Time to look at specialisation in academic institutions: IIM-A study

Suggests need for faculties with excellence in teaching, research and administration

Calling out for a "collaborative action across institutions for upgradation of research", a working paper released by the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) stresses on the need to build specialized competence in individual faculty members to strive for excellence in a core academic activity, be it research, teaching or executive training and administration.

Titled 'Academic Research Productivity: What may be 'reining' in the Indian B-school', the working paper says that the traditional view of a faculty being a superior performer in all aspects of academics may not yield the results needed to attain global standards of excellence.

"Historically, it is expected from a faculty to be great at teaching, excellent in research and equally proficient in administrative roles. The time has changed. Today we need a pack of great teachers and another pack of cutting edge researchers and another bunch of academic administrators, each of whom are specialised in what they do," says Arindam Banerjee, faculty member at IIM-A and author of the working paper.

The premier B-schools may require a change in their expectation of faculty output, specifically, do away with the system where every faculty member is expected to contribute significantly to teaching, administration and research, the paper states.

In current scenario, the overall quality of academic output will continue to remain mediocre when a small number of faculty is expected to perform well both in teaching and research.

"The law of large numbers is not surmountable since it is not humanely possible to strive for excellence with such diluted focus. This again appears to be a big deterrent in building a superior research climate in our institutions. It is time to look at some specialization in our academic institutions with various kinds of faculty focussing on varying mix of activities across teaching, research and innovation academic administration and applied research, depending on their competence and with the assurance that they are compensated appropriately for the expected output that they need to produce," the paper suggests.

Further, Banerjee through the working paper also suggests and beckons for a collective effort by all B-schools, especially the premier ones, if the research quality in the country needs to be enhanced.

"No institute has enough infrastructure for quality research. Hence, a collective initiative is required by all B-schools," says Banerjee.

The paper also offers various historic reasons for poor productivity in research, including unproductive competition among institutions due to a false sense of self sufficiency, lack of adequate research infrastructure at the institution level and, the long standing government policy in India that has considered teaching to be the core activity in our University system.

"The days of the 'superstar' Professor who happens to be an excellent teacher and is also a prolific writer of thought-provoking papers in his domain and, routinely attends meetings on academic administration are long gone," the paper states.