Editor’s Note
Dr. Sabyasachi Dasgupta teaches Marketing at Globsyn Business School – one of the best business management colleges in Kolkata. Dr. Dasgupta has commanded prominent positions in several corporate and academic giants for more than 14 years. He has taught at the Florida State University, USA, and has also been a visiting researcher at the University. Dr. Dasgupta, apart from presenting research papers in national and international conferences, also has a number of publications, including Scopus/ABDC/UGC Care, edited books, a number of cases, book chapters, and a book under his name. He has also received the distinguished Research Excellence Award 2020. Dr. Dasgupta heads the Research and Publications vertical of Globsyn Research Cell. He is also a scientific committee member of TIIKM – Colombo, a member of the American Marketing Association and Calcutta Management Association, and a reviewer in the Journal of Brand Management, the Journal of Creative Communication, and journals published by the American Marketing Association.
Whenever there are discussions with corporate friends about the student resource pool for the corporate sector, they often say that students from many B-Schools, completing their post graduations, are ready for doctorate programs and not for corporate organizations.
As a faculty member who has been associated with top B-Schools across the country, it often intrigues me to understand the relevance of knowledge and education imparted to the students and their delivery in terms of applications and implementations in the corporate world. The critiques for an MBA student range from being too theoretical to oblivious of reality to being lazy, not moving out of AC rooms, to being egoistic to make others feel we are more educated than you, to throwing jargon all around without understanding its implementation and application.
While such critiques cannot be neglected and discarded, the shaping of a student is responsible for many such critiques. The knowledge, skills, and attitude all need to be relevant to where the majority of the students are being placed, which is in the corporate for most of the B-schools. Therefore, shaping students the corporate way is the need of the hour. Applied education, when imparted to students, bridges the gap between the industry and the academia and thereby makes students ready for the world for which they have joined the academic institutions.
Top private B-Schools, like Globsyn Business School, have incorporated application-based learning in their very core of academic delivery, equipping students with corporate-ready academics in their very structure. The live project-oriented academic delivery not only makes students realize the challenges they will face in the corporate world, but also makes them understand that every framework taught in class can be implemented in the real-life world and is not merely a fantasy in the corporate world. The internship programs, live cases, and social services integrate with the delivery and assessment processes to make students realize the importance of corporate-ready academics in shaping their future. Business Schools like Globsyn have understood the need for making students deliver in the corporate world from day one and therefore, designed the modus operandi of their delivery as a form of applied education. Practicing what they learn in class is the best way to judge the implementation results, and therefore, when such situations arise in the corporate world, they are better equipped to handle the problems and provide faster solutions than others in the team.
As shaping students for the corporate is the responsibility of the faculty, it is also the need of the hour for core academic faculty, who have never been in the corporate to unlearn and relearn the ways in which corporate functions and thereby upgrade themselves through consultancies and corporate trainings thereby getting to understand the needs of the corporate and preparing the students accordingly.
Applied education, implementable in nature in real-life scenarios, is important training for B-school students. The gap between the academics and the applied world of the corporate, needs to lessen at its very minimum so that each can benefit from the other in the world of business. If models and frameworks taught in class are untested in the class or beyond class itself, then the students will become ready for being an academician and not a practitioner.
As a faculty member of Globsyn Business School, I probe every student to think critically in terms of the applicability of the frameworks and the mindset training of choice of relevant models for specific situations. A B-school student needs a business orientation and not a theoretical academic orientation. Business Schools, where most faculty will impart applied education and integrate corporate-ready academics into their curriculum, will stay ahead of the curve and create confident students ready to take on the corporate world from the day they immerse themselves in their corporate journey.
Dr. Sabyasachi Dasgupta
Faculty – Marketing
Globsyn Business School