MBA in India Vs Indian MBA: An introduction:

The MBA or equivalent PGDM degree offered in India are truly Indian? In this section the author tries to draw distinction between MBA in India and an Indian MBA, the need for an Indian MBA and arguments to support the claim. So let’s first discuss about evolution of management education in India first and then the Indian MBA concept.

Progression of Management Education in India:

The journey of management education in India is about seven decade old. In early part of last century, British Government introduced some higher education institutions (Ex. Presidency College, Sriram college of commerce etc) to fulfil the secretarial need and accounting jobs in that regime. Though the first management education institute in India is Xavier Labor Relations Institute (XLRI) at Jamshedpur in 1949, established by Jesuit society with prime objective to deal with industrial relation and issues of trade union, the first business school to offer an MBA degree is Indian Institute of Social Welfare and Business Management (IISWBM) set up in 1953 at Calcutta. Faculty of management studies (FMS) under Delhi University came up in 1954. Looking at the initial phase of management education, Government of India applied and got grant to set up two Indian Institute of management (IIM) at Calcutta and Ahmedabad respectively. This grant was based on transferring American Business education knowledge and models and establishing collaboration with American institutes. The IIM Calcutta was established with helping hand from the Sloan School of Management (MIT) in the year 1961, focusing predominantly on Quantitative and Operational aspects of management. IIM Ahmadabad was founded in 1962, pioneered the Harvard style case method of teaching in India with an emphasis on strategic management. Later IIMs at Banagalore, Lucknow came up. In due course of time management education with particular focus like Institute of Rural management, Anand, Indian Institute of Forest Management etc also came into effect with support from mostly IIMs or similar institutions. Now there are thousands of department of Universities, autonomous institutions, engineering colleges are offering management education.

PROBLEMS WITH MBA IN INDIA:

A careful analysis of the problem reveals the following:

Most programmes of MBAs designed in India follow the ‘cloning’ approach. The content, delivery and evaluation are ‘cloned’ on a ‘superior B School’ as they see it. The content is too conceptual and strategic, delivery is too much dependent on English language skills and raises the expectations of the graduates. Unfortunately, the quality of students, faculty and teaching/learning environment of many Schools do not match with that of the top-end schools and hence it results in delivery of a sub-standard product. Notwithstanding the media hype, many people question the number and quality of graduates produced, including the relevance of management education itself. The structure and process of Indian higher education is based on the principle of exclusion of the majority and as such is not comfortable about quantity. So there is a foregone conclusion about ‘inevitability’ of poor quality as and when quantity is.

Graduates have set their expectations mostly based on the perceived performance of the top B Schools. They expect mostly office based jobs paying salaries not less than a lakh of rupees per month. They expect to play strategic roles in the organization from day one. The industry and civil society organisations find most of the graduates poor in communication skills (mostly in English), and with poor target orientation (unwillingness to take implementation roles in the field). While the employers expect the graduates to deliver first and then demand later, they find the present lot impatient and looking for an easy way out. As a result, while there are many jobs available, most MBA graduates are unemployable or unemployed or fail to stick long to their jobs

NEED FOR AN INDIAN MBA:

Any professional courses are judged on the employability quotient and rightly so an MBA. Whenever any individual is recruited, some skill sets are desired from him/her. Let’s explore the key skill sets an MBA graduate in broader sense required to possess.

A. While engaging with Customers, Competitors and Community:

1. Ability to identify problems, needs and wants and convert into affordable offerings in an Indian environment with a win-win approach

2. Ability to learn from own, related and unrelated industries

3. Engage with community at large and with local socio, political, institutional representatives

4. Ability to communicate in local language and control over local conditions.

B. While operating within the Organisation:

5. Ability to take hardship in travel, accommodation and working

6. Maintain self-discipline, health and integrity amidst not very encouraging environments.

7. Ability to think targets, analyse such targets, aggregate and disaggregate at will.

8. Ability to deliver in an environment of low productivity by being the ‘high energy’ individual

9. Ability to motivate low paid workers and communities to perform in sub-standard working conditions

10. Being on a path of continuous and life-long learning

How many such skills are taught by a traditional MBA? How can a programme which is modeled on either Harvard or MIT, even attempt to give such skills? How can the successful western institutions, which operate in a completely different context, be the role models of Indian higher education institution in management? Even in the era of globalization, can we just evaluate ourselves through the global ranking parameters?

If one wishes to come out of this log jam, there is a need to re-imagine the role of academic institutions in Indian context and go back to the drawing board and re-design the content, delivery and assessment methods while resetting the goals of the MBA program that would be a true Indian MBA.

Most businesses are struggling to recruit the ‘right’ manpower for ‘implementation’ of targets and programmes. Financial services, education services, extension services in water supply, sanitation, health and livelihood are all crying for suitable manpower. Infrastructure projects, smart city initiatives, energy sector, etc. need enormous man power for operation and maintenance. Many development interventions are poorly executed because of weak manpower. Make in India cannot happen without manpower that can ‘make things happen’. According to noted economist, Amit Bhaduri, inability in providing basic education, health and sustainable livelihood security to all, even nearly seven decades after independence, has been the unforgivable failure in our country. We need MBA graduates, not having Indian passport rather their degree is in true sense an Indian MBA.

Dilemma before institutions to roll out Indian MBA:

Dilemma leads to creativity, so having a dilemma is the building block for future course of action. So let’s discuss some of the dilemma the institutions could have to roll out a programme that can be called truly an Indian MBA.

The dilemmas before an institution today are:

1. How can we localize, when the very word has pejorative connotations?

2. How does one contribute to local environment, when the models and standards are largely driven by western context of global quality?

3. How does one transcend beyond the boundaries of an institution, when “expertise” by its definition means drawing boundaries?

4. How does one synthesize in a largely analytical and reductionist education paradigm?

5. How can institutions engage themselves with locals, without getting entangled?

The dilemmas enlisted are only suggestive, not comprehensive. So the model, modalities, delivery, syllabus, pedagogy etc. for an Indian MBA requires lot more thought process, but what if an Indian MBA is crowned with concepts of sustainability. Could the sustainability component might be one of the competitive advantages over the similar programmes across the world?

Sustainability and Management Education:

Before discussing how the concept of sustainability could be injected into the Indian MBA, let’s try to understand the term sustainability itself and then why it is so important to be included into management education.

Defining Sustainability:

There are different definitions and approaches exist for sustainability. In the existing literatures there seems to be no exact agreement about sustainability in terms of its component and the subject matters or discipline it covers (Bebbington, 2001; Pezzoli, 1997; van Marrewijk and Werre, 2003). Though there is some confusion, but most academicians and researchers acknowledge the importance of the ‘Brundtland Report’ and the definition of sustainability development used in this report. In this report sustainable development is defined as “development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (Bruntland, 1987:8). This definition has been widely debated and even criticized (O’Riordan, 1991; Pearce, Markandya, andBarbier, 1989). There are some school of thoughts that deplored this definition and argued that this definition has come from those who don’t like economic development(e.g., The Ecologist, 1993). The definition got broader perspective and believed that Sustainability deals with three aspects for sustainable development and those are environmental protection, economic growth and social equity respectively (Aras and Crowther, 2009). Taking a business context into perspective Sustainability is defined by Dyllick and Hockerts (2002: 131) as “meeting the needs of a firm’s direct and indirect stakeholders…, without compromising its ability to meet the needs of future stakeholders as well’. As per Galbreath (2009: 306) sustainability is mostly about protecting stakeholders’ interest and defined as “sustainability [is] a business approach that seeks to create long-term value for stakeholders by embracing opportunities and managing risks associated with economic, environmental and social developments”. As per Benn and Dunphy (2004), a sustainable organization in addition to focusing on economic performance, actively supports the ecological viability of the planet and its species, contributes to equitable and democratic practices, and social justice.

Sustainability in Management Education:

As per Ernst and Young study in 2002, 114 companies from the Global 1,000 list of companies, 94% believed a business sustainability strategy could result in financial benefits, but only 11% actually implemented (Ernst and Young, cited in van Marrewijk, 2003). A survey by KPMG International (2008) suggests that for most of big corporations the understanding on how to make their businesses more sustainable was a difficult task. The reasons could be lack of knowledge on sustainability in business managers.

UNESCO (2004) announced the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development which aims to promote education as a basis for a more sustainable human society and to integrate sustainable development into education systems at all levels. The top 20/30 institutions in India have not addressed to the need of sustainability and whatever courses are offered are more generic in nature. Most of the courses are taught based on authors and experiences from west rather than Indian, so Indian story is not covered in many cases. B-schools do offer courses on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Ethics in Business, Concepts or programmes on social entrepreneurship which to some extent touch the concept of sustainability tangentially, without delving further. Velazquez et al. (2005) have cited possible reasons for unsuccessful implementation of sustainability concept into management or other higher education for following reasons that are most likely similar across the globe. The followings are the obstacles- Lack of awareness, interest, and involvement, Organizational structure, Lack of funding, Lack of support from university administrators, Lack of time, Lack of data access, Lack of training, Lack of opportune communication, and information, Resistance to change, Profits mentality, Lack of more rigorous regulations, Lack of interdisciplinary research, Lack of performance indicators, Lack of policies to promote sustainability on campus, Lack of standard definitions of concepts, Technical problems, Lack of designated workplace, The “Machismo”.

The already proposed Indian MBA should overcome this and include sustainability in the course structure as the concept goes.

Sustainability in the Indian MBA:

One of the strongest points of Indian MBA is enabling sustainability concept into management education. The Indian MBA should introduce the sustainability component into the management education without any compromise. The Indian MBA could take following approaches to develop relevant modules/ course structures in each course to address sustainability:

Module development:

Taking into current status and industry/society needs. Accordingly topics and sub topics could be identified and lesson plan can be prepared. Teaching material and content: Appropriate reading and teaching materials need to be prepared. Relevant sustainability related local case studies could be developed or even small case-lets would address that problem. Teaching aid and pedagogy: Right kind of teaching aid and appropriate pedagogy that can touch the sustainable components into core course domain of management education. Assessment framework: Right kind of assessment framework to not only measure performance of students but also the faculty need to be developed. Faculty Development and rigorous activity based training programmes would help faculty to be equipped enough to teach in Indian MBA programme.

The sustainability course injection into management papers should have the objectives like understanding the sustainability concept from various view points and helping students to form their own opinion, awareness about various issues and risks related to the sustainability of business, helping student to identify the potential areas of concern in their own organizations, Knowledge about existing sustainable business models, exemplifying innovation in various domains of business, enabling students to brainstorm and discover successful sustainable business solutions, skill sets undertake measurement and reporting of sustainability related issues of an organisation.

X-Factor in Sustainable Indian MBA:

Since sustainability is for people, planet and profit and being human being our fellow human beings who are deprived must be given proper partnership through affordable environment friendly innovation and social entrepreneurship. Students would not only learn business models and business plans for corporations or businesses, but business models for low income people. Students would learn the solutions from the nature (Bio- mimicry). Business model innovations as per sustainability concepts would help students to incorporate sustainability to the conceptualization level. Students would learn sustainability communication i.e communicating sustainability to consumers, which could be a significant impactful along with market communication. Students would learn sustainability financing and sustainability reporting like Global Reporting Initiatives and Carbon disclosure projects etc. The course would be focused on co-creation and collaboration so that all the stakeholders could be taken along with the journey and the good outcome is shared with all.

CONCLUSION:

The management education offered in India has not been able to cater to the true cause of India. The MBA course in India, which is based on cloning principle need to be revamped. The Indian MBA is metaphorically signifying the changes that could be brought in and sustainability concept is one of such must changes that should be made. Sustainability is not a course or programme rather it’s injected into all management papers that could provide cutting edge competitive advantage to management education in India.

REFERENCES:

1. Aras, G., and Crowther, D. (2009). the durable corporation, farnham. Gower: England.

2. Bebbington, J. (2001). Sustainable development: A review of the international development, business and accounting literature. Accounting Forum, 25(2), 128–157.

3. Benn, S., and Dunphy, D. (2004). Can democracy handle corporate sustainability? Constructing a path forward. In A. Griffith (Ed.), Corporate sustainability: Governance, innovation strategy, development and methods (pp. 141–155). Sydney: Content Management.

4. Bruntland, G. (Ed.). (1987). Our common future: The world commission on environment and development. Oxford: Oxford University Press

5. Dyllick, T., and Hockerts, K. (2002). Beyond the business case for corporate sustainability. Business Strategy and the Environment, 11(2), 130–141.

6. The Ecologist. (1993). Whose common future? London: Earthscan.

7. Galbreath, J. (2009). Addressing sustainability: A strategy development framework. International Journal of Sustainable Strategic Management, 1(3), 303–319.

8. KPMG International (2008). A survey into the growth and sustainability issues driving consumer organizations worldwide. KPMG/CIES survey.

9. O’Riordan, T. (1991). Environmentalism. London: Pion.

10. Pearce, D., Markandya, A., and Barbier, E. (1989). Blueprint for a green economy. London: Earthscan.

11. Pezzoli, K. (1997). Sustainable development: A transdisciplinary overview of the literature. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 40(5), 549–574.

12. United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (2004), “UN decade for education for sustainable development (2005-2014)”, available at: http://portal.unesco.org/ education/en/ev.php-URL_ID ¼ 27234andURL_DO ¼ DO_TOPICandURL_SECTION ¼ 201.html

13. Velazquez, L., Munguia, N., and Sanchez, M. (2005). Deterring sustainability in higher education institutions: An appraisal of the factors which influence sustainability in higher education institutions. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 6(4), 383-391.

14. van Marrewijk, M. (2003). Concepts and definitions of CSR and corporate sustainability: Between agency and communion. Journal of Business Ethics, 44(2–3), 95–105.

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