Sunday 4 September 2011

India's business schools like IIMs need better teachers

In the 20 years since economic liberalisation, the growth of Indian business has been impressive. With the exception of China's 40 years of sustained growth, historical economic growth data suggests that the two-decade annual GDP growth experienced by India is exceptional. 

Even during the industrial revolution, historians do not estimate Great Britain's growth rate to have approached the levels seen by China and India in recent decades. 

The excitement that economic growth has created for all things business-related is obvious. Indian bookstores dedicate disproportionate space to business books relative to world standards, Chinese and Indian students are now the largest applicant pools at most leading MBA programmes, and new business schools are mushrooming in India. 

As the country needs large numbers of managers and many young people aspire to management, the need for business education in the country has never been greater. But where are the quality business schools and management faculty in the large numbers needed?

With 2,000 business schools estimated in India, the faculty crunch is severe but not unexpected. If each business school has even a laughably-low number of 10 full-time faculty members - leading MBA schools average more than 100 - 20,000 b-school faculty are required. Not surprisingly, even IIMs report vacant faculty positions of 25% or more. Globally too there is a shortage of management faculty. 

Every institution I have been to, including Harvard, IMD, Kellogg, and now, London Business School, struggles to attract suitable faculty. After fund-raising, it is the most important priority for all deans. Still, the vacancy rates in India are abnormally high. 

An obvious solution is to recruit retired or current business practitioners who are eager to teach on a full- or part-time basis. After all, who better to teach than those who struggled with real-world business problems? Yet, there are three reasons why leading business schools do not employ practitioners in a significant number. 

First, teaching requires knowledge of a broad body of management literature within a subject that helps articulate what works, what does not work, and under what conditions. Unless truly exceptional in conceptual ability, a manager who has worked in a single industry or company is usually unable to tell more than his or her 'war stories'. 

When pushed by students, they tend to fall back on the familiar examples of their own experience within a limited number of companies. 

Second, teaching requires designing a course that is unique among the offerings available at the school, putting together a syllabus, and having the pedagogical ability to deliver it satisfactorily to demanding students. It is much more than simply delivering a guest lecture. 

It is not a question of intelligence, or even knowledge, but about developing specific skills that take training and time to master. An excellent manager has no need to acquire these competences and, therefore, they usually do not. Having said this, I have seen a few practitioners overcome the previous two obstacles and become successful teachers at business schools. 

The third challenge is the real deal breaker when it comes to hiring practitioners. As I have argued with my colleague Phanish Puranam in previous columns, an integral part of a being a faculty member at a top MBA school is generating knowledge, not simply disseminating it. 

One is expected to engage in research that is ultimately published in leading peer-reviewed international management journals. If one examines faculty who are successful at this, a sobering reality emerges. Most publications in what are considered 'A' management journals are by faculty members who have a PhD, almost certainly having acquired it at a top research school, most often in the US. 

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