Quinlan Professor Heads to India as new Fulbright Scholar
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.
Quinlan Professor and Fulbright Scholar Returns from Research Project in Poland
Maciek Nowak, an Associate Professor at the Quinlan School of Business, recently returned from overseas, where he spent time abroad as a Fulbright Scholar. In a recent interview following his return, he spoke directly about his work with Poland’s postal service, Poczta Polska.
Speaking with the student reporter Monica Sather, Nowak talked about the workshop, his research, and his experience abroad as a Fulbright Scholar.
“I learned more about my background, as I was born in Poland but moved when I was very young. Spending six months in Poland gave me a much better sense of what daily life is like and allowed me to experience many of the traditions that I had taken part in on a much smaller scale while growing up in the U.S. It was just awesome.
I would encourage any faculty member or student to apply to the Fulbright program. Through the Fulbright, you have the opportunity to serve as an ambassador of the U.S., connecting to such a broad range of people of different backgrounds and nationalities while being a part of a group that represents some of the best our country has to offer.”
Nowak spent six months working with Warsaw School of Economics faculty in effort to help the logistics network of the Poczta Polska. He also co-organized the Route Optimization/VEhicle Routing (ROVER) workshop, which brought together 20 of the top North American and European experts in transportation science.
According to his bio page, Nowak has worked with Federal Express, United Parcel Service, and the Georgia Ports Authority in past research projects. He has also received grants from the Federal Highway Administration, the U. S. Department of Transportation, and the U.S. State Department.
Nowak’s research has been published in Transportation Science, European Journal of Operational Research, Computers & OR, and the Journal of Transportation Management.
Read more of Nowak’s interview on the official Quinlan website.
