Management, Food Preparation, and the Ethical Dimension at the Khao Kaewsadet Education Center

Abstract

The canon of Buddhist scripture contain many passages dealing with workplace relations through describing appropriate means of structuring the employer-employee relationship. These instructions are read with many other forms of ethical precepts concerning the ways in which interpersonal relationships should be managed. However, it is apparent that there is an onus upon managers to establish appropriate workplace conditions and relationships so as to facilitate the desired response from employees. Throughout history, the vast majority of workplace relationships have been abusive and exploitative and so it is not surprising that most employees show little if any loyalty to employers or to the organization involved. In Thailand, this has contributed to the culture of deference, based on fear, behind the traditions of the Land of Smiles. Food, in other words, is directly linked by Buddhist scripture with the proper establishment of organisational relations and the means of enabling employees to locate themselves within the hierarchy of which they are a part and, also, providing them with a means of determining their own standing and performance.

One particular occasion on which this situation has been put into practice has been in the case of the Khao Khaewsadet Education Centre (KKEC), which is a centre for practicing and promoting Buddhist meditation that draws participants from around the world. Extensive qualitative interviewing of the workforce took place as part of a more extensive programme of research aimed at uncovering the connections between contemporary management practice and the lessons of Buddhist dhamma.

Results of the study to date, which is ongoing, indicate that there is an understandable tendency for workers to stick to their home countrymen during the initial period of their stay and this, combined with a measure of mutual incomprehensibility, represents the possibility for some interpersonal conflicts. Instead, workers are integrated into the philosophical and religious environment of the place of work and, to some extent, it might be expected that most if not all of the workers involved were willing to be engaged with these religious and philosophical components or, at the very least, to be receptive to attempts to draw them into it. This has, in any case, been a focus for the management who have sought to use food and the occasions on which communal dining is involved to incorporate also religious elements. Such a process might combine meditation with a communal meal or short sermon might also be used. These are juxtaposed with favourite foods – papaya salad or som tum in various incarnations – which are not only enjoyable for everyone involved but also require collaboration for production. Since all the people involved are accustomed to the production of food for groups, cooperative food production represents a form of discourse which all people can share and learn from each other. The cultural norms of food production in the Mekong Region transcend national and cultural borders