies. The theory strove to explain the significance influences and impacts that Western colonialism had on non-Western cultures and its implications for organizations located in non-Western settings. We are reading two of his many works, one about the specific use of science as a tool of colonialism and the other is a book chapter that summarizes the works of the early postcolonial theorists.

Coming soon! We will cover the works of Anshuman Prasad and his development of postcolonial theory and its use in organizational analysis. By examining the origins and spread of Western thought through the colonial period, he explains how much of the Western philosophies and epistemologies remain dominant and the cross-cultural challenges that this presents.