| Description |
1 online resource (30 minutes) |
| Summary |
An inside look at work and work culture in the software development centre of a large American multinational company, Sun Microsystems, located in Bangalore (Indian Engineering Centre, or IEC). The film highlights the multiple ways in which 'culture' operates as a management tool in the new global economy. In offshore centres such as IEC, work is organised through 'virtual teams' comprised of software engineers and managers located in Bangalore and Santa Clara, U.S.A. To integrate their employees and sites across cultural and geographical space, Sun attempts to initiate the Indian software engineers into Sun's corporate culture. The film depicts the techniques through which this American-style work culture is transplanted into the Indian subsidiary, such as induction programmes and 'soft skills' training programmes. The film also points to the contradictory ways in which 'culture' is invoked in the global corporate workplace: while cultural sensitivity training programmes validate cultural difference, Indian software engineers are expected to conform to the dominant model of global corporate culture by learning appropriate communication and behaviorial styles. The series of ethnographic films, Coding Culture, explores the cultures of outsourced work and the moulding of a new workforce to cater to this global high-tech services industry. The Indian software outsourcing industry has emerged as a key node of the global economy. Each of the three films focuses on a single company, representing one of the major types of software company found in Bangalore: a medium-sized Indian-owned company software services company (Mphasis: The 'M' Way); the offshore software development centre of a U.S.-based IT company (Sun Microsystems: Fun@Sun); and a small 'cross-border' startup company that produces its own software products and markets them to global customers (July Systems: July Boys). All three companies are engaged in the production of software products or services for markets outside of India, but the nature of their work and their position in the global economy differ, producing significant variations in their cultures of work. Each film revolves around a distinct theme that is central to the outsourcing industry as a whole, but that also has wider sociological significance: the systems of time and people management that are typical of these new global workplaces; the functioning of multicultural 'virtual teams' and the absorption of Indian software engineers into a global corporate culture; and the new identities that are emerging in this highly transnational sector of the Indian economy |
| Notes |
Title from resource description page (viewed January 30, 2020) |
| Event |
Recorded in Bangalore, India |
| Notes |
In English |
| Subject |
Sun Microsystems.
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| SUBJECT |
Sun Microsystems. fast (OCoLC)fst00638567 |
| Subject |
Information technology -- Contracting out.
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Information tehcnology -- Economic aspects -- India
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Information technology -- Contracting out.
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India.
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| Genre/Form |
Documentary films.
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Ethnographic films.
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Documentary films.
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Ethnographic films.
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Documentaires.
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Films ethnographiques.
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| Form |
Streaming video
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| Author |
Sonti, Gautam, director, editor of moving image work
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Upodhya, Carol, interviewer
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National Institute of Advanced Studies (Bangalore, India), production company.
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Documentary Educational Resources (Firm), production company, film distributor.
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