"We Make Magic Here": Exploring Social and Cultural Practices Within a Global Software Organization in India

Abstract

The increased transnationalisation of work and production has re-shaped international business environments, forms of work, organizational structures, and work cultures. Employing data from an ethnographic case study from India, this chapter provides an understanding of how micro-experiences of Indian information technology (IT) or knowledge workers are intermeshed with the dynamics of a high-tech organization, also called a global software organization (GSO). It argues that while GSOs in India are workplaces that can be viewed as both models of and models for globalization processes, they are also milieus deeply imbued with personal, social, and cultural relations and processes. By delineating the various forms of culture in a GSO, the study highlights the dialectical relationship between the local and global. Further, it explicitly demonstrates they ways by which GSOs and their workers constantly construct meaning and coherence in a volatile and international business context.