Research excellence in India’s B-schools requires sustained investment and institutional maturity

It has been a longstanding complaint that B-schools in India do not do any research. Even though they have emerged as key drivers of managerial talent and professional advancement, yet their contribution to original management research remains uneven. While a handful of premier B-schools are investing in research, a large part of the sector continues to focus primarily on teaching and placements. The deep-rooted concern is not that Indian B-schools fail to prepare students for managerial careers, but that their emphasis on professional training has often taken precedence over their role as centres of research and intellectual inquiry.Dismissing the notion about the lack of research, Prof. Debashis Chatterjee, Director, IIM Kozhikode, while talking to The Hindu said, “There are institutions and scholars in India producing valuable work that contributes to global knowledge and addresses important challenges facing businesses, governments and society. However, the concern that research remains weak or unevenly distributed across management education could be genuine. One reason for this perception is that the achievements of B-schools are often measured through placements, salaries, rankings and industry engagement, while research is less visible to the public besides being a long-term endeavour. It may take years to develop a question, collect and analyse evidence, undergo peer review and publish the findings. Its impact may emerge much later through changes in business practice, public policy or management thinking.”The representation of Indian B-school faculty in Stanford-Elsevier’s World’s Top 2% Scientists list may perhaps reflect the country’s research contribution. “The Department of Management Studies at IIT Delhi, itself has five professors (out of 28) featured in the last four consecutive years,” said P. Vigneswara Ilavarasan, HoD and Abdulaziz Alsagar Chair Professor at the Department of Management Studies, IIT Delhi, noting that in the business education pyramid, just like any discipline, the bottom is big and is mostly of teaching schools. “With government regulations in place, most of them hire faculty members with Ph.D. degrees. They may not produce research papers, as their employers do not need them. However, situations are improving. Teaching load is being reduced, and research incentivised,” he said.In management education, teaching and research should be complementary responsibilities, not competing priorities. “Research is what distinguishes a management school from a management training centre. A training centre may teach established practices; a research-oriented management school also generates new knowledge, tests existing assumptions, and develops solutions to emerging problems. The challenge for Indian management education is to make high-quality research a more widespread and integral part of the sector’s academic culture,” Prof Chatterjee said.In many institutions, the emphasis on teaching and employability has historically outweighed the development of a strong research culture. “The real challenge is not the complete absence of research, but its uneven distribution, limited international visibility and insufficient institutional support,” said Prof. Rudra Prakash Pradhan, Dean, Vinod Gupta School of Management (VGSoM), IIT Kharagpur.Notably, most Indian management institutions were set up as standalone AICTE-approved PGDM colleges with a teaching-and-placement mandate; there was no doctoral programme and no statutory research obligation. “The older IIMs and IITs, however, have run fellow programmes since the 1970s and hold large corpus funds. Private institutes, by contrast, are often ineligible for ICSSR and ANRF research grants. Research also requires access to journal databases and firm- and industry-level databases, but limited finances at many institutions make these difficult to acquire. Private schools that pursue AACSB, AMBA, or EQUIS accreditation produce and document impactful intellectual contributions, as this is an accreditation requirement,” Dr. Vidya Mahambare, Union Bank Chair Professor of Economics, Chairperson-CFER, Program Director-FPM, Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai said. But it would be inaccurate to assume that every intellectual contribution documented for accreditation purposes qualifies as research.“The government-assisted IIMs and IITs get generous funds from the government; therefore, they are in a position to attract students and professionals in research and Ph.D. programmes. Barring a few private B-schools, funds are constrained in most of the Indian B-Schools for long-term research. Most of the management education institutes face challenges of competition and survival. The threat of survival does not allow private B-schools enough funds for doing meaningful research,” Prof. Pradhan said.Advantage of timeDeveloping a strong research culture requires sustained investment, institutional maturity, and a critical mass of faculty who can mentor scholars and collaborate on ambitious projects. “However, a strong research culture is not determined by an institution’s age. Newer B-schools can also develop distinctive research strengths by investing in faculty development, research infrastructure and meaningful industry partnerships,” said Dr. Himanshu Rai, Director, IIM Indore.Prof. Chatterjee agrees, reiterating that research is not the exclusive preserve of the older IIMs and IITs. “Established institutions benefit from mature doctoral programmes, research infrastructure, international collaborations and scholarly networks. Newer institutions must build these capabilities while managing immediate academic and institutional demands. Research outcomes cannot be created overnight simply by announcing a research policy,” he said.The solution is to invest in research capacity from the outset. “The objective should not be to create a hierarchy in which only a few institutions undertake serious research, but to develop a wider national ecosystem in which institutions at different stages of maturity can build research capabilities appropriate to their ambitions and resources,” Prof. Chatterjee said.What rankings sayThe NIRF has repeatedly exposed the weakness of research activity across the management education sector. In 2022, 383 of the 670 management institutions participating in the rankings (57.16%) had no research publications recorded under the framework’s methodology. The 2024 figures were similarly troubling: 435 of 779 participating institutions (55.84%), reported zero publications. In 2025, the proportion rose to 58.31%, with 530 of 909 participating management institutions reporting no research publications. However, NIRF’s publication analysis relies on Web of Science classifications, while some management research appears under economics, psychology, information systems and other allied disciplines. The framework therefore may not capture every meaningful scholarly contribution.“Management is an inherently interdisciplinary field. Research on employee well-being may be published in psychology journals, market behaviour in economics journals, and digital transformation in information systems journals. Institutional affiliations, database coverage and disciplinary classifications can influence how such work is recorded. There are also other forms of scholarly contribution, including books, teaching cases, policy research and practitioner-oriented studies, whose value may not be fully reflected in conventional publication counts. Nevertheless, these contributions should be assessed using appropriate criteria rather than treated as automatic substitutes for peer-reviewed research,” said Prof. Rai. He added, “We should retain internationally comparable publication indicators while improving data verification and recognising the different ways rigorous research creates value, adapting a balanced approach.”The NIRF highlights a structural gap in management education, said Prof. Chatterjee, elaborating, “Although interdisciplinary research may be underrepresented by existing assessment frameworks, measurement limitations should not be assumed to explain the entire gap. Both the coverage and quality of research evaluation need scrutiny. The priority should be to strengthen institutional research capacity while ensuring that assessment frameworks recognise credible, rigorous and original contributions across disciplines.”Economic modelFor many institutions, the MBA is primarily a pathway to career advancement. Students and families judge programmes by fees, placements, salary packages, alumni networks, brand reputation and return on investment, while employers seek job-ready graduates with analytical, managerial and problem-solving skills. These are legitimate priorities. The difficulty arises when the placement function becomes the institution’s overriding measure of success. “A successful B-school should prepare students for today’s opportunities while generating knowledge that helps organisations navigate tomorrow’s challenges. Research is an essential part of that responsibility,” Prof. Rai said.Management research has shifted from practice-based to a theoretical nature, with an emphasis on scientific rigour. “As a result, most of the management research is confined to journal publication with little application in real life. On the other hand, placements generate immediate, measurable outcomes and attract attention from students, prospective applicants, recruiters and the media,” Prof. Pradhan said.For any fee-dependent standalone institution, prioritising placements is the more rational choice. High-quality research builds academic reputation, credibility, and international recognition. However, the process is slow,” said Dr. Mahambare.Faculty workloadHeavy teaching, mentoring, admissions, placement and administrative workloads leave faculty with little time for research. Hiring a faculty member with a doctorate, therefore, does not automatically create a research environment.The University Grants Commission’s (UGC) 2018 Regulations set direct teaching at 16 hours weekly for Assistant Professors and 14 for Associate Professors and Professors within a 40-hour week. Add to this curriculum design, admissions, placements and administration, and little uninterrupted time remains for research.Restrictive grant eligibility further constrains private institutions. “While ICSSR provides several grants, the process is extremely tedious, and many private institutions do not even qualify to apply if they aren’t registered under the UGC. What compounds the problem is the fact that there is no high-quality research ecosystem and there are few research clusters. The quality of the average doctoral thesis in many disciplines also does not match international standards, reflecting a wider, systemic problem, namely, the lack of adequate research training,” Dr. Mahambare said.Realising ambitionsResearch should address real-world challenges and inform practice. “Indian B-schools must build research centres in emerging areas such as AI, sustainability, healthcare and public policy, while strengthening industry-academia collaborations, faculty mentorship and research support. Success should be measured by research quality and its impact on managerial practice, not merely publication counts,” Prof. Pradhan said.Ultimately, the most important factor is institutional commitment. “A successful placement season may strengthen an institution’s immediate reputation. A strong research culture builds its intellectual credibility over decades. A leading B-school needs both,” Prof. Chatterjee added.