Education in Economics and Management in Time of Crisis

Good morning Professor Christie, it is a pleasure to have this conversation with you as a new member of our Editorial Board at IPEJM!
You are a Director of a prestigious Indian Business School: the issue that we would like to discuss with you then is that of the new challenges of Education in the field of Economics and Management during this time of crisis.
Let's start from your own school. Please tell us something about its history, orientation, the programs that you offer, etc

Loyola Institute of Business Administration (LIBA), established in 1979, is one of India's premier management institutes and it is managed by Jesuits. Consistently ranked among the best business schools in the country, LIBA represents the unflagging zeal for education that is a unique characteristic of the Jesuit Society.
The institute lays stress on holistic learning with particular emphasis on excellence and ethics. It is proud of its culture rooted in values such as mutual respect, integrity, teamwork and social concern. LIBA endeavours to contribute to the sustained development and inclusive growth of the nation and the world at large, by preparing managers imbued with a spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship.
The programmes offered by LIBA include Full-Time Postgraduate Diploma in Management (equivalent to MBA), Part-time Postgraduate Diploma in Management,  Doctoral Programme, Executive Postgraduate Diploma Programme and Certificate Programmes.
All the programs offered at LIBA are at the postgraduate level. In 1979 when it was started it was offering only the part-time program focusing on the working executives. Later 1995 it started offering the full-time program which has become now the flagship program of the School. Other programs were started during the last ten years.

How big is the school? How many students do you have?

There are about 950 students pursuing various postgraduate programs. We admit 120 students into full-time program every year and another 60 in the part-time program. We also take an average four students into the doctoral program. 

As a Jesuit Institution the LIBA is known for its value-based education. What does it mean exactly? What does it mean for a Business School to be a Jesuit institution and to have a Jesuit identity?

As a Jesuit Institution LIBA aims at forming men and women for others, leaders with competence, conscience and compassionate commitment.
The Society of Jesus, whose members are known as Jesuits, is a religious order of the Roman Catholic Church founded by Saint Ignatius of Loyola in 1540. In their endeavour to follow Jesus closely, Jesuits aspire to live and work as men of God and men for others. Their ideals of love and service, faith and justice are lived concretely in their dedication to impart quality education over the past 450 years. Their mission of academic excellence and preparing men and women for others is closely linked with their identity as Jesuits.
Enriched by their rewarding tradition and experience in the field of education, Jesuits offer a holistic formation emphasizing the development of the whole person, head and heart, as an individual and as a member of society. To enable the students to become men and women for others, the Jesuit education insists on academic excellence, critical thinking, creative research and overall personality development that includes character, moral courage to be free to make the right choices and commitment to the poor and marginalized.
In true Jesuit tradition, our students are trained to be effective leaders of tomorrow with a global mindset rooted in sound ethical principles.
Recently when some of the deans and directors of Jesuit Business Schools had an interaction with Rev. Fr Adolfo Nicolás, Superior General, at Rome, he mentioned to us that our programs should be designed in such a way that when our students go out of the programs, they should become ‘better persons’. We strive to achieve this, become training them to be competent, professionals.
The objective of LIBA is to facilitate the development of individuals as:  Competent managers capable of contributing to national development and better quality of life, Management professionals committed to quality and 'magis' (excellence in everything) and Leaders guided by the highest principles of ethics, integrity and concern for the less privileged.

Apart from its Jesuit identity, is there any special feature that is important to explain the success of the LIBA’s formula? Is it an Indian story?

LIBA's mission is to achieve excellence in all its endeavours. We realise this mission through a multi-pronged approach: revamping the programme and constantly revising the curriculum responding to the changing needs of the industry, selection of faculty with excellent academic record and rich industry experience, maintaining a strong interface with the industry, collaborating with many foreign universities and providing state-of-the-art infrastructure facilities at LIBA.
Our courses have been designed to impart knowledge in the art and science of modern management, hone leadership skills and develop the overall personality of each student. Going beyond academic excellence, our holistic training focuses on the care of the whole person (cura personalis) by laying emphasis on developing leadership qualities, communication skills, entrepreneurial spirit to thrive in a global market, commitment to ethical principles and corporate social responsibility.

A core point is international collaboration, isn't it? In what exactly these collaborations consist of? How did you build these ties through the years?

I believe, in the globalized economy, no business is a local business and every business has international ramifications. Every business graduate should have a clear idea of International Business and they need to develop good international perspective. With this in view, LIBA has signed MoU with various Universities abroad for student exchange, faculty exchange, research collaborations, collaboration to promote business ethics, corporate responsibility and social entrepreneurship.
Being a Jesuit Institute it has an advantage of having strong network among Jesuit Business schools. In addition, through other contacts, we were able to establish collaboration with many Business Schools.  LIBA has established linkages with two dozen renowned business schools across all six continents, which is unique distinction that LIBA enjoys. 

The Business School model and its most popular "product" – the MBA – have lot of fans and many critics too… One of its most famous critics is Henry Mintzberg, who put it in these words: "Management is where art and craft and science meet," and most MBA programs are simply "training in analytical skills for analytical jobs… like investment banking and consulting". What do you think of these arguments?

This criticism about MBA's could largely come because of the admission process that most B-schools have wherein a lot of emphasis is placed on logical thinking and analytical ability through the aptitude exams. Also with most good B-schools using the case study approach, there is always a premium given for analytical work in the curriculum. Another data point we cannot deny is that most B-schools have over 80% of their students as engineers who are naturally known to have an analytical mind.
Having said this, I completely agree with Mintzberg that management is the amalgam of art and science and our curriculum has to include an appreciation of this. We at LIBA have incorporated several ‘grayer’ aspects of management which need abstract thinking and appreciation rather than logical thinking. We have electives on emotional intelligence, leadership, creativity etc which open the mind to aspects other than training for analytical jobs.

Mintzberg’s point is also that MBA’s programs should be targeted to people who already got promoted into a managerial position (not to young graduates), so that they could use their own managerial experience explicitly (not other people's cases). What do you think?

There has been a greater trend nowadays of people with work experience wishing to pursue  management education. I do not deny that it is an excellent one as the entire discussion in the classrooms get enhanced and tends to be of a higher quality. Having said that, it is also a great experience for a fresher to be part of the management class as the untarnished perspectives which intelligent youngsters bring cannot be undermined. I would ideally like to have a mix of experienced and fresh in my class.

There is a lot of empirical evidence (McCabe and Trevino, 1995; Rynes et al., 2003) consistent with the assertion that Business School students are the most instrumental in their orientation toward their education, in the sense that they just want a degree that advances their incomes and careers… What do you think?

We find that one of the most important factors that a prospective candidate looks for in a B-school is the placement record of that school. Candidates are well within their rights to know where they can aspire to go in their careers after education in that school. However, it becomes an issue when that is the only reason that students join the B-school. We find however, we have a mix of students who are keen on gaining knowledge in management as well as keen on making good careers in good companies.

Let's face the biggest issue now: the world crisis is changing the way we look at the world and the need of a "new model of doing business" is getting popularity. Do you think that management education has a responsibility in what happened? Do you think that we should change the way we teach management in the future?

With changing markets and changing economies and changing models for business, one of the key imperatives of a good B-school is not just to manage the change but also be on top of the change cycle. Good business schools have to necessarily provide thought leadership in management and should constantly update their curriculum to be relevant, contemporary and application oriented. That is definitely our responsibility.