M. L. Shrikant, Dean, S.P. Jain Institute of Management and Research, is keen that student-managers understand and manage themselves before they can manage others.

He has designed an innovative course that teaches the significance of the spirituality quotient in management. In this interview, he discusses the challenges facing management education.

How do you view the current state of management education in B-schools in India and across the globe?

Management education is too standardised and is following the norms of US society. This is inappropriate given the heterogeneity of business situations and contexts and the emerging environmental trends that question the very basis of business operations. B-schools became and have remained overly scientific, with softer, subjective issues receiving less attention.

In the 21st century, we are passing through an era where business is seen as having failed to deliver and we are grappling with issues like the role of business in society, the so-called triple bottomline and sustainability issues. There is a lot of questioning going on and what is emerging is this tripod of management education under the knowing, doing, being framework, which is more amenable to delivering a customised approach to management education.

Both are important content and delivery, along with technology that provides further options to deliver a portfolio mix.

Across nations, there is a sense of disquiet at the ways of businesses and the methods of business leaders, leading to protests like Occupy Wall Street in the US and similar action in other nations. Is this a passing phase or is there something deeper we as society should be worrying about?

This is not a passing phase. Management education is closely linked to business and business has a role to play in human society. The real issues now facing human society are of two kinds: lack of distributive justice and the attendant issues of resource constraints, pollution and environmental degradation. It certainly means that if the current growth strategy along the path of Western economics if the poor nations were to follow it, its certainly unviable from a resource point of view.

What will be required to rebuild trust between managers/ business leaders and society in the days ahead? In your view, what role do B-schools have in this regard?

Basically, the current social economic structure is unviable and unsustainable. Business will have to play some kind of role in an alternative paradigm.

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‘Softer, subjective issues get less attention in B-schools’