1
Transplanting the British privatization of railway policy in India: Mapping the cultural
paradigm and assessing suitability
Tariq Abdul Muhaimin and Naiyanad Songbandid
Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands
Author Note
The authors are students pursuing Masters in Engineering and Policy Analysis program at
TU Delft. Tariq Abdul Muhaimin – 4297237, Naiyanad Songbandid – 4312813.
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Contents
Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... 3
Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 4
1. Conceptual framework ............................................................................................................ 6
1.1. Hofstede’s dimensions of national cultures ........................................................................... 6
1.1.1. Power Distance Dimension. .......................................................................................... 7
1.1.2. Uncertainty Avoidance Dimension. ................................................................................ 7
1.1.3. Individualism versus Collectivism Dimension. ............................................................... 7
1.1.4. Masculinity versus Femininity Dimension. .................................................................... 7
1.1.5. Long-Term Orientation Dimension. ............................................................................... 7
1.2. Theory of Institutional transplantation .................................................................................. 8
2. Railway policies: A comparison ............................................................................................ 10
2.1. British Railways ................................................................................................................. 10
2.1.1. Evolution of privatization policy. ................................................................................. 10
2.1.2. Structure of British railway administration. .................................................................. 10
2.1.3. Performance. ............................................................................................................... 12
2.1.4. New structure. ............................................................................................................. 12
2.2. Indian Railways .................................................................................................................. 14
2.2.1. Structure. ..................................................................................................................... 14
2.2.2. Performance. ............................................................................................................... 15
2.2.3. Failure of privatization policy. ..................................................................................... 16
3. Discussion: Mapping the cultural paradigm and assessing suitability ..................................... 18
References .................................................................................................................................... 23
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Abstract
Policy transplantations and borrowing processes at the national level are often hasty and messy
because transplanters fail to give due importance to the understanding of cultural and structural
contexts of both donor and host nations. This paper explores the suitability of transplanting the British
railway privatization policy in India by mapping the cultural and structural settings in both countries.
To perform this, Hofstede’s (2010) cultural dimensions and the theory of Institutional transplantation
presented by De Jong, Lalenis and Mamadouh (2002), have been used. Although the findings in this
paper indicate that this transplantation attempt is not impossible, it has been concluded that the
suitability of this transplant can come under question under different scenarios.
Keywords: Policy transplant, Hofstede, Institutional transplant, Railway privatization,
Indian Railway, British Railway
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Transplanting the British privatization of railway policy in India: Mapping the cultural
paradigm and assessing suitability
Transport strategy and policy of a country depends upon the underlying political and
philosophical underpinnings of the society concerned, and often what scientists consider as a rational
choice gives way to beliefs, norms, and prejudices that are inherent in the institutions of the country
(Button and Hensher, 2005).
But, in a post-mediatized and globalized society, nations tend to look across the border
for favorable policy solutions developed elsewhere in the world. Today, policy borrowing happens at
different levels and in different scales. It is more often a story of imitation and emulation than physical
transplantation. These borrowed institutions are very malleable and can be transformed to fit the local
circumstances (De Jong, Lalenis, & Mamadouh, 2002).
However, a careful analysis of the compatibility between the transplanted institution and the
existing structures is not done, especially from both the cultural and structural perspectives. Because
of this, transplantation processes are often hasty and messy.
Indian railways, the 4th largest railway network in the world (“The World Factbook – Country
comparison”, Central Intelligence Agency) – transporting 7651 million passengers and over 921
million tons of freight annually, as of 2011 (“Indian railways yearbook 2010-11”, Ministry of
Railways) – enjoys a near monopoly when it comes to the management of this rail network. Although
there are a few private rail networks, mostly small sections on private estates, Indian railways is
largely a public enterprise.
Till date, several attempts have been made to try and privatize the Indian railways. However,
almost all attempts were subjected to failure. While there seems to be a strong resolve in the Indian
administration, to try and save the Indian railways from privatization, the Indian railway network does
not seem to be doing well in terms of maintaining quality, ensuring safety and generating economic
growth. For this reason, we wish to explore the possibility and compatibility of a privatization policy
transplant into Indian railways.
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Through this paper, we will present a brief overview of railway policies in India and Britain.
While doing so, we will also explore the structures of railway organization in both nations. Given the
structures and policies, we will then map their relation with the cultural contexts within which these
two institutions function. This mapping is done from the perspective of assessing the suitability of
transplanting the British privatization policy into Indian railways.
To map the cultural contexts of both nations, we will use Geert Hofstede’s (2010) national
cultural dimensions. Then, to briefly discuss about the suitability of this transplant, we will consider
the “actors pulling in” and “goodness of fit” perspectives presented by De Jong, Lalenis, and
Mamadouh (2002) in the book The Theory and Practice of Institutional Transplantation.
Keeping in view the importance of understanding different aspects of the privatization policy
itself, for the purpose of transplantation, a considerable portion of this paper will deal with the railway
policies of both nations. The mapping of cultural contexts and the assessment of suitability is done in
the last section of this paper.
However, it is important to note that the paper does not attempt to provide methods
or alternatives for transplanting the privatization policy successfully. It only seeks to make explicit
the privatization policy along with its different facets, while also initiating a discussion into the
transplantation process from a cultural and structural perspective. A Critical review of the findings
and furthering of research into this topic is encouraged.
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1. Conceptual framework
For this paper, we have adopted the paradigm of cultural dimensions introduced by Geert Jan
Hofstede in 1980. Although the process of operationalizing culture and behavior was – and continues
to be – subjected to criticism, we have adopted Hofstede’s cultural dimensions (Hofstede,
Hofstede, & Minkov, 2010) because of their relativistic nature. It is important to keep in mind that,
while considering these cultural dimensions, the values and implications for a particular nation only
exist in relation to other nations.
According to Hofstede (2010), culture is “the collective programming of the mind that
distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from others". Due to the presence of a
common set of software programs, people belonging to a certain collective often exhibit similar
behavior or response to a problem or situation. Hence, the role of culture in policy framing and
analysis cannot be ignored.
Although culture functions at different levels, for this paper we are particularly interested in
national cultural patterns due to their relevance in the policy transplantation process. This is another
reason for adopting Hofstede’s (2010) theory of national cultural dimensions.
1.1. Hofstede’s dimensions of national cultures
A dimension is an aspect of a culture that can be measured relative to other cultures; it groups
together a number of phenomena in a society which were empirically found to occur in combination.
The dimensions of national culture, as presented by Hofstede (2010), are power distance,
individualism versus collectivism, masculinity versus femininity, uncertainty avoidance, long-term
orientation and indulgence versus restraint.
Here, we present a brief understanding of all these dimensions. Their relevant implications
for the policy transplantation process are discussed in the third part of this paper. The indulgence
versus restraint dimension, which was only added recently, has not been considered in this paper
because of the absence of its measure for our chosen country.
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1.1.1. Power Distance Dimension. Power Distance is defined as "the extent to which the
less powerful members of institutions and organizations within a society expect and accept that power
is distributed unequally. This represents inequality (more versus less), but defined from below, not
from above" (Hofstede, 2001).
1.1.2. Uncertainty Avoidance Dimension. Uncertainty Avoidance is defined as "the extent
to which the members of institutions and organizations within a society feel threatened by uncertain,
unknown, ambiguous, or unstructured situations" (Hofstede, 2001).
1.1.3. Individualism versus Collectivism Dimension. Individualism pertains to societies
in which the ties between individuals are loose: a person is expected to look after himself or herself
and his or her immediate family only. Collectivism on the other hand pertains to societies in which,
from birth onwards, people are integrated into strong, cohesive in-groups, which continue to protect
them throughout their lifetime in exchange for unquestioning loyalty (Hofstede, 2001).
1.1.4. Masculinity versus Femininity Dimension. Masculinity pertains to societies in
which emotional gender roles are clearly distinct: men are supposed to be assertive, tough, and
focused on material success; women are supposed to be more modest, tender, and concerned with the
quality of life. Femininity pertains to societies in which emotional gender roles overlap: both men and
women are supposed to be modest, tender, and concerned with the quality of life (Hofstede, 2001).
1.1.5. Long-Term Orientation Dimension. Long-Term Orientation (LTO) stands for a
society that fosters virtues oriented towards future rewards, in particular perseverance and thrift.
Short-term orientation stands for a society that fosters virtues related to the past and present, in
particular respect for tradition, preservation of “face”, and fulfilling social obligations (Hofstede,
2001).
While culture is very important from the perspective of transplantation, one should not
overlook the formal administrative practices and methodologies existing within a political/legal
system. Thus, to analyze the successfulness of transplant, we have also used the theory of institutional
transplantations introduced in the book The Theory and Practice of Institutional Transplantation by
De Jong, Lalenis and Mamadouh (2002).
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1.2. Theory of Institutional transplantation
Using ‘institution’ as a container concept for all possible transplants, such as institutions,
policies, programs, procedures, ideologies, justifications, attitudes and ideas, De Jong, Lalenis and
Mamadouh (2002) make a distinction between formal institutions, which are legal rules of the game
telling who is allowed (or not) or obliged (or not) to undertake what actions and under what conditions,
and informal institutions, which are social practices and rituals based on underlying cultural values
and norms.
According to De Jong et al. (2002), there are three different levels of action in which the
transplantation process can occur: The constitutional level, the level of policy areas, and the
operational level. The transplantation attempt, being studied in this paper, operates at the level of
policy areas.
Combining these levels of actions with the formal and informal classification of institutions,
De Jong and Mamadouh also list a table showing different domains of institutional transplantations
(see Table 1).
Table 1: Different domains of institutional transplantations (Source: De Jong and Mamadouh, 2002)
Level of Action Formal Relations Informal Practices
Constitutional level (ground rules) Legal systems Value orientations
Level of policy area (relations between governmental
bodies)
Formal regulations Informal codes
Operational level (daily activities) Procedures Roles
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De Jong et al. also present a contrast between two different perspectives that are often used
to describe and assess transplantation processes. These are the “actors pulling in” perspective and the
“goodness of fit” perspective. We will use both these perspectives in this paper to briefly discuss the
potentiality of the privatization of railway policy transplant.
The “actors pulling in” perspective involves different types of actors that can set a transfer in
motion. These can be bureaucrats, pressure groups, political parties, policy entrepreneurs etc. This
perspective is used to warn potential transplanters against thoughtless transplantation attempts that
leave no room for participation of local actors. It underlines the importance of the process of
adjustment.
The “goodness of fit” perspective, on the other hand, is an influential perspective to predict
the suitability of an institutional transplant. The concept of ‘families of nations’ is introduced to help
in gauging the goodness of fit. This perspective relies on the assumption that (1) families of countries
can be distinguished, and (2) the characteristics of each of these families are influential in assessing
the suitability of any potential institutional transplant.
A group of nations are said to belong to one family based on the common style of formal
legislation and informal social conventions in politics and policy-making. The ‘families of nations’
concept is further theorized through ‘legal families’ and ‘cultural families’. Legal families are groups
of countries that share a common legal framework, while cultural families are the clusters of nations
that are grouped together based on several cultural dimension scores or value orientations.
Hence, from the perspective of a policy transplantation process, it is important to clearly
identify the type of institution being transplanted, the level at which it is to be transplanted and the
manner in which it is to be transplanted. If the legal or administrative frameworks of a nation are not
suitable for a certain institutional transplant, then measures of adaptability need be thought over.
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2. Railway policies: A comparison
To present a brief comparison between the performance and structure of railway policies in
India and Britain, we will explore the post-privatization policy and structure of Britain in the first
section of this part; and in the second section, we will touch upon the policy and performance of
Indian railways.
2.1. British railways
In this section, we will firstly discuss the evolution of railway privatization policy in Britain
and then the resulting structure of British railway organization. Performance issues related to the post-
privatization structure are summarized in the second sub-section. Then, the newly adopted structure
is presented.
2.1.1. Evolution of privatization policy. In 1993, a legislation known as the Railways Act
was passed by the British parliament. This legislation laid the foundation of privatization policy within
British railways. It was to be implemented by fragmenting the railway into a large number of private
businesses, linked to one another by a network of service contracts.
According to Glaister, Burnham, Stevens, and Travers (2006), the Railways Act ushered in
three-and-a-half years of intensive activity as some 80 separate companies were formed, and train
services were franchised out to 25 operating companies. Railtrack, a group of companies that owned
the track, signaling, tunnels, bridges, level crossings and all but a handful of stations of the British
railway system from its formation in April 1994 until 2002, was set up.
2.1.2. Structure of British railway administration. To understand the structure within
which the railway was managed and regulated, and how it changed over time, let us look at figures 1
and 2.
As per the arrangements shown in figure 1, the structure of British railway organization was
very complex and led to the concentration of power at the higher levels. The powers to appoint the
Rail Regulator and the franchising director and to give direct capital grants for freight facilities, if
justified on public interest grounds, were retained by the Secretary of State.
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Figure 1: The post-privatization structure of the British rail (in 1997), Source: Glaister et al., 2006
Railtrack was responsible for central timetabling, coordination of all train movements
and signaling, planning investment in infrastructure, and safe operation of the network under the
supervision of the Health and Safety Executive.
The Rail Regulator, appointed by the Secretary of State, was highly independent and was
responsible for granting approval for all access agreements between Railtrack and passenger and
freight train operators. The Regulator was also responsible for granting, monitoring and enforcement
of licenses to operate railway assets; the enforcement of domestic competition law; and approval of
railway line closures (Glaister et al., 2006).
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On the privatized railway, freight services were always intended to be openly accessible by
competitive companies. But, the passenger rail franchises were subsidized.
2.1.3. Performance. In terms of the maintenance of infrastructure, the failure of Railtrack is
popularly termed as the best known difficulty experienced by UK rail privatization. According to the
National Audit Office (NAO 2004), Railtrack failed to put in place adequate contract management
arrangements. During the renewal of contracts, there seemed to be a lack of uncertainty about how
procurements should be managed and what should be the nature of contractual arrangements.
The accidents at Hatfield in 2000, Potters Bar in 2002 and Kings Cross in 2003 also
cumulatively cast doubt on the ability of Railtrack to manage private companies in implementing
infrastructure maintenance contracts safely. This led to the withdrawal of some private sector
providers from the railway maintenance sector. Hence, one of the major potential sources of efficiency
gain from rail privatization – competition in the labour market for civil engineering work – was not
achieved (Glaister et al., 2006).
Thus, in July 2004, the government published a White Paper, The Future of Rail, to review
its railway policy and also to propose a change in structure.
2.1.4. New structure. Glaister et al. state that the changed structure of rail industry brought
Railtrack into Railway Administration and replaced it with Network Rail, a new not-for-dividend
company answerable to a Board of 115 stakeholders drawn from the train operating companies, and
representatives of passengers and the public sector. Network Rail subsequently took back the
infrastructure maintenance work, whose contracting-out to a range of private companies had failed to
deliver good value for money, under its control.
According to the new structure, Franchising Director was brought under the direct control of
the department. The independent role of the Rail Regulator was also absorbed into an enhanced Office
of Rail Regulation (ORR), which was established to oversee safety, reliability, efficiency and cost.
Thus, the new structure of the rail industry in 2005 became as shown in figure 2.
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Figure 2: The structure of rail industry in 2005. Source: Reproduced from Department for Transport, The Future
of Rail (TSO, 2004e), p. 62.
When compared with the 1997 post-privatization structure, this new structure led to
distribution and decentralization of power within railway organization. The concentration of power
at certain levels had proved to be fatal for efficient functioning of this organization. This experience
of the British railway industry can surely serve as a lesson for its Indian counterpart.
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2.2. Indian Railways
The Indian Railways is a unique state-owned enterprise because of its size, ownership
structure, and 150-year-old history. These attributes, among others, make it a complex intriguing, and
thus fascinating subject to understand. It is one of the world’s largest state-owned enterprises, a utility
under a single management, second only to China’s (Kumar and Mehrotra, 2009).
Covering over 63000 kilometers and operating approximately 13000 trains each day, the
Indian railway network has around 1.4 million employees and 1.1 million pensioners. It carries over
two million tons of freight and about 17 million passengers between 7000 railway stations each day.
A fleet of 200000 wagons, 4000 coaches, and 8000 locomotives is used to achieve this (Kumar and
Mehrotra, 2009).
However, the Indian Railways has been managed as a departmental undertaking of the
Ministry of Railways, under Government of India, following their structural re-organization after
independence in 1947.
2.2.1. Structure. The Indian Railways is structured by a functional team of the Indian
Railway Service, owned and run by the Government of India through the ‘Railway Board’, also called
the ‘Ministry of Railways’. The head of this board is a Chairman who reports to the Ministry of
Railways. The board itself has six other members. However, the rail system in India has been
separated into 16 zones. Each zone is led by a General Manager (GM), just as the production units
and other units, reporting directly to the Railway Board. Each zonal railway is then sub-divided into
69 divisions and each division is headed by a Divisional Railway Manager (DRM) who reports to
GM of the zone. An average track length of around one thousand kilometers is under the charge of an
ordinary division with about 15000 staff (Kumar and Mehrotra, 2009).
The structure of Indian railways is shown in figure 3.
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Figure 3: Structure of Indian railways. Source: Ministry of Railways (Railway Board) CMS Team.
2.2.2. Performance. The revenue budget of the railways is fixed every year based on specific
performance targets for movement of freight and passenger traffic. Parliamentary financial control is
designed to keep taking care of the performance of managers entrusted with managing and disposal
of public funds. The parliament votes on budget grants, which are then approved by the President.
Several positive performance indicators are cited to rationalize the progress of Indian Railway
network. The important and generally used performance indicators are Freight traffic, Wagons,
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Engines, Train operation and Rolling Stock repairs (Management accountability, Codes manual
Admin finance, Ch. 5, Ministry of Indian Railway, 2010).
In terms of these factors, the Indian Railways has counted its best-ever performance in rolling
stock occupancy in 2010-11. According to the Hindustan Times, a leading news daily in India, during
this period, the coach factories of Indian Railways made 3079 passenger coaches, the highest-ever
production in a single year. Moreover, the locomotive production units reached the highest-ever
production of 497 locomotives during this fiscal period, which includes 267 diesel and 230 electric
locomotives (“Indian railways’ record performance”, Hindustan Times, April 10, 2011).
However, a 2012 report by a High Level Safety Review Committee set up by the Ministry of
Railways provides a different outlook. This report reveals a grim picture about the inadequate
performance by Indian Railways, largely due to lack of resources, poor infrastructure and lack of
empowerment at the functional level.
According to the report, passenger fares were not increased in the last decade, while many
passenger carrying trains were introduced on the existing overloaded infrastructure. This has strained
the infrastructure way beyond its limit and all the safety margins have been eaten up, pushing Indian
Railways to a regime of adhocism in infrastructure maintenance. The Committee has strongly
recommended the stoppage of the introduction of new trains without commensurate inputs to
infrastructure.
Another important finding of this committee is that the form of railway organization in India
seems to be highly centralized, top-heavy and hierarchical along departmental lines. The commitment
and passion of the 1.4 million strong workforce could not be translated into productive action
due to the present environment. A change is needed in the work culture, to empower the functional
levels and to simplify processes and procedures (Report of High Level Safety Review Committee,
Ministry of Railways, Government of India, February 2012).
2.2.3. Failure of privatization policy. The broad policy agenda of the Indian administration,
with regards to the railways, has been ‘no privatization, no retrenchment, and no fare hike’. Owing to
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many socio-political reasons and costs, the strategy of private organization has not been adopted by
the Railways till date.
The three main constraints for implementing the privatization policy in India were financial
limitations, natural monopoly attribute and the national responsibility of this service.
When there are extremely high fixed costs, for instance, large-scale infrastructure is required
to ensure supply to the railway service. It might lead to huge sunk costs that might be bigger than
what a private firm could handle. The investment cost would then not be recoverable within few years,
thus leading to serious damage on cash flow.
In regards to the natural monopoly attribute, the argument that competition would lead to
unnecessary duplication of investment in infrastructure is cited; and this is related to inefficiency.
Lastly, due to the socio-economic condition of India, ‘national responsibility’ of this service
is given a lot of weightage. The most possible effect of privatization would be ‘increased cost’, which
will in turn have a huge impact on Indian masses. At present, the profit of the railways comes from
shipping and freight. Passenger fares are largely supported by this cross subsidy. This aspect is likely
to undergo change with privatization; and the masses will have to end up paying more.
The Indian Government had to be certain that their policy in this web of life will not burden
millions of poor Indian travelers. Therefore maintaining railways public was necessary to keep
providing services to the general masses of India (Kumar and Mehrotra, 2009).
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3. Discussion: Mapping the cultural paradigm and assessing suitability
The usual expectation is that similar positive results as the ones found in other countries can
be achieved at home. Policy makers, legal practitioners and planners regularly hear media stories,
listen to informal talks during conferences and business visits or check the internet and are intrigued
by levels of effectiveness, efficiency or innovativeness realized elsewhere and propose to copy these
models. Yet which models are worth following? Which are suitable for the domestic situation? (De
Jong, Lalenis, & Mamadouh, 2002)
Whilst comparing the organizational and political contexts of both British and Indian railways,
we saw that there are many lessons to be learnt from the gradual changes that British railway
privatization policy underwent. The performance of Railtrack proved that privatization does not
necessarily lead to economic progress, nor does it help in curtailing fare-hikes.
While stating this, it is not our intention to present privatization as a problem or a solution in
the Indian context. We only wish to explore and present different caveats of the privatization argument.
As Glaister, Burnham, Stevens, and Travers (2006) stated in the book Transport Policy in
Britain, the demand for privatization of railways stemmed from need to solve a familiar problem: how
to reduce the demands on the national taxpayer without unacceptable reductions in the scale of railway
services.
Hence, reflecting over the performance of Indian railways in recent times, one would find that
certain aspects of deregulation and competition that were introduced into the British system are
needed for the development of Indian railways.
However, the biggest challenge in policy borrowing (or transplantation) processes is that the
real decision makers usually do not perform this task in a structured manner. Hence, the borrowing
process turns out to be hasty and messy, inviting criticism and opposition from political opponents as
well as masses.
To map the cultural and structural aspects associated with this transplant, let us now look at
Hofstede’s cultural dimension scores for both India and UK, as shown in figure 4.
19
Figure 4: Hofstede’s national cultural dimensions. Source: Hofstede, 2010
We can see that India scores very high compared to the UK in power distance and long-term
orientation dimensions. There is only a small difference between the uncertainty avoidance scores of
the two nations; and with respect to individualism and masculinity, UK scores very high with India
lagging behind somewhere near the central value of 50.
The differences in power distance and uncertainty avoidance scores primarily affect the
political processes. According to Hofstede (2010), larger power distance implies political
centralization, lack of cooperation between citizens and authorities, and more political violence.
Stronger uncertainty avoidance implies more rules and laws, more government intervention in the
economy, and perceived incompetence of citizens versus authorities; stronger uncertainty avoidance
implies more perceived corruption, after elimination of the effect of national poverty.
From the structures of railway organizations, presented in this paper, we could see that indeed
India has high level of centralization as well as high government intervention in economy. This aspect
will have a large impact on the transplantation process.
Individualism-collectivism and masculinity-femininity primarily affect issues that countries
will defend. Individualism implies concern with human rights, political democracy, and market
77
48
56
40
61
35
89
66
35
25
P O W E R
D I S T AN C E
I N D I VI D UAL I S M M AS C UL I N I T Y UN C E R T AI N T Y
AVO I D AN C E
L O N G -T E R M
O R I E N T AT I O N
India UK
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capitalism; collectivism implies concern with group interests. Although India does not score very low
on individualism, the relatively collectivistic aspect of Indian culture was also reflected through our
analysis; the Indian administration is mainly hesitant to implement the privatization policy because
of the ‘national responsibility’ that it supposedly carries.
Masculinity implies a focus on economic growth and competition and a belief in technology;
femininity implies a focus on supporting needy people in the country (welfare) and in the world
(development cooperation) and on the preservation of the global environment. If we were to measure
the level of economic prosperity in terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita, then UK has
about 36901 USD (2012) GDP per capita while India has about 3876 USD (2012) GDP per capita
(World Bank, 2012). This vast difference in national wealth validates, to an extent, the relation of
masculinity and the importance given to economic growth. In this specific case, we could say that the
Indian administration is less concerned about its performance than their British counterpart, thus they
continue to overlook the state of performance in Indian railways. However, the relative femininity of
the Indian nation can be seen as a positive aspect for possible transplantation, because feminine
cultures are more open to participatory methods of decision making.
In our analysis, we have seen that the assessment of British railways’ performance, after the
privatization policy was implemented, showed several structural dysfunctionalities in terms of
regulation and structural implementation. Thus, it would be inappropriate to associate ‘implicit
successfulness’ with the privatization policy of Britain ‘as it is’.
Thus, from the ‘actors pulling in’ perspective, the transplantation process would be more
successful if the domestic actors – who are pulling in the transplant – reframe the policy according to
their own utilities by engaging civil society for generating modifications in the policy.
According to K. G. Balakrishnan (2008), India is a common law country that derives most of
its modern judicial framework from the British legal system. There exists a uniform system of justice
dispensation in India, with the Supreme Court at the apex and High Courts in the States (provincial
units in India), as well as numerous other subordinate courts.
21
Therefore, when we look into the legal and constitutional framework of India, we find that
India and Britain have a lot of similarities owing to the British colonial rule to which India was
subjected from 1858 to 1947. As a consequence of this rule, several institutional and legal frameworks
were transplanted by the British administration in India at that time. Although these transplants were
established by pressure, they have been retained to a large extent even till today.
Thus, while considering the ‘legal families’ framework for conceptualizing ‘families of
nations’, we find that India and Britain more or less belong to the same family. This is a positive
indicator for gauging the ‘goodness of fit’ argument presented by De Jong, Lalenis and Mamadouh.
However, the ‘cultural families’ framework for conceptualizing ‘families of nations’ indicates
that India and Britain belong to two different clusters of nations. By using Hofstede’s cultural
dimension scores (see Figure 4) of India and Britain, we find that India is classified as a Less
developed Asian country and Great Britain is categorized among the Anglo countries. Countries
belonging to these two clusters have different social and political structures.
Hence, if we were to agree with the empirical validity of the ‘goodness of fit’ argument, we
could say that the suitability of this transplant is reasonably high because of the compatibility at
legal/constitutional level, but could face severe challenges if cultural differences and public consensus
are not taken into consideration during transplantation.
Lastly, if one were to consider the historical interaction between India and Britain for analysis,
the suitability of choosing the British policy as a model for transplantation would certainly come
under question. Nationalist (and even ultra-nationalist) political and apolitical groups in India, which
thrive on the history of conflict between the two administrations during colonial rule, would certainly
pose a challenge to the transplantation process.
However, careful and slow adaptation of certain borrowings is undoubtedly possible, if the
cultural and structural differences between both nations are examined in detail before developing the
most suitable method for the transplantation process.
To end this paper, we would like to stress on the fact that when borrowing is locally induced,
the sense of acquiring is even stronger. Borrowing institutions from a successful country should be
22
seen as a means to share in that success. Transplantation or borrowing is always less costly and more
likely to succeed than innovation proper.
EPA 1432/ EPA 7021 23
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