Crowd Sourcing Decisions: An Uphill Task
Tagore International Business School has maintained its reputation as one of the best B-schools in India for the past several years. In spite of the fact that it is located in Coimbatore, an erstwhile small city, the institute has achieved great laurels for itself. Dr. Navneet Dubey, the Director of the institution had recently visited the University of California in the US. He observed that the management graduates from the B-schools of California University were better trained as compared to their Indian counterparts.
As he observed, one important reason for this was the curriculum of the MBA programme in the US. Dr. Dubey was highly impressed with the pedagogy and the curriculum of the University of California, and therefore, he undertook the challenge of redesigning the MBA programme of his B- School on the same pattern. However, he found that the industry needs for management graduates in India were slightly different than the US; therefore, the re-designing of the programme was a herculean task. His search for the right person for such an important task ultimately ended with Prof. (Dr.) Gagan Batra, the recently appointed the Academic Co-ordinator of Tagore International by the Board of Governors. Prof. Batra was delegated with the responsibility to redesign the MBA curriculum, the flagship programme of the School. Dr. Dubey said,” I have lots of hopes from you Prof. Batra, as you are a highly talented and an experienced professor you will definitely come up with a newly designed curriculum. Now, the onus is on you to make our MBA programme better than any other B School in India”. Prof. Batra responded positively and sought permission to commence the task.
The purpose was to launch a new programme in the field of management based upon the needs of the industry. The new programme would offer specialized knowledge to the students and help them in their job selection at various management levels. Though Prof. Batra was positive and enthusiastic about the task he needed inputs and suggestions from some of the experienced professors of management over the same.
He, therefore, formed a committee to re-design the course, which included some highly qualified and experienced professors from all the departments of the Institute.
Dr. Ranjit Sinha, PhD from XLRI Jamshedpur, Head of the Marketing Department was nominated to the core team responsible for the new programme to be executed. Prof. Ajit Biswas, Senior Associate Professor of Micro finance, a Post Doctoral Fellowship holder from the University of Hong Kong, Prof. Rana Sardar, a fellow of IIM Bangalore, Dr. Manita Sharma, a doctorate in human psychology from Delhi university, HOD of HR department, Prof. Ashima Bhatnagar, Senior Professor of Human Development and Industrial Relations, Prof. Sanjoy Chakraborty, HOD of the General Management Department and an alumni of IIM Kolkata, and Dr. Shamim Ahmad, Associate Professor, General Management were included in the team.
These members were chosen in the light of their expertise in various areas, and were imparting valuable time away from their normal assignments to participate in the development of the curriculum of the new course.
As the team leader, Dr. Batra had scheduled an initial meeting for 10:00 A.M. Dr. Batra began the meeting by reviewing the history of the development of their flagship programme, and how all the professors can make it successful and ensure that it emerges as one among the most popular programmes of the county. Then, he reviewed the market for new opportunities in various industries and the skill requirements of the industry to develop the initial curriculum for the new programme. He also stressed upon the changing needs of the industry and the demand for skilled professionals in the market. He then opened the meeting for comments and suggestions.
Prof. Ajit Biswas spoke. “In my opinion, the current curriculum that we have in our MBA programme is just about fine. We already impart training to our students in the latest areas of finance, marketing and management as per the need of the industry, making use of the latest analytics software. The course is the best in terms of providing valuable skills, and such skills are in great demand. I don’t see why we have to redesign a whole new curriculum.” Prof. Manita Sharma agreed and urged the committee to recommend that the current curriculum was good enough and should be incorporated in the new session. Dr. Batra interrupted “Look, the Board of Governors put this committee together to completely revolutionize the programme, and its curriculum based on present market conditions and industry needs. We are to redesign the programme, its curriculum and delivery systems. That is our job, so let’s get started.” Dr. Batra knew that the professors had considered using the existing course outline, but had rejected the idea because the curriculum was not specific but generic, and the students were not easily acceptable at higher positions by the companies. However, it was a good programme for getting an entry level position in the corporate sector. He mentioned this to the group and reminded them that the purpose of the committee was to design a new programme.
The members then began discussing possible new design elements, but the discussion always came back to the benefits of using the existing curriculum and methodology. Finally, Prof. Sanjoy spoke “I think we ought to do what Prof. Biswas suggested earlier. It makes no sense to me to design a new curriculum when the existing course structure is good enough to do the job.” The others nodded their heads in agreement. Dr. Batra again reminded them of the committee’s purpose, and said such a recommendation would not be well accepted by the Board of Governors. Nevertheless, the group insisted that Dr. Batra write a memo to Board recommending them to continue with the existing curriculum, and to immediately begin with the programme in the new session. The meeting adjourned and the members headed to the cafeteria at 10:45 A.M.
Dr. Batra returned to his computer and began to write the memo, but he knew it would anger the Board of Governors as well as Dr. Dubey. He hoped he would not be held responsible for the actions of the committee, even though he was its head. He wondered what had gone wrong, and he could have prevented it.
Upasana Gupta is a Senior Assistant Professor at the Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management and Technology, Bareilly. She carries an experience of around eight years in teaching. She has published several research papers and articles in journals of national and international repute Prof.Gupta is a B.Tech, MBA and is pursuing Ph.D. from Gautam Buddha University, Greater Noida.
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