Dr. Ajeet N. Mathur is Professor Emeritus, New Delhi Institute of Management and Member of the Board of Directors of the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organisations. He has been Project Director Finland-India Economic Relations and Professor in Strategy and International Business, concurrently affiliated to the Economics and Strategy Areas at IIM Ahmedabad. His interests are at the crossroads of economics, human behaviour in groups, law, strategic management of organisational knowing and international business. These are reflected in his multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary advisory work with corporates on change management and transformative leadership, and as an expert on institutional design and missing markets with ILO, WHO, ADB and the European Commission. He was appointed Visiting Professor by IIT Roorkee in 2024.
He previously served as a tenured Professor at IIM Calcutta for about ten years. He was the IFCI Chair Professor at the Indian Council of Research on International Economic Relations and pioneered studies on traditional knowledge, missing markets in world trade, the conjunction of information technology and biotechnology in healthcare, India-Nordic Economic Relations and Indo-French Economic Relations. He has held visiting academic appointments at K.U. Leuven, Belgium, University of Edinburgh, Cornell University, University of California at Berkeley, University of Bielefeld, Germany, Helsinki School of Economics, Aalto University, Tampere University, Turku School of Economics, Royal University of Bhutan, IIM Bangalore and Fresenius University, Cologne. He was the Founding Professor of International Business, University of Tampere and EU-TEMPUS Professor of European Integration and Internationalisation.
His publications include over thirty books and over one hundred and sixty papers in scientific journals and anthologies. His most recent books are ‘Strategies for the Future’ (Penguin Random House, 2014), ‘Mysteries in Management’ (Penguin Random House, 2016), Finland-India Business Opportunities (Springer, 2019), The Constitutional Law of Nepal (Wolters Kluwer, 2020), The Behavioural Foundations of Economics (Springer, forthcoming) and European Trauma (World Scientific, forthcoming). A significant focus of his research is on pervasive uncertainty and systemic risks, how motives and powerbases combine in group relations and the unconscious dynamics of groups, on bridging strategy with organisation development, on the dynamic co-evolution of capabilities, on politics of disharmony in the management of gender differences, why missing markets remain, market barriers, and the management of institutional diversity in cross-border value chains.
A recipient of the President of India’s Medal for the best all round student (1972), and the Bharat Chamber of Commerce Gold Medal for the most balanced approach to management problems (1977), Ajeet Mathur received his Ph.D. degree from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. In his early career, he worked in various positions of responsibility with Tata Economic Consultancy Services, ITC Limited and the Times Group for more than a decade before his appointment as a tenured Professor at IIM Calcutta where he taught and researched for ten years. He has been a Senior Fulbright Fellow and a Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Scholar. He was nominated India’s National Expert on Managerial Productivity with APO, Tokyo. He is the recipient of the Prestige Award as “Professor of the Year 2014”, Academy of Management “Outstanding Reviewer” Award in 2016 and 2017, IIM Ahmedabad Research Award 2020, and the Harold Bridger Award, 2021.
He has been a member of the Board of Directors with organisations in India, Europe and North America and is consulted by businesses, governments, international organisations and the policy research community. He served a term as the Director and CEO, Institute of Applied Manpower Research with the rank of Secretary to the Government of India in the Planning Commission. He was Chairperson, Centre for Gender Equity, Diversity and Inclusivity, IIM Ahmedabad for six years. He has directed IIM Ahmedabad’s Group Relations Working Conferences titled “Authority, Organisation, Strategies, and Politics of Relatedness” (AOSPOR) since 2009 and “Managing You and Me in Roles and Systems” (focusing on processes concerning couples, dyads and pairs in organisations) since 2011. He has been a member of the Board, School of Inter-disciplinary studies, Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU).
As a “Yoga Shikshak” and Karma Sannyasin of the Bihar School of Yoga and an Affiliate Life Member of the Indian Psycho-analytic Society, he is interested in the evolution of human consciousness and the connections between yoga and mindful well-being of persons, groups and organisations for harmony-sensing and harmony-seeking in communities. His speech on ‘Frontiers of Faith in Yoga and Psycho-analysis’ at the Inaugural Conference of psycho-analysts in India organised by the Fortis Research Institute followed by Sudhir Kakar’s dialogue with him can be found here. He holds a post-graduate diploma in counselling and family therapy. He is a Fellow of the Sumedhas Academy of Human Context, a Founding Member of the Harmoninen Laulu Yhdistys Ry (Harmonic Music Foundation) and an Invitee to the Finnish Chapter of the Club of Rome. He is biographically cited in several international directories. These include the biographical directory of persons who have significantly contributed to understanding of group relations.
