Employers want B-schools to teach more social responsibility

The highest paid B-school graduates were perhaps not completely aware of their larger social responsibility and to correct this, corporates have to train managers on the imprtance of long term projects benefiting society at large while academicians have to create the sense of social responsibility among students, Y C Deveshwar, chairman of ITC, said today at the round table discussion on 'Strengthening the industry-academia partnership to build business leaders for the nation'.

Organised by ITC as part of its ' Mera Desh Mera Gaon' business plan contest meant for rural business models, Deveshwar said at the round table that the contest was expected to throw up new business ideas and economic solutions.

Pointing to the lack of cutting edge research being conducted by academic institutions in recent years, Deveshwar said there was an urgent need to integrate knowledge created in academic schools with resources of corporate players.

Krishna G Palepu of the Harvard Business School said there was a need of academia-corporate interaction in doing India specific research.

"There should be more research that is relevant to Indian context, matched with the cultural and human sentiments of the country," he added.

Companies approaching academic institutions with a specific problem could consider setting up a dedicated research team with faculty members willing to work in that specified field to solve problems, Palepu said.

T N Ninan of Business Standard, pointed out that more than 70 per cent of the 900 odd BSchools affiliated to the All India Council of Technical Education were merely a one-room institutes and there was need to look into building B-schools which the middle class could afford.

Economist Isher Judge Ahluwalia mentioned the absence of lady managers and professionals in the field.

Deans of over 30 business schools who attended the roundtable were in general agreement that research languuished because of a lack of incentive.

B-school deans admitted the need to strengthen skills at middle and lower management levels through ongoing training programmes.

Another complained that fly-by-night B-schools often hired computers and other equipment when the prearranged visit by the AICTE inspector took place, and offered students virtually nothing on day to day basis.

Institutes should be forced to declare their assets in the prospectus and admission documents to tie them down, but the supervisory body appears to be unwilling to do so, they added.

Fresh MBA graduates seemed to be interested only in jobs in multinationals, they said, so that B-schools appeared to be feeding MNCs and not the nation.

The deans agreed that lack of incentive, or in other words funding, for research meant that research often focusssed on internationally relevant subjects as it could then be marketed for funding or assignments overseas.

The deans felt help from Indian industry could help in this. Speakers were in general critical of the poor supervision and flawed norms under AICTE.

The deans stressed the need of more collaborative work in entrepreneurship development and sought support of apex industry bodies like the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in the form of a list of professionals currently employed in industry willing to teach in academic institutions for short tenures.