IMC 2016 Theme - Institutional Leadership in Management Education: Read Theme Paper, Watch Keynote Addresses

Institutional Leadership in Management Education

What’s common to GE, TATAs, ISRO, Delhi Metro and IIMs? While they are top performing organizations from diverse domains like business, aviation technology, public service and higher education, one common trait that defines all of them is “Institutional Leadership”. As organizations and institutions, they have engendered an enviable culture of sustainable leadership in their domains. Surely, from time to time, industries will undergo structural changes, but through their leadership systems & processes, these institutions have reinvented themselves, and have created new benchmarks.

In the context of current crisis in management institutions, progressive Promoters, Governing Boards, and Academic Leaders are looking for approaches to attain and sustain Institutional Leadership for their organization. Gimmicks, quick fixes, super-stars doesn’t work. Sustained efforts towards first achieving leadership, and then institutionalizing it, is the only way forward.

Certainly, Leadership in management education is not a uni-dimensional and winner-takes-it-all game. Different institutions have excelled on diverse dimensions of outcomes expected from a business school. Eager institutions can learn from segment/practice leaders, and emerge as more holistic institutions.

Business schools can claim leadership by excelling in dimensions such as:

• Academic leadership
• Leadership in industry engagement
• Leadership by creating a positive impact on society

Academic Leadership has many dimensions. An institution can claim leadership by ensuring that its curriculum is most relevant and updated for the current and future business needs. It can be a leader by teaching more effectively by innovative delivery models. Institutions that create new knowledge too have earned thought-leadership in their areas. Institutions can also claim leadership by picking up emerging or untapped disciplines and sectors, and building knowledge and competence in those are plenty of opportunities to lead in academic landscape.

Deep and relevant corporate engagement can have a positive impact on the entire value chain of a Business school – from student recruitment, to curriculum enhancement, to creation of new knowledge. A few B-schools have shown the way by leveraging their relationships with industry to augment their program.

So, which institutions have “achieved” leadership on key dimensions of management education in India? How have legacy institutions retained their lead and how have challengers successfully disrupted the space? Then, having inquired leadership on a critical dimension, what are the effective approaches and processes undertaken at these institutions to institutionalize this leadership?

7th Indian Management Conclave 2016 will attempt to find answers to these questions by focusing on discussing following key aspects of Institutional Leadership in management education in India:

• Acquiring Academic Leadership
• Acquiring Industry Engagement Leadership
• Institutionalizing leadership for long-term sustainable gains