Whither Research In Management Schools?

India’s management institutions have a long way to go if they are to catch up with world-class institutions in academic and management research. Here’s a critical look at the current status and what needs to be done…

- Dr.Debapratim Purkayastha

Research has always been viewed as a critical activity for a management school as it helps improve teaching by enabling the faculty members to effectively develop curricula and course content, and increase the intellectual capital of the institution as well as its reputation. An institution’s strength in research lays a solid foundation for teaching and consultancy. Without a sound research base, management schools risk losing their relevance, utility and legitimacy. However, the stakeholders, including policy makers, students and practitioners in India, did not value research enough to put sufficient emphasis on it. What’s more -- issues such as lack of funding, infrastructure, data and quality benchmarks have also posed major impediments for research in India.

Dismal state of research

Many people have lamented the dismal state of research in management schools in India. Notably in 2011, the then Environment Minister of India, Jairam Ramesh, went to the extent of saying that the premier institutions of India such as the IITs and IIMs were not world-class but “excellent because of the quality of students not because of quality of faculty research.” Earlier in that year, educator Nirmalya Kumar, who was then at London Business School, pointed out the gloomy state of management research in India. In his study, for the period between 1990 and 2009, he could find only 108 unique articles being published in a widely-accepted list of 40 journals that the Financial Times uses for ranking research at business schools in its annual global MBA rankings.

Current situation