Courses without Syllabi

I have been experimenting with Case Method as the dominant learning method in management education.

Over the years, I have been becoming increasingly aware of what I should have done in the class versus what I did. That lead to more and more engineering on my part before I enter the class. The more and more the Case class gets engineered, the more scope it gives for getting the gaps in my case teaching highlighted. The engineering includes

1. Articulation of competencies that I want to develop in the student using the particular Case. I now do it with as much specificity as possible. 
2. Specifying the 'discussion blocks' (specific issues on which certain amount of class time gets used) in concrete terms including predictions on the positions the students will take and the questioning strategies that I have to adopt.
3. List of alternative and interesting action plans that emerged in previous classes and the ones I invent which I normally project as though they were presented by students in previous classes. 

While these are done from our side, there is usually very little information on what impact these cases  had on students.

For example, if the case generated lot of excitement in the class, the impact can be excitement with very little learning on the part of the students.

If you ask the student to articulate the impact, the impact gets created then and there due to the demands for articulation.

Pre-post behaviour changes can be very costly to measure and with lot of clouding by other factors.

The question based on the title of this posting is: Is there value in Case Method independent of whatever is listed above? Is there value in Case Method however professionally or non-professionally it gets used? If so, what in Case Method creates that impact with enough play for case 'methods'?

I have been conducting Course Design Workshops for Teachers of B Schools. Thought I will share my current design and get suggestions and comments. 

More information on Frameworks such as Backward Course Design, Peer Learning, etc. can be obtained from Google or Google scholar.

Course Design Workshop: 2013

Coordinator:

No	Items	Suggestions	Rationale
1	Objective: The objective is to enhance options on the part of the teachers in and through ‘Backward Course Design’.
2	Desired Outcome: Changes in ·      Competencies Expected by the Teachers at the Course and Session Levels ·      Evidences of Learning at the Course and Session Levels ·      Learning Activities
3	Activities before / at the Workshop:
4	Presentation by Placement Coordinators on ·      Competency Gaps based on Placement / Recruitment Interviews in the Previous Year o   Results of Formal Feedback from Firms o   Results of any Informal Feedback collected by Placement Coordinators ·      Implications at the Course level for the Coming Academic Year
5	Presentations of Expected Competencies at the level of Courses: On a Sample of Courses by respective Teachers  ·      Critique by an Executive from Industry / Senior Alumni with 3 Years of Industry Experience ·      Critique by Peers
6	Presentations on Measuring Evidences of Competencies at the level of Courses: On a Sample of Courses by respective Teachers  ·      Critique by Peers
7	Presentations on Rubrics Designed / Used in the Past for Questions in Examinations: On a Sample of Questions by respective Teachers  ·      Critique by Peers
8	Presentations on Learning Activities (Including Session Design) for Developing Course Specific Competencies: On a Sample of Courses by respective Teachers  ·      Critique by Peers
9	Revisiting Case Method: By one of the Teachers ·      Sample Case Analysis Session by the Teacher either for Students or for the Teachers ·      Critique by Peers
10	Presentation on Peer Learning: By one of the Teachers ·      Sample Peer Learning Session by the Teacher for Students ·      Critique by Peers
11	Presentation on an Innovative Teaching Method that was adopted by any Teacher in the Previous Year or Planned to be adopted in the Coming Year ·      Video of the Session if available ·      Critique by Peers
12	Presentation on Learning Activities for Enhancing Competence of Identified Weaker Students that was adopted by any Teacher last Year or Planned to be adopted this Year: By one of the Teachers ·      Critique by Peers
13	Presentation on Key Transferable Approaches from the Workshop: By one of the Teachers ·      Supplemented by other Teachers

Futility of doing a PhD

In a recent Panel Discussion on 'Management Education in Kerala, India' organised by the Kerala Management Association, I made a remark as a Panel Member that I find management teachers with a PhD degree adding less value to students in comparison to those without a PhD degree. As an Academic Administrator, I tend to recruit teachers with MBA, industry experience, ability to conceptualise and ability to engage in a discussion over those with a PhD degree. And I discourage bright candidates entering the academic world to not waste their time doing a PhD. Presently, there are enough self financing management institutes in the country that will recruit one if you are bright though you may not hold a PhD degree.

PhD is a drain of 3 to 4 years of time of a student and a guide which add very insignificant incremental capabilities in becoming a better teacher or a researcher.

I happened to read this Economist article of 2010 recently. I quote:

"Dr Schwartz, the New York physicist, says the skills learned in the course of a PhD can be readily 
acquired through much shorter courses."

Though the reasons put forward are different, Economist also indicate the futility of a PhD degree.

The disposable academic

Management Education in India: 2013 The Issues and the Causes

Management Education in India: 2013

The Issues and the Causes

·      In the eighties and nineties, most of the B-Schools that came up offered only PGDMs (Post Graduate Diploma in Management).

·      Since the design and conduct of the curriculum were in the hands of the B-Schools themselves (unlike affiliated MBA programs), survival and success demanded that the curriculum is industry relevant and agile.

·      Some of the well known brands of PGDM programs such as those of IMI, MDI, XIME, TAPMI, XIMB, GIM, etc. came up during this period.

·      Only handful of University MBAs could become brands during this period. Jamnalal Bajaj Institute at Mumbai and FMS of Delhi University could be examples of these.

·      The period also generated fly-by-night institutions offering PGDMs that exploited the asymmetry of information between the students and the institutions.

·      When the regulators want to control such fly-by-night operators, they adopt a policy of uniformity thereby controlling well-run institutions too. While the regulators might succeed in stopping fly-by-night operators, they also try to bring down the performance of well-run institutions.

·      One of the responses of the regulators was to stop new institutions from offering PGDMs and instead ask those institutions to offer only MBA programs affiliated to nearby Universities.

·      University affiliated MBA programs were designed mostly by academics from the discipline of Commerce and these programs became a replica of MComs in terms of curriculum, pedagogy and nature of examinations. The MBA programs became pure academic programs without much relevance to industry.

·      I am quoting below one of the questions from the 2012 examination in Marketing of one of the Universities of Kerala.

o   “Explain the significance of marketing in business and different types of markets.”

There are 5 questions of this genre in the question paper. You require only the distance education guide-book of the same University and two weeks of study holidays to perform well in these examinations. You do not require a semester of management training for this.

This is in contrast to a 10-page case as the question paper that we had to respond to as students of the same subject 33 years back in IIM. (Universities are lagging behind by at least 33 years.)

·      University MBA programs have only two offerings to make.

o   Social Capital associated with a postgraduate degree (also the possibility of joining a PhD program to further enhance Social Capital) and

o   Lot of spare time to organize management festivals that develop event management capabilities in the students.

·      Outside the University MBA curriculum, the B-Schools offer Pre-Placement Training which most of the time is outsourced to private agencies that offer these across many colleges. (So, what is left for the B-Schools to do?)

·      Since a reasonably good college offering BCom can easily make the above offerings, there is no reason why all the colleges in the State should not offer the MBA program too. All colleges can become free riders in selling Social Capital.

·      Tier 1 PGDM programs continue to be successes. They have been tested and validated by the market and offer the students strategic or analytical jobs. Tier 2 PGDM programs have become failures, as their segment would prefer having Social Capital too apart from Sales and KPO jobs.

·      While all the above arguments are on the supply side of MBA, the demand side has pushed the jobs to two extremes. Most of the industries have become oligopolies and hence there are very few strategic and analytical positions required to manage them. Technology has made middle level jobs too thin (One goes online and compares all insurance policies and then calls a Sales Officer to close the deal). What you have left with are Sales and KPO jobs that are too thin in content and Entrepreneurship Opportunities to start firms that may not get scaled up.

o   In other words, you have very little room at the top and you have large number of uninteresting jobs at the bottom.

o   The Tier 1 B-Schools cater to the former and the Tier 2 B-Schools cater to the latter. The Mom and Pop MSMEs and the Social Sector (which offer interesting jobs) are not presently in the consideration set of Tier 2 students.

Resurrecting Relevance in Management Education

·      To resurrect, we have to subject management education again to market forces and thereby eliminate all the free riders that are in the market only for Social Capital enhancement of students.

·      To cater to the needs of the industry, we require only PGDM and not MBA. MBA cannot be easily subjected to market forces while PGDM can be.

·      While Tier 1 and Tier 2 B-Schools will continue to cater to different markets, their programs will become more relevant to their chosen segments.

·      We can accelerate the market forces by

o   Bringing in regulation to see that industry associations certify the institutions that offer PGDM rather than organizations dominated by academics.

o   Make the institutions offer Credits in PGDM that are transferrable across Institutions. (Hence as a student I can try out one institution for some Credits and if I am not happy, I can switch over to another Institution for the remaining Credits.) This will eliminate fly-by-night operators faster.

·      With the present ratio of 1 teacher for every 15 students, we may have to train 1 in every 300 students to become a teacher (assuming a work life of 20 years for every teacher). University MBA and PhD may not again be the ideal programs to create good teachers. We might require stand-alone institutions that will have the objective of creating management teachers and researchers again subject to control and certification by industry or industry associations.

In nutshell, what we need is a Program that is subject to forces of the market and controlled by the industry. By the very structure of it, it can’t be the University affiliated MBA.

A. Sreekumar.

           Fellow of IIM Ahmedabad

Dean, DCSMAT Institutions (DC School of Management and Technology Institutions),

Kerala, India 695 585

91-98465 99995

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