The Centre for Research Studies at BIMTECH, Greater Noida, in collaboration with St Mary’s University, Halifax, Canada, hosted International Doctoral Consortium 2018 (IDC 8) from June 6-8 at the institute. On behalf of the institute, it was convened by Prof Himanshi Tiwari of OB-HR.
Organised for the first time in India, IDC 8’s theme was ‘Keep Calm and Decolonize’. It seemed quite topical in the light of recent efforts in the area of decolonisation of management education and research.
The student-led research consortium is highly developmental and geared towards PhD scholars who present, discuss, and debate topics and methods, important for a critical perspective of management issues. With students from at least five continents and 10 or more countries attending the event, IDC has become an increasingly popular. Its intimate size, the intellectual generosity of the academic community and the interactions between participants only add to its popularity.
The inauguration
The three day event was kicked off on June 6 June, with Dr Anupam Varma, Dean Academics and Deputy Director of BIMTECH, delivering the welcome address. Dr A Sahay, Dean (Research) deconstructed the event’s theme for the audience.
The highlight of the inaugural session was the Keynote Address delivered by Dr Maria CeciMisoczky, from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. She helped the delegates connect the impact of decolonisation on disciplines and philosophy across decades. She also presented the historical journey of colonisation and decolonisation, and how it impacted research in the countries which were decolonised.
Other dignitaries on the dais included Prof Albert Mills (Management Department) of Sobey School of Business (SSB), Saint Mary’s University Canada.
In 2011, Prof Mills, founded the joint doctoral colloquium between the doctoral programmes of York and the SSB. Talking about the IDC, he said it brings together practitioners and students in the field of Critical Management Studies (CMS). He also said, “The IDC is unique in the level of student involvement, with PhD students from across the world being responsible for planning the different aspects of the conference. It brings together critical and qualitatively-oriented organisational and management scholars and PhD students. Together, established and emerging scholars engage with multi-paradigmatic approaches and gain greater exposure to a range of post positivist approaches.”
The IDC 8 concluded on June 8 with the valedictory address by Dr Nimruji Prasad J, professor at Indian Institute of Management, Vishakhapatnam. She spoke on ‘Importance of epistemic locus in management research’. Her talk focussed on IT and change, where she urged students not to think of oneself as an Indian or Brazilian, but as a global person. This outlook will produce relevant research. She also stressed on the fact that Indian management must not get trapped in orientalism, and move away from “deifying, monumentalising and commodifying management knowledge drawn from mythologies”. She also implored the fresh researchers to ‘practice decolonisation’ and not stop at ‘definieism’. She reminded the research fraternity that a manger has to be first be a good person.
Workshops and consortiums
The three-day consortium saw more than 50 national and international delegates present their work, research proposals and dissertations to chairs from reputed academic institutes, who added value by offering constructive feedback.
Apart from the technical sessions, IDC 8 also hosted on-site workshops. More than 50 culturally diverse participants united for six highly enabling hands-on workshop such as ‘Many faces of the case study method’ by Päivi Eriksson & Hanna Lehtimäki of University of Eastern Finland (Finland)’; ‘Getting published’ by Gabrielle Durepos of Mount Saint Vincent University (Halifax, Canada); ‘Pitfalls in researching post-colonial context’ by Dr Nimruji Prasad J; ‘Advances in Critical Sense-making: Lessons from Theory to Application’ by Albert Mills, ‘Maintaining a critical perspective in research output despite institutional pressures’ by Cristian Villanueva, Universidad Anáhuac México; and, ‘What is going on? Goffman’s Frame Analysis in today’s critically oriented research’ by Virpi Malin, Jyvaskyla University (Jyvaskyla, Finland).
The vote of thanks was given by Keshav Krishnamurty, PhD Candidate at UMass Boston University and chair of IDC 8.