What is not taught at B-schools?

A paper titled "Appetite for MBA Tumbles Down" published by The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) highlighted that only 18 per cent of B-School students got satisfactory placement in 2014. At the same time, a decline of 9.5 per cent was registered for (CAT) admissions, the common test to the best B-schools of the country. The economic slowdown, bigger batch sizes and stalling of employment intensive new projects have definitely contributed to the problem, but the question is whether we are really preparing our students in B-Schools for innovation-led growth and for ambiguous, volatile change faced by almost every industry. Prudence demands that we pause and question the relevance of the narrow, specialized and academic focused curriculum influenced by analytical models and reductionism approach, when it comes to facing the challenges triggered by global financial crises.

Most B-Schools are preparing future business leaders through 'curriculum straitjackets' based on the premise of market equilibrium which largely ignores the development of professional, managerial and leadership skills. The B-school curriculum theories based on market equilibrium concepts cannot be supported in the current volatile, unprecedented, ambiguous, technology-driven globalised economic scenario. These pattern and law-governed teaching approaches adopted by most of the B-schools are trying to instill a belief that markets are innately stable and human actions can be anticipated with the help of theories and formulas. Would it be sufficient to teach models, frameworks, theories which were evolved in a context that is not too similar to the current business scenario and has limited application for strategic success? Would it be heresy to teach that organizations are not just formula- and framework-governed systems but living entities with self lives?

Vigorous churning of thoughts and questioning the conventional models in the classroom is imperative for B-schools to achieve the innovation-led growth of the organizations. Innovative entrepreneurial ventures are the temples of the current economy which demands that B-schools should teach the art of blending analytical and managerial skills to the future leaders for identifying innovative processes for the sustainable growth of the economy. Keeping in mind the market complexity and uncertainty of business, B-schools should not only produce data analysts but creative and innovative thinkers, who can navigate their way successfully in the upheavals of business environment.

To achieve these goals curricula of B-schools should include social sciences and humanities. Management education which is criticized on a number of forums on different counts such as irrelevant research, failing to produce morally, socially and ethically responsible leaders, needs to emphasize on skills like problem framing, opportunity recognition, experimentation, risk selection, valuation of ideas, revenue model innovation, influence without authority, managing ambiguity, team creativity and adaptive governance. To inculcate these skills in our future business leaders we need 'capabilities integrated curriculum', creative teaching approaches and a paradigm shift from a departmental silo approach to a holistic development approach. To implement a 'capabilities integrated curriculum', there should be emphasis on the integration of concepts across courses rather than within-course disciplinary integration through collaborative teaching in the classroom. For example, the focus of the leadership curriculum should be on teaching the processes to influence without authority and mobilize people to solve problems rather than on discussing conceptual theories. The impact of social cultures on global economic activity and global sustainability must be included in the teaching and research curriculum of every B-school.While industries accept that B-Schools invest much effort in augmenting the information analyzing, goal setting and technical skills of MBA graduates, at the same time graduates are underprepared for the areas like sharing leadership, multicultural environments, building and running teams, interpersonal skills and global negotiations. This leaves industries uncertain that they can get the required well-rounded top talent they need from B-schools. There is also a tremendous expertise void when it comes to economic alliances and dealing in global markets.To fulfill business requirements and to improve the graduates problem-solving skills, curriculums should be extended to include structured observation, recognizing implicit assumptions and understanding systems-level interactions. Curricular extensions also need to pay attention in areas such as opportunity identification in innovative service bundling, balancing competition with cooperation and experimental design. B-schools should not propagate financial economic theories that not tak into account ethics and financial morality. The role of business schools is to include practice-based learning models to create real-time solutions for problems. In a nutshell, we need 'rational reconstruction' of B-school curricula through reassessing theories, rethinking values and redrafting skills.