International Conference 2014
Moving Towards Harmonic Society: Envisioning Management, Leadership and Consciousness in 21st Century
Date: 23rd to 25th April 2014
Time: 10 AM to 6 PM
Venue: Indus Business Academy, Bangalore
In the current age, of Man-made turbulences, the need for moving towards Harmony is being felt across the world. Impact of violence and turbulence is becoming self-evident across the nations and businesses. Countries and Businesses have to spend extraordinary amounts for ensuring their security. The world needs, a new thinking, a new paradigm and a vision, going beyond existing isms and ideas. While on the one hand world has evolved from Tribes to Religions to Nations to Corporations and Globalization, on the other hand, human mindset is still rooted, in the animalistic and Darwinian mentality of treating Other as the enemy. For moving towards harmonic society, there is an urgent need to address the issue of Harmony in terms of the transformation of mindset from violence to non-violence and design new institutional structures and systems based on non-violence. It requires a new revolution in thinking about Management, Leadership and Consciousness, and Indian tradition can contribute significantly to developing new frameworks for the same.
During the ancient period, the idea of Harmony was talked about, however, it was mostly the idea of Harmony within a Hierarchy. Even in modern times, Harmony has been, talked about within the Hierarchical paradigm. However, now we need the new paradigm of Hierarchy for Harmony without Hierarchy. Old ABC of Harmony within Hierarchy needs to be replaced by new ABCD (Alpha, Beta, Sigma, Delta) of Harmony without Hierarchy. Efforts for such new thinking about Harmony have been going on in several parts of the world by several thinkers and institutions. In 2012, Global Harmony Association brought out a book under the title ABC of Harmony wherein there are some glimpses of Harmony without hierarchy. For an idea to take deeper roots, we need to view it from various perspectives such as Philosophical, Scientific, Psycho-spiritual and Mystical. Such a perception leads us to an Integrative and Integral view for creating a new social vision. The idea of ‘Harmonic Globalization’ represented by four lions metaphor drawn from Indian tradition provides us with a new basis for developing some new perspectives for moving towards ‘Harmony without Hierarchy’ through new understanding and new mantras of Management, Leadership and Consciousness.
With this conference the aim was to deliberate on such issues and suggest the ways and means, to operationalize the new vision of Harmony through new institutional structures and correspondingly new perspectives on Business, Management, Leadership and Consciousness.
The conference attracted participation from more than 100 participants from India and abroad. Prof. Siddarth Shastri (Banasthali Vidyapith) inaugurated the conference. Dr. K.B.Akhilesh (Dept. of Management Studies, IISc) was the Chief Guest and delivered the keynote address as well. Shri B.M.L. Jain (Chairman-IBA, Bangalore) and Dr. Subhash Sharma (Director-IBA, Bangalore) also addressed the gathering.
Over the three days of the conference, fifty scholarly papers were presented, by fifty-three speakers from the industry as well as academia.
