Spanning Cultural Boundaries: U.S. Return Migrants in the Indian Technology Sector

Roli Varma (), Meghna Sabharwal, Anna Schaeffer and Safiyah Zaidi
Additional contact information
Roli Varma: School of Public Administration MSC053100, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA
Meghna Sabharwal: Public and Nonprofit Management, Professor and Associate Provost for Faculty Success, The University of Texas at Dallas, 800 W. Campbell Road, GR 31, Richardson, TX 75080, USA
Anna Schaeffer: School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 75080, USA
Safiyah Zaidi: The University of Chicago Law School, University of Chicago, 1111 East 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA

World, 2025, vol. 6, issue 3, 1-17

Abstract: Most studies on cross-national workplace cultures in technology companies focus either on multiple countries or on individuals of different nationalities within a single country. This paper, however, is unique in being both monocultural and cross-cultural. It examines workplace culture in Indian and U.S. technology companies through the perspectives of returning Indian migrants. The paper is based on in-depth interviews with 50 scientists and engineers who returned to India after studying and working in the U.S. It is monocultural because the participants are professionals working in the Indian technology sector, and cross-cultural because they have also experienced working in the U.S. technology sector. The paper shows that these individuals, motivated by personal and professional factors, represent a new demographic that synthesizes differences and similarities between Indian and American workplace cultures into a cohesive interpretation.

Keywords: individualism vs. collectivism; power distance; return migration; transnational migrants; work ethics; workplace culture (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G15 G17 G18 L21 L22 L25 L26 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 R51 R52 R58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2673-4060/6/3/126/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2673-4060/6/3/126/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jworld:v:6:y:2025:i:3:p:126-:d:1746093

Access Statistics for this article

World is currently edited by Ms. Cassie Hu

More articles in World from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().