Social context of management education: Institution building experience at IIMs

Abstract

IIMs have played a significant role in realizing the societal aspirations of India becoming a creative, compassionate, and developed nation. This needs attention of all stakeholders. Very few people know that IIMs contribute as much, if not more, to public action and management as to the private sector management. The purpose of this Colloquium is to proactively ask questions which will help IIMs to explicitly state their contributions to the society and be ready for challenges ahead. Some of the key issues discussed in this Colloquium are: * The processes through which IIMs have defined their goals and directions over the years. * Adequacy of initiatives taken by IIMs to generate greater social, ethical, and professional accountability among students and executives trained at IIMs. * IIMs’ institution building role and its impact on the quality of management education and practice in India. * Factors contributing to the elitist character of IIMs and its social context and significance. * The potential for IIMs playing a catalytic role in facilitating, empowering or serving the small-scale, unorganized/under-managed sectors and other civil society organizations. * The role that IIMs see for themselves in building India into a developed nation. The following points emerged from the discussion: * IIMs have made a tremendous contribution to the Indian economy by providing corporate leadership. The skills developed and honed in IIMs should be extended to other sectors and institutions. * IIMs form the backbone of our country’s economic success by helping professionalize management for all sectors of the economy and providing the entrepreneurial, technical, and skilled personnel for superior wealth generation. * IIMs offer a model for management education with open and merit-based admissions, good and relevant curriculum, campus placement, and a general motivation to be relevant to the social needs. * The participative, decentralized, and transparent governance system can make IIMs the role model for excellence-seeking institutions. * If global reputation for distinctive contribution and institutional excellence has to be sustained, IIMs would need to coordinate their approaches to addressing opportunities in globalization. * To gain social legitimacy and respect of various stakeholders, IIMs need to take proactive steps to bring students from less privileged social backgrounds. * Higher management education institutions such as IIMs should develop a coherent and compelling vision of how they would want to contribute to the new, liberalized India. Visioning must be participative and must involve all the stakeholders