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Reinventing the Lost “Public” in Post-COVID Era: Towards a Theory of sociality in

political-economy interaction spaces in the 21st century

Abstract

COVID19 crisis has brought several fervent issues related to the relationship between

government, business, civil society and public to the forefront of discussion both among

academicians beyond disciplinary boundaries and amidst practitioners outside their spaces of

practice. In the political-economic space, the French ideal of Liberté, égalité, fraternité serves

as the cornerstone and foundational principle for creation of democratic societies, nations and

the world. Inequality is the biggest challenge of the 21st century and these three ideals have

failed to achieve the goals of an equitable society they espoused. This research delves into the

idea of investigating the sequentially of the ideals through study of three distinct cases 1. The

Supremacy clash between United States and China in Huawei case 2. The Adani Case 3. The

Case of Management Profession. Based on the analysis at three levels viz, global-societal,

business-societal and professional-individual, the forgotten ways of public sociality are

reiterated.

Keywords: public, sociality, political-economy, 21st Century, Industry 4.0.

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The Lost “Public” in the sociality of political-economy

With the advent of industrial revolution and popularization of a chase for wealth of nations

(Smith, 1937) the market pricing approach of organizational sociality (Fiske, 1992) in the

political-economic interaction spaces became popular and the other approaches of

organizational sociality viz., communal sharing, authority ranking and equality matching

(Fiske, 1992) started getting devalued in the public interaction spaces. The origins of and rise

of chase for material prosperity, power, poverty and inequality (Acemoglu & Robinson, 2012;

Neckerman & Torche, 2007) can be traced back to this neglect of other forms of social

interaction in public spaces (Susen, 2011). Few nations grew at the expense of the others and

also authoritarian nationalism and race for prosperity at the expense of others started (Naoroji,

1901; de Jonquières, 2017). Thus, inequality became the biggest concern of the 21st century

(Piketty, 2014, 2020).

While the origins of totalitarianism (Arendt, 1951; Hagtvet, 2001) is an old one, it surfaces in

the current context in the form of new forms of media (Bradshaw & Howard, 2018; Castelló,

Etter, & Nielsen, 2016; Safiullah, Pathak, Singh & Anshul, 2017; Kumar & Ranjan, 2014)

being employed by the state (Sharma & Rao, 2016; Hahl, Kim & Sivan, 2018) and the private

governments (Anderson, 2017) and as we usher into an era of “surveillance capitalism”

(Zuboff, 2019). The world finds it at risk (Beck, 2009) as the top 1% families (Carney & Nason,

2018) prosper and the bottom 99% (OXFAM, 2018) are at their helm. Debates about

meaningful work arise as that again becomes a tradable service in the marketplace. Freedom

(Dewey, 1939; Fromm, 1941:1969; Harari, 2018) is at risk and as we usher into an era wherein

slavery seems to be ushering in (Andersson, Lindebaum & Pérezts, 2018) and hence democratic

principles and values come to be challenged. Organizations limit themselves to the boundaries

of work (Ahrne & Brunsson, 2011) and people’s (Canovan, 2005) life especially those at the

bottom of the socio-economic pyramid is becoming miserable (Fleming, 2014; Tegmark,

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2017). This wrong turn was as the political-economic spaces also took the tragedy of commons

(Hardin, 1968) as their fundamental assumption and also the future generations were taught of

self-interest as something very fundamental to human behaviour. Whilst, no tragedy of

commons (Cox, 1985) and other forms of sociality were commonplace in several cultures

worldwide and living was seen in tandem with the natural world and the flora and fauna was

respected. Nature as a resource was only being seen in at the turn of Industrial Revolution with

the Market pricing approach.

Government, market and civil-society synergism is considered as the cotemporary approach

for public action and creation of public goods and services (Thynne & Peters, 2015). The

current approach to public value creation lags on three fronts. Firstly, its epistemological,

ontological basis is not sufficient to provide answer to the ends it espouses to deliver. In that

vein, a care economy approach (Eisler, 2008) which goes beyond the current macroeconomic

framework of market failure, government failure and supplements that with civil society action

(Barr, 2004). The care economy framework proposes six sectors of household, voluntary,

illegal, government market and natural economy which covers the larger aspect of the

economy, both having positive and negative aspects. Secondly, the four pillars of the

democracy (Elmer Jr, 1941) i.e., the government, market, civil-society and the media has been

found to be used by the elite for providing a sense of change through social service (Kivel,

2007) but ensuring that no true change actually happens by co-opting change and

manufacturing the dissent process (Chossudovsky, 2010) and also manipulating the media

(Chomsky, 2018). This relates to the intention. Thirdly, this creates a loop wherein public

values will always be a long with-standing goal and seems to be part of a strategy of the state

(Scott, 2017) consisting of the group of elitist. But, in all this one does not realise that material

possession (Sikor & Lund, 2010) and playing power and politics around that will keep one
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bonded into the fictional realities (Harari, 2014) of life and cannot go beyond that to

emancipatory freedom (Aurobindo, 1995).

The COVID19 pandemic brought to the fore all these issue to the forefront of the human race

in a more palpable way. In the name of cost-saving, private entities were treating employees

who were crucial to their successes in an inhuman way and in absence of regulatory and legal

frameworks due to the work falling under informal category people at the bottom of the socio-

economic pyramid had to bear the brunt of the crisis (Parwez, & Ranjan, 2021a). When

businesses and their educators are critically evaluating (Bapuji, de Bakker, Brown, Higgins,

Rehbein & Spicer, 2020; de Bakker, Matten, Spence, & Wickert, 2020) the future of their

relationship with society (Kaplan, 2014) it is time to raise some fundamental questions with

regards to public value creation, public systems, management profession, its training and

education as the field is in a sad and sorry state (Caruana, Crane, Gold & LeBaron, 2020).

In the Rat Race of Power and Possession in the Age of Surveillance

Firms have been creators of societal inequality (Bapuji, Husted, Lu & Mir, 2018) and they have

done that wilfully (Orlitzky, Schmidt & Rynes, 2003) having a long-term capitalist agenda

(Barton, 2011) delaying the process of social change (Griffin & Mahon, 1997) and destroying

the created value (Bowman & Ambrosini, 2010), say for example there silence on the caste

issue (Chrispal, Bapuji & Zietsma, 2020). Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) (De Bakker,

Groenewegen & Den Hond, 2005; Matten & Moon, 2004), Triple Bottom Line (Norman &

MacDonald, 2004) has been part of marketing, expansion and governance strategy (Banerjee,

2018) and Open Innovation (Chesbrough, 2003) also has been a strategy to source ideas, obtain

Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) (Ranjan, 2018) and patents. Microfinance has also been

used to mint money from the poor as possibility of higher value-additions were also there

(Banerjee & Jackson, 2017). Inclusive growth (George, McGahan & Prabhu, 2012) has been a
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rhetoric in this context. Ideas about Organizational Democracy (Battilana, Fuerstein & Lee,

2018; Hielscher, Beckmann & Pies, 2014), stakeholders (Freeman, 1994:2010; Harrison &

Wicks, 2013) as citizens with rights and participation (Crane, Matten & Moon, 2004:2008)

have been discussed without implementation in organization, in fact outright rejection and

ignorance despite being successes of “Wisdom of Crowd” experiments with certain

conditionalities (Surowiecki, 2005). Accountability (Gilbert, Rasche & Waddock, 2011) has

been used as a tool to co-opt Non-Governmental Organizational set-ups and their agendas

(Baur & Schmitz, 2012; De Bakker, Den Hond, King & Weber, 2013). In fact, even the social

enterprises (Dacin, Dacin & Tracey, 2011) social change agenda get co-opted by putting of the

accountability matrix (Parwez & Ranjan, 2021b) and too much questioning on the motive and

the task turns out to be more of reporting and a mundane routine bureaucratic exercise. Gender

issues are ignored as a corporate responsibility (Billo, 2020). Staff monitoring and surveillance

(Booth, 2019) has become commonplace. The rhetoric of searching of new avenues for

sustainable development however continues (Busch, Bauer & Orlitzky, 2016) and depends on

national prerogatives and directives (Hartmann & Uhlenbruck, 2015). New terms and fads keep

evolving like Political corporate social responsibility (Frynas & Stephens, 2015; Hussain &

Moriarty, 2018), Consumer social responsibility (CnSR) (Caruana & Chatzidakis, 2014), the

another Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), which is used as a polyphony (Castelló,

Morsing & Schultz, 2013) and ventriloquism (Cooren, 2020) to eulogize corporations and

funds remain unutilized (MoCA, 2019), which shows the uncaring attitude. Conception like

creating shared value (Porter & Kramer, 2011) have been proposed though contested in the

academic arena (Crane, Palazzo, Spence & Matten, 2014).

Turning to the government, there is a tendency to create populism (Eatwell & Goodwin, 2018),

rise of populist leaders and lying demagogue (Hahl, Kim & Sivan, 2018) in democratic

institutions across the world (Bartha, Boda & Szikra, 2020). They spread misinformation
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(Bergmann, 2018; O’Connor & Weatherall, 2019) and conspiracy theories are propagated

which harm democracy and its processes (Gorton, 2016). Conspiracy theories with regards to

COVID19 pandemic have also emerged (Eberl, Huber, Greussing, 2020; Gugushvili, Koltai &

Stuckler, 2020). Trust declines as there are social media manipulation (Bradshaw & Howard,

2018) strategies to win election (Sharma & Rao, 2016; Hahl, Kim & Sivan, 2018; Martin &

Murphy, 2017)) and gain legitimacy (Castelló, Etter & Nielsen, 2016).

This seems to be a scenario in which there is “peak neoliberalism” (Birch & Springer, 2019;

Monbiot, 2016), everything is priced (Monbiot, 2014) and wherein all institutions of

democratic governance have failed to serve the public and modern slavery have become a

management practice (Crane, 2013) in humans, how paradoxical it should be called inhuman

right. Deliberations are on for post-democracy (Crouch, 2004). New methods like that of

agonistic and pluralistic (Dawkins, 2015) deliberation between stakeholders (Brand, Blok &

Verweij, 2020; Goodman & Arenas, 2015) are being proposed which are useful steps in

furthering the cause of democracy and public values. Similar, critical deliberation are being

proposed in accounting (Brown & Dillard, 2013) in the spirit of Habermasian theory of

communicative rationality (Habermas, 1984:1987). A dialogue and communicative rationality

is first step towards democracy (Susen, 2011). In that, spirit active listening to customer voices

for creating stakeholder democracy in corporations is suggested (Edinger-Schons, Lengler-

Graiff, Scheidler, Mende, & Wieseke, 2020). However, given the political-economy their

adoption in practice still needs to be seen and hence one needs a logic which breaks the thirst

for power and possession (Bourguignon, 1976) itself. Also, an understanding into the power of

paradoxes and the legitimacy strategies of grassroot organizations and their method of bringing

about slow but long withstanding social change process is something which needs to be

understood in this context (Chowdhury, Kourula & Siltaoja, 2018). Because there rejection and
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keeping their work unknown is also one strategy used by corporations to slow down the social

change agenda.

The grand challenge needs to be tackled pragmatically (Ferraro, Etzion & Gehman, 2015). The

world dynamics (Forrester, 1971) and limits to growth (Meadows, Meadows, Randers &

Behrens, 1972) studies and updates (Turner, 2008; Meadows & Randers, 2012; Herrington,

2021) had shown the problems with such a economic development model of market pricing in

the political-economic interaction space as well as the social challenges it will throw (Hirsch,

2013).

Two decades into the 21st Century, penetration of Information and Communication

Technologies, availability of big data and advent of technologies like machine learning and

Artificial Intelligence is a pervasive reality. Industry 4.0., i.e. the fourth industrial revolution is

the buzzword in industry, government, academia and civil society. It is interesting to note

however that in an age where “data is the new oil” (Humby, 2006), the frontiers of economic

and political powers (Zuboff, 2019) are tilting in direction of those who has access to this large-

scale data. There is an “extraction, prediction and execution architecture” (Maly, 2019) at work

for narrow self-interest motivated economic (Looney, Jacobson, & Redding, 2011; Martin &

Murphy, 2017) and political (Safiullah, Pathak, Singh & Anshul, 2017) gains. Because of this

new forms of social injustice (Cinnamon, 2017) is emerging in the current era.

The most interesting point to note here is that since ‘private human experience’ (Zuboff, 2019)

is now traded by private corporations and qualified by governments to determine the nature

and degree of citizenship. This causes a new kind of disenchantment among humans and i.e.

concerning their own behaviour both in private and public lives. The way, in which

compromise is taking place between the government, private entities and larger public realm,

seeds of a totalitarian society (Hagtvet, 2001) are visible. This poses a threat to the democratic
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ideals and to the norms of participation in a public sphere (Susen, 2011; Helbing, Frey &

Gigerenzer et al. 2017).

The technologies of the Industry 4.0. hold a lot of promise and are inevitable (Zhong, Xu, Klotz

& Newman, 2017; Dwivedi, Hughes, Ismagilova, Aarts, Coombs, Crick, ... & Galanos, 2019).

What needs to be thought of however is the following: 1. What are the limitations of current

institutions and systems, which lead them to deviate away from democratic values? 2. What

kinds of institutions of governance need to be evolved in India and across the world for the big

data (Flyverbom, Deibert and Matten, 2019) for its use in a manner that reinforce the

democratic ideals? 3. What role government, civil society, citizenry and private entities must

assume in this endeavour? 4. How do you negotiate, rank and position the values of equity,

effectiveness, efficiency, security etc. in contemporary developmental debates in India and

across the globe? These seem to me very pertinent questions for investigation in the next few

decades having practical implication and relevance for the functioning and fruition of

democratic societies and policy.

Government, Business, Civil Society and Public: Capturing the complex

interrelationship through a troika of Case studies

In the political and economic realm, freedom is often seen as a means to achieve equality and

mutual harmony among fellow citizens. The French ideal of Liberté, égalité, fraternité serves

as the cornerstone and foundational principle for creation of democratic societies, nations and

the world. However, it fails on its feet in providing the desired outcomes of equality, fraternity

and at the very least freedom. In contrast, it leads to creation of more inequality, acrimony and

bondage. This paper based on three cases at the global-societal, business-societal and

professional-individual and a critical literature review explores freedom not only in the political

and economic realm but also transcends the analysis to the spiritual realm. On the basis of that
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it reiterates the forgotten ways of organizational sociality in the political-economy interactions.

The research methodology and design that was adopted is a troika case design and analysis

(Eisenhardt, 1989; Yin, 2012).

The first case tries to understand the likely formation of new global value chain on the premises

of geo-politics to maintain economic and technological hegemony or to create new hegemony

based on the ongoing US-China trade war. The trade war led tension between US and China

has created disruption in world value chain and triggered the new geo-political movement. The

tit for tat game has made businesses across the world apprehensive. It has triggered of new-

fangled industrial activities for development to new value chain and to safeguard national

interest and the economy.

The second case that was selected for the research study was that of the business firm “The

Adani Group from Ahmedabad, India”. The reason for selection of the firm was two-fold.

Firstly, the firm has performed phenomenally well on the financial front for the past decade

and more so in the past year where its stocks has grown just exponentially. Secondly, lots of

negative news reports in the media, allegations from civil society organizations, agitations from

farmer groups both from within India and outside especially Australia has started erupting

against the firm in the past few years alongside their growth story. These are signs of a

malignant growth story of a firm which has risen from dust.

The third and the final case delves into the management profession, its training and education.

The trio of cases give us an analysis from the global to the individual level and a connect

between the two in both ways.

In the False notion of Development, Power and Possession

Case 1. United States (US)-China trade war, technological dominance, and new value

chain: How we all pay?

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The trade war between the United States (US) and China (Ajami, 2020) is essentially about

technology, It’s a fight between to biggest economy for technological dominance now and in

future. The number one economy in the world, the US is already a technological superpower

and dominating the space and want to sustain its hegemony in technological advancement. On

the other hand, second biggest economy China wants to become number one and to develop its

own core technologies to lessen dependence on US technology with implantation ‘Made in

China 2025 industrial policy’, meant to dominate technological sphere with regard to

semiconductor, artificial intelligence and more.

The semiconductor is one area where the US remains the global leader. The world’s top

semiconductor companies such as Qualcomm, Nvidia, Intel, AMD, and Micron, are based in

US. Most of Chinese technological companies are heavily dependent on US supplies for critical

components such as semiconductor, chips and more.

The fifth-generation cellular network technology (5G) is another area where two of the largest

economies fighting and want to dominate. In order to counter Chinese dominance in 5G

technology (companies such Huawei, ZTE etc), US is using security concern and raising

concern about the Chinese 5G technology. But efforts have shown mixed results so far, with

many European countries refusing to ban even though they are concerned about the security

issue. Countries like Japan, Taiwan and Australia have already ban Huawei from there 5G

network.

Even the newly developed concern towards the supply chain in the world, the strong US

institutions have been assuring force in the global value chain. But things may change as currant

US behavior is threatening the existing global value chain. As, China is generally not

considered a dependable partner, what US is happens to be for global economic system. If

supply chains are interrupted and that trust disappears, countries will start to develop individual

systems and the result will be inferior and expensive (da Costa, 2019).
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The efforts to contain the world’s second-largest economy accelerated since the announcement

of Made in China 2025 industrial policy with ambition to take the lead in future technologies.

Coupled with a formal plan to dominate Artificial Intelligence (AI) by 2030, showed the

China’s willingness to invest billions in to research and development. It got US government

concerned about the private U.S. enterprise and the military may left behind.

Technological firms such as Alibaba to Tencent and startups like SenseTime are closing the

gap on AI with an incomparable use of user information that privacy-focused Western rivals

may not match. Consumer internet concerns like Tencent and Ant Financial Services Group

are leading the way in social media innovation and mobile payments.

Companies like General Electric, Google and Microsoft are concerned about the

regulations being considered by US Government with intention of keeping Chinese companies

at bay. It may eventually work against the US competitiveness, could impede them from

competing in big Asian markets, while reducing America’s capacity to innovate.

The crackdown on Huawei and other tech companies is spread from the U.S.-China trade war.

It has also impacted the U.S. chipmakers with massive reduction in revenue from the sales.

Retaliatory response from China could be devastating for US company’s future growth and

survival. Currant trade dispute is also invoking nationalistic, pro-China sentiment could

make US business in China difficult to pursue and may disrupt the company’s supply chain.

In the 1980s, Japanese economy was thriving and became second largest in the world. US

government is apprehensive about the fact of being overtaken by Japan; it was something

unacceptable for the US government. Propaganda articles with warning such as "Japanning of

America" or an "economic Pearl Harbor," was visible as Japanese companies bought US

businesses and landmarks. There was growing concern and rhetorical warning against trade

deficit and shout out at every platform started regarding intellectual theft and Japan is taking

advantage of unfair trade deals.

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In 1980s, Japan’s rise as an economic superpower, threatened the US hegemony, it was cause

of concern for US government. Japan use to export automobiles and office and consumer

electronic goods. Cars was major product to be exported in US – by 1981, 1.8 million Japanese-

made cars were sold in the US, while 4,201 US made cars were sold in Japan (Washington

Post report, 1982). This led to a period of “Japan-bashing” and calls of “boycott Japan”.

Series of events and steps taken by the US and it led to detrimental change and Japanese

economy started slowing and falling far behind. The US government started putting pressure

on Japan to open market to US based companies to reduce the trade deficit. Japan was forced

to take measures for reducing volume of cars to be exported but it was not enough. In 1980s

US government-forced quotas on imported steel to protect US companies from Japanese

competition. They also further limited the shipping of semiconductors and automobiles to US

markets.

In 1985-year, US proposed the Plaza Accord to reduce trade deficit with various western

countries and Japan. It was signed by United States, West Germany, France, the United

Kingdom and Japan, devaluing the US dollar against the Japanese yen and the German

Deutsche Mark. It was boon for the United States, instrumental in increasing the exports and a

limiting the trade imbalance with Japan and other western European countries.

The signing of Plaza was followed by US led 100 percent tariffs on $300 million worth

Japanese import in 1987, effectively making US market inaccessible. With higher tariff and

increased in yen value, Japanese products became expensive and inaccessible to US consumer.

This led to decline of export and led to economic decline and high inflation. Japan levied

voluntary restrictions on its own industries, including automobiles and semiconductors sector

from exporting to US, this led to massive economic problem and eventually stagnation.
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Further, the central bank in Japan to keep yen's value at lower level led to stock price bubble

and collapse pushed the country into recession. This led to lengthy period of economic

stagnation, popularly known as the "lost decade."

But China is stronger both economically and politically, may not be repeating the Japanese

economic mistakes. The Chinese media narrative is already pointing towards Japanese example

with regard to ongoing trade war. The Japan’s economy greatly declined due to series of error

prone steps and significantly pressurized by the US government. The nationalist mawkishness

was the force, led the creation of Plaza Accord. It was also suggested that, Japan was scapegoat

and tool to divert the attention from the problems in domestic US economy. Japan succumbed

to US pressure and tactics mainly because, its dependency for national security. The Japanese

government was not willing to take risk and forgo economic prosperity for defense and political

security.

The risk to ongoing trade war and to both the parties is not or failure to learn from historical

facts but could take the wrong lessons (Harrison, 2019).

Chinese government has signalled it "would not bow under pressure", especially on issues

connected to national sovereignty. The Chinese administration is trying to counter US pressure

not only with immediate steps but beyond retaliatory economic actions. With collapse of trade

negotiations has further escalated and imposed tariffs on all Chinese imports, further Chinese

also responded with retaliatory tariff on US goods. The escalating trade risks prompted Federal

Reserve to assure investors that policy makers are keeping a watchful eye on trade tensions

(Hass & Denmark, 2020).

As, Chinese government has advised students and tourist against visiting or study in the United

States, may have adverse impact on universities and tourist destinations. They alerted potential

students and scholars about denial of visas. Also issued warning regarding US agencies are

Chinese citizens as spies whom are staying and visiting US. Also cautioned citizens with
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potential risk to safety, pointing to frequent shootings, robberies and thefts. Companies that

rely on China for imported goods are also concerned about Chinese retaliatory measures, such

as regulations, customs delay etc. China may imply further pressure on US companies as trade

tensions escalate in coming time. After banning of Huawei by US authorities, China retaliated

with creation of a blacklist of foreign firms with significant US presence. Later, China also

fined Ford motors for antitrust violations.

There is another instrument of retaliation is being showcased by the Chinese authorities and

media in terms of ‘Rare earth metal’. The Rare earth metal is a group of 17 chemical elements

used in various consumer products, ranging from Phones, electric vehicles to flat-screen

televisions, guided missiles and the military. It is also used by the U.S. as raw materials to

produce technological devices and military equipment. As, China controls 95 percent of the

world’s rare earth supplies, US can foresee the threat to future supplies and impact on the

military and civil industrial manufacturing.

The US government inclusion of the Huawei in the trade blacklist has created various forms of

spill overs. Huawei is a Chinese company and global leader in 5G technology, happens to be

point on continuous and world dominance. Ban has restricted the company from buying

components and software from US companies and doing business with other US companies.

Huawei is producer of telecommunications networking equipment and the number two

smartphone brand in the world.

The US based companies are inseparably involved in the global technology supply chain,

concerned about possible retaliation by the Chinese government. It has rattled markets

throughout the world, especially US technology companies are adversely impacted.

The new 5G is set to be the backbone of the modern economy, is supposed to power self-

driving cars to advanced medical procedures, all forms of communication device. Huawei is

leading in 5G software and supplying of hardware that infrastructure in the world. Without 5G
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network, consumers will not buy new phones with Qualcomm and Micron chips. It

won't generate data needed for the processors of Intel, Nvidia and Advanced Micro

Devices. And there may not be need of faster networking gear powered by Broadcom and

Xilinx.

The U.S. ban on Huawei has disrupted the global supply chain. Potentially creating

opportunities for China to re-establish industry order and capitalizing the capabilities of

domestic companies. This also needed for China's semiconductor industry, threatened by US-

China trade war and which needs support from capital markets. As of now, most of China

companies make relatively simple components.

Following the US government order on Huawei, Google stopped licensing its Android OS to

Huawei, while companies such as Intel, Qualcomm and Broadcom reportedly stopped supplies

of key hardware components, needed to make its mobile phone functional. The SD card

association too dropped Huawei from the member list. The Wi-Fi Alliance temporarily

restricted Huawei’s membership. Microsoft has removed Huawei’s laptops from its online

store. Several European and Japanese companies soon followed suit, including British

chipmaker ARM and telecom operators like EE and Vodafone and Japanese companies such

as Panasonic and Toshiba.

As evident, it has created a situation of panic for Huawei and global chain. As, Huawei is highly

dependent on US suppliers for semiconductors and software. It will not only hamper the growth

of Huawei but will have an adverse effect on the sales of its US-based suppliers as well. Huawei

spent $70 billion to buy parts from 13,000 suppliers last year, in total $11 billion was spent on

U.S. suppliers. That included chipsets from Qualcomm and Broadcom, Microsoft’s Windows

10 and Google’s Android.

Chipmakers such as Intel and Qualcomm are losing revenue as Huawei is no more their

customer. Intel provides chips for Huawei’s laptops as well as servers, Qualcomm provides
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processors and modems, Broadcom is a key supplier of switching chips, while Xilinx offers

programmable chips used in networking. If the ban is implemented, could have a devastating

effect on the semiconductor industry in the short term.

Ban will force operators to replace Huawei equipment, and decrease the impact of a Chinese

company in 5G era. But the top operators in the West are reliant on Huawei’s networking

equipment, which is inexpensive and reliable. If Huawei is denied the use of key components

used in smartphones and telecommunications infrastructure equipment, it could slow the

rollout of 5G and adoption of 5G in many countries.

The Huawei witnessed the year-over-year growth of 50.3 per cent in the first quarter of 2019

and claimed 19 per cent of the worldwide market share (IDC, 2019). The ban means Huawei

will lose massively in mobile phone business. To counter that, Huawei has announced rolling

out homemade OS. The new operating system may not succeed, if it fails attract the third-party

application developer support. That’s what happened to Samsung’s Tizen and

Microsoft’s Windows Mobile.

The event is also detrimental to stepped-up efforts by China to build a homegrown supply

chain. It has also led to rise in share prices of little-known chip makers and semi-conductor

firms- Shenzhen Fastprint Circuit Tech and Jiangsu Changjiang Electronics Technology.

Huawei's ban could accelerate a long-term campaign in China to replace imported

technologies.

Rapidly escalating Sino-U.S. trade tensions have also raised the stakes for Shanghai's Nasdaq-

style technology board. The board is largely seen as Government efforts to counter US curbs

on advancement of Chinese technology.

Despite the rally, China still lags in the core technologies required for a self-reliant domestic

semiconductor industry, and the market reaction reflects short-term investor optimism toward

a complicated, long-term problem.

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China has world's manufacturing hub for last few decades. It has developed expertise in various

field, led to creation of suppliers, development of assembly lines, skilled workforce in

proximity. But with ongoing trade war and heavy tariffs from both sides, forcing companies to

look elsewhere and shifting the production and supply chain. Nintendo and Google are

exploring alternative sites to produce some of their products, shifting the manufacturing to

Taiwan to avoid burden of tariffs. It was also reported that Nintendo is moving some

production activities to Southeast Asian countries. Foxconn, the maker Apple's smartphones in

China, suggested that the company has capacity to make all United States-bound phones out of

China.

The components used by Nintendo Switch console are made in China. The assembly line and

availability of components supplier keeps the cost down. Trade war led additional tariff may

push to Nintendo to manufacture elsewhere. Other US companies have been reconsidering their

supply chains with start of trade war with China. Majority of the production activity shifting

from China to the countries in South-East Asia. It prompted the manufacturing sector in the

region experienced its strong growth.

With rise in standard of living in China has resulted in rise of wages, prompted companies to

move production facility to other south-east Asian countries like Taiwan, Vietnam, Indonesia

and Thailand to take advantage of cheap labour cost much before the beginning of trade war.

With advancement in technology and increasing automation of manufacturing activities also

encouraged to companies, as reliant on skilled workers decreases. The manufacturing of

Google motherboards is already moved to Taiwan facility to avoid additional tariff

(Bloomberg, 2019) and further investing to enhance capacity and research activity. Despite

these shifts, China, the world's largest manufacturer, remains to be most important production

location. Not only the factories and suppliers located there but the infrastructure- roads, ports,

airports and power grids is more equipped.

 18

Ongoing and escalation of dispute between US and China has forced some companies to move

manufacturing and to expand footprint of production networks. But dominance of China as a

manufacturing hub may not experience any major changes. Mainly because, the efficiency of

manufacturing is based on the proximity with suppliers, quality of roads and ports and

infrastructure, supply of electricity, and existing talent pool.

For example, the US based company New Balance earlier endorsed the idea of tough trade

stance, now oppose to tariffs. As, it needs to import component parts from China that are no

longer made in the US. Resultantly, increasing tariff rates will risk and limit US company’s

ability to maintain and reinvest. Punitive tariffs on imports of components from China will

threaten the ability to manufacturing. The aggressive stance to economy like China may also

end up damaging US companies, workers and consumers.

The trade war between US and China has created many losers but there is some winner too in

the horizon. Countries such Vietnam, Taiwan, Bangladesh and South Korea are emerging as

victors in the US-China trade war. As, some of factories are moving to other south-east

countries to avoid trade war and additional tariff. As US companies are making massive new

orders from the suppliers in other Asian countries.

The first half of the 2019, the import by United States from China decreased by 12 percent in

compare to last year. Further US is importing 36 percent more from Vietnam, import also

increased up to 23 percent from Taiwan factories, Bangladesh benefited with 14 percent

increase in export, and South Korea also witnessed rise of 12 percent (Census Bureau, 2019).

The tariffs war has made consumer goods like sports equipment’s, bikes and bags, which are

manufactured in China and exported to US have suddenly became very expensive. It has also

adversely affected the supply of several machineries, industrial goods, electronic goods and

more. The US based, Cap America use to imports baseball caps from China now trying a new
 19

supplier from Bangladesh to avoid the tariffs, but the capacity will only meet 20 percent of the

total demand even if the quality as par.

As mentioned, some companies where moving the production outside of China as wage rate is

rising. The rise of US import from Vietnam and South Korea in last decade for apparel and

electronics respectively has boosted the manufacturing. So, the impact of trade war on various

trade activities is difficult to ascertain. As, the Taiwan and South Korea are mainly focused on

development of high-tech goods - semiconductors, but Vietnam and Bangladesh are source of

low labour cost for manufacturing of consumer goods like apparel and shoes.

But it is not clear from the ongoing industrial activities, whether companies consider shift

production facility is permanent fixture, or it is measured to reroute goods with nominal

processing before exporting to United States. Customs agency in Vietnam has captured China

made goods illegally labelled as "Made in Vietnam" to bypass US tariffs (Reuters, 2019).

It is difficult to manufacture goods with the same quality and for a cheaper price outside the

China. It's a process that could take months, or even years. Instead, an importer may decide to

eat the cost, and hoping tariffs would be lifted sooner rather than later. They can also choose

to pass the cost on to consumers for the time being.

There is increasing anxiety among smaller Asian countries over the growing face-off between

the world's two largest economies. Both countries are labelling allegations of deceit, subversion

and mistrust to each other on every possible platform.

China has its methods of persuasion, the Belt and Road Initiative, which offers development

of infrastructure to further economic development in the region and beyond. As, money and

military muscle is being showcased, the region is wondering their role in ongoing trade war

and more.

Case 2. The Rising Dirt Against the Adani Group in the Business-Society Relationship
 20

There has been a phenomenal rise of the Adani Group in the past decade The Thakurta-Adani

Saga is quite popular in the Indian context from July 2017 when Paranjoy Guha Thakurta a

researcher and journalist was locked in a room and asked to pull out his article about the Adani

group’s tax evasion from a research journal, Economic and Political Weekly (EPW). The saga

still continues as arrest warrant was issued in a defamation case put by the Adani Group against

Mr. Thakurta in January 2021. The case if looked from a theoretical angle is larger than a fight

between a civil rights activist for socio-ecological protection and a business firm seeing its

financial aurora.

For socio-ecological and economic sustainability and organizing public action for such

endeavours state-market-civil society synergism is considered as the most contemporary

approach (Thynne & Peters, 2015). Business firms and their role in this endeavour is desirable

but questionable. This is due to the skewed mechanisms of compensation, dividends, taxation,

and corporate philanthropy (Bapuji, Husted, Lu & Mir, 2018). The more effective and inclusive

solutions are sometimes crowded-out by the scaling goals of firms (George, McGahan &

Prabhu, 2012). Not only is case of business firms but also in state endeavors, where state means

a combination of government, business and non-governmental bodies, there are failures due to

organization of projects as large-scale schema ignoring diversity and several other small-scale

intricacies (Scott, 1998).

Now, it is very important to bring to light how we have understood management in the past

century. Management firstly has been about business administration and running business firms

and the core purpose has been “accumulation” (Tsoukas, 1994). That is the reason why there

has been so much focus on scaling the firm, wealth accumulation for the stakeholders and

ignorance of human relations in pursuance of economic transactions (Schumacher, 2011).

The question of scaling of business enterprise entails the larger schema on which modern firms

are based i.e., accumulation for shareholders by driving the labour power by overpaying the
 21

managerial class (Tsoukas, 1994). This is a common model followed in firms across

geographies. Though we already have a theoretical standpoint and a conjecture in mind,

through this research paper and adopting a case study schema we want to ascertain and develop

a proposition for further testing and modelling.

The data collection will happen primarily from secondary data sources like news reports, civil

society societal impact and assessment reports and surveys, governmental and CAG Reports,

analysis of interviews by various stakeholder groups and affected parties including the

Chairman Gautam Adani etc. These two critical data sources are given for instance, The Adani

Files (a curated website hosted by an Australian Civil Society Organization

https://adanifiles.com.au/ and a series of documents tabled by Bob Brown Foundation in

Queensland Parliament in October 2020, which put a series of allegations on Adani Group

https://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/Documents/TableOffice/TabledPapers/2021/5721T414.pd

f.

Political-business relations and their mutual support and sustenance at the expense of societal

good has been a feature of governance since democracies birth. The exponential growth of the

Adani group and its spectacular rise first in Gujarat during the Modi rule as Chief Minister of

Gujarat and subsequently its expansion in international space when Modi became Prime

Minister of India, is also a prime example of this misanthropic affiliation. And this has been

the reason for the exponential growth of Adani, where return of favours by the incumbent

government in ways of cheap land, opportunities of tax evasion and inaction action societal as

well as environmental destructions, which are difficult to estimate.

The voice of Paranjoy Guha Thakurtha is not the lone voice against the Adani Group. There

have been several voices and allegations which has been raised against this business group for

the societal and environmental destruction they have caused. This has not only happened across

the Indian subcontinent at Mudra Port in the far west to Jharkhand in the east, but also outside
 22

India. In Australia, the Bob Brown Foundation among others have tabled a file against Adani

Group for the harm they have caused to the environment in Australia due to their coal mining

especially coral reefs.

If we think of any big company or corporate and look at its history, we will find that at some

stage in its growth cycle some dirt, some societal allegation, some involvement in

environmental destruction we can find. Since, this is a case of rise of an India corporate giant

for comparison the choices would be companies like The Reliance Group, The Tata Group etc.

If we take histories, even recent of the Tata Group or the Reliance Group the company and

societal conflicts and allegations that come to mind are the 2G scam where the Neera-Radia

Tapes were involved, the Tata-Singnur incident, the Reliance Krishna-Godavari Basin Case

etc. Though in many of these cases anything conclusive never came out but these remind that

big financial towers are not built totally on white and clean money and work.

Case 3. Management Profession, its education and training: The Wrong Turn

The epistemological and ontological basis of management education was set to serve the

capitalist agenda (Tsoukas, 1994). Managers were involved in language games (Astley &

Zammuto, 1992), evolving fashionable terminologies (Abrahamson & Fairchild, 1999), rituals

and rhetorics (Augier & March, 2011). A reinventing of business schools and management

profession and education is required (Grey, 2004; French & Grey, 1996). How to handle the

politics of transparency (Hansen & Flyverbom, 2015) and make sense of corporate

sustainability frames (Hahn, Preuss, Pinkse & Figge, 2014) needs to be established and

understood. It is time to establish management as a true profession (Khurana, Nohria & Penrice,

2004; Khurana & Nohria, 2008). It has long run with the ideology of maximizing shareholder

value (Lazonick & O'sullivan, 2000) and half-truth based profit-making (Pfeffer & Sutton,

2006). The discipline needs to delve into contested value regimes and ask deeper questions of

how to transform the sustainability debate and action (Levy, Reinecke & Manning, 2016). The
 23

management research in India also has lost it way as it does not serve the underserved so much

(Ranjan, 2015).

COVID era as an opportunity for reflective thinking and corrective action

Trade war never been good for any economy. And, ongoing trade war between US and China

is no exception. Evidence suggest that economy in both countries is suffering, as, US consumer

are forced to pay more and Chinese are losing business the other South-East Asian countries,

slowing down the economy. US was considered the stabilizer of world value chain, with US

being culprit in disrupting and spreading fear among businesses and countries, has forced the

idea and creation of new value chain. It is motivated by the geo-politics, global ambitions,

technological hegemony and national interest.

What is the biggest moral dilemma then of business pursuits? The biggest question is: “Why

put the blame only on certain companies and not on others?” Knowingly or unknowingly,

some become Hard-Killers, like The Adani Group, British Petroleum, Reliance etc. But it is

interesting to note that even companies like Facebook, Google (Galloway, 2017) etc. which

seem to be harmless for the inequality dimension of society act as Soft-Killers and even harm

ecology indirectly (Zuboff, 2019). Is the question of Business and its responsibility towards

society and ecology a question of morality and ethics? Alternatively, it is a larger question or

worldview and how to live and what to live for as a human race? This practice of accumulation

of restricted not only to business, but it is also same for individuals as well. It has become a

societal norm and practice and it considered normal even for individuals have plentiful

resources much more than their needs.

Management in the 20th century has been largely understood as “accumulation” and not “co-

habitation” which is proposed for the 21st century. Management knowingly or unknowingly

became a mechanism for capital owners to enhance their capitals and in turn keep reducing the

share of the labour class utilizing the managerial class as their faces. This in turn became a
 24

mechanism for accumulation of wealth for those who had capital and increase in overall

poverty and inequality in the society in turn. This false conceptualization and operationalization

of management is the real cause of poverty and this is due to the fact that individuals are unable

to differentiate between absolute realities and fictional realities (Harari, 2014).

Management in the 21st century has to be understood as co-habitation i.e. both individuals and

organizations have to understand that one has to move away from the practice, attitude and

habit of accumulation. Individuals and organizations have to understand that accumulated

fictional entities in huge quantities are not going to reap happiness which is an absolute reality

in similar proportions. In contrast, distributing these fictional entities among the needy and the

poor which not coverts them into absolute realities but multiplies it. This is the kind of

management where distribution and not accumulation is the key principle is the requisite.

This research questions the very ethical dimension on which modern economics, living and

management thinking is based. It is not only restricted to society but to individual human

beliefs and behaviours. It calls out on human beings to come out of our fictional realities

(Harari, 2014) and start living absolute realities like in pre-Industrial age times. A new model

of management shying away from accumulation and based on co-habitation is proposed

(Ranjan, 2021e).

Management profession, its training and education is at crossroads (Ranjan, 2021a) and has

drifted (Porter & McKibbin, 1988) because of it being under twin traps of fictional conditioning

and surveillance panoption in the Industry 4.0. era (Ranjan, 2021d). Corporate elite thus need

to change the philosophy and become glocal practitioners and leaders (Ranjan, 2021b).

Reiterating the Lost “Public” in Post-COVID Era: Towards Emancipatory Freedom of

Individuals and a White Globe

The analysis suggests that freedom should not be seen as a means to achieve any political and

economic goals but as the ultimate end. Such economic and political conditions should be
 25

created in societies, nations and the world that lead to emancipatory freedom not only of the

people at the bottom of the economic, political and social pyramid but also of the people at the

top. The value of detached attachment with material possession, ownership and power lies at

the heart of such endeavour. Based on the principle of detached attachment, this paper reiterates

the forgotten models of organizational sociality and work for the 21st century.

Deliberation (Curato, Dryzek, Ercan, Hendriks & Niemeyer, 2017), wisdom of the crowds

(Surowiecki, 2005), a model which fosters greater sociality without boundaries of norms and

rules, openness (Dobusch, Dobusch & Müller-Seitz, 2019) can create true polity (Dryzek,

2016) and responsible business (Freeman, Parmar, & Martin, 2020). Technology (Habermas,

1970) in the 21st century can prove to be a boon and can have emancipatory consequences

(Gulenc & Ariturk, 2016) and can be used to create an open innovation society instead of a

totalitarian one based on the choice of class conflict chosen (Greaves, 2015).

Life if damaged (Adorno, 1951/2005) in Industry 4.0. era with work and leisure entangled in

such a way that slavery is at doorsteps. It is both individual and institutional change that needs

to be fostered to bring about a complete change in the way freedom, equality and brotherhood

is understood. Freedom must be seen as an end in itself and one who can see others as equal

and experience brotherhood across the space-time tapestry is the one who can be free

(Aurobindo, 1995) in the spirit of detached attachment and spirit possession (Boddy, 1994) and

not ownership possession (Baird & Jackson, 1982) with a paradoxical identity regulation

(Gotsi, Andriopoulos, Lewis et al., 2010). True democracies are those which can withstand

rejection (King & Land, 2018). It is time to undo work and rethink community (Chamberlain,

2018). Corporate Social Responsibility can turn to micro (Girschik, Svystunova & Lysova,

2020) in the spirit of “Small is Beautiful” (Schumacher, 1973). As India resurges into Golden

Bird 2.0. (Jain, 2020) the old and proven model of sociality in public sphere needs to be iterated
 26

again which will lead to creation of a White Globe and a people who has achieved emancipatory

freedom through detachment attachment (Mahadevan, 2014), enlightenment (Horkheimer &

Adorno, 1947/2002; Kant, 1784: 1996) in the Western sense.

 27

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