Challenges of A Director In Running A B- School

1.    Introduction:
Higher Education: Higher Education that is the main tool for changing the state of any country, it should not be a static tool. It has to be dynamic and oriented towards the changing world. The Darwin’s Principle of Survival of the fittest is gaining more relevance in the current scenario of higher education. All the institutions have to attempt hard to sustain in this race of competition, without compromising with the very essence of education. At the same time all the institutions are making effort to achieve excellence in providing the knowledge.

Management Education: The simplest definition of management is 'getting things done through people'. Traditionally, management was considered to be an activity done by instinct, trial and error or through the exercise of some kind of power and/or charisma. It was Drucker's book The Practice of Management that elevated this activity to a professional status and made people realize that management is an activity that is largely rational and could be practiced systematically and constantly improved upon. Once this stage was reached, the obvious next step was teaching people to manage. People already in jobs were trained in aspects of management through short-term training programs. As the demand for professional managers grew, the need to educate and prepare youngsters for a career in management, as in medicine and engineering, was realized and management courses began to be introduced in conventional Universities and later in dedicated institutions started for this purpose.

If the preferred careers in the 1940s and the 50s were medicine and engineering and in the 1960s and 70s the IAS and the Central services, the craze since the 1980s has been for management and IT jobs. As a result, there has been an explosion in the number of business schools in India. Quantity, as usually happens has led to deterioration in quality and the present scenario. Currently 1,550 business schools producing over 100,000 management graduates every year is not enough to meet the growing demand for management education in India. Against 290,000 students applied for CAT in 2008 number of seats offered by IIMs are 1,700 only showing the huge demand – supply mismatch for quality management education in the country. As a result, opportunities in management education in India are immense. Furthermore, the increasingly globalised nature and context of business in the Indian economy require an expanded horizon of management and leadership, which can be achieved through continuous improvement and upgradation of capabilities, skills and change of mindset of the management graduates. Hence, business education in today’s environment plays a significant role and should prepare the students to face the challenges boldly. Several business schools have been set up in last few years but very few can mould the students to meet the expectations of the industry.

As economic development depends crucially on the efficient use of resources, not the least human resources, and management is the key to this, the output of the business schools becomes a critical input for development. While books on management concepts and techniques are legion, authentic and knowledgeable books on the state of management education, their structure, functioning, prospects and concrete suggestions for their improvement are hard to come by.

*Director (MCA), Pioneer Institute of Professional Studies, Indore
**Lecturer, Pioneer Institute of Professional Studies, Indore
2.    Role of Director in Institutes: In college code 28 the director has been defined as the CEO of the institute. Therefore, the role of Director in an institute is analogous to the role of CEO in a MNC. A director in any institute is a person who is directly or in directly responsible for every activity related to institute. He is involved into every activity from top to bottom, as he has to take decisions with top management and also he has to execute those decisions at ground level.  A director has to play all the 10 roles of a manager given by H. Mintzberg (1973) in his paper, which are
    Leader
    Liaison
    Monitor
    Spokes Person
    Entrepreneur
    Disturbance Handler
    Disseminator
    Resource Allocator
    Negotiator
    Figure Head

In any institute a director is key person. The performance and growth of the institute depends upon the capabilities and qualities of the director.

3.    Demands from all the corners: Director being the key authority of the Institute, he has to respond to the every possible issue related to Institute. The role of director becomes more challenging as he has to meet out the demands from all the corners. He has to fulfill the demands from various stakeholders as:

4.    Management: The Director has a major responsibility towards management of the institute. He has to manage the institute as per the decision of the management. Management has high expectations from their director as he is the executor of the policies designed by the management. Marshall ( Marshall, Don R. (1999). The Four Elements of Successful Management. New York: American Management Association.) defines that there has to be a proper authority responsibility relationship. In the present scenario of privatization, in many of the Institutes directors don’t have all kinds of authorities’ especially financial authorities. In the absence of this, a limit has automatically been defined which many a times creates hurdles in taking decisions.

5.    Faculty Members: The director is a representative of the management among the faculty members so the faculty members have various expectations from him such as he shall take decision in their interest and provide them best opportunities and facilities at the institution.

6.    Admin Staff:  The director of institution is also responsible for all the non-academic activities so he has to perform as an Administrator also. There he has to deal with the various departments as Accounts, Administration, Placement, Students Section etc. For staff also he is the management representative so the have their expectations from him.

7.    Industry: Industry has a lot of expectations from the institutes. They are interested to select those candidates who are able to meet out their expectations. Students should be able to generate a huge amount of business to them. But, in the absence of the control of input and reservation policies, institutes are not able to select the good lot of students. Also there is a huge gap between academics and industry as far as curriculum is concerned. 

8.    Regulators: There are various regulatory organizations to which institute is bounded e.g University, AICTE, DTE, UGC, NAAC, NBA etc. A director has to be updated and adhere to the norms, rules and regulations time-to-time. Because he is responsible for the maintenance of the Norms in the institute. Also, he has to maintain healthy relations with them.

9.    Media: Media expects that there has to be advertisements, revenue generation form the institutes. Directly or indirectly, one way or other things are related with the revenue generation.

10.    Students: Students are the prime concern for any institute, thus for director also. He has to make sure that the students get the Quality Education at the institute and for this only all the academic and non academic activities are being done. Along with this director has a prime responsibility towards the students to provide the secure and healthy environment for their studies. He has to ensure arrangements for classes on time, extra curricular and co-curricular activities, placements, industry exposure etc. for students.  

11.    Society: Being a part of society the institute as well as director has their responsibility towards it. Institute is in to shaping the lives of youth so it has a moral responsibility to develop the ethics and values into them. Again the director is at the execution end so he has to ensure that the citizens being developed in the institute are well educated and well mannered. People expects that the free availability of institute premises and sport facilities for the personal use as well as social gatherings.

12.    Family: At last but not less important the responsibility of his family. While performing all the above roles he has to take care about the requirements of his family. The family members are also having various demands and problems regarding their day-to-day needs, which are to be attended by the head of the family.

13.    Challenges of a Director: As discussed above, a director has versatile role and responsibilities towards the institute, faculty members, students, society and family. While performing his duties and taking up various responsibilities a director has to face a lot and lot of challenges. Although, he has not to do all the work by his own but he has to get it done from the people under him. To get work done is some more difficult then to do it by your own. Also the responsibilities are scattered in a vast area so he has to cover a broad spectrum of works. He has to take decisions at management level and also has to take care of its accomplishment at ground level

14.    Liaisoning: Liasioning is a very important responsibility of an institutional head. He has to have relation with various organizations and government bodies. He should have meetings with them time to time, should also have telephonic and e-mail communications with them. The aim of the director should be to make his presence in these bodies, so that the institution can be benefited in many ways. Having good liasoning is a challenge for the director. Because to maintain communication and relation with dignitaries of these regulatory and government bodies, itself is a challenge. Liaisoning is also beneficial to know the future trends and rules and regulations for the institute. It helps in improving the institutional status at regional and national level. In this competitive era, the institution must be ahead of others in implementing the new government policies and rules. This can be achieved only when a director is fully updated and having good communication with the government bodies and agencies. While running a B-School institute has to adhere with the rules and regulation of following government/non-government bodies:
    AICTE
    Department of Higher Education
    Department of Technical Education
    UGC
    NAAC
    NBA
    Funding Agencies (DST, MPCOST, RID-AICTE)
    Affiliating Universities
    Principals of other Colleges
    Media
    Students Unions
    University representatives in Various bodies/Committees such as Board of Studies, Governing Body, Selection Committee, Affiliation, Examination etc.

Liaisoning is very important for institution. But it is also very difficult to maintain relations with variety of organizations and government bodies. Poor liaisoning may cause into lack of funding from government bodies, poor representation at regional and national level, problems in getting proper and updated information of the current and future policies of government. This all may hamper the growth of institute.

15.    Institutional Development: A director is not just for running the institution smoothly but he is also responsible for the growth of institution, as no institute can survive without growth. This growth refers to all-round growth of the institute. For the growth, there are various steps depending on the status of the institution, such as initially to get an affiliation then after 5 years it can apply for permanent affiliation. Upgradation of institution is a very challenging task it self, as it requires lots of effort to change the existing system to a new system. Always there is a risk in developing new courses, activities, pattern etc. and that too under the pressure of the management and faculty members.  Following activities comes in to the director’s challenge for the growth of the institute:

    Getting Affiliation
    Permanent Affiliation   
    Accreditation by various bodies such as NAAC, NBA
    Autonomy
    Getting New approvals for courses including Increase in Intake of existing Courses
    Opening new Institute/Courses
    Updating with the new norms and standards from time to time

16.    Academic Development & Monitoring: Being the CEO and academic head of the institution, director has to create the brand so that students are striving to take admissions in the institute. Institute should be able to get good stuff so that they are placed in better organization with a good package. Academic activities of any institute are like its heart. The academic development starts with the process of admission because the input in the system is very important, as discussed above is the brand of institute is good then only it will be able to get good stuff. For attracting the students institute must give them what they want, i.e job oriented and updated courses is required. Institute should have to develop new courses for students of various streams at the same time it has to consider the requirement of the industry.

Now a day the world is of experts and specialized people so industry also need specialized people and therefore the students demand for various specialized courses. Therefore the Institute should provide various specializations which are the current demand from industry. It is a challenging task as the trends of market and industry changes rapidly. To develop a new course/specialization and design syllabus for that is not an easy task.

The role of director doesn’t end with the design part, he has to make that sure that the implementation of the same is being done properly. Also ensure that the objective of the course should meet out. It includes effective implementation of time-table, internal and external evaluation etc. Along with these purely academic activities the institutional development also need the other activities which are of same important such as Seminars, Conferences, QIP, SDP, co-curricular activities etc. This plays a vital role in developing an institute.

17.    Branding of Institute: Institutions will need to attract more and more students and increase its pool of potential entrants and also ensure greater diversity from within the population. With corporate expanding business by reaching out to markets beyond the metros and cities, there is a greater need for manpower in these areas. It would be extremely essential to have locally trained and skilled manpower to fuel this growth. Hence educational institutes will need to increase the bouquet of offerings and reach out to larger populations. Branding Education is more than creating a brand name or a logo or indulging in large media exercises. It as an exercise that helps develop an identity that inspires people.

To make an institution success it is necessary that it should have a strong brand image in the market. The director being the CEO and the academic head, he is responsible for the image of the institution in the market. In the process of branding for the institute maintaining relations with media people is a big task. As media is one of the major tools for creating a brand.  Normally media is revenue oriented, thus they expects some source of revenue from the institute in the form of advertisements etc. In brand building the news coverage of various activities happening in the institute is very important. Like news coverage of annual functions, seminars, and events creates an environment which floats through the market. Many a times, news coverage is directly connected with the volume of business given by the institute. Thus for a director it’s a very challenging situation that to manage with the media and institute management, cause a financial decision is beyond director authority area. In brand building it also requires to participation in various surveys (e.g. AIMA, Business India, c fore, Dalal Street, CSR, Hello jindagi, 4Ps of Business & Marketing), which gives the regional and national reorganization. This needs a huge amount of documentation with all the proofs. To create an positive image through the documents is a big challenge.

In present scenario one important factor which affects the image of the institute is placements of students. Now a days the assessment of  the institute’s reputation is directly based on the placements and industry exposure. Again director has to make ensure that relations with industries are good and helping the students in getting placements. Although there is an exclusive department of placements but still the overall responsibility lies with the head.


18.    Research: Quality of the education is the key factor for any institute, and quality of education depends on the research work being carried out in the institute. Director being the academic head has to inculcate research environment and to motivate the faculty members and students to participate in research. Before motivating others, director himself should be well involved into it. He should write research papers/cases/books/monographs etc. At next level he should organize Conferences and seminars to provide a research platform to the faculty members and students. Director should also be able to guide candidates for PhD.

Although the competency of director matters but still the problem faced now days is that the faculty members joining the institute are mostly by chance not by choice, thus they don’t have interest in developing their career in academics so they are not inclined towards research. Its very difficult to get them into quality research. Also lacking of interest leads to poor or average knowledge of the subject and teaching methodology. It’s a big task for any director to get quality research work done by the faculty members.

19.    Discipline: One of the fore most concerns for any institutional head is to maintain discipline in the institute. Every institute has its own culture which represents its values. Thus for a director first task is to develop a healthy organizational culture and then to maintain it. Discipline is for everybody that is for students, faculty members, staff etc. it covers the adherence of Institute Timings by faculty and students, also includes observation of service and leave rules by staff.

Ragging is a serious problem in every institute, thus prevention of ragging is very important. Also the dealing with Student Unions and conducting Student elections etc is a challenging task in present environment.

20.    Expectation of Faculty Members from Director: As discussed above that the director is key factor in the success of the institute, therefore it is required to check what qualities a director should posses to run the institution successfully. Following qualities are listed out considering the various roles of the director such as CEO, Manger, Teacher, Guide etc.
    Visionary
    Leading from the front
    Flexible
    Considerate
    Concern for the faculty development
    Research Oriented
    Planned assignments
    Polite
    Respecting the team members
    Motivator

21.    Expectation of Director from Faculty Members: To meet out the challenges discussed above, a director needs a good team that is the faculty members and staff members. A leader can be successful only if his team is good. To get a good team is also a challenge for a director, because with the mushrooming of the institutes, people are joining academics by chance not by choice. As a result, it is observed that faculty members are not career conscious. They take little interest in the institutional developmental as well as research activities. Faculty members expect quick proportions and salary hike even though they do not meet the prescribed norms of regulatory bodies. A director looks for following qualities in the team members:
    Accepting Responsibility
    Co-operating with Colleagues
    Work Attendance
    Accepting Advice
    Supervising Ability
    Desire to Learn and Improve
    Accepting New Assignments
    Completing the Job on Time
    Observing Professional Ethics
    Involvement in Research
    Involvement in Institution Developmental activities
    Active Participation in the Seminars and Conferences
    Initiative for the Staff Developmental Activities
    Maintaining Accountability
    Overall Behavior Conducive to Institutional Culture

22.    Conclusion: There are huge numbers of institutes developing day-by-day, and it is very difficult to sustain in the market without having a plan for the growth and development of the Institute. Every institute has to provide quality education along with good placements. The demand from students is increasing rapidly, more and more knowledge, industry exposure, extra-curricular activities and opportunities. Running a B-School is a challenging task itself and in this challenging task director is the key person. He has pressure of demand from all the directions may it be management, faculty, students or his family. Role of director is very versatile, because he has to work as a manager also as a teacher and a guide.  The versatility of job increases the complexity. Therefore, the competency of director should e very high. He shall be able to do the work and also can get the work done.

In the present centralized admission system, institutes have no control over the input of students. Similarly, there is huge lacking of knowledgeable and dedicated faculty members who are interested into the academic and institutional development. Also there are limited resources available with institutes. This makes the task of director more challenging. We have defined various responsibilities of the director but in the absence of authorities, the responsibilities can not be performed well. Management should ensure that proper authorities shall be delegated to the director for performing all his responsibilities.

23.    References
    Business Education in India-Report, March 2009, Cygnus
    P. Geetha Rani(2004),Economic reforms and financing higher education in India, Indian Journal of Economics and Business
    Matthukutty Monippally & Arvind Sahay (2005). Management Education in India -An Overview, Proceedings of  PIM conference, Paraguay, 
    Marshall ( Marshall, Don R.)(1999)The Four Elements of Successful Management. New York: American Management Association.
    H.Mintzberg (1973). The Nature of Managerial works, Published by Harper & Row  (New York), (ISBN 0060445556 )
    http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa5483/is_200407/ai_n21363256/
    http://www.citehr.com/75481-impact-globalization-management-education-india.html
    http://hosteddocs.ittoolbox.com/AC071807.pdf