Management education is deep rooted in India with a large number of universities offering MBA degrees. The MBA (Business Sustainability) programme at TERI University brings together this knowledge capital in a set of courses that cover all traditional business administration disciplines such as marketing, finance, and strategy.
However, as the growth story in the developing world unfolds in these tumultuous times, both industrial and non-industrial actors are being challenged to take on new roles in the modern society. While industry, given its repository of leadership capital, is being called upon to play a much larger role in societal development, governments and civil society organizations are being encouraged to work efficiently to achieve social objectives. For industry, now more than ever, there will be persistent demand for sustainable and ethical practices, and accountability to consumers and the public at large. For governments, the challenge is of meeting development goals, while addressing environmental degradation. These challenges have increased the demand for new skills and the need to internalize, within the current management education framework, a high level of social consciousness and ethical behaviour.
Apart from creating a fresh cadre of managers who internalize such sustainability concerns in their professional careers, it is imperative that the existing leadership reorients itself to consumer needs, societal pressures and environmental imperatives, in order to ensure convergence of the concepts of profitability and cost competitiveness with the need to be more responsive. Moreover, these leaders would need to work in progressively more diverse and multi-cultural contexts requiring a very different vision.
The MBA (Business Sustainability), intended for both fresh graduates and mid-career professionals, is an effort to align leadership in both industry and government to current contexts. In doing so, this programme will enhance the scope and knowledge body of management education in India by imparting conventional management skills to students as also by helping them develop new perspectives related to the integration of sustainable and ethical practices into management education. The students of this programme will be well equipped to meet the demands of a fast changing world.
This is not just an MBA programme; it’s a MBA+ programme. This programme combines conventional MBA curriculum with new sustainability challenges that have direct impact on a firm’s future performance – financial and otherwise. The programme also leverages TERI’s knowledge capital in sustainable development to deepen the social and ethical consciousness of management education in India. The graduates of this programme will become competent business leaders with a holistic and long-term perspective for a world that demands new skills and attitude.
Pedagogical tools
The choice of pedagogical tools will be based on the principle of ‘active learning based on strong conceptual understanding’. These would comprise classroom lectures, case studies, field visits, term papers, assignments and tutorials, a large number of guest lectures by practitioners and experts, seminars and discussion forums, and role play.
In particular, case studies, drawing from real-world sustainability and management challenges, will be designed and integrated into the curriculum. The faculty, along with professionals and development organizations will be encouraged to collaborate in the preparation of case studies. These case studies, along with the field exposure planned during the Summer Internship and the Major Research Project, would provide relevant context to the curriculum in this programme.
Graduation requirements
As the MBA (Business Sustainability) programme has a large component of research, each student will have to earn a minimum of 100 credits over the two-year period with a minimum CGPA (cumulative grade point average) of 6.
MBA at TERI University
This MBA programme will provide its students with the best management education in India, differentiating itself through the creation and sustenance of distinctive competence in sustainability issues. For this, the programme turns its focus on sustainability challenges facing developing country societies in the third and fourth semester, which courses on global, national, and local issues in the realm of economics, society, institutions, and the environment. Consequently, the graduates will be competitive with the best, with leadership skills to direct cross-functional and interdisciplinary teams.
They would have instilled in them a core value system and an understanding of larger social and environmental responsibilities that would make them stand out as business leaders. Our students would also have enough exposure to global issues to enable them to participate knowledgeably and appropriately in a trans-national context.
