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The Role of Religious and Nationalist Ethics in Strategic Leadership: The Case of J. N. Tata

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Abstract

This paper examines the role that religious ethics, complemented by a nationalist principle, can play in a sustained exercise of strategic leadership, hypothesizing a positive association with a societal reputation for credibility or integrity. The key to this relation is the constraining effect on strategic or financial pressures, even if there is coherence in the long-term. J. N. Tata, the founder of Tata Industries who lived in British India, was a Parsee priest and an advocate for Indian national self-reliance and ultimately independence. Even as Tata's two ethics dovetailed with his business interests in the long-term, they conflicted sufficiently with the business calculus of some of his immediate and intermediate strategic interests such that he could enjoy a sterling societal reputation in India, his credibility transcending that of a businessman.

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  1. DeKalb, IL, 60115, U.S.A.

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Worden, S. The Role of Religious and Nationalist Ethics in Strategic Leadership: The Case of J. N. Tata. Journal of Business Ethics 47, 147–164 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026050230808

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