An Interview with Kunal Basu : “I believe in doing things my way” - Interviewed by Tripti Vyas in July 06

An engineer by education, a management professor by occupation and a writer by passion, Kunal Basu is as multi-dimensional as they come. Currently a faculty member at Templeton College, Oxford University, UK, he has had a long innings in management education that includes being the Director of Centre for International Management Studies at the McGill University, Montreal, Canada. A PhD from the University of Florida, most recently, he has launched the International Masters Programme in Practising Management, a joint venture between institutions in the UK, France, India, Japan and Canada.

Apart from publishing academic papers on international branding, marketing in developing countries, consumer decision making and advertising, he has also published several works of fiction; ‘The Opium Clerk’, ‘The Miniaturist,’ ‘Racists’ and the much celebrated “The Japanese Wife and Other Stories.”

In an email interview with Advanc’edge MBA, he shared his views on management education and how he strikes a balance between his passion and his occupation.

Your educational background is quite eclectic, ranging from engineering to management. How did you come about with this mix?
I never studied the Humanities, although I wish I had, because that’s the domain I naturally belong in.  I studied engineering (bachelors and masters) for all the wrong reasons: good grades; lack of advice early on in my life; and scholarships to study in the US.  There was no love for engineering, and I consider these years of my life as wasted.  Studying management (marketing) for my PhD was a conscious choice: I wished to engage intellectually with human organisations and human aspirations more fully.

You have taught management all round the world (11 countries, according to information on the web). If you were to compare management education across different countries what differences and commonalities do you notice?
Management education, unfortunately, is standardised all around the world, while management practices certainly vary.  You have the same textbooks, the same cases, the same models and methods.  There is a great propensity today to view everything (markets, consumers, firms, employees, managers) in the same light.  We humans, of course, are a diverse bunch, even within a particular culture.  Management education doesn’t pay enough attention to differences, thereby bringing about a kind of forced homogenisation. 

Did you ever consider pursuing an academic career in India? In what way is an academic career in the West more attractive than the one in India?
I have had an academic career in India.  I was a fulltime professor in IIM-C from 1995-96.  In my view it isn’t inherently more attractive to run one’s academic career in the West compared to India.  It depends on what you want out of your career at any given point in time.  In the mid-90s, I felt that an academic life in management in India was pretty banal intellectually; professors had the mindset of bureaucrats, and there were rare pockets of excellence in terms of research.  Leadership of even premier institutes of management was pathetic.  I think things might have changed a bit now.

What are your views on the current management education in India?
I am not the best person to comment on this, as I have played no significant role in it for more than a decade.  I have a feeling though that quantity (i.e., number of programmes) is riding higher than quality.  India needs exceptional faculty to train its exceptional students, and that is still in very short supply.

Along with your colleague Henry Mintzberg you have been a part of a group, which has questioned conventional MBA education. What are your reservations about conventional management education and what are the alternatives that you propose?
The MBA degree was invented in 1904.  It’s time for innovation.  It’s a functional, and more or less technical degree.  The “feel” of real life management is absent.  It creates, at best, a bunch of arrogant highly paid young men and women who feel they are at the top of this world because of their starting salaries.  It needs more, much more, to build real companies, to change industries, and to help our nation of immense resources to develop.  My alternative is not another management post-graduate degree, but introduction of real innovations in existing programmes: in pedagogy, content; and in the mindsets of professors and students.

What according to you is the ‘ideal personality type’ for taking up management education? What is the right time for a person to embark on an MBA?
I don’t believe in ‘ideal personality types’.  One should do what one wants to do. Neither do I trust in specific career paths.  I am ferociously individualistic and believe in doing things my way.  So should everyone.

What are your views on the current MBA education scene in India? Is it equipped to create managers who can work in the context of a global world?
I think Indian trained managers by and large do very well out there, but I don’t know whether that is due to their native intelligence and drive to survive (and succeed) or due to the quality of education they receive.

In your writings there seems to be considerable focus on issue of corporate governance. Do you think the role of a manager is confined to managing business or are those managerial skills important from a larger social perspective?
In our nation of billion plus people, where a majority lives below the poverty line, the task of every educated man and woman - manager or otherwise - must surely be to help the disadvantaged.  Individual career success rings hollow in the context of pervasive suffering.  At the end of the day you have to answer what you have done in this world, beyond accumulating money and titles.  Some people ask themselves such a question earlier rather than later.  I am all in favour of earlier.

You are also a published writer of fiction. How do balance your expertise in marketing strategy with demands of a creative life? Does the one influence the other?
I don’t strategise when it comes to life and living.  I do what pleases me.  Sometimes it throws things off balance but that’s all right.  I write fiction because the arts are my primary passion - I couldn’t live without it; it isn’t a hobby, but the reason I get up every morning.  My professional life also receives its fair attention, but there is no secret corridor between the two.  I love people who are multi-dimensional, rather than the uni-focussed types.