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The Indian School of Business (ISB) played host to a high-profile International Strategy Conference held by the Strategic Management Society (SMS), USA. The theme of the Conference was ‘Emerging India: Strategic Innovations in a Flat World, and it saw a participation from 120 International and 45 Indian Business Schools. Also present at the occasion were 60 Deans from leading global and Indian B Schools, and a galaxy of leaders from the Indian industry.
.jpg) SMS is a professional society which brings together academics, business practitioners, and consultants, to focus on the development and dissemination of insights on the strategic management process. The three-day mega-event at the ISB, held between December 12- 14, 2008, was an apt platform to integrate strategy scholars and executives in India with their global counterparts, in order to co-learn and co-create a greater enterprise, and to define an ambitious research agenda that can help propel the next stage of inquiry in the field of strategy. As the rise of India poses opportunities as well as fundamental challenges both to academics and strategists, the lens of focus at the Conference was on the challenges for Indian firms in a ‘flat world’ global economy.
The Conference comprised four key elements - human capital development workshops for faculty and doctoral students from Indian business schools, plenary sessions between leaders from India Inc. and global strategy experts, research paper sessions, where around 100 research papers were presented, and a Deans Conclave where leaders from US, Europe Asian and Indian Business schools interacted to explore opportunities and challenges in instutonalising research in Indian business Schools.
Conference Convenor Professor CK Prahalad, Paul and Ruth McCracken Distinguished University Professor at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, mentioned in his welcome address, that it was the first time that a SMS conference was being hosted in India. “ More than just the location , what made it special was that for the first time SMS included a non-academic session, where everyone got to listen to CEO’s and Deans who are actually causing all the changes around. And, also for the first time, the young and the senior scholars come face- to- face on a platform of learning. This Conference is about creating a new- research eco system,” he said. The Conference, Professor Prahalad added, aimed to create research connections, it was about curiosity and collaborations, and it was about succession planning in the academic community.
 Dean M Rammohan Rao noted, “It is a privilege to host a conference such as this at the ISB. But it is not just the ISB that stands to gain. I think it will benefit the entire country. The idea behind the Conference is to see how the future of management education unfurls, particularly research, to make more collaboration with other schools, to promote quality of research, and to attract faculty to do cutting edge research. And this is just the beginning.”
Present at the Conference was Professor Harbir Singh, The Mack Professor; Professor of Management, Co-Director, Mack Centre for Technological Innovation, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and also Area Leader, Strategy at the ISB said, “This Conference indicates the strategy orientation and research orientation of the ISB. Knowledge is delivered through networks, and here today at the ISB academic institutions from around the world have come together. This is the way to move. More important, the Conference is a means to learn about new models in leadership, business, innovation etc. that arise from the Indian setting.”
Co-hairs of the Conclave, Professor Charles Dhanaraj from University of Western Ontario and Professor MB Sarkar from Temple University, and India Co-chairs Professor Rishikesha Krishnan from Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore and Professor Sougata Ray from Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta were unanimous about their vision about the Conference, “The conference is the outcome of our shared dream - to advance both Indian scholarship, as well as scholarship on India.”
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