Future of Management Education- scenario and recommendations

Mr. Rajiv Roychaudhuri,

Professor of Practice,

School of Management-PCU 

 

Management Education Status Quo

The need for managers and subsequent leaders will be a continuous one as new companies and startups keep forming and organizations of earlier years scale up their functions or diversify into new uncharted territories. Add on a VUCA world, a smart and agile business professional will be the need of the hour.

Going forward, management colleges would need to hire quality teachers who believe in personalized coaching, are technologically savvy, and have high EQ levels for seamless delivery. Management education will need transformation to be at global gold standards wherein learning is superlative, industry interventions are frequent, technology adaptability is at an all-time high and training & development for all in the teaching ecosystem is limitless.

It is also imperative that the selection and admission process of students is made fairly consistent with domestic and global certified exams or independent testing mechanisms of institutes that follow international norms, so that the intake quality of students acts as a bare minimum threshold on which the institution can further build upon. Also as management is more real time, it would be right to have a certain percentage of seats dedicated for experienced students.

Some of the future mantras for a successful global management education development future, could be the following: -

Top 10 Commandments for the Future:

1. Build the next pillars of management education:

In the existing global context, management professionals are highly sought after due to the necessity to rebuild economies and companies. Business schools to target building skillsets in students that emphasize an approach towards strategic innovation, creative problem solving, effective communication and high EQ levels, as the next four pillars to democratize management education.

2. Institutionalize Global Management Perspectives:

Business Schools are now striving to limit education to more subjective and prolonged lifelong learning, so that they may change and at the same time adapt to a dynamic world, that is in a state of flux. Going forward they would need to believe in the principle of ‘survival of the most adaptable over fittest’. Hence cross pollination of international business learnings is most mandated, and ‘train the trainers’ is encouraged, to pass on the learnings to the next generation.

3. Develop Entrepreneurial mindset at institute level:

As there is a trend and promotion of entrepreneurship at the Government level to create more jobs for a larger youth population, it is mandated to encourage the development of E-cells, which would be mandated to promote idea generation and gradually decode into products with right industry interventions, investor and private body participation.

4. Build robust industry linkages:

Industry experienced professionals, stalwarts, entrepreneurs, and prominent people with interests in the field of business studies typically diagnose developments and examine the most important issues from their individual point of view and hence their time to time presence manifested as guest lectures, workshops, clinics, conclaves or seminars would pave the way to be in tune with the business times.

5. Fillip to Digital Literacy:

The "knowledge industry" has ushered in mechanisms to be distant yet near through connected digital infrastructure that is as close to real and doubles up managing teams, motivating people, and taking an active part in negotiations. Business schools however pre-dominantly still embrace a “campus-based" model. Online and Blended Learning could be fostered beyond the pandemic years to promote distance education, alleviate digital competition like the advent of MOOC, and in the process encourage and embrace future of work.

6. Augment Green Leadership:

A slew of global problems, including climate change, water shortage, and public health challenges like the recent COVID-19 pandemic, require a significant amount of public and private funding and global investment, necessitating a need for sustainability and green talent in the years ahead. Business Schools should inculcate such programs in their curriculum, to meet future pent up demand in the ESG space.

7. International Culture Sensitization:

Considering the advent of global multinational companies in India with international offices and teams, it is imperative that today’s Business Schools that groom future management leaders, essentially allow students to have cross cultural exposure with exchange programs facilitated with other global B-Schools from time to time, that aids in understanding cultures, way of work, talent utilization and business performance optimization.

8. Unconventional Teaching Strategies:

While some of the conventional learning mechanisms like role plays, case studies, business quizzes remain sacrosanct and effective tools and as a teaching pedagogy intervention of immersive virtual reality plans could accentuate simulating complex business problems at the classroom level, akin to a flight simulator as the future of learning amalgamated with work.

9. Collaboration over Competition:

To promote holistic learning amongst students and to benchmark the best and next practices, it augurs well for business schools to collaborate with each other and share learnings and experiences. Such an approach will allow all business schools to up their ante and, in the process, the entire ecosystem of faculty, administrators, management and students stand to gain.

10. Promote real time learning through Internships:

Internships in the corporate world through summer programs or capstone exercises with varied lengths of engagement and intermittent frequency could be worked upon by the management institutes to imbibe the real world business problems as live case exercises for the students and to apply and build on their management learnings. This ensures a ‘’kaizen knowledge add’’ for students and be industry ready in due time and hit the ground running.

Recommendation:

Management Education would continue to generate demand from business houses, as it is the only higher education that encompasses a rare mix of general and subject matter expertise in students and tests them on multiple fronts as inward-out and outward-in as 360 degree learnings, which are relevant and responsive for the corporate world. The complexity and challenges of the business world would continue to rise, but management education if looked at and dealt with, with the right infusion of leaders from the industry with teaching acumen, student selection criteria & experienced hires, immersive & blended technology integration, industry initiated & business simulation cases & global exchange programs, all-encompassing could be self-fulfilling and govern the successful transition of monolithic institutions to a more nimble yet long term sustainable institution with their own legacy with ‘’knowledge is profit’’ deeply ingrained as the future M-Way!