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Printz Posted: Tue, Feb 23 2010. 12:58 AM IST

B-schools struggle toattract students intoacademicsIIM-B has also set a target for students to produce

two research papers of publishing quality during

the duration of the course

Poornima Mohandas

Bangalore: Sumit Bakshi, 30, will don a graduation gown and receive his PhD in

management studies from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIM-B), in

April. But the computer engineer says he ended up in academic research by

accidentone that he has already moved to correct.

Like most of his classmates, Bakshi has

taken up a corporate job, as manager

of special projects with a United Arab

Emirates-based money exchange and

remittance firm. I chose a corporate

job because I want hands-on

experience, he says.

Bakshi is a classic case of a student

who found his way into doctoral

research without aptitude or interest.

But with a degree from a prestigious

institute such as IIM, such students

have little trouble finding an exit route.

Virtually every PhD student at IIM-B

has taken up a corporate job in the last

few yearsthree out of four in 2009,

six out of eight in 2008 and seven out of eight in 2007. The story isnt vastly different

at other management campuses either.

The fallout is an acute dearth of teachers for degree courses in management research,

and the consequent inability of Indias premier institutes to break into the lists of top

global management schools.

Bakshi says he completed his engineering degree soon after the dotcom bust of 2001.Jobs were scarce, so he took up a teaching position at an engineering college for two

years before wandering into IIMs PhD programme.

You can never have money in academics, he says, explaining his exit. He adds that

he will earn five times more in his corporate job compared with that of an assistant

professor, whose monthly salary is Rs25,000.

Additionally, those in academics are burdened with administrative duties and an

excessive amount of teaching work, leaving little time for research, adds Bakshi.

A. Vinay Kumar, professor and chairman, fellow programme in management, IIMLucknow, agrees with Bakshi.

Quality upgrade: Gopal Naik (right),

chairperson, fellow programme inmanagement, IIM Bangalore, with his

students. The countrys business schools are

tweaking their curricula to promote academic

research. Jagadeesh NV/Mint

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There is a demand from industry for PhD students, and remuneration-wise, it

(corporate sector) is much more rewarding, says Kumar, who loses 30-40% of his

PhD students to corporate jobs.

The exodus has led to a severe faculty shortage at IIMs, which currently have 388

teachers against 468 positions.

To keep students rooted to careers in academic research, business schools such as

IIM-B, IIM Lucknow and the Xavier Labour Relations Institute (XLRI), Jamshedpur,among others, are tweaking their PhD curricula and offering other incentives.

Until recently, the first-year curriculum of a doctorate programme was a copy of a

postgraduate programme in management. But IIM-B and IIM Lucknow introduced

courses in research methodology and structural modelling in 2009, while XLRI did the

same a year earlier.

IIM-B has also set a target for students to produce two research papers of publishing

quality during the duration of the course. XLRI has increased travel grants and gives

monetary rewards for publication in internationally reputed journals.

We are insisting on (students) getting into academics at the time of entry itself, says

Gopal Naik, chairperson, fellow programme in management, IIM-B. Naik hopes 70-

80% of students would take to academics in another five years or so.

All these years, research was never given emphasis, says professor Sanjay Patro,

dean of research at XLRI, where 20-30% of PhD students opt for corporate careers.

Now, when we want to benchmark ourselves against international schools, we see

that a long distance needs to be covered.

Indeed, globally renowned institutions such as US-based Stanford Universitys

Graduate School of Business do not face such problems.

We are very upfront in our admissions process, as well as along the way in a

students training, about our objective, and we tend not to attract students who are

interested in industry jobs, says Robert Urstein, assistant dean, PhD programme,

Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, with a batch of 100 students. Ourprogramme is designed to train students for careers as leading researchers and

scholars... Very few take jobs outside of academia.

INSEAD, which takes some 20 PhD students every year at its campuses in Singapore

and Fontainebleau, France, has a similar story to tell.

Since our programme is exclusively designed to prepare students for an academic

career, most of the students entering have as their professional goal to become a

professor at a leading business school, says professor Nils Rudi, dean, PhD

programme, INSEAD.

Academic salaries have become increasingly competitive with INSEAD graduates

commanding an average starting salary of 120,000 (around Rs75.5 lakh) a year, says

Rudi.

The programme design and the filtering at the entry level invites in only those who

desire to be scholars and academicians. Heavy emphasis is laid on publishing research

and keeping students rooted in academics. For instance, at INSEAD, after the second

year, students publish a paper every year for the next four-five years, depending on

how long they take to complete the doctorate programme.

Neither school gave the number of students who choose an academic career over

corporate jobs.

While these schools rank high among the global best, Indian schools lag way behind.


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Copyright 2007 HT Media All Rights Reserved

The Economistmagazines 2009 full-time MBA ranking has only one Indian business

school among the worlds top 100IIM Ahmedabad at 99. The Financial Times global

MBA rankings 2010 has just one Indian school in its list of 99Indian School of

Business, Hyderabad, at 12.

The difference of quality reflects in the work done by these schools. For instance, the

Harvard Business School, US, did studies on Indian business casessuch as ITC Ltds

e-choupals, or Internet kiosks, aimed at farmers; or on consumer products maker

Hindustan Unilever Ltds marketing model to reach the rural Indian consumerbefore

any Indian school.

About 90% of books that we use (to teach) are foreign author books, says Kumar of

IIM Lucknow. Kumar hopes to write a book on a form of financial contract known as

derivatives, which is his forte. But time, he says, is a constraint, as it is for much of

the faculty.

XLRI has been raising its number of publications. The school used to publish three-four

case studies a year, but has increased it to a total of 15 case studies in the last two

years. Four of them have been included in its curriculum by London Business School,

UK.

In the next one-two years, we want to increase the number of publications by 100%,

says Patro.

XLRIs dean of research says students can be retained in academics. Once they get

into the international scholar circuit, he says, they see the benefits.


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