Project Direction 2 (Cross-cultural Communication)

I arrived in the USA over a decade ago from India, and am quite familiar with the lifestyles and cultures of both countries. In my travels, I've visited England, Germany, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Maldives, learning that each culture has something unique about it that gave it a special place in the world.

The Buddhist culture in Thailand was impressive - it was awe-inspiring to see the Temple of the Golden Buddha, which has a 10-foot tall statue of the Buddha in Gold.

I expected the people in England to be cold and aloof (not merely because Hollywood villians usually have a British accent!) but was pleasantly surprised to find that they were quite warm and friendly. I mentioned this to an Englishman at Heathrow airport when I was waiting for my flight out of the country, and he gently corrected me and said that I was suffering from a misconception and that English people aren't friendly at all - they were only being nice to me because they saw my camera and knew I was a tourist!

Germany was very interesting, because the people were so logical in their thinking - not only the fellow engineers I met with as part of my job, but also those who worked in the grocery stores and the restaurants!

I believe that in the modern era where people from diverse cultures are working with each other in the same company, cross-cultural is not only inevitable, but also to be celebrated. I'm therefore interested in cross-cultural communication in the organizational context.

Project Direction - 1 (Globalization)

As an MBA student, I'm very interested in the area of Globalization and its effects on the business and economics. This is an area that was not taught in business schools as recently as a decade ago, and has only lately become a required course in many MBA curricula, including San Jose State University (the class is "Global Business Environment"). I consider myself well-read in the area having followed the news for the past few years on how the businesses in the USA and especially Asia have been impacted by the global free market.

This is related to the field of Organizational Communication because Organizations are no more limited by geographical barriers. I've used audio and video conferencing with my colleagues in Germany and other parts of the world. I've interacted with teams in other companies located on the other side of the globe - I dial into the meeting at 6am California time they attend the same meeting at 10pm local time!