South Asia Investor Review

I grew up hearing the word jugaad as commonly used in India and Pakistan to describe any unsophisticated, often dangerous, contraption built on the fly to solve a pressing problem to make do in the absence of a better, more elegant solution. Jugaad is how the mechanics in India and Pakistan manage to keep very old and outdated machines running with crudely made parts, long after the original manufacturers have discontinued making them. Now, a few Indian management gurus in the West have a found a way to sell jugaad as a sophisticated management technique to industry and academia. An example of it I saw during one of my visits to India nearly killed me when my driver almost ran into an nondescript vehicle on the road between Delhi and Agra. It was a makeshift diesel engine mounted on a wooden cart with no lights or safety devices of any kind being used in near darkness to transport people. After the near-miss, it was described to me as Jugaad, with the warning to stay away from it, and...