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India’s emergence in the IT arena: Accident, luck or social engineering? (Research in Progress). Ramesh Subramanian Quinnipiac University – School of Business Hamden, CT 06518 USA Ramesh.Subramanian@quinnipiac.edu. Motivations.
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India’s emergence in the IT arena: Accident, luck or social engineering?(Research in Progress) Ramesh Subramanian Quinnipiac University – School of Business Hamden, CT 06518 USA Ramesh.Subramanian@quinnipiac.edu
Motivations • History: a legitimate area of research in Management (Daniel Wren, 1987, 2003, 2004) • Shortage of historical research in Information Systems • History is especially important in understanding the intersection of organizations, information systems and society
Indian IT sector as a topic of study • Rapid emergence in the global IT services sector. • Fast becoming a favorite destination for software services such as help-desk, customer relations, back-end office processing, remote systems and network administration and more recently, IT research and development (R & D). • From a business-model perspective, India seems to have perfectly integrated both vertically and virtually in the range of IT services it provides to developed countries.
Reasons for India’s “emergence”(Kapur & Ramamurti, 2001) • Successful immigrants from India who settled in the United States of America, and who started up several successful IT ventures. • These IT experts then played a major role in transferring their know-how to India, or set up collaborative IT ventures and development centers in India. • The IT industry in India received a major boost through the “year-2000” (Y2K) problem. • The economic downturn in 1999-2000 caused several US and European organizations to turn to software outsourcing for economic reasons • India clearly benefited by offering qualified, English-speaking manpower at a fraction of the costs of similarly trained manpower in the western countries.
Questions • Are the often-stated reasons accurate? • What has led to India’s “emergence?” • What are the historical underpinnings? • What was the role of the government? • What was the role of the “free markets?” • What was the role of Indian society? • Who are/were the leading players? • Can this be emulated elsewhere? • What is likely to be the future?
This study • A qualitative, historical study • Tries to identify and understand the roots of IT in India • Trace the evolution of the IT services sector in India
Methodology • Qualitative study • Evidence (data) is collected from in-depth interviews and published literature • The primary sources of this research include interviews with government officials and leading IT industry professionals • Secondary resources include published articles in journals, conferences and web-based literature • Our main “hypothesis” is that the development and growth of India’s IT services sector is not a “spurt” phenomenon that occurred in the last 15 years, but is a continuous, evolutionary process that has its origins much before India’s Independence in 1947
Progress so far… • Interviews with Indian IT persona: • The subjects include a cabinet secretary in the government who served under four of India’s Prime Ministers and actually helped write India’s IT policy, a head of research in a specialized IT laboratory, academics and entrepreneurs • “Current” literature review • Historial literature review • Currently analyzing data
Progress so far… • Analysis phase: Initial results • There has been a more gradual, planned, or evolutionary path in India’s development in the IT sector • The roots of India’s IT prowess can be traced to India’s Independence movement • Central planning and the quest for self-reliance played a big role in building strong foundations • The same central planning also stifled the IT sector • A combination of strong foundation and macro-economic conditions have played a big part in the emergence of the Indian IT services sector
Offshoots • Roots of E-governance in India • Applying critical social theories to the architects of technology development in India • Cross-national studies of IT emergence • Socio-cultural issues and IT development
Questions for OASIS • This seems to be interesting, but will it become “acceptable” research? • Can you suggest any ideas to enhance this work? • Is there any theoretical background I can lean on? (i.e., complexity theory, chaos theory) • What could be possible avenues for publishing this? • Can we have an IT history track at ICIS/AMCIS? • Is there a Journal of IT history? Should there be one?