Thursday 21 December 2017

Setting Priorities for Indian Universities


(Part-1 of the series: Leadership and Management of Institutions of Higher Education)

No institution can afford to stand still adorning the ornaments of its past glory. It has to keep moving ahead embracing the changing environment, earning more glory that is contemporary.

The purpose and role of Universities and institutions of Higher Education is accepted and established. Despite the growth in the number of such institutions and even in their sizes, most universities in India are doing a shoddy job of delivery on the expectations of the economy and the society that has been bestowed upon them.

Universities have compromised on the scope of their responsibilities behind the veil of growth in size and an alibi of political interference; both of which are unfortunately real. Systemic decay in the leadership and management of the universities has brought these institutions to a stage of minimal performance, a level that barely keeps them going in a rudderless and directionless motion. Universities and institutions of Higher Education continue to do what they do, mindless of what they are expected to do and destined to do, claiming to be doing just what they are ordered and permitted to do.

The scale and scope of the transformation needed is propagated to be so daunting that except for making loud noise for it, no political party, no administrative machinery or a voluntary organisation, not even a business enterprise or a grass-root organisation comes forward to bite the bullet. If Universities and institutions of Higher Education continue to fail the people of India, people will someday lose their patience and quietly eliminate these institutions, as they have done to dysfunctional ideologies, festivals, customs, practices, languages, regimes, businesses and institutions. It is in an enlightened self-interest of the people who make a living from out of these institutions Higher Education to take the onus and responsibility of the transformation.

The first step is to set the right priorities for these institutions and set the priorities of these institutions right.

Institutions of Higher Education

Post-secondary educational institutions (Universities and colleges) can be viewed from a variety of different perspectives. For most of the students and staff who work in them, they are centres of learning and teaching where the participants are there by choice and consequently, by and large, work very hard. Educational institutions as work places must be positive and not negative environments.

From another aspect, post-secondary educational institutions are clearly communities, functioning to all intents and purposes like small towns and internally requiring and providing a similar range of services, while also having very specialist needs.

From yet another they are seen as external suppliers of services to industry, commerce and the professions. These 'customers' receive, among other things, a continuing flow of well qualified fresh graduates with transferable skills; part-time and short course study opportunities through which to develop existing employees; consultancy services to solve problems and help expand business; and research and development support to create new breakthroughs.

However, educational institutions are also significant businesses in their own right. In case of countries like Australia, UK and the USA, higher education is a major export industry with the added benefit of long-term financial and political returns.

Irrespective of the way one looks at such institutions, management and leadership is the core differentiator for the success of these institutions.

To begin with the obvious, all universities, colleges and institutions of higher education are:
  • pluralistic institutions with multiple, ambiguous and conflicting goals;
  • comprising of professional faculties, departments, schools and centres that are primarily run by the profession (i.e. the academics) often in their own interests rather than those of the clients; and
  • a set of collegial sub-institutions in which the Head of the Institution is akin to a managing partner in a professional firm who has to manage by negotiation and persuasion and not like a owner of a private firm who can manage by diktat and decree and more.
Change is extremely difficult to bring about in an institution with these characteristics. A prerequisite for change is some pressure – often a threat from outside the institution – which convinces its members that change, is necessary.

Context is of the 21st Century

The world is changing faster than human perception. Capital movements have replaced trade as the driving force of the world economy. Production has become uncoupled from employment. 75-year struggle between capitalism and socialism has almost ended. Primarily the product of a technologically interconnected world (Internet, Satellite TV, and Cell phones), new global consumer culture (Google culture, live-in culture, coffee culture, fast-food culture, credit card culture) is replacing the conventional understanding of culture. Younger people have more similarities with their age cohorts elsewhere in the world, in terms of their dreams, aspirations, attitudes, opinions and even in consumption behaviour than their own parents.

Scenario at the Horizon

To get a sense of what lies in store for these institutions, it may be useful to look at the external perspectives (those of the stakeholders and the society) and internal perspectives (those of the leaders and managers of such institutions) on higher education.

Perspectives and Expectations:

  • Comparison and Bench marking for all institutions against pioneering institutions,
  • Nebulous public expectations of programme quality,
  • Scant and superficial media coverage for good work done but increasing media bashing for even trivial failings,
  • Increasing expectations from public and students that their educational certification receives acceptance of potential employers,
  • Curriculum and pedagogical controversies,
  • Non-availability of good faculty resources in sufficient numbers,
  • Rising faculty costs and expectations,
  • Public acceptance for private institutions appears to be increasing.

Prospects and Opportunities:

  • Increasing public faith in formal education as an instrument to stable careers, social status and assured livelihoods,
  • Rising demand for educational programmes particularly in the developing world and in the domains of economics, business and commerce,
  • Limited and decreasing public funding,
  • Cost and Revenue Complexity in running the programmes – total costs are a stepped-function (larger share of fixed costs) while revenues are variable and nearly straight-line,
  • Limits on revenues from the fees charged from the participants,
  • Concerns of sustenance and replication of quality in scaling up the operations,
  • Those who can afford and even those who cannot but manage with some difficulties are willing to pay for better education.

Options in Establishing Institutional Priorities

There are no limits for the options in terms of priorities that any University or an institution of higher education can set for itself. It is useful however to create a small list of a few priorities that would have more generic and universal applicability and acceptability. In no order of precedence, just the five of these priorities are:

1. Research Driven - progress (in exploring the possibilities of knowledge and improving the content of the curricula in different disciplines) in the institution is compelled by research;

2. Higher Level and Scarce Skills - skills that enable analysis and synthesis of a range of knowledge, critical reflection on different and potentially conflicting sources of knowledge; developing complex arguments, reaching sound judgements and communicating these effectively to fill particular roles/professions or occupations in the labour market;

3. Strategic Partnerships – socially and mutually beneficial cooperation and networking with government, social and business institutions that supplement and/or compliment the progress;

4. Intellectual Achievement - the power or talent of the mind by which one knows or understands, as distinguished from that by which one feels and that by which one wills; the understanding; the faculty of thinking and acquiring knowledge;

5. Financial Strength - ownership, access and commitments of resource that ensure operational and strategic sustenance


One reasonably appropriate way forward would be to add one more priority to the above list to reflect the differentiated context and strategy of the specific university and then set these six priorities in an order of precedence.

Introspection on Capacities and Capabilities

Each University and institution should carry out an audit of its physical and intangible assets in order to get a sense of existing capabilities and capacities or gaps within before embarking upon a strategic trajectory of actions to meet the priorities set. Such capacities or gaps therein usually result from:

· Location and Geography
  • Neighbourhood, Proximities, Physical Access
  • Possibilities on Physical Expansion
  • Vulnerabilities and Distractions
· Resources
  • Financial Reserves and Resources
  • Access to Investments and Funding
· Assets
  • Legacy and Philosophy
  • Accreditations and Certifications
  • Experience, knowledge, data
  • Processes, systems, IT, communications
  • Size of Product portfolio
· People
  • Morale, Commitment, Leadership
  • Diversity and Experience of Senior Executive Team
  • Diversity, Experience and Size of the Faculty
  • Cultural, Attitudinal and Behavioural disposition of Staff
· Reputation, Presence and Reach
  • Awareness and Perceptions of stakeholders
  • Nature and Vigour of Business Linkages
  • Energy of Community Connections
  • Credibility of Programmes
  • Attractions for high calibre students
  • Price, Value, Quality equation


India is moving on a sustained trajectory of high growth. She is going to encounter a complex and turbulent environment, and therefore its universities face acute organisational complexity resulting further into enhanced operating complexity. If the universities wish to play the stellar role in leading the Indian transformation (not an unrealistic dream – such roles had been played historically by the North American universities in the 20th century) the Indian Universities and Institutions of Higher Education will have to proactively engage themselves in creating the future. That will be the challenge of living up to national and regional priorities.


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Part-2 follows soon.
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Monday 11 December 2017

COURSES FOR HORSES*




The media space that gets consumed reporting about the MBA degree or its analogues is an indicator of the increasing interest amongst general public about MBA programmes. One could look at it as an indicator of the success of these programmes as compared to other academic qualifications. The downside is the possibility that MBA would soon suffer from this perception of a success.

The 'suffering from success' is the expression because different expectations that the various stakeholders of this degree have from it will get hardened and there is little evidence that these expectations do not have a serious mis-match.

As a generalization, intending students want that in their MBA programmes they should be taught by big names amongst teachers, the likes of a Philip Kotler or a Michael Porter, that their schools should enjoy the status of big brands like a Wharton or a LBS. Their schools should have big prospects in job markets so that they get recruited by the likes of Levers or McKinseys or Lehman Brothers and that they should get big returns on their investments in time and money by getting million dollar starting salaries.

The prospective employers are all very keen to hire these young MBAs but they expect that the recruits should deliver practical applications out of all the grand ideas and theories that they learnt in their b-school, that they should have a realistic expectations on compensation and organizational culture that these recruits should be bright, bubbly and willing to soil their hands and that they should be able to provide leadership both to the people on their teams and for the ideas that these teams bring forth.

B-schools would normally teach what they wish to teach and what they think is necessary to be taught without much reference to the needs of current business. They would possibly teach courses but what the business wants are horses. B-schools would seek institutional growth through scale growth and scope growth without controlling the processes they adopt. They would also not like someone else to monitor their processes. B-schools would seek relationships with big prospects in the employment market and at times even without actually earning it, they would want to be respected by one and all for what they do.

The prospective employers wish that the b-schools should initiate changes in the ideas that they propagate to their students, change the experience that is delivered to the students, change the levels of knowledge that is imparted and change the motivational drivers that set the course of performance of their students. Employers seek these changes to possibly get the new MBA recruits to master, manage and lead the change for their businesses.

The students wish their b-schools should change the pace of their delivery of programme, change the levels at which the courses are pitched, possibly change the courses that are taught and even change the rewards that students get both as transcripts and as placements. They seek these changes for a change in the satisfaction that they derive from pursuing an MBA.

Everything around an MBA degree yearns for a change yet the MBA by itself is not changing. The fundamental platform for design that comprises of core or fundamental courses, decision tools and skills courses, functional courses and integrative courses continue to be the building blocks of any MBA programme. These hardening and mis-matched expectations raise the question of relevance of the degree. The response to the debate on its relevance or irrelevance is coming from b-schools in terms of the focus of their MBA - as a general MBA, a functional MBA or a sectored MBA.

This debate about the focus in an MBA programme is also not very new. MBA education in its early years had a general orientation. The argument for the MBA qualification was in terms of its benefit for those in positions in business and management, especially those in executive and managerial positions. The foundations for the success of the degree were laid on business knowledge, leadership ability and networking. The orientation towards general management rather than any functional specialisation continues to drive a set of world leaders in MBA like the Harvard Business School even today.

As the MBA education matured, academia and industry started looking for functional specialisations (in functions of business like marketing or finance). Thus MBA with concentration or specialisation or even specific functional MBA degrees evolved. This trend was driven by the need to hire younger people in supervisory roles and reduce their induction time in organisations. The functional orientation is supported by schools like Kellogg and Wharton. Single stream specialisations have evolved into dual specialisations wherein students pursue combinations of functional domains now.

Some recent trends have seen emergence of sector specific MBAs. The focus is around specific sectors of economy. Fuqua's Health Sector Management program at Duke is a case in point. MBAs in Retail, Banking, insurance, tourism, real estate and energy are all evolving. A recent one added to this growing list is an MBA in disaster management.

If the reality of business and the power houses of economies of the 21st century are so different from the ones of the last century, can the MBA still survive by incremental mutation or we need a radical innovation in the MBA programme? I don't have an answer.

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*This is the text of my 10 year old article that was carried by the Economic Times in June 2007.

In June of 2007, The Economic Times, New Delhi had approached me to write on MBA programmes. At that time, I was serving as Professor & the Chair of Marketing Area and Dean – Strategic Planning & Research at Management Development Institute (MDI), Gurgaon. I was also a Visiting Professor and Chair of the Global Advisory Council of Wits Business School (WBS) at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in South Africa.  

I wrote the following and titled it as "MBA Education At Cross-roads". The editor carried it in one of their issues without any modification except changing the title to - COURSES FOR HORSES and adding a highlighted box on the page stating – "When all they wanted was Horses, the MBA Institutes gave them Courses" Unfortunately, I do not have a copy of the printed page.

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Monday 4 December 2017

Bridge Between B-Schools and Business


Business facing an operating challenge turns to consultants, pays them a fee, shares data and expects solutions. In turn, consultants, who are neither trained in rigorous research nor do they adopt very rigorous methods of research, deliver workable solutions, as expected and accepted by business.

Contrast this with the fact that academics, though anticipated to be through in methodologies, are neither expected nor accepted to be delivering solutions. But why does that happen?

Research in B-Schools

There is something uncanny about the perception and credibility of research conducted in b-schools. Academics from the science stream often consider the research methods used in b-schools as weak.  Researchers in liberal arts believe that research at b-schools is too applied and not theoretical enough for the b-school academics to be considered as real scholars. It is somewhat ironic that, at the same time, b-school research is being criticised by people in business for being too academic and not relevant enough. Some of the b-school researchers also side with a few of such perceptions.

Science and business do not operate the same way. Scientific knowledge and research is owned by the society, except in case of 'contract-research' and 'proprietary-technology', both of which have commercial or business motives. Business operates within the society but has different owners and stakeholders with interests that may or may not be prime facie for social or non-commercial gains.

Science and scientists operate under a 'open-source' model where information is shared openly and ideas are discussed  freely, where it is accepted that not all  ideas are equal and therefore have shifting validity, and where issues and answers are  often complex. The 'open-source' model of research in science has several shortcomings from a purely business perspective, such as the absence of easily measurable outcomes (other than the publication of even more papers!), the absence of clear connections to a given "customer," the fact that this model challenges some basic ideas concerning individual gain, and the fact that the scholars who participate in this model are often poorly equipped to explain it to others—managers or even students in some cases!  But science can only progress through its reliance on the 'open-source' model.

Therefore, it is critical that we retain this model.

Business, on the other hand, operates under a model where secrecy is valued, where there is an emphasis on results and utility, and where the owners, stakeholders, leaders and managers need answers—not ambiguity. Research motivations of academics and business or industry are traditionally at odds with each other—academics research as a contribution to a public body of knowledge vs. corporate profit-driven applied research.

Business and B-Schools Void

The idea of a "gap" between research done in academia and its translation into marketable and usable solutions certainly is not new. Academics would like to deliver universal principles, technologies and solutions as an outcome of research. Such deliveries are not ready-to-use when a business is dealing with some specific problem. For business to be able to benefit from the universal solutions there is still a need for someone who would adapt and customize the general solution for application in specific instances. Such customization and adaptation would be done in do-it-yourself mode by the business managers or would be provided by the business consultants. Consequently, managers and consultants are treated as more practice oriented or simply more practical people.

The intermediation by 'practical' persons in the theory -to- solution chain could face the risk of –  "mediocre technology in the hands of a superb team can soar, whereas superior technology in the hands of a mediocre team will go nowhere." Yet without this team, superb or mediocre, no knowledge can be translated into solutions.

Business researchers live in b- schools, and they quite like to think of themselves as operating on a "business" model and being able to "talk to" real-world managers. But they are not managers; they are scholars, scientists, and educators, and they operate with a different model. These differences may ensure that there will always be some disconnect between the outcomes of their research and what practicing managers need, but they can certainly do a better job at their end to help narrow this gap.

While business-schools cannot and should not ignore pure research, which feeds the future of knowledge and applied research, they need to appreciate that the longer time cycles from conception to delivery in case of pure research and the absence of immediacy of its use to the problems of business fuels the scepticism of business about practical usefulness of such academic efforts.

It cannot be a one-way bridge

The academic-business partnership introduces students to professionals working in their subject in the real world who they would not otherwise have encountered. These interactions help instil a work ethic in students and inspire them towards success.

Business links are crucial for students when they are looking for internship opportunities and employment positions. With unreal focus on placements as the predominant indicator of the quality of a b-school, particularly in India, b-schools nearly chase business organizations for work opportunities.

Truth about the quality of the b-school is the first casualty when students and b-schools make sales pitch to the potential recruiting businesses. The second casualty is truth about actual recruiting that happened when the b-schools flaunt the placement data that is all padded up. Most b-schools want to ride this paper tiger of placements and once they begin ridding it, there is no way for them to get off because this tiger can annihilate the b-school.

Unfortunately, it might seem that the business to b-school relationship is rather one sided in favour of the b-school and students.

This is not really the case. The business partner also benefits from access to b-schools. They get to work with students throughout their course. This means that they get to identify the greatest minds and the students who will benefit their workforce. They get first pick of the best graduates. Through a shared project, many students also produce useful work for the business partner at the same time as completing the requirements of their academic award.

A successful academic-business partnership can extend beyond work with students. Business does realise the potential for academic expertise centres to fill the need for applied research but the engagement is quite often limited to philanthropic contributions or sharing of Business data via personal networks of the academics. Academics in B-school are active in academic research and generating new knowledge. Business partners can call upon them and ask for additional help, particularly in areas where they lack academic expertise or staff capacity. Such collaboration can be fruitful for both parties and lead to the development of new ideas and products. Business will partner with institutional network that exhibits capability and undertake responsibility for delivery of usable solutions

Research as a Bridge between Academia and Business

Business knows about solutions to old problems from past learning and experience. Solution to current problems of business requires a unique framework of experimentation and exploitation.

Industry and business will more easily partner and participate in research where they expect solutions to their problems as outcomes rather than some esoteric research which is good for public and society in general. Rightly so, if business is about action, business research has to be action oriented, notwithstanding the truth that academic research in the domain of business has to be much broader and deeper, replicable and universal.

B-schools don't usually work with real world managers to develop a research agenda. Perhaps b-schools should be encouraging young PhD scholars to develop coherent research programs, rather than rewarding them for publishing the "2-3 required A-level articles" necessary for their degrees and tenured jobs.  

Academic research needs to transform itself into research that goes beyond the limits of classical approaches to the study the management and regulation of innovation. It has to be grounded to an integrated systems approach to economic, environmental and social performance, spanning producers, consumers and other social interests. Business research has to pursue the development of new business models and technologies that create and capture tangible value for firms and society.  It has to connect business and social innovation and place partnership and collaboration at the heart of its design.

B-schools can do a better job of training their students to translate their research findings into useful knowledge.  Globally some b- schools are quite good at this, and some of their academics are very good at demonstrating the practical relevance of their research findings, but most business schools are content to train students to be pure scholars without concern over showing the relevance of their work.

In fact, consultants and management "thought leaders" have to get their ideas from somewhere, and many of them get their ideas from research journals, or from books where authors take ideas from research journals and explain their applied value. In either case there are individuals involved who are simply more talented at reading research papers, which at times are arcane, esoteric and unfathomable papers and extracting the kernel of useful information from them.

Managers who read research journals often complain that academics spend too much time on details of measurement and analyses, but this is what they need to do in order to establish to their readers that they should have confidence in the research findings. Reporting of research has to be acceptable to both, the users and the other researchers. A simple way forward is just the restructuring of the scholarly writing. It might serve the interest of the readers to explain things in the simplest terms possible. The methodological rigour, measurements and academic jargon that are usually coined by the academic fraternity could shift to the annexure and appendices for more critical examination and evaluation by other academics.

Preparations inside the B-school

Without any cutting back on pure research, just a little refocus in the doctoral level research programmes would be enough to make a real beginning.

As a first step, redesigning the course work so as to offer a scientific training that crosses conventional boundaries and silos within academic institutions and which exposes young scholars to the reality of Sustainability Driven Innovation in practice in the real business world could be initiated. Few business schools today offer this kind of interdisciplinary learning experience and environment to their PhD candidates.

More heroic decisions on the part of appointments and promotion committees are however required. The simple truth is that so far these committees reward faculty for publishing one-shot studies with little external validity. Not every paper that has been published makes an equal contribution to the field. Unpublished papers, regardless of their brilliance, can also make much of a contribution. Appointments and promotion committees would have to be persuaded to judge and reward faculty on the basis of programmatic research and real contributions.

While academic research has to be monetised, there are risks in pure monetisation of research. Over concern for monetisation is the primary reason the biotech business never really fulfilled its potential. So while b-schools should not become too enamoured with measurable outcomes in their research endeavours, they must do a better job of connecting their research to the world around.

The faculty and research scholars in a B-school may not have the critical size and diversity of research team to deliver such solutions. It may therefore, be advisable to form networks with other B-schools, locally and globally.

Building the Bridge

Let each network B-school partner with one leading company, business platform or an NGO. Let the partner define the central research questions and then supervise and/or host a PhD researcher for 6-12 months of applied investigation and learning in the field. Make researchers, supervisors and stakeholders meet often, in different milieus, to pool insights and to work on skills development. These intensive learning experiences of meeting together would develop new empirical evidence to advance the innovative solutions to emerging problems of Business and would integrate "real world" concerns of stakeholder into research design and execution.

Task each doctoral student with developing a piece of a much larger scientific "puzzle" with a focus on innovations in business models and processes and management frameworks. This includes a deeper understanding of  the range of organisational capabilities that innovative solutions require, new inter-organisational structures that support effective solutions, how firms engage with other key stakeholders through multi-actor platforms, networks and ecosystems  or through "blended or hybrid innovation" combining social, environmental and business perspectives.

Aggregation of such applied research may eventually also satisfy some of the academic hunger of pure researchers in terms of providing empirical evidence in support or rejection of their theories and may actually initiate a spiral of advancement in knowledge through a symbiotic and synergistic relationship between pure and applied research at one level and between business and b-school at the other.

Emerging Opportunities for Research Linked B2B-School Partnership

At this time, there is an unprecedented level of intergovernmental consensus to tackle global sustainability challenges. The climate accords, UN Sustainable Development Goals and EU Circular Economy Strategy provide clear frameworks and targets for companies, governments and other stakeholders to pursue.

Emerging opportunities will be seized by organisations embracing business model transformation, new collaborative capabilities and strategic repositioning within existing markets. B-schools are failing to keep pace with these macro shifts and emerging opportunity landscapes. There are opportunities for the new partnership to bid for external funding, securing jobs and generating future income both for business and b-schools.

One of the worst forms of class-divide—the separation of those who generate new knowledge from those who apply and disseminate that knowledge – is what this bridge can bridge. Fully integrating some members of the practice community with the academic community and vies-a-versa integrating some members of the academic community with the practice community will only enrich both the banks that this bridge would connect.

Treading over the Bridge

It will be a big leap for many b-schools and businesses to work closely together. An academic-business partnership requires a lot of trust, as well as willingness for both sides to invest the time and energy needed to make things work. Business has to get used to the quality assurance processes in use at academic institutions and their need to follow sector standards. Academic institutions have to be empowered to change their course content and teaching style.

Most importantly, students gain from such new ideas and innovation. They get to emerge from b-schools with skills and experience that would otherwise be beyond them. Hence, it is important for academia and business to reach out to one another and explore how fruitful an academic-business partnership can be.

A word of caution for the academia - Refocus research to tackling complex societal problems and avoid applying a fresh coat of self-referential paint to the "ivory tower" or you will lose both, your credibility and your independence.

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