Over 1,200 abstract submissions from 21 countries; About 450 research paper presentations; and more than 800 participants including research scholars, academics, and industry practitioners from over 600 institutions and organizations in India and abroad: The first edition of the India Management Research Conference or IMRC 2024 at the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad concluded in one. Monday high note.
The three-day mega event was jointly organized by 10 research centers of IIMA under the slogan ‘Confluence of Growth, Sustainability and Resilience’. Discussions and sessions centered around the future of India-centric management research.
In his keynote address on Sunday, Chief Economic Adviser Dr V Ananth Nageswaran shared his insights on India’s economic trajectory, challenges the country faces and possible solutions.
“The political and geo-economic environment is evolving, and going forward, we will no longer rely on external or export demand as a significant driver of growth. Climate change and the energy transition, the socio-economic challenges of artificial intelligence, Chinese dominance in manufacturing, and so on will tell us more about There is a need for a holistic and smart approach. So all segments of the economy, public sector, private sector and academics should come together to create a strong and resilient economy domestically based on India’s needs, education and skill availability. ” he emphasized.
He emphasized that India’s trade, socio-economic and infrastructural policies have started bearing fruit in the last few years. “Our ranking in the World Bank’s Logistics Performance Index (LPI) has also improved from 44th in 2018 to 38th in 2023. We continue to strive for better but it is also important to keep things in perspective. We need to understand that we live in a world of much greater uncertainty, and we need to think of much smarter ways to deal with the challenges that arise,” added Dr Nageswaran.
The second day of IMRC 2024 on Sunday brought together directors from seven leading management institutes for an insightful panel discussion on “The Future of Management Education”. Professor Bharat Bhaskar of IIM Ahmedabad; Professor Debashis Chatterjee of IIM Kozhikode; Professor Arvind Sahay of MDI Gurgaon; Prof. Bhimarai Metri from IIM Nagpur; Professor Ashok Banerjee of IIM Udaipur; Professor Hrishikesh T Krishnan from IIM Bangalore; Professor Pawan Kumar Singh of IIM Tiruchirappalli; Session moderator Prof. Neharika Vohra, IIM Ahmedabad discussed the challenges and opportunities in management education.
“The challenge facing the world as well as India is advanced robotics, AI, and automated and flexible manufacturing, and to address them and drive this economy, we need more skilled and educated people who are well trained with new methods and technologies to address our problems and practitioners. provide more effective solutions to the management problems they face. To support the emerging community of management scholars in India, we aim to establish IMRC as a platform through which Indian researchers can come together and explore the country’s current and future IIMA director Prof. Bhaskar said.
Other keynote speakers on the second day’s program included Prof. Noshir Contractor, Jane and William J. White, Professor of Behavioral Sciences at Northwestern University, Illinois. In his address, he spoke about ‘Addressing Societal Grand Challenges: Present and Future, including Accelerating Innovation, Scaling Up Global Health Solutions, Mission to Mars, and Human AI at Work’. He detailed various technical studies and innovative projects undertaken by them to address these challenges.
“From the days of the Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE) to today’s era of generative AI, we have some lessons to learn. If we think of AI as an alternative, it doesn’t really help us. If we think of AI as a means to do more, it will not help us at all because it will widen the gap between the haves and the have-nots in society. We must reconfigure the ways we use AI.”