Not too long ago in India (lets say 35yrs) the business of making money was a despicable act. Movies were replete with villains, typically represented as the cunning local baniya (shopkeeper), played by Jeevan, who would cheat poor people. India then was trying to cope up with jobless youth, an autocratic PM, and big businessmen who minted money by playing a monopoly game in the license raj. The bourgeoisie hated the capitalists and the gap between the rich and the poor was simply too huge to mend. The best graphic portrayal of the bourgeoisie was Amitabh Bacchan who perfectly portrayed the ever angry young man.
However, wealth as such was never seen as a bad thing by the masses. It was only those people who minted money in a wrong way, who were a source of hatred. As I was growing up the teachers of Hindi and English literature invariably asked us to write essays about the auspicious occasion of Diwali. The essays on Diwali perfectly echoed the value system of the masses. While we celebrated the essays by the joyousness of Lakshmi -Puja (the worship of the goddess of wealth being the main event on Diwali ) an equal measure of time was devoted in writing about the ills of gambling (a popular tradition during Diwali). The Indian bourgeoisie therefore made a clear distinction between the good and the bad, the right and the wrong.
That was also the time when India didn't produce MBAs. XLRI, which was then Xavier Labour Relations Institute, was meant to produce people who could manage labourers and IIM-B was set up for to prepare competent persons for fulfilling the needs of the public sector. For IIM-B the organisation that were kept in mind were bodies like electricity boards, water supply boards and HMT, ITI, BEML, road transport, corporations, municipal corporations, and the like. Hence, the main idea behind setting up of these intuitions was not about producing businessmen but about producing competent managers.
Circa, 2011, a lot of things have changed. Businessmen are no longer seen as beguilers. In fact the negativity of businessmen has been replaced by the positive creatively of entrepreneurs. Gambling, though still remains a bad thing when it comes to individual households, has found a better pasture in the stock markets, where it is prudently known as speculation. And, erstwhile management schools are today more famously described as business schools.
Speaking specifically of management education (business education), even the schools seem to have changed their vision. From producing competent people who can bring change to a society in transition, they have become financial intermediaries where a quality investment can be made to bag huge ROIs during the placement season. While the schools established in the 20th century still hold on to the management tag, the more recent schools prefer the term business. A clear example of this is the way schools have been christened/ re-christened. For example among the older schools we have: Indian Institutes of Management while the newer schools have Indian School of Business. XLRI is another case in point. From being known as Xavier Labour Relations Institute, today it has been renamed into XLRI- School of Business & Human Resources. Whether we prefer to call them as business schools or management schools is simply a matter of convenience since all of them today operate with the same goal in mind.
As it stands today, a large number of the founding members of Indian School of Business finds itself indicted in separate cases of criminal conspiracy. To name a few: Rajat Gupta, Anil Kumar, Mendu Rammohan Rao and Anil Ambani. Once again if we track the places where these people had their share of education we will see a huge contribution of the term business. For ex: Rajat Gupta: Harvard Business School, Anil Kumar: Wharton Business School, Anil Ambani: Wharton Business School. Although, both Harvard and Wharton are considered to be the doyens of management education, these very places have also churned some of the biggest fraudsters in current memory.
Here, I have a pertinent question to ask. My question is are we treading on the right paradigm of education by reorienting ourselves from management to business?How is it that the same set of people who belonged to the God fearing Indian middle class, which had a clear definition of good and bad, has also produced some serious scamsters? Most management/business school tend to answer this predicament by trying to address the effect rather than the cause itself. They have launched courses in ethics to apprise the students about wrong business practices. But can a 3 months course on ethics really change a person's value system built over more than 22 years?
According to me today it is more important to apprise the future business leaders about the repercussions of wrongful deeds rather than laying a stress on teaching ethics. And if the schools are really serious about imbibing ethics among future leaders they should target primary and secondary schools where the foundations are being formed. Most importantly the schools should introspect about their own vision and distinguish between management and business.
However, wealth as such was never seen as a bad thing by the masses. It was only those people who minted money in a wrong way, who were a source of hatred. As I was growing up the teachers of Hindi and English literature invariably asked us to write essays about the auspicious occasion of Diwali. The essays on Diwali perfectly echoed the value system of the masses. While we celebrated the essays by the joyousness of Lakshmi -Puja (the worship of the goddess of wealth being the main event on Diwali ) an equal measure of time was devoted in writing about the ills of gambling (a popular tradition during Diwali). The Indian bourgeoisie therefore made a clear distinction between the good and the bad, the right and the wrong.
That was also the time when India didn't produce MBAs. XLRI, which was then Xavier Labour Relations Institute, was meant to produce people who could manage labourers and IIM-B was set up for to prepare competent persons for fulfilling the needs of the public sector. For IIM-B the organisation that were kept in mind were bodies like electricity boards, water supply boards and HMT, ITI, BEML, road transport, corporations, municipal corporations, and the like. Hence, the main idea behind setting up of these intuitions was not about producing businessmen but about producing competent managers.
Circa, 2011, a lot of things have changed. Businessmen are no longer seen as beguilers. In fact the negativity of businessmen has been replaced by the positive creatively of entrepreneurs. Gambling, though still remains a bad thing when it comes to individual households, has found a better pasture in the stock markets, where it is prudently known as speculation. And, erstwhile management schools are today more famously described as business schools.
Speaking specifically of management education (business education), even the schools seem to have changed their vision. From producing competent people who can bring change to a society in transition, they have become financial intermediaries where a quality investment can be made to bag huge ROIs during the placement season. While the schools established in the 20th century still hold on to the management tag, the more recent schools prefer the term business. A clear example of this is the way schools have been christened/ re-christened. For example among the older schools we have: Indian Institutes of Management while the newer schools have Indian School of Business. XLRI is another case in point. From being known as Xavier Labour Relations Institute, today it has been renamed into XLRI- School of Business & Human Resources. Whether we prefer to call them as business schools or management schools is simply a matter of convenience since all of them today operate with the same goal in mind.
As it stands today, a large number of the founding members of Indian School of Business finds itself indicted in separate cases of criminal conspiracy. To name a few: Rajat Gupta, Anil Kumar, Mendu Rammohan Rao and Anil Ambani. Once again if we track the places where these people had their share of education we will see a huge contribution of the term business. For ex: Rajat Gupta: Harvard Business School, Anil Kumar: Wharton Business School, Anil Ambani: Wharton Business School. Although, both Harvard and Wharton are considered to be the doyens of management education, these very places have also churned some of the biggest fraudsters in current memory.
Here, I have a pertinent question to ask. My question is are we treading on the right paradigm of education by reorienting ourselves from management to business?How is it that the same set of people who belonged to the God fearing Indian middle class, which had a clear definition of good and bad, has also produced some serious scamsters? Most management/business school tend to answer this predicament by trying to address the effect rather than the cause itself. They have launched courses in ethics to apprise the students about wrong business practices. But can a 3 months course on ethics really change a person's value system built over more than 22 years?
According to me today it is more important to apprise the future business leaders about the repercussions of wrongful deeds rather than laying a stress on teaching ethics. And if the schools are really serious about imbibing ethics among future leaders they should target primary and secondary schools where the foundations are being formed. Most importantly the schools should introspect about their own vision and distinguish between management and business.
