Providing an India Centric view:
Hard work is almost irrationally idolized here. True Anecdote - I wanted to check out a Car on a Tuesday afternoon, the first thing the Car salesman asked me are you on a holiday today from Work? (it was inconceivable for him that I could take off at 3.30). I was at a talk by a very senior Computer Professional and heard the following boast - "no one in my company puts in less than 10 hours a day". The company he speaks about has 20,000 employees in one location alone. After the talk a ton of people congratulated him for inspiring them to drive their employees to work harder.
The stupidity in those comments just boggles the mind.
From my experience in a couple of 'large Indian IT companies': it is a matter being seen by your boss as 'being around'.
Out of an average of the 10 hours put in per day, I daresay only about 6-7 are productive. The rest would be spent in coffee breaks, meal-time breaks, smoke breaks, and sending around pictures of puppies, kittens and babies.
To be fair though, quite a fair number of these IT workers are expected to work standard hours, and then put in at least a couple of hours face-time with the client. The client is [more often than not] either European or American, so there's no real way out.
