Shaun Illingworth: This begins the third oral history interview session with Dr. Grishma Shah on September 19, 2025, with Shaun Illingworth. Thank you very much for sitting down with me again. You gave me an overview of your career last time, but I just wanted to fill in some parts of it. First, we talked a little bit about your doctoral studies, how you got into the program and what you were looking to do, but we didn't talk about your actual research there. What was your dissertation subject on?
Grishma Shah: Sure. So, I think we can sort of go back a little bit to my time in India with Rutgers. As I mentioned, I spent almost a year in India through the Rutgers study abroad exchange or study abroad program.
It was the first time, like I said, I was away from my family, did something different, but it was also post-neoliberalism in India. So, this was after 1991, when India decided to open up its economy and move away from a very Socialist type of system. It was very fascinating to me how fast India was growing when I was a student in Delhi.
When it sort of came to getting into a PhD program, and then, figuring out what I wanted to study, I already knew. Well, I had always been fascinated with sociology, culture, all that kind of stuff, and international relations and development and all those things. So, I also got very fascinated with how quickly India was changing and how quickly the people within India were shifting their mindsets.
So, my PhD dissertation was actually like sort of the interaction of globalization and culture in India. To be very specific, it was whether India is becoming a more individualistic culture as a result of economic changes.
So, the way I like to explain it is that the United States, for instance, is a very individualistic society. Capitalism itself is a very individualistic economic system. If you look at the basic tenets of capitalism, it's like, "Act in your best self-interest and things will work out for everyone."
India was moving to a capitalist model starting from 1991. I was beginning to see some of that collectivism in India sort of shift. I really wanted to see if shifting to a capitalist economy also was, over time, going to make India a more individualistic culture. So, I studied if there were any shifts happening in India over economic changes, yes.
SI: How do you study that, with public opinion type methods?
GS: Yes, yes. So, what we did was, I used very globalized cities in India, like Delhi and Mumbai, as my proxies for being very integrated into globalization. Basically, if you're a "tier one city," you were categorized as highly globalized, versus "tier two" or "tier three cities," which had less exposure to globalization, were in a different stage of development.
So, I used those as proxies for development, essentially, in globalization. I surveyed people with a scale. It's called an Individualism Collectivism Scale. I'm sure you're familiar with it. I surveyed people on that scale in multiple tiered cities and used those tiers as proxies for globalization.
What we did find was that when it came to career, like workplace, young people were becoming much more individualistic, but, when it came to family values or anything outside of the workplace, they tended to still be very collectivist. They were comfortable with the idea of their parents having a large say, for instance, [in] who they chose to marry or like an arranged marriage or things like that.
SI: That's interesting. It seems like the courses that you teach have played with some of those themes of globalization and emerging markets, I guess. I don't know if that's the right term.
GS: Yes, no, absolutely. So, what I taught while I was at Rutgers, I taught a course as a PhD student on globalization and social change. That, of course, had a huge impact on my dissertation.
Then, when I got my first full-time academic job, I was really hired to very much be sort of the expert on what we call emerging economies or developing economies, an economy that was growing very fast that was traditionally considered developing or lower income--so, China, India, Brazil, Russia, all of those places.
The courses I teach are basically anything global within the department, so, international business, I teach an MBA class in global society, that type of stuff.
SI: You started at the O'Malley School of Business in 2008--is that right?
GS: Yes, it's right. Actually, it was not called O'Malley School of Business then, it was just called the School of Business. It got renamed in 2018. I don't think that makes a big impact.
SI: What was that first period of your academic career like? You had to go through a tenure process. Did your research focus change at all?
GS: So, Manhattan College (it's a university now, but it was a college, just turned to a university last year) Manhattan College generally is a teaching institution. So, a lot of my focus still was on teaching, but there's still a level of research expected to receive tenure. So, I continued, in some ways, to take my dissertation and parcel it out to different academic journals.
I also started picking up a little bit of new research. I started doing case studies and collaborating with things that looked interesting, if someone asked me, "Hey, do you want to co-author this project or be involved in this?" So, I continued that. What I actually really enjoy (and the best part of this) is, I started taking students abroad.
So, I think I mentioned last time that I got to be a graduate assistant on a Rutgers immersion to India twice with a professor. That really taught me sort of the ropes on how to do this. So, when I started at Manhattan, I knew that one of the things I wanted to do was really expose students to emerging economies, to developing economies, and how fast they're growing in business in those countries.
We did, at the time, have a study [abroad] program, still have a study abroad [program], but it tends to be heavily Eurocentric, very traditional exchanges, where you go study in Paris or Rome and Venice. As exciting as those are, they still tend to be very Eurocentric. So, I really wanted us to move away from that and see more of the world.
So, the places I've sort of been with my students are what we call developing, emerging economies. So, of course, we've done India a few times. We've done Malaysia, Singapore, Peru, Brazil, that type of stuff.
SI: What will you typically do with the students there?
GS: So, we're usually away for about twelve days, twelve to fourteen days. It's three different categories of things we do. We visit businesses. We actually will either go talk to C-suite executives or the business will present to us on what they're doing or we'll talk to experts on the Indian economy or business.
So, we'll go to different businesses, they'll present to us. A lot of those meetings are set up through my network or someone else's contact. Two, we'll do cultural immersion, like what we normally would do on any global trip, make sure we see the important sites like the Taj Mahal or that kind of stuff.
Three, we do a lot of sort of focus on non-governmental organizations or nonprofits, to kind of see what are some of the main issues Indian society is dealing with. So, it's sort of three-tiered. Then, we come back and we spend six to eight weeks doing a project.
At the end of the trip, we reflect on what resonated with us and what we want to research more and do more. Often, it's a live consulting project with one of those organizations. So, if we met a group--for instance, we met a group of women in Agra. We had lunch at their cafe. They were all acid attack survivors and this cafe was started by them to give them sort of economic self-sufficiency. We were all just in awe of their bravery and courage.
So, at some point, we had asked them, "What can we do? What are you struggling with in terms of running your own small business here?" They told us about, like, how no one has any expertise. They kind of just landed there, right. Some of them know how to cook and things. So, we spent some time doing a marketing plan for them.
We spent some time telling them that, like, "If you do market at this level, you're going to have to increase your operational capacity," because one of the things we noticed was, when they did have a group of twenty students come in, they were so excited to have us, but it took forever for them to bring us our food and get things organized. They just weren't ready.
So, there was so much potential in bringing in big tour groups, but we're like, "You need to first figure out your operational capacity before you market at this level." So, we did a project for them, we present it to them. They're very grateful, in the sense that no one is taking time out to really do that for them.
SI: That must be very fulfilling for you and your students.
GS: Yes, right. It's funny, because we met all these CEOs and executives on that trip, but the only thing that, really, all of them wanted to do at the end of the trip is like, "How do we help this cafe? How do we help these women?" which really is very gratifying, yes.
SI: You've also been doing other things outside of work. You've written a novel. Can you tell me a little bit about that?
GS: Sure. In 2018, I started writing. I was getting a little bit antsy. I was on sabbatical. I was getting a little antsy in terms of I had received tenure at the time already, I'd been promoted to associate. I guess, I don't know, maybe you'd call it a midlife crisis, I don't know. I was getting a little antsy, wanted to do something different.
Academia, for whatever reason, it really does suck the creativity out of you in some ways. You're doing a lot of technical writing for journals and analyzing data and all of those things. I had always enjoyed creative writing and I really enjoyed reading novels. I've had this fascination with my family and how they immigrated here and what the community has done.
So, I'd said I had a few themes I definitely wanted to write on. I wanted to write on the themes of the Indian American community in the United States and, particularly, how I grew up and the tight sort of knit safe space they create for each other. Then, I also wanted to write a little bit about the changes that are taking place in India, like globalization in India, all of my academic things. So, those were the themes I had.
Honestly, I turned to my husband and said, "These are the things I want to write about," and he goes, "Yes, but you have no plot points. That's not a novel. That's just you rambling about things you care about." So, he loves watching TV and he watches a lot of movies. He goes, "How about this as plot points?" I'm like, "Done."
So, I built a whole novel around his plot points. It includes two historical events and it's really a dual timeline. More than half of it takes place in the United States and about a third of it takes place in India. So, it's like a deep-seated love story across continents, talking about the Indian American success story in the United States and changes taking place in India, connects them all. The book is called Anagram Destiny.
[Editor's Note: You can find out more about Dr. Shah's novel, published in 2024, by visiting her website: https://shahgrishma.com.]
SI: That's cool.
GS: I have a copy of it here, but this is not a video thing, right?
SI: We can put the information about the book in an editor's note. You've talked about wanting to maintain connections with India through different ways. Have you found a community where you are now that you've become a part of? Is that something you seek?
GS: I think so. I think the community I grew up in, I made very good friends with. So, my closest friends are still the friends that I met at some of these community parties when I was a teen. My closest friend is actually my sister, but we all have a group of friends that we all kind of met through [that community].
They're all family friends, is what I would say. Our parents were friends, and then, we became friends and we're still friends. So, I formed a pretty strong sense of belonging. Even when I was younger, I never really felt like I didn't belong. I felt very safe, like I said earlier, with the community that was raising us, yes.
SI: Have you become involved in any groups, organized groups, or is it more just through friendships and family?
GS: There are some annual Diwali parties and picnics and all that, that community groups organize regularly. These are the same groups that I grew up with. So, I go to them. I haven't become part of the organizing committee or anything like that, but I'm very fond of them. I'm glad that someone is keeping all the traditions alive.
SI: In your work in academia, particularly in business, are there a lot of women scholars in the field? Has that changed over time?
GS: I think that I've never felt a shortage of women within my own department at O'Malley School, always been a department that's been really diverse. In fact, we have more women faculty in the Management & Marketing Department that I work in than we do males.
When I was getting my PhD, I found a little bit of that, like when I used to go to academic conferences as a PhD student. I did find that a majority of people at these conferences tended to be men, but there was always enough of a sprinkling of women there. So, I never fully felt the [difference]. It didn't feel like a big gender gap, but I am keenly aware that one exists.
There's very basic things that I've noticed. For instance, people will always call me by my first--not you, Shaun, of course--but people will call me by my first name a lot, where my male colleagues, they'll say, "doctor" whatever, right. Those are the little micro--I don't want to call it an aggression--but little, small things that you notice. That's just part of, I think, being in this world.
SI: Do you think you faced any prejudice over the course of your career?
GS: In some ways, over the years, and I don't know how to explain this in depth, but I feel like I've become blinded. I don't really see prejudice sometimes. I am very aware of context, though. So, if I go somewhere and I'm the only brown person in the room or the only Indian person in the room and everyone else there is a white male or a white person, I become very conscious in the sense that I notice those things very easily.
Does that mean there's prejudice? no. It just means there's institutional discrimination--not everyone's in the room. There've been a lot of places where I've been the only person of color, let's say, at the table. I haven't necessarily felt prejudice, but I do feel like being the only person of color at the table makes me feel like I have to do really well, like I have to do twice as better than everyone else, because you're representing the whole community, your whole group of people, and not just yourself, which is, I don't know, a pretty big burden to carry sometimes.
SI: I'm pretty sure, at Rutgers, in most areas, they have programs to attract women faculty, people of color faculty and provide mentorships, particularly. Did you ever benefit from any programs like that?
GS: I benefited from some programs that are designed for junior faculty. So, I went to a couple of conferences and things like that where they were designed for junior faculty, but nowhere in it did it say that it's designed for women or people of color. So, I can't think of anything like that, but, generally, I benefited from certain conferences, yes.
SI: Are there other ways that your research has changed over the course of your career?
GS: I know this is public information--yes, I mean, quite frankly, before tenure, [I] was very, very streamlined in my research. I wanted to make sure that when I researched or did something or took on a project, it fit into what I did for my dissertation or fit into the box of what I'm known for as an expert.
After tenure, I just felt like I could do any project that interested me. I was just like, if something came along and it's something I've never researched before or done before, I would still say yes to it, even though it didn't fit into the pathway of what I have traditionally done. So, I think if you look at my publications, you can very clearly see that I've taken more risks, I guess, with my research in terms of what I'm researching.
Also, just writing a novel, quite frankly--I don't think academia is necessarily a group of people who are like, "Oh, yes, you wrote a novel. That's great." I mean, my colleagues have supported me, but some people would say, "Oh, novel writing or writing fiction is not, I guess, highbrow enough," or whatever you want to call it. [laughter]
SI: You've been an associate dean for a few years now.
GS: Nope, a month.
SI: A month, okay.
GS: A month, a couple of months, I should say. I started August 1st.
SI: I mixed that up. I'm misremembering your CV.
GS: Yes. No, I've been Director of the Global Business Studies Program since 2019. So, I've directed that program for a long time and that's sort of always been my purview here, in global immersions from the School of Business. The Associate Dean position, I just started August 1st.
SI: What were your goals as the director of the program?
GS: Yes, so, I'm still directing the program, by the way, just took on multiple roles. So, my goals have always been to make sure that students are exposed to the whole world, not just select countries, open up their horizons, really see how business is done in a lot of these different places, because it differs quite a bit from how business is done in the United States.
So, the goal has always been to get as many students as possible to major in global business. Part of the requirement to be a major or minor is to do the global immersion. So, it's really exposure, awareness, and really doing that consulting project that takes them out of their own context.
SI: Is the student body there pretty diverse or is it primarily white?
GS: So, when I first started in 2008, I would say it was not very diverse. I think it was a majority Caucasian. A lot of students were recruited from Catholic high schools. We're a Lasallian school, so, a lot of students were recruited from Lasallian high schools, local Catholic schools, a large Irish/Italian population.
I think, since 2008, there's been a shift in general. I think we have more Hispanic students on campus. I think, as of a couple of years ago, we were a Hispanic-serving institution. So, that means twenty-five percent or more. I think that the threshold is, if twenty-five percent of your student body is Hispanic, then, you're a Hispanic-serving institution. I believe we hit that threshold, I want to say three or four years ago. So, I'm seeing a lot more diversity on campus.
The diversity tends to be still pretty bimodal. It's either you are Hispanic or you are Caucasian. I don't see a lot of anyone else on campus. I don't see a lot of Indian students, for instance, on campus or Asian, Chinese Asian students or anything like that, on campus. I mean, of course, we have some, but I wouldn't [say a lot].
SI: Yes, I was just curious about how different the trips must be for your students, how far out of their own experiences they might be going.
GS: I think quite a bit, especially when I first started. I mean, when I started in 2008, we did our first trip I think a couple of years later, I would say fifty percent of my students didn't even have passports. It was their first time getting a passport, whereas, now, when I do something, I don't know if this is just a change, a shift in the way people [travel], I guess access or availability, most of my students have traveled before and not just traveled--some have been to Brazil or Europe.
So, I've been getting a lot more students who have had exposure already, but they like just getting a different perspective, because we get the business perspective and academic perspective.
SI: Is there anything else that you'd like to discuss or anything that I missed that you think is important for people reading this to know about you?
GS: Well, no, not really. I think we've covered quite a bit. I'm not really sure how other interviews are done or how this works, but it's been nice talking to you and sort of reflecting on decades, really. So, I appreciate it, but I don't have much to add, yes.
SI: If anything comes up later, we can always put it in the transcript or we could do a brief follow-up. For now, you've answered all my questions and I really appreciate that; thank you very much.
GS: Thank you so much, Shaun. I really appreciate you doing this. It's really helped me quite a bit.
SI: Oh, good, thanks. Let me turn off the recording.
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Reviewed by Shaun Illingworth 2/3/2026
Reviewed by Grishma Shah 3/29/2026