Dr. Rajan Saxena Vice Chancellor, NMIMS, Mumbai

THE complexity in the Indian market and organisations has brought to the fore, the need to continuously research how organisations and markets are evolving. Innovations in management practices and models are imperative, today.

Management educators have to show the way forward. Despite the above, there has been very little research in Management Schools in India . Two factors seem to contribute to this sorry state of affairs in India.

Organisational: Top management of most business schools lack an understanding of research works in management. Some feel that research can be monitored and measured in the way one measures production in a factory or teaching hours in a classroom.

Research takes time and it can never get measured in the way many managements or people in the government want to measure. It is a systematic investigation to explore and establish facts.

Since management research is principally applied research, one needs to understand that the primary purpose for applied research is to discover, interpret, and develop methods and systems for advancement of human knowledge on a wide variety of subjects that have a direct bearing on our world.

If research is the search for knowledge or a systematic investigation, then most research can never be a time bound activity. Certainly there are intervening stages but the management school leadership must understand that there can never be quantitative targets in this area. Research is measured by its impact on human life and organisational effectiveness.

Another factor that has contributed to core research is the whole concept of workload. In many cases, workload has been equated to teaching load. And what a better way to justify then to use `UGC Guidelines’ or any other statutory body guidelines. If research has to be encouraged, then the workload has to be evolved in such a way that it gets its adequate importance. Not only so, the Faculty Performance Appraisal must reflect the intent of the Institution.

Most management find research as an expense and a waste of resources. The American schools make it mandatory for earning tenure by and give adequate time and space to pursue research.  Leaders in management schools will have to spend time to innovate on polices that will encourage research for that is the only way of intellectual growth of the school and the faculty. They will have to be far more tolerant to the research efforts.

Individual: At the individual level the issue arises from the fact that the faculty members in India are not trained in research. Most of the programmes at the doctoral level are nothing but a thesis work. Further even in the PhD programmes that have course work, one finds that the teaching is being done by faculty members who are not necessarily research active.

Hence, in many cases it becomes yet another MBA class. PhD programmes in management need to get restructured to include courses on research methodology and critical thinking. They need to be also taught by research-active faculty.  Rigour in the PhD programme is one of the ways of developing research faculty. Schools may have to consider getting their faculty mentored by academics who are research active.