Center for Global Business Awards PhD Candidate

Full-time MBA student Ha Le, class of 2020, writes about the 2019 PhD International Research Award Recipient, Sabari Karmegam.

The Center for Global Business (CGB) at the Robert H. Smith School of Business announced that Sabari Karmegam, a PhD candidate in the department of decision, operations and information technologies, has been awarded $4,000 to support his research in international business. Kislaya Prasad, research professor and academic director of the CGB, will present Karmegam with the award at the Smith PhD Annual Awards Banquet on May 15, 2019. The PhD International Research Award is funded in part by CIBE, a Title VI grant provided by the U.S. Department of Education.

Karmegam's research is about how the adoption of the mobile channel on matrimonial platforms has affected the efficacy of the matching process and the associated outcomes in India. Specifically, he explores how institutional factors like caste, religion, and gender play out across the mobile and non-mobile channels within this setting, given the highly institutionalized nature of matrimonial matching in traditional societies like India. He also looks at the role of the institutional factors in a highly connected but geographically dispersed diaspora. "The diaspora may have a weak kinship network," Karmegam shared, "but may be influenced by the need to maintain their social identity by exhibiting strong endogamous preferences."

"We study how these institutional factors influence engagement and matching outcomes by using data from a leading online matrimonial platform based out of India," said Karmegam. "The matrimonial platform provided us data on new customers who signed on to the platform. We hope to conduct a series of experiments in the summer to test as well as explore new insights related to our research questions."

Karmegam joined the University of Maryland's PhD program in fall 2015. He received his MBL at National Law School of India University, India and MBA at Indian Institute of Technology, India. His research interests include information economics, technology policy, privacy, and security.

“We are excited to award Sabari Karmegam the PhD International Research Award,” said Prasad. “This research has the potential to have a significant impact and will further our understanding of matrimonial online matching platforms in the Indian setting. An important international dimension is added from the use of such platforms by the vast Indian diaspora. Now in its sixth year, the award supports PhD candidates doing research on international topics. An important goal of the center is to encourage PhD candidates to do research in global business and provide this award to help offset the significant costs that such research often entails.”

To learn more about the PhD International Research Award and more, go to the Smith School's Center for Global Business website.