Students' corner

Dear Students,

LAST WEEK WE ASKED: Do you think B-schools should provide incentives to their faculty members to improve research?

BEST RESPONSE

Research involves great effort, along with out of the box thinking to develop something extraordinary, using specialised skills. It is responsible for rapid advancements in this fast-changing world. The faculty in a majority of institutes, in various fields, work on research projects. But they seem to have a tepid attitude towards research due to lack of remuneration. Therefore, to promote research, it is a must to provide incentives to faulty members, so as to give them a fillip.

Shivam Chhabra, Integral University, Lucknow

OTHER RESPONSES

Incentives for better research would indeed help faculty members stay motivated. That way, they would focus more on research. Faculty members would acquire more knowledge to do more research, thereby learning more with each passing day. What's more, the benefits would be transferred to institutes and their students.

Rituparna Saha Ray, Fr C Rodrigues Institute of Management Studies, Navi Mumbai

Research by faculty members is considered an asset by any B-school and also the quality of education at a B-school is sometimes determined by the quality of research done by faculty. Hence, to give more importance to research, many well-known B-schools have revised the competition structure of faculty members and research is given a separate weightage in their variable pay. So, it will depend on the quality of research and not only on quantity. Making such incentives for research a part of their pay package will encourage faculties to improve the research.

Uday Parikh, Amrut Mody School of Management, Ahmedabad

The declining quality of research work and deteriorating research standards and infrastructure in the country are a cause of concern. Inadequate infrastructure and lack of strong incentives to practice quality research are major causes of decline in interest towards research work. B-schools, hence should encourage research as this forms the base of any teaching. If they want their students to get imparted with quality knowledge, it should be understood by schools that management studies is not just about theory. In fact, this is one field where practice creates the theory.

Sukshit Shetty, Vishwakarma Institute of Management, Pune

Providing incentives to a faculty member for research is a great idea because it enhances research, scholarship, service and creativity and promotes best practices in teaching and learning and helps to set new qualified business standards that improves growth of students and businesses, too. It also helps B-schools to satisfy their mission and vision. B-schools could provide incentive payments to faculty who are effective in securing extra funding.

Shardul Upadhyaya, Universal College of Engineering & Technology

Apart from being paid on the basis of student evaluations, B-school faculties should also be incentivised based on their research as that would bring parity among them. The focus of the incentive structure should be on the quality of research, rather than the quantity. Quality research helps faculties be updated with the current scenario/technology and transferring that knowledge to the students.

Prasanna Venkatesan, Indian Institute of Management, Indore

Your responses should reach us at edu@business-standard.com by Monday evening every week. Please ensure your responses do not exceed 100 words. Avoid attachments and email your full name, institute's name, batch and complete mailing address. The student who gives the 'Best Response' will be awarded Rs 500.

THIS WEEK'S QUESTION: Do you think IIMs should accredit other B-schools?