Global Economic Meltdown and Academic initiatives: The ISB Way…

In keeping with the debates on the global financial meltdown and its repercussions on several facets of human life one has to address the basic issue of making the corporate strategy an omnipotent one with a new plan of action drafted by the academic think tanks. How best the management thought process could be revised in the light of ongoing business education trends across the globe forms the main concern here. In other words, the pros and cons of associating industrial majors in building the country’s academic infrastructure demand a great deal of attention.Although a new perception needs to be developed that helps mobilize support for the ‘growth agenda’ with due concern for ‘social inclusivity’ our prime concern here is to present a bird’s eye view of corporate institutions of learning across the country by locating the specificities and uniqueness of some entities. This becomes justified in the context of studying global economic slowdown rather meltdown which raises huge concerns on the abilities and efficiencies of new generation managerial clan. While doing so, we have captured the ‘Indian School of Business’ (ISB) at Hyderabad that caught the imagination from across the globe with its ranking in top 15 BSchools of the globe by the Financial Times. Stretching far beyond the defined boundaries of academic excellence the ISB had been able to carve out a niche in the annals of corporate academics of the country. The study of ISB way certainly enables us to locate the changing contours of management education in the country furthermore reminding us the need of developing similar patterns of education for gearing up to the demands of global crises.