Reinventing Management Education

Since the liberalization of the Indian Economy 25 years back, wide varieties of economic and competitive forces have directly impacted the Indian business schools. Many of these forces that have distressed the business schools are external influences. The business schools cannot be blamed for the onset of the many disruptions— like, changes in regulatory systems and processes, new market entrants, globalization, and technological shifts— that continue even today. Business schools could have been more perceptive in anticipating these trends. Many institutions were far too risk-averse to respond, and those that did respond did so as a halfhearted reaction.

Business schools are devoted to a conventional approach to management education, which reflects historical conventions associated with higher education in general. Many of these conventions bamboozle innovations. Traditional curriculum, pedagogies and legacies prevail. Business schools continue to focus on what they know best and what had worked previously, instead of focusing on the markets they are seeking to serve.

The conventional narrative of the market place as comprising of a Leader, Challengers, Followers and Niche-players has been rewritten as incumbency versus disruption. As incumbent institutions, it makes little sense for business schools to attempt to become disruptors. However, if they want to ensure their long-term survival, business schools will need to revisit the Input-Process-Output model of education.

Current Scenario of Management Education

The economic crisis of 2008 seems to be over and the applications for MBA/PGDM are once again rising. The society and the government no longer dispute or question the role of business in economic affairs and global progress. There are about 10000 business schools around the world and about one-fifth of the world's students are studying business and management. Unprecedented possibilities exist for developing new products, services and solutions as business. Millennials and older students are bitten by the bug of entrepreneurialism and eager to start innovative new companies. Some of this entrepreneurialism is devoted to global transformation - social entrepreneurship, students and their faculty are innovating new solutions to help erase poverty, teach skills to the uneducated, empower women, expand and improve healthcare, and more.

Forces and challenges before Management Education

Some anti-progress forces which are as much anti-state as they are anti-business are emerging. They will sooner or later impact the society and government and consequently they will affect business and business-education.

Globalisation and automation are weakening the position of ordinary citizens who are facing overlapping challenges of unemployment, low income, insecurity, instability and vulnerability. People are associating globalisation with lost industrial glory, lost full-time jobs and weakened social identity. These people want to return to the past era of protectionism and swadeshi. Extreme inequality is spreading globally. The repercussions on society of the current mega-inequality risk creating a domino effect that counters progress.

The education at the school level is unable to keep up with the changing times. School has become a place for skills training; losing sight of the need for a broad education that produces responsible citizens. There is a glaring failure to educate youth and adults in critical thinking which in turn is creating a social milieu science is doubted and questioned; art, literature and music are disrespected; and where propaganda and disinformation overtake true freedom of thought.

There is an increase in terrorism, the UN is unable to solve conflicts, dictatorships and increasingly authoritarian regimes are emerging who are engaging in "hybrid warfare" to avoid attribution or retribution.

The world is apparently facing unstoppable global warming and the rising pollution of the planet's natural resources. These conditions also provide fertile ground for social unrest.

Input-Process-Output Model

Business schools would need to begin from the 'Output' – the graduate who is required to be fit for the new business realities – which the business school ought to deliver. Next they would need to understand the 'Input' – the student entering the business school, in terms of his/her prior learning, motivations, capabilities, aspirations, expectations and constraints. It is only then that the business schools would define the process of education that they should follow to work with the available "Input" with the purpose of delivering the "Output."

Understanding 'Output'

The demands of today's global marketplace, defined by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA principles) demand a new set of skills and abilities. Traditional models of leadership as defined by stability, cyclicality and predictability are no more valid. The evolving context for leadership is focused on technology, globalization, climate change and sustainability. Beyond the capacity to solve linear cause and effect problems, more contemporary leadership skills like discernment and adaptive navigation in real time and dealing with non-linear cause and effect is the order of the day.

Appreciating 'Input'

The students and learners entering a business school are increasingly selective, mobile and technologically savvy. They seek rewards in terms of placements, career shifts and new-networks and not necessarily in terms of education and knowledge. Many students are increasingly going to demand access to management education in the form of online and blended programs, elasticity to accumulate credits and flexible staged certification. This is especially critical for working professional students who wish to avoid paying the often exorbitant opportunity costs associated with leaving their jobs for traditional full-time programs.

Reengineering the 'Process'

If business is to be the agent to transform the world and contribute to solving humanity's most critical problems, Management Education must play a main role in creating our collective future. The very essence of the academic enterprise, the curriculum need to be modified to include –

• Solutions to boost the currently hopeless citizens into participating in economic growth and wealth;
• Designing of equitable and fair trade agreements and combat the myopic anti-trade and anti-globalisation forces;
• Methods for combating the ignorance of anti-intellectualism, which has reactionary beliefs at its core;
• Portfolio of approaches to solve the wealth inequality challenge that is worsening year by year in many countries; and  
• Ways to inspire the business world to participate in balancing out the many types of asymmetry on the planet.

Curricula and related activities have historically been the sole domain of the faculty. Business schools that cling to this worldview will do so at their peril.

Most business schools can't accomplish this on their own. They need to create reciprocal, mutually beneficial collaborations with critical private-sector partners. Partnerships with private-sector entities would go beyond the standard internship, full-time placement and academic project support.

Co-creating, co-branding and co-delivering programmes and curricular activities represent the next frontier of engagement between schools and colleges of business and their private-sector partners.

The need for business schools to adapt their processes and to recalibrate their approach to ensuring success of their students is imperative. The near commoditization of the management education industry makes it difficult for students and employers to discern the difference between many of the programs.

No defined 'processes' for a defined 'purpose' can work without 'people.' The biggest challenge in reinventing the management education will be the resistance from the incumbent faculty and the shortage of new and disruptive faculty.


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