Professor of the Year 2009 – Full Marks to Strategy and Negotiation

The Class of 2009 at the Indian School of Business (ISB), nominated Professor Prashant Kale as the ‘Professor of the Year for Core Courses’, and Professor Dishan Kamdar as the ‘Professor of the Year for Elective Courses’.

The Professor of the Year Award at the ISB is a token of validation by the students for the excellence of their chosen mentors. It is also an expression of gratitude to the faculty who manage to create an unequivocal impression on the student body. Each student nominates one professor for the Core Terms and one for the Elective Terms. The results are tallied and announced to the ISB community, a few days ahead of the Graduation Day.

Professor Kale is a Visiting Professor at the ISB and Associate Professor of Strategy at the Jones School of Business, Rice University and Professor of Corporate Strategy and International Business at Stephen M Ross School of Business, University of Michigan. He receives this honour for his exceptional delivery of the course ‘Competitive Strategy’.

When contacted, Professor Kale said, “The ISB is regarded as one of the top business schools in the world and I am honoured to receive this award from the students of this elite institution. A teacher is only as good as his students - thus the credit for this award must also go to all students, who through their commitment and contribution to class discussions played a vital role in enriching our collective learning experience in class.”

Professor Kamdar is an Associate Professor in Organisational Behaviour at the ISB and is the first faculty member to be promoted to the rank of Associate Professor with tenure. His nomination is of special importance as it is the first time that a Resident Faculty has been chosen by the student body to receive this distinction. Professor Kamdar was nominated for his delivery of the course “Negotiation Analysis.”

A PhD holder from the National University of Singapore, Professor Kamdar’s research area spans Contextual Work Performance, Organisational Citizenship Behaviours (OCB), Relationship between Group Composition and Group Performance, and Effects of Role Perceptions on OCB.

Six of his research papers have been accepted for publication in the Journal of Applied Psychology, a top tier journal in the Organisational Behaviour (OB) area, within a span of a short time.

Holding the award Professor Kamdar said, “This is better than the Oscars as it comes from my students, each of who will now play an integral part in shaping India’s future. It is also a great honour to be chosen among a pool of extremely high quality resident faculty here at the ISB, and I dedicate this award to them.”

Some qualitative comments about the chosen mentors, submitted by the students along with their nominations:

Professor Kale -

“Awesome insight of why some businesses succeed and some fail”

“The cases he discussed are etched like video tapes in our memory. French wine industry, Dominoes pizza, Southwest, Apple computers, there are so many!”

“There were so many "aha" moments in his class. The discussion would be structured despite marks for class participation. It was an amazing experience!”

“Exceptional clarity of thought, crisp delivery and articulation and perfect control of class participation”

“Brilliant method of teaching... very interactive... makes students actually THINK.”

“2 hours seemed so short...”

Professor Kamdar -

“Professor. Kamdar’s innovative teaching methods and practical application of concepts learnt during class grounded the learnings better which will be easier to remember when confronted with in real life.”

“His interactive teaching sessions were full of unexpected events that kept us on our toes. One of the most entertaining and informative classes that I've taken at the ISB.”

“The effort he put in to teach the students was amazing. The focus in his class was solely on learning and not on grades. Extremely inspiring professor.”

“There was lot of value addition in his classes. And I could correlate it with the situations that I have faced or I will be facing.”

“Very effective teacher, tremendous class presence, excellent pedagogy, very organised and ready to help.”

“Great fun, very approachable!”