The state of management education in India: Trajectories and pathways

Abstract

Management education in India, especially the one offered at the IIMs, is the most sought-after professional choice among the youth pursuing higher education and attracts some of the best and the brightest students. Despite the popularity and centrality of the management education in the higher education landscape, a serious assessment of the field of management education in India has been rather few and far between. While there had been sporadic reflections and occasional critiques, a critical stocktaking of the institutional and disciplinary aspects of management education has been long wanting. This introductory essay gestures towards an interrelated array of factors that have a bearing on the overall purpose, and future direction, of management education in India. Besides presenting synoptic overview of the essays collected in the volume, it particularly underlines the global geopolitics of the theory and praxis of management and underlines the need to incorporate the perspectives of the Global South to move beyond the prevailing Western ethnocentrism.