Title: Management education in India: a fit case for reengineering

Authors: Abinash Panda

Addresses: Organization Behaviour and Human Resource Management Area, Indian Institute of Management, Kashipur, India

Abstract: Mintzberg (2004) in his book Managers not MBAs has noted that an MBA course tends to focus on analytical skills, and hence, prepares students for nothing. Ghosal (2005) has noted that bad management theories were destroying good management practices. Bennis and O'Toole (2005) have attributed the failure to produce relevant research to business schools' obsession for scientific research and hiring professors with limited organisational experience, who end up producing research and teaching that is not relevant to managers and organisations outside. The issue of 'irrelevance' of management education is more acutely experienced in India as business schools in India tend to rely on the Western world even for the text books. It is high time to revitalise management education in India by contextualising both course curriculum and andragogy. This paper has made a serious attempt and offered a few suggestions to re-engineer the management education in India. The author has argued and presents a case for educators and educational administrators to take a fresh look at the course curriculum, andragogy, and students' learning outcomes of management education in India.

Keywords: management education; business schools; India; relevance; MBA programs; reengineering; andragogical innovation; contextualisation; student learning; learning outcomes; curriculum redesign; challenges; higher education.

DOI: 10.1504/IJICBM.2015.071592

International Journal of Indian Culture and Business Management, 2015 Vol.11 No.3, pp.356 - 387

Received: 15 May 2014
Accepted: 16 Sep 2014
Published online: 03 Sep 2015 *

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