Arup Varma is taking part in the research project of a lifetime. The professor of management at the Loyola University Quinlan School of Business and recently-named Fulbright Scholar will spend five months in India participating in the prestigious Fulbright exchange.
According to the Quinlan School, Varma will study the performance management of expatriates and develop a model that can be used by multinational companies worldwide as they develop their performance management systems. There is currently no proper model in the academic literature for evaluating expatriates when they are working in other countries.
“I decided to combine two topics of interest to me: performance appraisal and expatriates,” Varma said. “My Ph.D. advisor once told me that the best research topics come out of your personal experiences, and both of these topics are very close to my heart.
Varma will be hosted by the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow, one of the top business schools in India. While collaborating with faculty and doctoral candidates from Lucknow, he will travel the country and meet with top HR leaders and expatriates to learn how they are evaluated and managed.
Professor Arup Varma/Photo by Heather Eidson.
There is also some altruism behind Varma’s decision to be a Fulbright in India: the Quinlan professor wanted to help his home country in whatever way he could.
“It is clear that academic research in India has started to improve, but is not yet where it should be,” he said. “As I grew up and studied there, the least I can do is pay it back, and help the academic environment there move to the level that it needs to be and play a global leadership role.”
Varma has studied expatriate work issues for the past 15 years, and his research on expatriate issues has been published in notable peer-reviewed journals including the Journal of Managerial Psychology, the International Journal of Human Resource Management, and the European Journal of International Management.
“It is also a great honor as a faculty member and for Loyola. It means we are not just a good teaching school, but we are also a good scholarship school and that continues to be reinforced. I have been very lucky that Quinlan has been very supportive of those of us interested in pursuing research.”
You can read more about Varma’s work and upcoming trip here.