Rakesh Niraj has moved to a new country once before in his life.
“I grew up in India and then came here to the U.S.,” he said. “At first you are struck by the differences, but as you devote more time, meet more people and understand their motivations, you always come back to how similar mankind is all over the place.”
Over the last year, Niraj, Weatherhead School of Management associate professor of marketing, had the opportunity to live in a new country once again.
Niraj moved to Mauritius, a small island country located in East Africa, for 10 months, as part of his first Fulbright Scholar Award to teach, conduct research and gain an understanding about the culture.
Now back in Cleveland, Niraj reflects on his trip and the work he accomplished.
Immersing Oneself in a New Culture
What’s one way to learn about the people and culture in a new country? For Niraj, it was as simple as playing table tennis, also known as “ping-pong.”
“When you're playing table tennis everyone is equal,” he said. “I made deep connections with these people. I went to their homes, played with their brothers and sisters and so on.”
Ping-pong is a sport Niraj has enjoyed since childhood. On his second day on the island, Niraj asked his host if anyone played ping-pong. His host set him up to play with a staff member at the University of Technology, Mauritius (UTM), where Niraj would also be teaching. Once the staff member saw how good Niraj was, he invited him to another village to play with someone else.
Before Niraj knew it, he was traveling to different villages and playing the best ping-pong players on the island.
“My ping-pong diplomacy took me all over the island,” Niraj said with a laugh. “It was wonderful to get to know people that way.”
Teaching and Conducting Research
At Weatherhead, Niraj has been instrumental in developing and helping to run the Master of Business Analytics and Intelligence program. While in Mauritius, Niraj worked with leadership on the development of a business analytics academic program by attending meetings and sharing the syllabi and structure of the program at Weatherhead.
At the moment, UTM is exploring a business analytics specialization with their MBA program and Niraj is still meeting virtually with the group.
“They want some external input and I’m very curious what final shape it will take,” he said.
At UTM, Niraj taught a marketing research course for a semester and through this he was able to identify a few students to work with him as research assistants.
One of the research projects Niraj focused on was a qualitative study on the adoption of technology by small and medium enterprises in Mauritius.
Niraj and his student assistants conducted semi-structured interviews, asking companies what technology they use, what they use it for, etc. Through this, Niraj was able to assess the extent of adoption of information and communication technologies tools (ICT) in different functional areas of business and factors supporting and hindering the adoption.
The research found evidence that some businesses use ICT for operations and accounting but most of the businesses primarily use ICT tools for marketing with Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Lack of awareness of capabilities and lack of funds, perhaps indicating uncertainty about payoff of ICT expenditure, emerge as major issues thwarting adoption of ICT tools.
The article on this research—Adoption of Information and Communication Technology Tools by SMEs in Mauritius: A Preliminary Qualitative Study—is currently under review to be published in an international journal.
Through the Fulbright program, Niraj also conducted research workshops; gave a “lessons in marketing” presentation; led a panel discussion as part of a day-long marketing and branding seminar; and traveled to Rwanda, a country in east Africa, for a week to present a research seminar and talk with university students and leaders.
When asked if he would be interested in applying for another Fulbright award in the future, Niraj said, “It was a great experience. I would be open and very enthusiastic about it.”