戈沙爾1948年出生于印度加爾各達，曾在印度石油公司工作，后來就讀于麻省理工學院和哈佛大學。1988年戈沙爾來到歐洲，先是在法國歐洲工商管理學院工作，1994年又到了倫敦商學院。同時他還在許多企業(yè)的董事會中任職，并被提名為管理學會、國際商學會和世界經(jīng)濟論壇成員。戈沙爾被認為是對歐洲管理思想體系最有影響的人物之一。

He graduated from Delhi University with Physics major and at the Indian Institute of Social Welfare and Business Management^[1] and worked for Indian Oil Corporation, rising through the management ranks before moving to the United States on a Fulbright Fellowship and Humphrey Fellowship^[2] in 1981. Ghoshal was awarded an S.M. and a Ph.D. from the MIT Sloan School of Management in 1983 and 1985 respectively, and was also awarded a D.B.A. degree from Harvard Business School in 1986.

In 1985, he joined INSEAD Business School in France and wrote a stream of influential articles and books. In 1994, he joined the London Business School. Ghoshal was a Fellow of the Advanced Institute of Management Research (AIM) in the U.K and a Professor of Strategic and International Management at the London Business School. He served as a member of The Committee of Overseers of the Harvard Business School.^[3]

1989 年，戈沙爾與巴特萊特首次合作，出版了《跨越邊界的管理》一書，該書發(fā)展了“跨國公司”的概念，并指出，一種新的國際商業(yè)戰(zhàn)略和機構模式正在崛起。他們提出，老式的多國公司和全球公司在全球效率和本地響應性的呼聲推動下已經(jīng)不得不改革了。面對全球化和本地化的選擇，公司只能同時接受這兩種策略。

戈沙爾與巴特萊特稱，這樣的結果就是跨國公司的產(chǎn)生，它兼具大公司和小公司的特性，可以同時進行全球和地區(qū)化的運營。與集權化和等級森嚴的結構不同，跨國公司實行網(wǎng)絡化運作，其遍布全球的越來越專業(yè)化的基地完美地結合在一起，相互協(xié)調運作。他們理論體系的核心是要求經(jīng)理人具備一種心態(tài)，使他們能夠跨越國界工作，整合各地的隊伍和資源，以實現(xiàn)戰(zhàn)略目標。

到上世紀90年代中期，戈沙爾與巴特萊特又合作出版《個人化公司》一書，對商業(yè)的變革做了更深入的探究。他們說，眼下正在發(fā)生一場革命，牽頭的是ABB和通用電氣這樣的先驅公司，他們不再強迫員工遵循嚴格的規(guī)章制度，而是對機構本身進行調整，使其適應員工的才干和能力，這完全可以稱得上“個人化公司”。通過這樣做，這些公司“釋放了被企業(yè)束縛的人質”，讓個人能有創(chuàng)新和為公司增添價值的空間。

戈沙爾說，目標比戰(zhàn)略或體制更為重要，讓機構的每個成員都擁有一個共同的目標是機構變革的關鍵。當今最成功的大公司都認識到了目標的重要性，并把目標而不是那些先入為主的公司概念和策略作為關注焦點。

戈沙爾已于2004年11月去世，但就在去世前不久，他提出了一個至今仍在管理學界爭論的話題。戈沙爾認為，過去30年中各商學院學術圈中所發(fā)展的一系列理論，是最近諸多公司丑聞產(chǎn)生的根源。他的觀點是：“為了避免安然事件的重演，商學院并不需要做太多事情，相反，他們只要停止做一些正在做的事情就行了。”這篇論文發(fā)表在《管理教育和學習》上，題目是《惡劣的管理理論正在破壞優(yōu)良的商業(yè)實踐》。戈沙爾認為，如今的管理實踐中很多飽受抨擊的弊病，都可以在管理學術理論中找到根源，“我們的理論和觀點可能助長了我們如今正在厲聲譴責的管理實踐”。

比如說，商學院的理論家們把作為研究對象的人當作“經(jīng)濟人”——理性、自私、追求效用最大化，并且認為公司的目標是追求股東價值的最大化。這些被奉為圭臬的假設與理論雖然能夠使商學院的教授、學者們在其基礎上“科學地”發(fā)展管理理論，推理出嚴謹?shù)?a href="/wiki/%E6%95%B0%E5%AD%A6%E6%A8%A1%E5%9E%8B" title="數(shù)學模型">數(shù)學模型，但其本身卻有著各種各樣的缺陷，而且大多過于簡化，最重要的是，它們沒有考慮到“人的意圖與選擇的因素”。

于是，建筑在這樣的基礎上的種種管理理論的有效性也就令人懷疑了，它們不但稱不上科學，反而會把學生們引上岐路。例如，教授們在課堂上告訴學生，不要信任公司的管理人員。因而這些學生在日后成為經(jīng)理后，也不認為自己有義務保持嚴格的操守，對自己的行為負責。這正是那一系列的公司丑聞中的主角都是名牌商學院畢業(yè)生的原因之一。

雖然戈沙爾的這種觀點未免有些極端，但確實又在很大程度上引起了人們對商學院深深的反思。

• 《跨越邊界的管理》（1989）
• 《個性化公司》
• 《惡劣的管理理論正在破壞優(yōu)良的商業(yè)實踐》
• "Beyond Self-Interest Revisited" by Hector Rocha and Sumantra Ghoshal, Journal of Management Studies, 2006 Vol. 43, No. 3, pp. 585-619
• "Bad Management Theories are Destroying Good Management Practices" by Sumantra Ghoshal, Academy of Management Learning and Education, 2005 Vol. 4 Issue 1, pp. 75-91
• "Unleashing Organisational Energy" by Heike Bruch and Sumantra Ghoshal, MIT Sloan Management Review, Fall 2003 Vol. 45, No. 1, pp. 45–51
• "What is a Global Manager" by Christopher A. Bartlett and Sumantra Ghoshal, Harvard Business Review, 2003 Aug;81(8):101-108, 141
• "Managing Personal Human Capital" by Lynda Gratton and Sumantra Ghoshal, European Management Journal, 2003 vo. 21, No. 1, pp. 1-10
• "Beware the Busy Manager" by Heike Bruch and Sumantra Ghoshal, Harvard Business Review, 2002, vol. 80, No. 2, pp. 62-69
• "Strategy as a Guided Evolution" by Bjorn Lovas and Sumantra Ghoshal, Strategic Management Journal, 2000, vol. 21, No. 9, pp. 875-896
• "Management Competence, Firm Growth and Economic Progress" by Sumantra Ghoshal, M Hahn and Peter Moran, Contributions to Political Economy, Vol. 18, pp. 121-150, 1999
• "Markets, Firms, and the Process of Economic Development" by Peter Moran and Sumantra Ghoshal, The Academy of Management Review, 1999, Vol. 24, No. 3, 390-412
• "Social Capital and Value Creation: The Role of Intrafirm Networks" by Wenpin Tsai and Sumantra Ghoshal, The Academy of Management Journal, 1998 Vol. 41, No. 4, pp. 464-476
• "Social capital, intellectual capital and the organizational advantage" by Janine Nahapiet and Sumantra Ghoshal, Academy of Management Review, 1998 23(2): 242-266
• "Theories of Economic Organisation: The Case for Realism and Balance" by Peter Moran and Sumantra Ghoshal, The Academy of Management Review, 1996, Vol. 21 No. 1, pp. 58-72
• "Bad For Practice: A Critique of the Transaction Cost Theory" by Sumantra Ghoshal and Peter Moran, The Academy of Management Review, 1996 Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 13-47
• "Building the Entrepreneurial Corporation: New Organisational Processes, New Managerial Tasks" by Sumantra Ghoshal and Christopher A. Bartlett, European Management Journal, 1995 Vol. 13 No.2, pp. 139-55
• "Differentiated Fit and Shared Values: Alternatives for Managing Headquarters-Subsidiary Relations" by Nitin Nohria and Sumantra Ghoshal, Strategic Management Journal, 1994, Vol. 15, No. 6, pp. 491-502
• "Interunit Communication in Multinational Corporations" by Sumantra Ghoshal, Harry Korine and Gabriel Szulanski, Management Science, Vol. 40, No. 1, January 1994, pp. 96-110
• "Beyond the M-form: Toward a Managerial Theory of the Firm" by Christopher A. Bartlett and Sumantra Ghoshal, Strategic Management Journal, 1993 No. 14, Winter, pp. 23-46
• "Matrix Management: Not a Structure, a Frame of Mind" by Christopher A. Bartlett and Sumantra Ghoshal, Harvard Business Review, 1990 Jul-Aug; 68(4): 138-145
• "Environmental Scanning in Korean Firms: Organisational Isomorphism in Action" by Sumantra Ghoshal, Journal of International Business Studies, 1988 Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 69-86
• "Creation, Adoption, and Diffusion of Innovations by Subsidiaries of Multinational Corporations" by Sumantra Ghoshal and Christopher A. Bartlett, Journal of International Business Studies, 1988 Vol. 19, No. 3, pp. 365-388