From management institutes to business schools: An Indian journey

Abstract

Management education began in India with the purpose of creating leaders of an emerging industry led by the large public sector units. People with management education would be the vanguard for social change. Things became different after the opening up of the Indian economy especially the reforms of 1991. The earlier creed was to have managers who had problem-solving skills as well as an understanding of the broader contours of India’s society and polity. In the current era of globalized industries and cultures, the focus has shifted to understanding better the dynamics of private business and large corporations. In the process, there has been a considerable dilution in the need to understand the deeper aspects of India’s society and polity. Apart from this shift, the continuous need for acquiring new skills has become extremely important in a world where technologies and business models become obsolete at astonishing speed. In this haste to acquire new knowledge, the important element of critically reflecting on society’s larger problems gets sidelined. These deficiencies have made this branch of knowledge less effective in contributing to the making of a better society for the current as well as future generations of humanity. © Springer Science+Business Media Singapore 2017.