Asian B-schools to form consortium

The consortium will launch programmes in ease of doing business in their respective regions B-schools.

B-schools from China, Japan, India, Malaysia, Indonesia and West Asia have decided to form a consortium to create courses in ease of doing business.

These institutes will create the curriculum, pedagogy, research and cases on the subject.

The decision was taken at the recently-held Asian Management Conclave in Singapore.

From India, Birla Institute of Management and Technology and S P Jain Institute of Management and Research will frame courses on ease of doing business in India.

The fee and others details for the courses will be worked out by the end of this year, when the programme will be launched.

"We will offer these courses on both online and offline modes. After a few years, we plan to take these courses to other countries, too," said Harivansh Chaturvedi, director, Birla Institute of Management and Technology, Noida.

India plans to improve its position among 189 nations the World Bank ranks in terms of ease of doing business, from 142nd at present to 50th by 2017.

India in 2015 showed a drop of two positions from 140th a year earlier.

With the government taking steps to reduce paperwork and get faster clearances, India's ranking on the World Bank's ease of doing business report would improve during the year, the Confederation of Indian Industry had said last month.

"With India planning to improve its rankings, students will find the course attractive,"said Chaturvedi.

Dipak C Jain, director of Sasin Graduate Institute of Business Administration of Chulalongkorn University, Thailand, said Asian schools were not spending time to Asia specific content.

"Our schools should focus on conducting research in their countries and write more cases on Asian companies and their business practices, which can be used outside Asia."

B-schools in southeast Asia have become an attractive destination for international students for undergraduate and postgraduate business studies.

36 southeast Asian B-schools figure in Eduniversal's top rankings. Eduniversal rates business courses from 154 countries.

Sunil Kumar, dean of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, said:

"Global B-schools like ours realise Asian management education need local focus and we're investing heavily in physical campuses in Asia. One of the key roles for these Asian campuses is to be centres of research on Asian business practices."

To translate Asian research into practice, Singapore Management University has started the Centre for Management Practice and launched the Asian Management Insights journal to document case studies for local relevance.

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Image: Birla Institute of Management and Technology, which will frame courses on ease of doing business in India.

Photograph courtesy: Birla Institute of Management and Technology, Noida