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Induction of industry experts into MBA education
Articles- Oct 09,23
Over the years, India has developed a cadre of engineers and managers who have managed to keep the industrial map of India aflutter. In spite of the heavy criticism, Indian engineers have been successful in managing to run large scale factories, says R Jayaraman.
Teaching 23-year-olds in an MBA programme strikes me as largely a waste of time. They lack the background of experience. You can teach them skills - accounting and what have you - but you can't teach them management. - Peter Drucker
That’s serious coming from the management guru of the last century. One who made management education a ‘must have’ for the corner room. The USA currently has more than a thousand MBA programs. Of the 150 lakh people aged between 20 and 34 who hold a graduate management education (GME) master’s degree, 15.6% (23.4 lakh) are Indians. India is among the top 10 nations when it comes to students pursuing MBA and equivalent courses (from the first-ever global study of diversity conducted by the Graduate Management Admission Council, which conducts the GMAT exam). In fact, India is number 2 in MBA education. As is well known, anything to do with India is big. Big population, big number of train travellers, bus travellers, air travellers, school goers, etc.
Over the years, India has developed a cadre of engineers and managers who have managed to keep the industrial map of India aflutter. In spite of the heavy criticism, Indian engineers have been successful in managing to run large scale factories. The Tata Steel works at Jamshedpur is a good example. As are the automotive factories run by Maruti, Tata Motors, and others. Indian engineers have had to struggle to keep the industry fire alight, what with poor infra, inconsistent power supply, potholed roads, slow cargo trains, poor goods handling facilities, and even poorer facilities for long distance truckers to rest during their long journeys. While the productivity in India industry is not high, nevertheless, things have been moving, to the extent that we have the largest steel industry in the world, second only to China, a very large auto industry, mining, metals, power and other basic industries. And we have become the pharmacy to the world, not including the supply of COVID vaccines. In view of the lack of a basic infra for efficient manufacturing, management of enterprises assumes a paramount role. It is easier to manage wealth than poverty.
The speciality of Indian engineers is absorption of technology from abroad through collaborations. Though they may not be able to design and invent new, heavy machinery, they are adept at learning. This is the key. One must be humble enough to learn what one doesn’t know. In this area, Indian engineers score well. They not only absorb tech, they also build on it, and, over a period of time, own it too. As Indian MBA’s are mostly from an engineering background, they are able to carry forward this ‘learning’ ability to the C suite too. Most Indian MBA’s are really ‘Managerial Engineers’. They use their tech background to fare well in finance, marketing, sales, operations, HR etc.
In the engineering education stream in India, the involvement of industry personnel for teaching is not much. One may even say it is absent. This is because, the working engineers are most adept at tech absorption, and not in teaching engineering. Most shop floor engineers in India practice a ‘jugadu’ method of working, which cannot fit into text books easily, but are effective. This needs to change if Indian manufacturing is to become a world class outfit. We do have pockets of excellence in manufacturing, but the vast majority is still in need of upgrades. In such a situation, should industry personnel get into teaching in MBA education?
The answer is a resounding ‘Yes, but….’. As in engineering, the involvement of those who have used their education in applications and development, is a definite plus. They can teach the fine points, the nuances, the struggles, the disappointments, the long-term outlook needed to persevere with their efforts to achieve breakthroughs and excellence. Since ‘Management’ is, as the word itself says, ‘managing people’, it has an inherent connotation of managing human relations and humans, unlike engineering, where tech has to be understood, to deal with machines. Before we move any further, lets take a look at the framework (refer Figure 1), which leads to the question of executive involvement in management education.
Management Faculty is a key input for creating a cadre of well-educated graduates aware of and skilled in applying tools, techniques, management theories in the work place in industry. About 400,000 students graduate from over 3,000 B-Schools across the country every year. Faculty for MBA education is of two types, academic and practitioner. The academic faculty typically consists of professors who have completed their Ph D and spent a few years in industry. The practitioners, on the other hand, do not necessarily have a Ph D, but at least have a postgrad degree, preferably MBA’s, but, have an extensive period of distinguished industry contributions. The four lakhs MBA’s form the core, potential faculty for B Schools professors. In today’s B School education in India, one cannot go too far if one doesn’t have a Ph D. Most B Schools nowadays insist in faculty publications. Each faculty needs to publish papers or articles in reputed journals – and there is a plethora of them. Thus, industry professionals with Ph D or MBA can join as faculty.
The moot point is: why should B Schools want to employ such industry professionals? There are several points in favour. One, they bring in the ‘industry point of view’. This is really important when teaching MBA students in application methods. For example, a VP Materials Management can explain the non-managerial issues like maintaining a cardex system, keeping buffer stocks based on customer considerations, deploying lean methods in inventory management, and how to maintain relationships with various vendors. Legal experts, taxation experts are niches where industry experts can contribute significantly. Two, they bring in the views on ‘team work’. While MBA students learn team work through assignments and projects, these are really ‘paper preparation’ exercises. The practical situation, where one needs to understand and appreciate the work of colleagues, and, together, solve industrial problem cannot be learnt in an MBA classroom without practitioners. Three, practitioners bring with them information and a network of connected individuals in industry which they can tap, to arrange for in-company assignments. They can also obtain consulting work for their students and themselves. Four, practitioners are knowledgeable about the industry requirements, much more than the academics. Thus, there are four dimensions why industry practitioners should be a part of the B School faculty, as shown in the Figure 2 below.
Most B Schools in India utilise the services of such industry practitioners, some as fulltime, core faculty, or part time, ‘visiting’ faculty. Such faculty are encouraged to accept consulting assignments, accept visiting faculty positions in India or abroad, and obtain entry into companies which may want to support MBA education.
About the author:
R Jayaraman is the Head, Capstone Projects, at Bhavan's S P Jain Institute of Management & Research (SPJIMR). He has worked in several capacities, including Tata Steel, for over 30 years. He has authored over 60 papers in academic and techno economic journals in India and abroad. Jayaraman is a qualified and trained Malcolm Baldrige and EFQM Business Model Lead Assessor.
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