Samir Shah, DPS

Dr. Samir Shah is Clinical Professor of Management Information Systems within Decision Sciences & MIS department at Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business. His research interest is in exploring how to effectively use agile software development methodologies to ease some of the traditional offshore software development/project management challenges where he has published several conference papers and a book chapter. Based on his research, industry connections, and understanding of multicultural issues, he has successfully orchestrated several transcontinental global classroom projects with major universities in India as part of his teaching at Drexel.

He has also served as Provost Fellow – India Partnerships for Drexel University and Distinguished Teaching Fellow for the Center for Teaching Excellence at LeBow. He is also the recipient of several awards: 2015 David A Portlock Outstanding International Educator Award by Pennsylvania Council of International Education; 2014 – Advisor of the Year by Future Business Leaders of America – Phi Beta Lambda; 2013 Leadership and Innovation Award by Government Technology; to name a few.

1. Shah, S., and Ridgley, Stanley, 2015. Trust-Building in Cross-cultural Collaborative Projects within a Global Classroom Setting. Proceedings of 9th Annual UT Dallas Project Management Symposium. Dallas, TX.

This paper places my global classroom research in the broader context of international cross-cultural problem-solving and integration. My co-author Dr. Stanley Ridgley and I presented an evaluation of the classroom experience with the Geert Hofstede Dimensions of Culture model in this paper.

2. Gefen, D., Shah, S., and Ragowsky, E., 2014. It is all personal: dealing with the revolving door in the Indian high Tech Industry. Proceedings of 22nd European Conference on Information Systems 2014. Tel Avi, Israel.

High turnover in IT consultancy companies makes it harder to manage IT projects and increases the cost of such projects as clients demand that vendors assign more employees to each project. Based on discussions with employees and CIOs and applying ideas drawn from logotherapy, this study suggests that employees are motivated also by their need to achieve meaningfulness in their work, and that this is a facilitated by their being treated as a person rather than as a resource. Survey data from IT personnel in several Indian IT outsourcing vendors support this thesis, showing also the importance of building trust in the process. Implications of the logotherapy aspect are discussed.

3. Book Chapter - Stephens, A., Shah, S., 2005. IT and the Agile Government: The role of Information Technology in improving the efficiency of government functions. The Agile Enterprise – Reinventing Your Organization for Success in an on-demand World. N.Pal and D. Pantaleo (editors). Springer Publishing.