Prof Atanu Ghosh, Dean-Alumni & External Relations, Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A), one of India's premium business schools, was recently in Muscat to reach out to the alumni of the 50-year old institute in the city. Muhammed Nafie catches up with him for a freewheeling interview. Excerpts:
What is the specific purpose of your visit to Oman?
We are looking to revive our alumni relations and activities at various chapters. Today we have got 17 alumni chapters in several countries including the US, the UK, Singapore, Oman, and the UAE. We had a year-long grand celebration of our golden jubilee which concluded in December 2011. And it was the occasion when we decided to reach out to the alumni in order to interact with them, respond to their queries and make them contribute both intellectually and finically for their alma mater. We have already visited the alumni chapters in Singapore and the US (both in the west coast and east coast) and now we are doing it in Muscat and Dubai. In India we did it in Delhi, Calcutta, Bangalore and Hyderabad. We also show them a film on IIM-A created on the occasion of its 50th anniversary.
How are you going to utilise the skills and expertise of your alumni for the institute?
IIIM-A has got a large number of its former students working as CEOs all over the world. According to a recent survey by a business magazine, a whopping 62 per cent of CEOs of professionally managed companies in India are from IIM-A. The alumni can play an active role in the progress of the institute in multiple ways. Those who are keen to teach can spend some hours with us to take guest lectures and those who are academically inclined can take even full courses. In addition, as most of them are managing companies, they can assist in preparing various case methods which the IIM-A employs to prepare its students for the challenges of management and leadership. As we have started with the full support of Harvard business school, all our initial faculty members were sent to Harvard to get used to its case methods which we have been suing since last 50 years. These days the cases get obsolete very soon because the environment is changing and information is flowing so fast so that we need to constantly recharge and renew the cases and get new cases.
IIM-A have signed MoUs for academic cooperation with various international business schools. IIM-Indore is planning to join other IIMs in offering prestigious management programmes in the Gulf. Do you have any plan to foray into the region?
In 2010, the Government of India permitted IITs and IIMs to set up branches in all cities in India and campuses outside the country, and since then they have been proactively seeking opportunities outside India. Till 2010 we were not able to set up our own campuses abroad. However, we had signed MoUs with 70 business schools internationally for academic tie-up. As per these MoUs, we exchange students for three months with various schools in the US, Europe, Australia and China. This has become very prominent in our campus calendar.
In addition, IIM-A has a double-degree programme agreement with ESSEC, France and University of Bocconi, Italy. As per this agreement, our second year students will spend a term in France or Itlay while the foreign students are permitted to complete their courses at IIM-A, and they get degrees from both the institutes.
Another way of cooperation is to send out our PhD students abroad so that they complete the course partly from here and partly from there and get their Fellow Programme in Management (FPM), which is equivalent to PhD, from both the schools. Apart from the exchange of students, we also do exchange of faculties. We are facing a faculty crunch. Since 1982 when I passed out from IIM-A, the number of students have grown up 150 per cent while the number of the faculty has seen a marginal increase of below 15 per cent. That is also why we are not venturing out for foreign campuses.
However, this does not mean that we don't have plan to open shops in the region. We would certainly look at the Gulf region to set up an IIM campus in the future.
How important is research at IIM-A? Are IIMs and IITs at a level playing field vis-a-vis their counterparts in the West, when it comes to research?
IIM-A has made its mark on its Post Graduate Programme (PGP), which is equivalent to MBA, and on our students' placement as reflected in the successful careers of our alumni which I have already mentioned. What the research meant for us is still a grey area. We consider case research as an important area of research. We try to capture something happening in an organisation or industry and try to build these cases by taking them to class rooms for discussion and analyses. IIM-A has always on the lead for the case research and case studies. We are able to make an impact, when we try to study what is going on in an industry or an organisation. But when it comes to academic and theoretic research the western world is talking about, we are a little bit lacking. Our faculties are driven by their own choices. We don't really want to push someone to one corner. Some are absolutely interested in research while some are interested in doing consulting with organisations whereas some others are excellent teachers. However, we think that now the time has come for creating some sort of balance in it.
However, IITs are doing some researches which are almost cutting edge and comparable to anywhere in the world. But in terms of number that would not be on a par with a research driven institute in the West. It depends on a lot of other factors such as the number of people available, facilities and funding. The kind of support and funding from government and other organisation in the western world is much larger than institutes in India get.
It is said that failures in management education are partly to blame for the global economic crisis. How does management education require evolving after the crisis?
Business education is at a major crossroads. Though MBA graduates from top-tier schools set the standard for cutting-edge business knowledge and skills for decades, now the business world has changed. Recently professor Srikant M Datar, an IIM-A alumnus who was the Arthur Lowes Dickinson Professor at Harvard University for 10 years, coauthored a book titled 'Rethinking the MBA: Management Education at a crossroads'. The book, questioning the conventional business education, examines the importance of synthesizing 'knowing', 'doing' and 'being' in education. The book says knowing or acquiring knowledge which happens in class room must be coupled with its practical application. Even while doing the MBA, the students should go to the organisations to put the knowledge learned into practice. The third one, being, is related to realising what one wants to be and what should be the purpose of one's life.
Recently professor Srikant did four workshops for IIM-A and IIM-Calcutta together to spread this message to other business schools. In IIM- A, we have reviewed our programmes and introducing some of these elements. Similarly we have summer internship where students are supposed to go and apply their theoretical knowledge into practice. We are also trying to introduce courses such as business ethics as part of our programme. MBA programmes need to give the students the heightened cultural awareness and global perspectives they need.
© Oman Economic Review 2012
