Title: Family Business In India Author: Sudipt Dutta Publisher: Response Books, 1997.

This is essentially a business and management book which aims at providing an engrossing read to the owners of business and members of their family. Their social and family aspects have been detailed here, to help professionals employed in family business for a better understanding of their employers, to students and also to foreign companies or individuals interested in Indian business.
The journey of the conditions of India from pre Independence times to the current, the evolution of local traders into polished industrialists, and the traditions that define a business is well articulated in the book. Indias approach towards business is explained by comparing it with that of other countries such as China, Korea, Japan and so on. Readers are enriched with instances, references and statistical data at each stage of the book

to support various analyses presented. Sudipt Dutta has used a multi-disciplinary approach to highlight the uniqueness in which family business is carried out in India. It is a thoroughly researched book replete with useful data which makes it one of the most comprehensive books on family business in India. The impact that different members in the family have on the running of a business, the practices prevalent in the society and the effect of caste and religion over the skills required and acquired are well expressed. The book talks about how values and designations are important to the functioning of a business. Aspects like profit skimming during high tax rate regimes, the ethics followed, and the ways of growth and survival are conveyed. The book describes the roles and types of managers and how they face managerial and technical problems in the business. The methods followed and the reasons that prompted foreign firms to start joint ventures with Indian families and the managerial problems posed by such kind of a marriage on a day to day basis is communicated here. We also understand how such conflicts, despite cultural differences were resolved. In the end it focuses on the local resentment that foreign companies faced in many countries due to their inability to accept local business practices and look beyond their rigid value systems. Sudipt Dutta is a Principal Correspondent at the Calcutta Bureau of Business India. He has worked with The Telegraph. As he rightly says, the intention behind this book was to provide readers with documented information on the greatly dominated Indian family industry. The material for this book has been collected by him from over 600 interviews as a business reporter and references collected from works of some other writers and publishers. It is a well documented and illustrated book which was long overdue and will provide an interesting read to one and all.