Rediscovering Six Factor Entrepreneurial Decision Making (EDM) Model in Thirukkural

Management is a combination of elements from science, arts, psychology, statistics, mathematics, philosophy, ethics and sociology etc. A balanced combination of elements from all these sciences and arts is helpful in contributing to the economy in terms of efficiency of our economic system. In ancient India, management was never based on materialism, instead morality and spirituality used to be the basis of managing businesses. In modern India, we see four pillars of knowledge: Ravindra Nath Tagore, Maharishi Arvindo, Swami Vivekanand and Mahatma Gandhi. Undoubtedly they have tried to explore ancient heritage like Vedanta, Gita, Upanishads etc. but Jain literature has been ignored while exploring our ancient heritage of management techniques and models. This paper attempts to establish the relevance of the teachings of Thirukkural in modern management practices. Specific focus is on six factor model for a new business venture available in Thirukkural. We will try to understand the relevance of six factor model in entrepreneurial and organizational decision making. There is further scope of looking forward to integrating some elements into the existing framework to create a more sustainable management theory. According to Robbins, Examples from the past demonstrate that organizations have been with us for thousands of years and that management has been practiced for an equivalent period. However, it has been only in the past several hundred years, particularly in the last century that management has undergone systematic investigation, acquired a common body of knowledge, and become a formal discipline for study. It seems that such statements have been made before looking into great treasures of management in ancient Indian literature like Thirukkural, Gita etc. otherwise the scholars would have found the roots of business management in ancient Indian literature undoubtedly timing a few thousands years before this statement.