Gender study makes its way in IIMC

Mou Chakraborty
Kolkata, May 24, 2007
The Indian Institute of Management, Joka is all set to introduce ‘gender issues in management and corporate world’ as one of the elective subjects from 2008 academic session. To begin with, the institute plans to introduce it as an elective subject in its Post Graduate Programme for Executives.
“With the increasing entry of women in the board rooms, gender issues have become paramount. We are planning to introduce it in some of our programmes from the next academic session,” said Anindyo Sen, dean programme and research initiatives of IIM.
IIM will be helped by the Boston based Simmons School of Management, which hosts the only MBA programme in the US designed for women. The programme is rated among the top 25 by the prestigious Entrepreneur magazine. IIM had signed a MoU with the US based school in April this year.
“We will be requesting Simmons School of Management to map out a syllabus for us. Jointly we might launch a management development programme for women,” said Sen. “We would like to offer it as one of the elective subjects in our executive management programmes. But in the near future, we would also like to introduce it in our two years MBA curriculum.”
IIM wants to use the tie-up to attract more women MBA candidates. Despite Indra Nooyi, a 1976 graduate who is now heading PepsiCo, only 25 per cent of the institute’s students are women. “The tie-up with the Simmons School will definitely help us attract more women. We are also going to request the faculty members from Simmons School to come here and discuss the issue,” said Sen.
The dean said, “There is a lack of awareness of gender related problems that women face in the corporate world. In the past, we have not discussed the issue in our classrooms. But now the time has come when the students must be made aware of the problems and how companies can solve them.” Gender sensitivity is an alien word to many companies in India. In many cases when women get rapid promotions and hefty increment, the office grapevine attributes it to her closeness with the boss. However, it attributes a man’s hike and promotion to hard work.
“In India we have seen that the men do not even realise that their women colleagues are being made a victim of gender bias. We too do not have much awareness. So before training the students, we too need to understand the subject,” said Sen.
The agreement also fosters faculty collaborations and better understanding of cultural differences between the US and India to create improved business relationships. Officials at both schools are working on developing advisory services for multinational businesses with US and India operations.
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