Net-Working for a Living: Irish Software Developers in the Global Workplace

In 1992, I took the path followed by many young Irish people at that time and emigrated to the United States. In my case I left Dublin for Berkeley, California to get a Ph.D. in sociology. Within a year or two I found myself beginning to study the Irish software industry from 6,000 miles away in Silicon Valley. Through interviews with managers in Silicon Valley companies with operations in Ireland I investigated the dynamics of foreign investment in the Irish software industry. E-mail correspondence with managers of Irish companies in Dublin directed me to their Silicon Valley offices where I learned the basic history of the emergence of an Irish-owned software industry which was now itself becoming increasingly globalized. These contacts and other Irish people I knew in California put me in touch with Irish software developers working in the Silicon Valley area.

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