New Delhi, Jan. 22 -- Ever wonder why Germans seek perfection, Japanese pursue miniaturization and waste reduction, Americans are fussy about services and Indians settle for improvisation and what's good enough? Is it something to do with where you reside?

With pervasive technologies, affordable means of communication, maturing labour and capital markets and instant information dissemination, one may think that geography has become history, that who you are trumps where you are. But is it that simple? Or is geography destiny?

"Who we are cannot be separated from where we're from," notes writer Malcolm Gladwell. "When and where you are born, what your parents did for a living, and what the circumstances of your upbringing were make a sig...