Unravelling the Indian MBA

In the late 19^th and early 20^th century, the purpose of MBA centered on liberal and moral education for business managers to enhance their status in public and private life. At the forefront of this world wide success of an MBA degree have been four countries – France, Germany, the UK and the USA. These countries had a simple and a single minded proposition for their MBA degrees – educate managers in the practical aspects of Management.

The proposition needs itemisation –

• MBA was a programme of education
• focussing on practical aspects of Management
• for people in managerial positions

So, an MBA was NOT –

• a training programme or a skills development programme
• a programme engaging in theoretical facets or research aspects

• for college going kids or for people in non-managerial positions

So, how was an MBA different from other Masters Programme–

• not expected to lead to any Mastery of a discipline
• not aimed at theorising and theory building
• not aimed at producing teachers and researchers for the field of Management

A new model of an MBA emerged in the US by late 1950s to counter the allegations of lack of research and legitimacy of business education. This model emphasised on discipline-led scholarship, analytical methods and scientific rigour.

Emergence of an Indian MBA

The Indian MBA began some 60 years back as a poor replica of the US model that was beginning to dominate the world at that time. The Indian MBA emerged as a programme of higher education for college leaving people with bachelor's degrees – without any prior education or experience in Management.

Directed towards liberal and free business in an era of command and control economy, the Indian MBA was quite successful at the following levels –

• Acquiring legitimacy due to Governmental patronage
• Being affordable due to public funding
• Attractive to best talent pool

The Supply of Indian MBA remained limited and because the quality of the student admitted was high, the quality of the MBA programme itself was of no consequence.

Stabilising of the Indian MBA

The early 80s had only 50 odd programmes producing around 2000 MBAs a year. Over the next 10-15 years, MBA degree became high on aspiration, and the delivery of the programme also improved due to availability of home grown academics with global mindset. Indian MBA came of age because –

• It was still a limited supply with improvements in teaching and learning processes
• Increased mobility of MBAs with changes in demography
• Diversification of employment opportunities with emergence of new businesses

Expansion of the Indian MBA

Jump start of the Indian Economy post 1992 saw an expansion in supervisory and white collared jobs which were not necessarily for managers, in a booming services sector.

Entrepreneurs smelled a business opportunity in delivery of MBA programmes as there was an opportunity to attract customers and make profits.

This expansion went wrong on failing in -

• Establishing any Parameters of Quality of design of an MBA programme
• Monitoring any quality of conformance to the design
• Scaling up due to lack of capability, capacity or credibility

Confused State of Affairs of Indian MBA

With the exception of some 200 out of over 5000 programmes, the Indian MBA is at cross roads today. The purpose of MBA degree in India, the process of delivery and the people in this game are all a matter of concern. There are clearly the following questions:

• Is it a business of education or education of business?
• Is it a liberal programme or a rigorous programme?
• Is it for managers or would be managers or could be managers?
• Is it a terminal educational degree for entry into the job-market?
• Which job-market does the Indian MBAs address?
• How Global or local should the Indian MBA be?

It is important that these questions are asked and an attempt to find the answers begins in right earnest now that the NITI Aayog has been tasked with strategising in this area of concern.