Manashi Ray

"Post-independence India has witnessed a rise in the number of women entering the management ranks in various organisations or performing as managers of individual/collective enterprises. This changing scenario of leadership and a futuristic view of successful organisations have brought the issue of women in management to the forefront. The trend in traditional research on women in management had emphasised person centered factors explaining gender differences in achievement. The more recent approach to this issue, however, recognises the interplay of factors in the person as well as in the situation. In particular, the interaction between a person’s thought, expectations and the situational factors of the immediate environment is believed to influence achievement. Many questions are being raised about the effectiveness of women as managers. Queries exist in the minds of managements who have to take the decision to place women in managerial positions as well as among women themselves. The answers therefore, would have to be sought from all parties concerned in developing a new appropriate and conducive perspective. This essentially implies a conscious effort to explore and examine myths about women in the decision making positions in the world of work. This paper basically examines these issues concerning woman as a manager in a holistic manner from three perspectives: from the societal, organisational, and individual perspectives. "

ABSTRACT Forced migrants who flee their home countries as part of a mass movement face significantly different realities than ‘refugees’, as conventionally understood and legally defined in the West. Forced migrants typically lack secure legal status and access to any form of welfare system. Additionally, because they lack social structures that support international migration, they often engage in ‘step-migration’. Before arriving at their final destination, they move to nearby countries where they can obtain assistance from other migrants, employers and smugglers who are absent in their native communities. Scholars who study forced migration and/or illegal migration focus especially on how migrants use resources at their points of origin or destination or both, but they always overlook the actual border-crossing experience of these vulnerable migrants. Based on twenty-one biographical narrative interviews with Burmese refugees in Battle Creek, Michigan, in 2012–2013, this paper examines how illegal border crossing from Myanmar’s Chin State to Thailand and then to Malaysia (and later to the United States after migrants are accepted as refugees by the UNHCR in Malaysia) is a migration strategy rather than an ‘end state’ and, among other factors, is related to the enormous difficulties of migrating legally to Malaysia. The paper examines hazardous border crossing (which requires clandestine agents and smugglers for crossing and documentation) and ‘irregular migrant’ status – defined as the lack of legal residence in a nation-state – as essential components of forced migration, which is no longer related only to labor migration and is an expensive, much longer process. Thus, drawing on the concepts of increased border control, stricter immigration policy and definition of citizenship by nation-state, this paper considers the agency of Burmese migrants and raises the question of whether their ability to migrate ‘irregularly’ can be regarded as a resource in the particular context of forced migration.

India is the second most populous country in the world vwith 934 milliont people and according to estimtates, it will grotv to 1.4 billion bfi 2030. However poppulation growth is not simply a problenm of numbers; it is a problem of humanlall welfare and development. Tlhis paper contendls ...

I direct my investigation on three sub-groups of the Indian population: Indian immigrant entrepreneurs in the United States, Indian entrepreneurs who have returned to India from the United States (returnees); and non-migrant Indian entrepreneurs in India engaged in transnational ...

Entrepreneurship is generally seen as empowering for women, notwithstanding the implicit socio-cultural bias suggesting that free enterprise is a masculine activity and women lack the skills or traits necessary for success. This chapter explores how social mechanisms at macro, meso and individual levels facilitate the re-drawing of gender roles and expectations for transnational Indian women entrepreneurs. Based on fifteen in-depth interviews with women engaged in cross-border enterprise, the chapter highlights how class and cultural capital, life course events (like marital status and children), the context of exit from India, and access to familial and community resources function as markers of different types of networking—multidimensional diasporic and ethnic—that create paths of upward mobility for some while reinforcing inequalities for others in both countries. Through their aspirations for better lives and refusal to hold secondary status to men, these women’s experiences show how gender affects transnational entrepreneurship and vice versa.

Over the last 35 years, the US has been the top recipient country for refugee resettlement. Despite political ambivalence about refugee admittance and their integration into America’s sociocultural fabric, little is known in refugee literature about how receiving countries’ refugee and asylum policies structure refugee migratory processes and flows from countries of origin. Based on 21 in-depth interviews and group discussions with Chin-Burmese families, this paper traces migratory strategies and routes from Northern Burma to the US by examining the role of class, family dynamics, cross-border connections and social capital in migratory decision-making for irregular border-crossings and endurance as transit migrants. Additionally, I analyse the critical functions of intermediary social actors and institutions, particularly faith and community-based organisations, for gaining entry to destination countries. I show that examining Chin refugees’ agency and pre-migratory motives demonstrates the heterogeneity of the refugee population, justifying Chimamanda Adichie’s claim that ‘nobody is just a refugee’.

The chapter examines the complexities of social, economic and political factors that facilitate the preparation and decisions to return from the United States to India by migrant Indian entrepreneurs. By drawing on forty two in-depth qualitative interviews conducted in 2007 and 2011 with Indian migrant and returnee entrepreneurs in multiple urban locations in the US and India, the chapter highlights how stages in the life course, familial responsibilities, gender, cultural affiliations, nationalism, and business opportunities motivate the return decisions. Importantly, the findings establish the dynamism of global networks and the social and human capital embedded in interpersonal relationships that make it possible for the circular movements of Indian migrant entrepreneurs between host and home countries. These results challenge the traditional thinking of migration as an outcome of economic and political dependency of developing countries in the world capitalist system, besides it does not mark the end of the migration cycle.

Post-independence India has witnessed a rise in the number of women entering the management ranks in various organisations or performing as managers of individual/collective enterprises. This changing scenario of leadership and a futuristic view of successful organisations have brought the issue of women in management to the forefront. The trend in traditional research on women in management had emphasised person centered factors explaining gender differences in achievement. The more recent
approach to this issue, however, recognises the interplay of factors in the person as well as in the situation. In particular, the interaction between a person’s thought, expectations and the situational factors of the immediate environment is believed to
influence achievement. Many questions are being raised about the effectiveness of women as managers. Queries exist in the minds of managements who have to take the decision to place women in
managerial positions as well as among women themselves. The answers therefore, would have to be sought from all parties concerned in developing a new appropriate and conducive perspective. This essentially implies a conscious effort to explore and examine myths about women in the decision making positions in the world of work. This paper basically examines these issues concerning woman as a manager in a holistic manner from three perspectives: from the societal, organisational, and individual perspectives.

India is the second most populous country in the world with 934 million people and according to estimates, it will grow to 1.4 billion by 2030. However population growth is not simply a problem of numbers; it is a problem of human welfare and development. This paper contends that population growth is not the only, or even the primary, source of low levels of living, eroding self esteem and limited freedom in the less developed nations. Contrary to customary assumptions, population growth in conjunction with other determinants of development has on many instances promoted social change, and in the recent past has been a boon to economic growth in the newly industrialised countries. It is therefore an issue of management and optimum utilisation of present and future human resources.

Shobha Raghuram and Manashi Ray examine the health
standards for the poor in India within the broader context of human
development concerns during the last decade, with special emphasis
on the role of the state and its commitment towards achieving
‘health for all’. They discuss the response of civil society in issues of
public health and in monitoring the accountability of the state,
underscoring the need for reforms in the state services

The main objective of this dissertation is to understand how and why Asian Indians maintain transnational business enterprises between the United States and India. Migration scholars now recognize that many contemporary migrants maintain various kinds of ties to their homelands while adapting to the countries that receive them. This makes transnationalism a phenomenon where social, economic, political, religious, and cultural lives of migrants span national boundaries, even as the political and cultural salience of nation-states remains strong.

I direct my investigation on three sub-groups of the Indian population: Indian immigrant entrepreneurs in the United States, Indian entrepreneurs who have returned to India from the United States (returnees); and non-migrant Indian entrepreneurs in India engaged in transnational business. In each sub-category of Asian Indian respondents (entrepreneurs), I examine their social status and economic class, level and type of higher education in India and the United States, work experiences, migratory networks, and ethnic group characteristics as pre-disposing factors for the formation of entrepreneurial networks. These play a decisive role in determining the cultural and social capital available to them for their transnational business endeavors. I also pay attention to the transforming neo-liberal global economic environment, the changes in the U.S. immigration policies along with concurrent changes in the Indian policies that affected the ease with which transnational business could be started in the last two decades of the 20th century.

The theory of capital, practice and network analysis frame my analytical investigation of the actions by which these transnational entrepreneurs navigate multiple institutional environments in pursuit of global markets and the ways in which these economic activities change the construction of “place” within transnational social spaces. Data was collected primarily through 42 in-depth interviews in the United States and in India between May 2007 and December 2007 in multiple urban locations in both countries.

The findings show that access to financial, cultural, intellectual or human, and social capital shape the different types of networks transnational entrepreneurs use, and how they act as resources and determinants at both the individual and collective levels.  Also, I establish the fundamental importance of the relational (norms and ties) and structural (size, diversity and connectivity) aspects of social networks, along with state sponsored investment policies and market opportunities in the host and home country. The findings confirm that configurations of transnational networking affect business performance and survival, an area that has received scant attention because ethnicity has been considered the main actor in the networking-performance relationship. Further, the research makes a significant intervention in scholarship on transnational entrepreneurship through articulating the ways in which multi-state citizenship and the political economies of both India and the United States promote circular and return migration and transnational business.

My findings on patterns of networks among transnational migrant communities in particular are in conversation with the expanding literature on markets and inequalities that examines how hubs for transnational flows of capital, knowledge, and skill—in addition to generating financial capital—become experiments of social engineering and community development that re-form or re-shape social and economic inequalities. My research on transnational Indian entrepreneurs expands the scope of migration literature on contemporary migrant populations who are highly skilled and mobile. My research establishes the nexus between globalization, international migration, and social change—where the immigrant and returnee transnational entrepreneurs act as agents of economic development but who also are inspired to think in new ways to create solutions across countries and business sectors. Finally, the dissertation makes a contribution to sociological knowledge of ethnicity and area studies, as the elements of Indian transnational entrepreneurship possess unique characteristics that make them distinctive, as it is true of various ethnic populations in the U.S.

The paper discusses the construction of a distinctive kind of identity by transnational immigrant and returnee Indian entrepreneurs by leveraging advantages from their dual state citizenship of the United States and India. Based on interviews with thirty three transnational businesspersons in the U.S. and India in 2007, I discuss how the multi-state membership enables transnational Indians to express their loyalties and emotional ties across national boundaries. I argue dual citizenship present transnational entrepreneurs with the freedom to re-formulate their identity by making individual choices in their expression of civic and social activities in both countries. I have termed this re-formulation of identity as ‘AmericanIndian’, which represents both assimilation and transnational combinations of personality traits drawn from life spanning multiple worlds. The study makes a contribution in advancing our imagination to think of a new immigrant identity formation among immigrant populations, which does not represent hybrid culture nor is it hyphenated.

Food practices are an expression of ethnic resilience. And the shared identity derived from familiar cultural symbols such as food is vitally important for a refugee population, who face considerable adversity on a daily basis as they begin to rebuild their lives in the host country. This paper investigates how the local cultivation and harvest of special leafy greens and vegetables that are not native to the American Midwest or available in chain or ethnic grocery stores – such as rosella leaves (chin paung), African eggplant (samtok), mustard greens (an tam), and bitter melon (an kha) – and the use of these vegetables in preparing Burmese cuisine are essential to negotiating the refugees’ local and global attachments. Drawing on ethnographic research with twenty one refugee families in Battle Creek, Michigan, in 2012-13, I contend that Burmese families construct a singular identity in a new form at a group and an individual level by maintaining distinctive dietary habits and food culture, which are greatly influenced by transnational linkages with co-nationals in all other domains in the refugee diaspora, and by kin and co-ethnics in the host and home countries. This analysis challenges the accepted notions of both dietary acculturation by migrants and resistance to acculturation as a form of ethnic identity preservation. Instead, the focus of the paper is on how Burmese food practices and the cuisine of the refugee families are expressions of simultaneous and ongoing attachments to multiple national identities.

The paper focuses on how and why returnee Indian migrants from the U.S. and non-migrant Indian transnational entrepreneurs leverage their individual resources of cultural, human, financial and social capital, and membership in networks to cultivate and advance their transnational entrepreneurship. It uses theory of practice as a framework to explain the differences and similarities in the types of actions and practices of these two groups of transnational entrepreneurs in navigating multiple institutional environments in pursuit of global markets. By using qualitative data from in-depth interviews with twenty one entrepreneurs in high-tech and consumer goods sector in numerous urban locations in India, the study draws attention to the important role of cultural repertoires and the advantages accrued from migration experience in the development and use of different networks for transnational business. The research highlights how the macro-economic policy changes since 1990s in India affected transnational entrepreneurs in dissimilar ways depending on their business sectors, geographic and social locations, and personal resources. In addition, this study contributes to understanding how multi-state citizenship and economic policies of both host and home countries promotes circular migration and transnational business, which has been a neglected topic in the study of transnational entrepreneurship.

Forced migrants who flee their home countries as part of a mass movement face significantly different realities than ‘refugees’, as conventionally understood and legally defined in the West.  Forced migrants typically lack secure legal status and access to any form of welfare system. Additionally, because they lack social structures that support international migration, they often engage in ‘step-migration’. Before arriving at their final destination, they move to nearby countries where they can obtain assistance from other migrants, employers and smugglers who are absent in their native communities. Scholars who study forced migration and/or illegal migration focus especially on how migrants use resources at their points of origin or destination or both, but they always overlook the actual border-crossing experience of these vulnerable migrants.
Based on twenty-one biographical narrative interviews with Burmese refugees in Battle Creek, Michigan, in 2012–2013, this paper examines how illegal border crossing from Myanmar’s Chin State to Thailand and then to Malaysia (and later to the United States after migrants are accepted as refugees by the UNHCR in Malaysia) is a migration strategy rather than an ‘end state’ and, among other factors, is related to the enormous difficulties of migrating legally to Malaysia. The paper examines hazardous border crossing (which requires clandestine agents and smugglers for crossing and documentation) and ‘irregular migrant’ status – defined as the lack of legal residence in a nation-state – as essential components of forced migration, which is no longer related only to labor migration and is an expensive, much longer process. Thus, drawing on the concepts of increased border control, stricter immigration policy and definition of citizenship by nation-state, this paper considers the agency of Burmese migrants and raises the question of whether their ability to migrate ‘irregularly’ can be regarded as a resource in the particular context of forced migration.