An Indian MBA program - Context, Content and Confidence!

Abstract

In its 100 + year history, the MBA program has evolved on many dimensions and has remained unchanged in some areas. There appears from the experience of African, Chinese, and Indian management education that there is a need to balance the objective and functional area-focused western paradigm with a more humane and subjective paradigm of the east. There is also strong evidence that making the program culturally relevant is important. This study explores the current need to work towards an ‘Indian –MBA’ and considers the context for this need, the availability of Indian content that is relevant to management education, and the mindset required to build a uniquely Indian MBA, which can be done in phases as all the present business schools follow the western model. Secondary research on the experience of other nations attempting to bring local and indigenous content into the MBA program, courses based on Indian content offered within India at various schools, and types and extent of uniquely Indian content useful to management students was taken up as part of this study. The findings clearly indicate a lot of local and useful content being available and many universities already offering different courses based on Indian content. The future needs the confidence among faculty, academic administrators, and regulators to offer uniquely Indian courses and soon a uniquely Indian MBA.