Fresh MBA graduates lag in practical intelligence: Report

MBA graduates score on a par with business managers with respect to team management, but lag behind in work management and client management, the report says

MBA graduates from top B-schools lag in practical intelligence, says a report by Aspiring Minds. The report, 'Practical Intelligence in Top B-Schools in India', says there is a huge difference between the scores of management graduates and experienced business managers on a test of practical intelligence and situation handling.

Based on the evaluation of students in top B-schools using Aspiring Minds' Situation Judgment Tests (SJTs), the report indicated these students are significantly lower in practical intelligence than business managers with three to five years of experience in corporations today. This is significant because top corporations across the country recruit their key management talent from top B-schools, the report noted.

"Our top B-Schools provide talent to leading organisations in coveted roles. Industry has deployed a variety of tools and mechanisms to evaluate these candidates whose cognitive and language skills are already the country's best. Our study talks about how these students are doing in practical understanding of management in workplace," said Varun Aggarwal, chief technology officer and chief operating officer of Aspiring Minds.

The report said that MBA graduates score at par with business managers with respect to team management, but lag behind in work management and client management. The percentile difference in practical intelligence between business managers and MBA graduates is seen as 22.3 per cent in work management and 17.75 per cent in client engagement.

The overall percentile difference in practical intelligence of MBA graduates from top B-school and business managers is 17.3. "B-schools need to rise above the MBA literature and make an attempt to sharpen the practical intelligence of their students. Practical intelligence can help students successfully tackle real-world situations and their complexities without staggering in their approach," said the report.

The SJTs were conducted on 230 fresh graduates in three out of the top 10 B-schools in India to study their mid-level managerial skills and to gain insight into how these tests were responded. The responses on seven major aspects of business intelligence - judgment, commercial savvy, risk taking ability, decisiveness, ability to build leaders, marketing and communication and personal effectiveness - were studied. This was done under three broad work areas of work/operation management, team management and client engagement.