Innovation in Management Education-Need of Hour Suraj Sharma Assistant Professor Neelkanth Institute of Technology, Modipuram,Meerut

Professional management is well accepted and professionally trained managers are in demand while professional management has become well accepted qualification for employment by most modern organizations. However whether management has come of age and acquired the stature of a profession is always a question. Management as a profession has still not matured and requires further innovations. Just a few steps are taken so far and many more need to be undertaken to make this profession contributes to the society. Strong will power and positive efforts taken by the management institutes and practicing professionals may change this scenario. one must remember that professions like Medicine and Law have a history of two centuries and they acquired the status of profession after going through many stages of development. Management is a recent field and in future, and in due course of time, it may also develop into a profession like Law and Medicine. Management education in India has gone into the hands of politicians and money makers in the last two decades and AICTE has facilitated this by showing over concern to control not well developed management schools than to develop the professional management. It is only in the recent t past the HRD Ministry is being guided to ask some right questions on research output of these institutions earlier it was more questions on the acres of land, number of computers, classroom size and fee collected and rarely on the curricula taught. In any case a controlling agency cannot be expected to develop the profession. Profession has to be developed by committed professionals. If we ask a question Who are the committed management professionals in this country? The answers are not always very promising. For example the Government is concerned more with numbers and not quality. Professional associations are often headed by people with no professional qualifications. Profession bodies do more of short capsule training than education. Teachers and researchers and the Management schools rarely participate in the Professional bodies like AIMA, CII, and those that use academics have slowly become extinct. Professional LMAs have extended the concept of management ranging from home management to import-export management and international management offer one day to one year programs part time. You can become a member of these bodies by paying anywhere between a hundred rupees to a thousand rupees. No one asks for professional qualifications. Thus we seem to be at an age any one call himself or herself Home Maker, HRD managers at home and Home managers and enter an LMA as an office bearer. Some of them are more professional than the professionally trained managers as they have scientific knowledge, well set rules and a lot more determination and on the spot user-feedback if the curry is not cooked well or the child is sent late to school

something lacking seriously in management education. Projects are awarded by bidding and not be expertise (a thing that rarely happens in medicine). They dont ask for bids from doctors when a politician is to undergo a heart surgery but bids are invited for organizational surgeries and bid evaluations are made by managers with no professional training sometimes based on brand image and nationality of the company than the professionalism and professional qualifications of service providers. Professional managers and IIMs dont normally participate in these bids. Changing Profile of Entrants into the Management Profession A recent survey at IIMA on student activities as an indicator of their needs revealed that todays student is more serious and less jovial and more reserved and introverted. This perhaps is an impact of the Internet world. Social interactions seem to be much less preferred and focused achievement is preferred adding a lot of seriousness to life . There are many studies in other countries that indicate the nature of the new generation we are dealing with. For example studies reveal that Gen Y workers expect to be paid more, to have flexible work schedules, expect to be promoted within a year, expect to have more vacation or personal time, and expect to have access to state-of-the-art technology. They have a more difficult time taking direction or responding to authority than other generations. They are an important segment of the workforce and literally the future of companies and organizations? We need to take notice of this in designing and managing the management education. In contrast the professors specially the older ones who have a lot of knowledge and wisdom may not yet be fully in tune with the new generation of students. Management education should take into cognizance the changed profiles of the students and if necessary redefine its objectives. If they are more introverted should we design the curricula to suit the introverted profile or should we design the learning experiences to in encourage more networking and interpersonal dialogues and team work? How much it should be technology based and how much of it should take care of the hidden adverse effects of technological impact? Is a major issue the management educators need to address? Studies after studies have indicated that students who enter the management profession learn better and appreciate the learning better if they enter the school with some experience. Many studies indicated that a three year experience makes the student appreciate the institution and its curricula better than and fresh student. Yet most management schools in their eagerness not to lose out students to their competitor schools admit only freshers. There is a sea change in thinking needed for this. In case this cannot be changed the curricula should be changed. Where do we need Innovations We need to innovate both in professionalizing management as well as building Management as Profession? To building management as a profession we need to do the following: 1. Consolidate and develop the management theory. There are many theories and there could be many but there should be well accepted theories that make management a profession. 2. Articulating a code of ethics including the roles and responsibilities of professional managers. 3. Disseminating the same 4. Execute the code of ethics by discussing them in the classrooms, seminars and by extensively

discussing case studies like- CWG, Satyam (as soon as Satyam scam broke out the Institute of Chartered accountants circulated a ppt on the big five Accounting firms) and also success stories like the Delhi Metro and Indian railways and how much professionals and the code of ethics have helped in project management etc. 5. Create self-regulation mechanisms and attitudes among the Professional Managers 6. Teachers and researchers should actively participate in professional bodies and use them disseminate professional knowledge than make them as platforms for brand building of a few individuals and organizations. This requires active participation by academics and management schools in professional management associations. As Observed by Khurana and Nohria ( prominent Harvard scholars ) Although it is now fashionable in some quarters, as we have suggested, to denigrate professionals as elites enjoying shelter from the roughand-tumble of the marketplace, do we as a society really wish to surrender the benefits that we rightfully demand of professionals in return? And given the inevitable existence of elite knowledge workers, such as managers, in complex modern societies, ought we not to be concerned with producing elites who are motivated by something beyond the pursuit of self-interest under the laws of the marketplace, or the fear of punishment under the laws of the land. What are the ways we can innovate in Management Education? Prepare teachers The first place to innovate is in preparing teachers for management education. There is an acute faculty shortage in management schools. This needs to be tackled fast. We need to do this by focusing our attention on preparing faculty for Management Education. For this purpose distance education mode could be sued. Most retired managers with post-graduate qualification in management and allied disciplines are registering for Ph. D.s. Management is one filed where theories are largely built on the study of successful practice. For example the 7-S and other models of McKinsey were developed on the basis of an examination of successful corporations. Why not we sue successful managers to teach others by getting them to conceptualize their success by encouraging them to undertake research. Why not do this for early age. In this context following recommendations can be made to Sate Governments, Management schools, Universities and to the Ministry of HRD: There should be no retirement age for Guiding Ph. D.s and Mentoring students. Ironically when a professor has all the wisdom to guide Ph.D.s he retires at 60 years or at 62 while in the USA they are appointed as Professors emeritus and can guide students until they decide not to. In India once you retire you cease to be guide. When you have time and wisdom we waste both. Make an All India Registry of Ph. D Guides in Management and various allied disciplines and allow Universities and Management schools to use guides in any distance learning based Ph. D. Program. This model has been effectively used by the Fellow program in HRD started jointly by the Academy of HRD and XLRI. In a seven year period they produced about 25 Fellows and made them available as teachers and researchers. A practicing manager anywhere may register for the Ph. D. Program but has to go through a set of compulsory courses by distance education mode or campus visits to be qualified to do thesis work. He then carries out the thesis or research work under the guidance of a faculty (perhaps a retired faculty in his/her town). Universities should open themselves up for this. MHRD should promote this than to restrict such innovations. Enhance formal retirement age to 65 or 70 and informal to life for outstanding scholars. For example the

Indian Institute of Health management and research has used the services of late Dr. Udai Pareek until he died at 85 years of age.

Focus on Institution Building and Ethical Dimensions Articulate the purpose and process of Management Education and re-focus on management Profession. Profit centered corporate are always likely to constitute most of the chief promoters of business schools. If government also becomes commercialized it will be unfortunate for management. Recently one Sate Government has offered land for education institutions at the market rate. Only those who have commercial interests can buy such land and once they buy they will be busy recovering their costs a by a high fee. Governments should carefully think of such designs that encourage profit driven education than profession driven education. When medicine and medical services get profit driven we are seeing the consequences of the same. Educate owners mangers of corporations that long term contributions to society outweigh short term profits and get them to reinvest in Education than buying more properties for re-sale. Encouraging Professionals to start Management Education programs and set up schools. There could be a fund or a bank created for institution Building. Space should be created for academics without profit motive to start professional institutions. Professionalize government at all levels and not merely in the centralized and state run- services. They should be opened up for management professionals. Government to provide scope for employment of professional managers to man and carry out development jobs. Provide continuing education for Alumni and inviting employers for alumni meets. Reviewing code of conduct and self regulation and recognizing value driven manager. Curricular Changes Changes need to be made in the curricula for making it more relevant and scientific. Provide scope for localized curricula as much as possible (the last term should be to prepare for jobs after placement: Small Industry, Microfinance, Rural development, NOREGA, and other development fields). Involve students in Research and consulting like surveys, assistantships etc. Make structural changes in curricular and in admission system. Annual Conference of Guides and candidates -location based could be organized. Encourage dissertations to be written documenting one's experiences and using the data of the organizations where the individuals worked. New code of ethics in use of data needs to be developed. Appointments of such Ph. D.s on faculty to be encouraged. University statutes should change to appoint part time or term based faculty from among those getting Ph. D.s through this method. Retirement age to be 70 or 75 and no retirement for Ph. D Guides. No salaries need to be offered for those appointed after certain age and may only be given token honorarium based on the affordability of the Institution. Most guides work for fulfilling their obligation to society than to earn any income. There should be no retirement for Professors of excellence. There should be no status differences. A professor is a professor once he undertakes to be a professor. Head of Institutions should promote actively

the involvement of the faculty in assisting the local companies. Heads of institutions should participate actively in local management associations and professional bodies. They should form such bodies and actively pursue the same. Corporations and Government should encourage executives to take off sabbaticals and teach or learn. Encourage them to register for their Ph. D. S and complete. National Consortium of P h D guides should be made and they should be eligible to guide anyone anywhere. At least some flexibility should be introduced. A lot of activities should be designed to encourage students to interact with the society and undertake short activities to learn about the society. On the basis of the above discussion it can be concluded that Management education in India is in its infancy. As it grows older it need to be directed in more ethical and practical direction rather than the economical or theoretical direction. References.

1. Vijaya Sherry Chand and Rao, 2011 . 2. Nitin Nohria and Rakesh Khurana (http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/4650.html) 3. http://www.iim-edu.org/managementgurus/Reg_Revans.htm 4. (www.iim-edu.org).