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Undoubtedly, XIMB would like the doctoral programme to deserve the recognition from all concerned as among the best management doctoral programmes, in India and abroad, and thus enhance the present standing of the Institute as a leading management school. The experience of doing the programme should be an enlightening, exciting, and enjoyable process for the doctoral student (Report of the Doctoral Programme Committee to the Faculty Council, Internal document, XIMB, 15 Aug 2001).

To design such a programme, especially in India where many resourceful institutions have failed to set good examples in this area, we set out with a key speculative idea. The idea was to bring forth a research world around the programme in order to give it that essential vitality and refinement without which academic programmes tend to become de-natured and succumb to a multitude of contingencies. The notion of research world was inspired after reading the homepage of the American sociologist, Howard S. Becker (http://howardsbecker.com/index.html), who has written a book titled Art Worlds. The notion implied that, bringing about a research world would mean maintaining the type of actions and interactions that constitute the research world.

One way to speak of the research world is to distinguish it from the everyday world. The everyday world is the world of fleeting experiences, imperfect memory, flux, transformation, hope, and despair. It is the world where R. K. Laxman’s Common Man raises an eye brow at the double standards he sees around him. The everyday world poses everyday problems, which seem perennial, stubborn.

Here it may be apt to remember a statement usually attributed to Albert Einstein, although I cannot say where exactly he mentions this: “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” This calls for a different “level of consciousness” to deal with some of the everyday problems. Such a different level arises by constructing a research world.

The research world is contrived in order to provide a different level of consciousness, hence a fresh perspective in dealing with the everyday world.

For example, the everyday world poses problems such as measuring areas and volumes, or finding one’s way in an unknown terrain. These problems are no more as problematic as they used to be earlier, thanks to the support from the research world. Methods have been found to compute complex areas and volumes by drawing upon the mathematical properties of curves. Methods have also been found to navigate in any terrain using what is known as triangulation of standard signals from GPS satellites. These examples hint at the key role played by invariants in the research world. Some of these invariants seem to be given to us (e.g., properties of curves), which we need to find out through research; some others we need to create and perfect through research (e.g., GPS satellites)!

Which invariants, given or created ones, would be relevant in dealing with management problems? This question became our initial seed, which we sought to plant in the minds of students, professors, and visiting scholars, with an invitation to come together in bringing forth a research world, anchored right here at XIMB.

We had to ground our speculation and perspective upon some concrete practice. To be faithful to the idea of research, we had to invent a process by which observations, experiences, stories, or practices of a growing number of people can be effectively combined to solve research problems relevant to management. Research, understood in this way, is not a fixed type of activity carried out in a fixed type of institutional environment. But, it provides a multi-agent interactive context, where autonomous observers can participate in the creative act of learning from experience, inventing new invariants, solving problems, and extending options.

This called for a forum where research-inclined persons with varying backgrounds and experience can mingle with our doctoral scholars on a regular basis. Thus the idea of a Research Training Seminar (RTS) series was born. The Institute helped by extending budgetary support to the RTS series, which provided the necessary meeting point for a kernel of research world to germinate. In 2003, we announced the RTS in these words:

Initially, we would like these seminars to focus on general issues of research, such as the nature and purpose of research, research process and research programmes, demarcation of research, methodology of research, research thinking, research practice, etc. At the same time, we can also focus on specific research projects, new research topics, research methods, etc. (Introduction to the FPM, Internal document, XIMB, June 13, 2003).

As we made our intention about this seminar series known, we received enthusiastic support from various individual scholars and researchers from India and abroad. It seemed clearly possible to nurture an “open social group” of the type that have historically facilitated the development of knowledge (the role of such groups has been discussed in one of the seminars by Professor Saberwal; see Report R1.7 in this volume).

Through this, we have been able to maintain a sufficiently broad conception of research training. In the 13 seminars we were able to hold in the academic year 2003-2004, we covered topics in a very wide range, as you can see from the reports in this volume. These seminars were led by people drawn from the scholarly community at XIMB as well as other institutions.

May the research world survive and grow through your participation!

May 3, 2005


Reference

National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration. (2001). Quality of doctoral and other equivalent research in universities [Document No. D-11214]. New Delhi, India: Author.

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