Indian Companies Are Adding Western Flavor

American corporations are increasingly sending service-oriented, knowledge-intensive jobs to India. The new employees are well-educated, English-speaking, and fully prepared to answer any technical question an American customer might ask. Just don't expect them to know how to sip wine at a business party or the appropriate way to greet an American colleague. Such subtle, Western, cultural practices are understandably foreign to new Indian recruits. However, corporations maintain that being able to fit in seamlessly among Westerners is integral if foreign employees are to fluidly perform daily business interactions and overcome the image of cheap labor. These corporations are therefore establishing training programs that seek to give the recruits a polished, urbane face. "The training in American culture is not to make Indian software professionals less Indian," one businesswoman said. "It is to make them more globally competent." Yet Americans too must learn to work in a global marketplace. Some training programs prefer to train Americans and Indians together. And corporate directors are urging American clients to refer to Indians as "consultants and partners," not "contractors and vendors." – YaleGlobal