Role of Research in Effective Teaching in Business Schools - a talk at Workshop for Deans and Directors of Business Schools on “Building Quality in B Schools: Opportunities & Challenges” held at Indian Institute of Management Bangalore on Feb 1, 2013

1. Role of Research in Effective
Teaching in Business Schools
Workshop at IIM Bangalore on Feb 1, 2013 on
“Building Quality in B Schools: Opportunities & Challenges”
Ganesh N. Prabhu
Indian Institute of Management Bangalore

2. What is happening in business schools?
• Business school should teach students how to
actually run a business – organize people, use
technology, knowledge, factories, offices, etc.
• Manager/owner who runs business will benefit
from a more comprehensive business education.
• But many business schools compartmentalize
subjects and give specializations in the MBA.
• Students (and even faculty ) with no real work
experience memorize many subjects, but cannot
connect across them to address real businesses.

3. What goes as business school research?
• Business schools should research real business.
• But many business schools compartmentalize
research into specializations like in engineering.
• These specialists publish in specialist journals
that are unconnected to real business issues.
• The over emphasis on few top journals means
that many give up and do not make the effort.
• Case writing is often on well known companies
rather than what is useful for teaching purposes.
• Writing for practitioners is often impractical!

4. What could be business school research?
• Business schools should research real business.
• Get students to work on real life issues in local
organizations to identify ways to address them.
• Connect them to faculty who can deal with these
issues creatively and leverage existing knowledge.
• Develop a detailed comprehensive write-up in
simple language on what was actually done there.
• Publish these write ups on our own website to
start with - then move next version to journals.
• Get our alumni to read these website write ups.

5. Impact of such business school research?
• Business schools will get much desired visibility.
• Alumni are more likely to sponsor such research.
• Students will get to exercise minds on real issues.
• Students and faculty will build their reputations.
• Faculty will get to deal with issues across areas.
• Faculty will learn to write in jargon free language.
• Faculty will see their work is visible to managers.
• Practitioner journals like Interfaces are more
likely to publish what has worked in practice.

6. Impact of such research on teaching
• Students will become more involved with faculty.
• Faculty will build better teaching reputations
• More alumni will come in to do guest sessions.
• New faculty will get a head start in teaching.
• Firms studied may give faculty board positions.
• Faculty will collaborate in teaching across areas.
• Faculty will communicate
confidently/effectively.
• Faculty may chose new research issues for PhD.
• Eventually students are better prepared for jobs.

7. Tejus and Strategic Management Forum
• Tejus is an IIMB website showcasing the best
student projects guided and cleared by faculty.
• Many projects are forward looking/actionable.
• Leads to practitioner interactions and queries.
http://tejas-iimb.org http://www.smfi.org
• SMF started in 2004 offering 6 day faculty course
• Foundation + 5 electives give faculty a
certificate.
• 663 faculty did foundation – about half at IIMB.
• Many started with cases/project based research.