Tuesday, March 26, 2013

“Indian Management Education has to Make an Ideological Shift”

In an Interaction with B&E’s Ashutosh Harbola, Dr. Pranabesh Ray, Dean of XLRI, talks about problems afflicting The Indian Management Education System, The Need for India-Centric Management research, Corporate Governance, and The Importance of Industry Interface in B-Schools.

After gaining more than a decade of experience in the world of business – both in the private as well as the public sector – Dr. Pranabesh Ray began teaching at XLRI. That was 15 years back. Today, he has become an integral part of the faculty bench at the B-school. He has been involved in various teaching, consulting and research assignments in specialised areas of Human Resource Management; and his thoughts have been published through numerous papers in reputed journals. In an exclusive conversation with B&E, Dr. Ray talks about his efforts to contribute to the next evolutionary phase of management education in the country, and why it is high time that research takes centre stage in the Indian management context.

B&E: India so far, has been a home to some quality B-schools. That’s so far as general opinion goes. Only so far. Don’t you feel there are loopholes and objections to the system that deserve a pause and some careful corrections?
Dr. Pranabesh Ray (DPR): Yes. It is time for Indian management education to make an ideological shift – from lessons of slicing and dicing balance sheets to going back and contributing to society. If we can achieve this, it will be a great leap forward for Indian management education. The system has evolved, but there still is a marked dearth of high-quality faculty and high-quality institutes in the country. World-class management education is still not available to enough number of aspirants. This has to change.

B&E: Though considered to be one of the key ingredients of quality B-school education, many institutes in the country still treat “industry interface” as secondary. Is this right?
DPR: Surely not! India having become a truly globalised economy, the need for exposure and industry interface has never been more pressing. I think industry interface should be made a much more integrated part of the entire programme than it currently is. It can be done by bringing in more experts for classroom sessions initiating interactions with students, as well as ensuring that students not only go for industry visits but also work for some days as part of this program – whether global or local. What you need is at least that kind of training. This will ensure that industry interface is reinforced by default.

B&E: One of the most important factor that makes management education in the West so authoritative and practical is the fact that they rely on homegrown, cutting-edge research. Almost all the top global management schools have an in-house university press. India has failed on this front. Your views...
DPR: If one were to undertake a comparative study of how Western management theories have been applied by Indian businesses, it would easily lead to the conclusion that most of them do not apply to businesses here. It is something that needs to gather momentum collectively, if not change completely. We at XLRI emphasise on research orientation amongst our faculty and we have our own journal on management and labour studies. The journal comprises of research papers and articles from various parts of the world and India as well. I believe all B-schools should have such a policy in place which encourages serious in-house research. It is high time that we talk about India centric research which can serve the Indian business environment.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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