The three-day conference on excellence in research and education hosted by IIM Indore (IIM-I) concluded on May 5. The conference included three workshops and more than 180 paper presentations.
The second day of the conference witnessed a workshop on ‘How to do Research through Experiments’ by Prof Sanjeev Tripathi, Faculty, IIM-I. He discussed the experimental methods of research and broke down the process of conducting experiments into steps. His views on the difference between subjects, the differences within the subject’s design, and building theory with succesful experiments and precautions helped the participants understand it better.
‘Fall in love with learning’
The third day began with a workshop on ‘Pedagogy in Management’ by Prof Kamal Kishore Jain, IIM-I. He started his talk encouraging the academicians to fall in love with learning. He said, “If you fall in love with learning, learning may fall in love with you too. For this, you need to follow three essential principles — understand that each learner is different, do not overload yourself, and always make everything simple as simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”
He also said that B-schools should aim at developing life time learners, as they are highly adaptable and have a creative strategy. He also focussed on engaging the students as much as possible and also noted that people learn the best when they are given opportunities for reflection. He concluded his talk with the ways to reflect while teaching and said, “The two most important functions of an instructor are to make known things interesting and interesting things known.”
Importance of institutions
Rajeev Kapoor, an IAS officer, talked about different types of institutions, public institutions in India, and research areas. “Good institutions are laws and practises that motivate people to work hard, become economically productive, and thereby enrich both themselves and their countries,” he said.
He discussed the relationship between the institutions and the nation, and said that nations develop when the institutions of States are able to make and implement effective policies, because when the laws are strong, unbiased, and fair — even the mightiest are subjected to the same rules. He then shared some ideas for research in various areas such as how to measure governance, and the development of performance indicators for various areas of government at different levels
The conference concluded with a valedictory function during which prizes were distributed to the awardees for the conference and for the Doctoral Colloquium. These are as follows:
A. Doctoral Colloquium
1. Mukta Srivastava and Dr Sreeram Sivaramakrishnan — Influence of Electronic Word of Mouth on Consumer Engagement: An Empirical Investigation.
2. Pallavi Agarwal — Intervening Role of Innovation Capability on the determinants of Strategic Orientation and Firm Performance: An Empirical Study of Information Technology Firms in India.
B. CERE
1. Madhur Bhatia and Dr Rachita Gulati (First) — Corporate Governance and Executives’ Remuneration in the Indian Banking Industry.
2. Sakshi Malik and Mohit Dhall — Deciphering the Macro-economic Drivers of Innovation: A Cross Country Empirical Analysis.
This was followed by a concluding speech by Prof Himanshu Rai, Director, IIM-I. He congratulated all the participants for presenting the papers and being a part of the conference. He talked about using full capabilities while doing research and shared three important points — being excited about the research topic, making sure the guide is equally excited about the topic and lastly, choosing a topic which is useful to the researcher and the audience. “A teacher should always take the right decisions and follow principles, as it impacts the students as well,” he concluded.
The three-day conference saw the presence of several participants from India and abroad, and provided them with the opportunity to learn, present their views, and enhance their knowledge.