A vivid portrait of India’s outsourcing industry In the Indian outsourcing industry, employees are expected to be "dead ringers" for the more expensive American workers they have replaced—complete with Westernized names, accents, habits, and lifestyles that are organized around a foreign culture in a distant time zone. Dead Ringers chronicles the rise of a workforce for whom mimicry is a job requirement and a passion. In the process, the book deftly explores the complications of hybrid lives and presents a vivid portrait of a workplace where globalization carries as many downsides as advantages. Shehzad Nadeem writes that the relatively high wages in the outsourcing sector have empowered a class of cultural emulators. These young Indians indulge in American-style shopping binges at glittering malls, party at upscale nightclubs, and arrange romantic trysts at exurban cafés. But while the high-tech outsourcing industry is a matter of considerable pride for India, global corporations view the industry as a low-cost, often low-skill sector. Workers use the digital tools of the information economy not to complete technologically innovative tasks but to perform grunt work and rote customer service. Long hours and the graveyard shift lead to health problems and social estrangement. Surveillance is tight, management is overweening, and workers are caught in a cycle of hope and disappointment. Through lively ethnographic detail and subtle analysis of interviews with workers, managers, and employers, Nadeem demonstrates the culturally transformative power of globalization and its effects on the lives of the individuals at its edges.

Compilation of interdisciplinary research conference papers on processes and agencies of technological change and technology transfer for economic development purposes - covers technology transfer in the construction industry, manufacturing and agriculture, communication (incl. Mass media) and diffusion of innovations, the role of universitys and multinational enterprise in international dissemination of management techniques. Conference held in ann arbor 1968.

Originally published in 1988, this book considers some of the major social, economic and environmental questions raised by the role of new technology in development. Throughout the discussions of issues like the sustainability of the development effected by new technology is supported by detailed case studies from countries such as India, Australia, New Zealand, China, Bangladesh and South Africa.

"If there is a reason why a nation which launches satellites has reduced its promising indigenous computer manufacturing industry to 'vegetable' retailing, one can search for it in this 200-page book.... Brunner's rigorous statistical study uses figures for the 10 crucial years between 1976 and 1986 to discover the directions which the industry had taken, and is taking. The book lists exhaustive data drawing from the numerous interviews with the department of electronics and other agencies." --The Economic Times Closing the Technology Gap provides crucial information on newly industrialized countries, detailing the necessary steps for achievement of technological parity with more advanced countries. Focusing on the fascinating history of India's technological growth, the author provides a basis for his study. This book makes a bold contribution in the field of technological analysis as well as giving economically developing countries intelligent guidelines to follow. Areas of interest include: Economics, Industrial Development, Industrial Policy, Computer Technology, Policy Studies, and Business.