Management teaching in India is up against a dilemma, a choice between two propositions. The first, on the current state of business education, is that it is heavily skewed towards the American/western model of thought. The second, therefore, is in the nature of an unenviable task — to reconcile the present Indian context with the philosophical underpinnings of western management practice.

The other concern is the repeated and contrived effort by academics to portray management and its subjects as a science.

In theory and practice The challenge for students who intend to join the universe of business and are to become practitioners of management is to choose the models and then apply their “learning” in practice.

We believe the teaching of management should move away from “what to think” (models and theories) to “how to think” — the application and adoption of the substance and the development of critical faculties.

This suggestion should be examined in light of the nature of the business environment and the development of the models currently taught.

The business environment is universally understood to be in a constant state of flux. This in itself contributes to the obsolescence of most management theories and the development of newer theories that seek to explain organisational and consumer activity.

The development of these models is, in most cases, founded on the identification of similarities across a few companies and/or industries and the generalisation of such findings across all companies and industries globally.

The challenge is, therefore, not just to know the models in an operational sense but also to delve into the philosophy of the models and the context within which they were developed.

The challenge for educators is to present and train the students by developing the critical evaluation skills. It is surprising to see the full force of the scepticism when the topic is politics; somehow, the same is subdued and in many cases totally absent when it comes to management studies.

Narrow focus The other problem area is the development of narrow prefixed degree programmes under the pretext of employability. This will come into focus as more foreign universities are given sanction to operate in India.

Indian universities too seem to have laboured and delivered “Indian” management programmes, such as the recent announcement that one of the premier management institutes would include a course on meditation and spirituality.

A narrow focus, especially at an undergraduate level, presupposes that the skills and knowledge being imparted will be relevant to the industry and that the student will remain stuck to a specific industry or skill set. It would, of course, be better if the student has a broad range of abilities, especially those that can be built upon at a higher level of study or by experience at the workplace.

The thinking citizen It is also suggested that practitioners should design management studies based on the requirements of industry. The flaws of this argument are obvious. There is the bias of the practitioners to contend with, compounded by their lack of prescience in terms of what the future holds.

If one were to survey the current leaders of management on skill set requirement, one is more than likely to encounter contradictory responses.

It is not the function or purpose of educational institutions to provide off-the-shelf employees ready and able to generate profit. Instead, their energies should be concentrated on educating and preparing a thinking citizen. The function of moulding an employee to the nature and requirements of an enterprise must rest with the employer; business schools can assist at a later stage with specialist and tailored instruction.

So, what should a business school student be taught especially at the undergraduate level? Like most things in life, there is no single answer. The focus should be on enabling and sharpening critical thinking. A student’s journey does not end with the degree certificate. In many respects, it begins from there.

(Manghat is an academic in the UK. Balasubramaniam is an independent consultant based in India)

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