In
the 21st century, capitalism has clearly become
the dominant means of organizing economic life around the
globe. With the economic growth, India is increasingly following
the American Corporate Capitalism (ACC). Consumerism and rising
aspirations, especially of the Indian middle class, have given
rise to many social and economic phenomena for which parallels
can be drawn from the western world. In such a situation,
it would be a fruitful exercise to understand the aspirations
of the prospective employees from the organizational perspective.
Psychology,
as a discipline, rarely examines the effects of economic systems
on people's lives (Kasser et al., 2007), but it is
certainly something that needs to be examined especially with
reference to ACC, as it tends to have sociopsychological consequences
on the people living in it. ACC, in essence, is related to
certain practices and beliefs that foster the pursuit of self-interest,
economic growth, and high levels of consumption (Kasser et
al., 2007). There are several lines of evidence that suggests
that those who enter disciplines (such as business education,
economics, and law) that are closely related to the ideology
of ACC become increasingly focused on self-interested, financial
success values and beliefs and become less concerned with
cooperation and helping others (Frank et al., 2000;
and Sheldon and Krieger, 2004). |
