Workshop & Seminars

Seminars

1. Sri M’s talk on on incorporating human values in management education - conducted on Thursday, 18 April 2024

Sri M commenced his discourse with a chant from the Taittiriya Upanishad -

ॐ सह नाववतु । सह नौ भुनक्तु । सह वीर्यं करवावहै । तेजस्वि नावधीतमस्तु मा विदविशावै । ॐ शांतिः शांतिः ॥

Sri M explained the importance of inner peace and how peace emerges not from forces outside but from the mind and heart of the individual.

The term ‘सह’ (saha) which repeatedly occurs in the chant, encapsulates the inextricable linkages between the self and the other. Saha emphasizes the values of collective humanity - protection, nourishment, effort and intellectual growth leading to peace.

In discussing management, Sri M advocated for effective delegation. Emphasizing the role of managers, he said anyone in the position of responsibility and management must have a wider view of managing the minds and the directions of thought of the humanity rather than micro managing day to day affairs. He cited examples of visionary thinkers like Henry Ford and Einstein, who challenged conventional wisdom and demonstrated the importance of innovative thinking. Sri M highlighted the importance of self-improvement and emphasized that education in any form should instill values and foster a sense of responsibility towards humanity.

Sri M lucidly explained that our collective goal is to free ourselves from the trivial, which also means seeking protection from the vagaries of nature, bad thoughts and aspiration for power. Our concerns are common though the subject matter of our concern may be different for different individuals.

Humanity should also get proper nourishment both physical (e.g. nutrients) and mental (e.g. proper understanding). Humanity has unlimited potentiality and the role of managers is to figure out the mechanism to tap this unlimited potentiality so that life can be improved in ways that makes everybody (लोका: समस्ता: सुखिनो भवन्तु) in the universe happy.

In Saha Nau Bhunaktu - "May we be nourished together" again focus shifts to the sustenance and well-being of all. It implies a shared prosperity where everyone has access to nourishment, both physical and spiritual. Saha Vīryam Karavāvahai - encourages individuals to join forces and channel their energies towards the goal of humanity.

Sri M enthusiastically responded to the questions from students and faculty. He emphasized that following the middle path (while facing the dilemma between material and spiritual) is both possible as well as desirable for Grihasthas. He suggested some practical ways to get rid of negative emotions such as jealousy or anger towards someone. In response to another question contrasting the strict demands of business education, jobs, and careers and the pursuit of higher spiritual goals, Sri M once again acknowledged the legitimacy of such dilemmas. Furthermore, he suggested two ways to move from the practical towards the ideal. Firstly, he suggested to reserve some time in the courses or curriculum to reflect upon how the learnings can be put to the good of humanity. Additionally, he suggested more personal connect between the teachers and students so that the students could be sensitized towards the human and societal issues outside the courses or curriculum.

Sri M advised to manage animosity and discord by understanding the opponent as a co-being. It emphasizes the importance of peace and understanding in relationships, fostering an atmosphere of mutual respect and acceptance of whatever is worthy and good. He also emphasized the importance of dialogue in solving our problems.

In conclusion, Sri M underscored that true peace emanates from within, originating from the mind and heart, and individuals must cultivate inner peace to contribute to humanity. He urged the audience to view education not merely as a means to secure careers and opportunities but as a catalyst for personal transformation and betterment of humanity. Sri M stressed the relevance of ancient teachings in nurturing originality of thought as well as to attain inner peace. He emphasized the need for constructive dialogue and a positive mindset in resolving conflicts, urging a return to personalized teaching methods that prioritize individual growth. Furthermore, Sri M highlighted the universality of humanity, transcending individual differences and experiences. He acknowledged the presence of negative emotions within every individual but emphasized the importance of self-awareness and inner transformation to overcome them. Sri M emphasized the collective responsibility to work towards the betterment of humanity. He called for a renewed focus on human values and personal growth as essential components of a harmonious society.

2. Sustainable Development by Padmashri Popatrao Baguji Pawar- conducted on 03rd February, 2023.

Popatrao Baguji Pawar is the farmer sarpanch of Hiware Bazar, a gram panchayat in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra India. In 2020, he received the Padma Shri honour from the Government of India for his contribution in the field of social work.
He is the Executive Director of Maharashtra state government's Model Village programme. He is credited to have transformed it from an impoverished village into a model of development that the government of Maharashtra wishes to implement across the state.
Pawar led Hiware Bazar's transformation from a drought- prone village to a green and prosperous model village, thus successfully reproducing Anna Hazare's Ralegaon Siddhi model of village development. He featured in an India Today cover story as the person who demonstrated how rural water resources could be revived.

3. Panel discussion on Indigenous Indian Management

There is increasing acceptance that contemporary management knowledge, influenced by post-enlightenment ontological and epistemological assumptions, is Euro/US-centric. Scholars from Europe (and USA) and many others across the world believe in the universality of theoretical frameworks and research methods developed in the West, and hence much of research in management in other contexts is based on the extent to which the observed phenomena match (or differ) with the phenomena in the West.
This tendency was visible during colonial times with the spread of European colonialism and continues in contemporary times through neo-colonial practices of the West, primarily the US. There have been calls for promoting pluriversality which does not mean rejection of the Eurocentric theories and methods, but encouraging alternative theories and methods based on the world views and experiences of non-European/US contexts. This will provide better understanding of phenomena in non-West contexts but will also throw new light on Western phenomena and theories.
The panelists will share their individual journeys in their attempts of creating indigenous knowledge paradigms and pursue pluri-versalism in their research philosophy. This is intended as a platform that invites INDAM scholars to engage in collective reflection and debate on the state of management research and education in India and the need to create a receptive and hospitable space for pluriversalism in universities and institutions in the country.
What are the challenges in creating such an academic space that enables genuine and vibrant knowledge creation that is relevant and meaningful for our own context? How have the panelists claimed and negotiated such a space for themselves and their students and yet succeeded amidst the systemic pressures of the dominant paradigms? How do we want to articulate our responsibility as scholars in the Indian management context in holding and shaping such a space? Is there a possibility of acknowledging contemporary Indian management knowledge and not just ancient Indian knowledge? What are the creative alternatives and hybrid spaces available to young scholars?

Panelists -

1. Mahadevan, B. Professor (Operations Management), IIM Bangalore
   Title: Indian Knowledge System (IKS): Relevance to Management Education & Research
2. Abhoy K. Ojha, Professor (OB & HRM), IIM Bangalore.
   Title: Undoing the enduring colonial influence of Eurocentric perspectives on India
3. Rajen K. Gupta, Prof.(Retd.) IIM Lucknow and MDI Gurugram
   Title: Pursuing Pluri-versalism- My journey, thoughts and experiences
4. Dharm P. S. Bhawuk, Professor of Management and Culture and Community Psychology, University of Hawai’i at Manoa, USA.
   Title: Indigenous Indian Management (IIM): Constructs, Models, Theories, and Methodologies

Chair/Moderator : Ramya Venkateswaran, Associate Professor (Strategic Management), Indian Institute of Management Calcutta.

Co-Chair/Moderator : Ashish Pandey, Associate Professor, Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management, I.I.T. Bombay, Powai, Mumbai

4. Stakeholder Capitalism Business in the 21st Century by R Edward Freeman – Conducted on 12th December, 2022.

Robert Edward Freeman is an American philosopher and professor of business administration at the Darden School of the University of Virginia, particularly known for his work on stakeholder theory and on business ethics. Freeman has a Ph.D. in philosophy from Washington University and a B.A. in mathematics and philosophy from Duke University. He was recently awarded six honorary doctorates. He has also received Lifetime Achievement Awards from the World Resources Institute and Aspen Institute, the Humboldt University Conference on Corporate Social Responsibility, the Academy of Management and the Society for Business Ethics. Freeman is best known for his award winning book: Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach. He also served as an editor of over 100 volumes and 200 articles in the areas of stakeholder management, business strategy and business ethics namely- Ruffin Series in Business Ethics published by Oxford, Cambridge Series Business, Society and Value Creation and Journal of Business Ethics.

5. Design Thinking: A Human Centered Approach for Human Value Proposition by Mohan Kancharla – Conducted on 26th August, 2022.

Mohan Kancharla has a Bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering and a Post Graduate Diploma in Management from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, currently a Research Scholar at Swiss School of Business & Management, pursuing his Doctorate in Business Administration. Mohan brings in over three decades of experience in Information Technology & Consulting. A Career TCS’er from the Class of ‘88, spent about a decade in IT Services, half a decade in Sales & Marketing in Europe & close to two decades in Consulting. Founding member of TCS Global Consulting Practice, he established and led IT Strategy, IT Governance and Business Transformation Practices as Global Head – Sales & Delivery Support. Currently Director – Method Management in B&TS Business Unit. Mohan is a Certified Management Consultant, has authored two books on Consulting, “Consulting A Practitioner’s Perspective” and “Design Thinking in Consulting”, is an Invited Faculty on IT Consulting and Co-Innovator of Strategy Validation Framework’ [Patent Pending]. Mohan is Certified in ‘Innovation of Products and Services’ MIT’s Approach to Design Thinking and is also a Certified Corporate Director, Certified Executive Coach, Competent Toastmaster and a TEDx Speaker.

Speaker : Mr. Mohan Kancharla, Excerpt, Resume

6. Needs vs Aspirations-Seeking a positive approach to human development by Kentaro Toyama – Conducted on 08th February, 2022.

Kentaro Toyama is a computer scientist and international development researcher, who works on the relationship of technology and global development. Toyama was founding assistant director of Microsoft Research India, a Bangalore-based computer science laboratory, where he established the Technology for Emerging Markets group which conducts interdisciplinary research in the field of "information and communication technologies for development" (ICT4D). He co-founded the International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development, a global platform for rigorous, academic, interdisciplinary research. Toyama's research spans several disparate areas, including ICT4D, development studies, computer vision, human-computer interaction, geographical information systems and multimedia.

7. Swami Vivekananda's birth anniversary webinar by Sarvapriyananda Swami – Conducted on 20th January, 2022.

Swami Sarvapriyananda was born in Kolkata and grew up in Bhubaneswar in the Indian state of Odisha to a pious Bengali family. From childhood onwards, he was inclined towards spirituality and was inspired by the lives of Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda. He has stated that his first goal in life was to become a pilot and the second was to find God, with the second goal later becoming his only goal. Sarvapriyananda joined the Ramakrishna Order in 1994 and took his monastic vows as sanyasa diksha. After passing school, he completed his Business Management degree from Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar. Sarvapriyananda frequently speaks at symposia and events focused on AdvaitaVedanta teaching. He is a very strong proponent and scholar of the Indian Upanishad school of thought and the philosophy or Darshan, particularly of Self and Consciousness contained in the.

8. Purposeful Leadership in Turbulent Times by Prof CB Bhattacharya – Conducted on 22nd December, 2021.

CB Bhattacharya is the H.J. Zoffer Chair in Sustainability and Ethics at the Katz Graduate School of Business, University of Pittsburgh. He is a world-renowned expert in business strategy innovation aimed at increasing both business and social value. His research and teaching focus specifically on how companies can use underleveraged “intangible assets” such as corporate identity, reputation, corporate social responsibility and sustainability to strengthen stakeholder relationships and drive firm market value. Prof. Bhattacharya has published over 100 articles and has over 39,000 citations per Google Scholar, placing him among the top 50 cited marketing academics per Google Scholar and the top 1% of marketing academics per a Stanford University study. He has served on the Editorial Review Boards and served as Editor of special issues of many leading publications. Prof. Bhattacharya is the founder of the Center for Sustainable Business at Pitt as well as the ESMT Sustainable Business Roundtable, a forum with more than 25 multinational members, aimed at discussing opportunities and challenges in mainstreaming sustainability practices within organization.

9. Giving Voice to Values webinar by Mary Gentile – Conducted on 23rd November, 2021.

MARY C. GENTILE, Ph.D. is the creator and director of Giving Voice to Values, and consults on management education and values-driven leadership for academic, business, government and non-governmental organizations. She served as Richard M. Waitzer Bicentennial Professor of Ethics at University of Virginia-Darden School of Business from 2016-2022. She was also faculty at Babson College from 2009-2015. In her ten-year tenure at Harvard Business School (1985-1995), she developed and taught the school’s first course on managing diversity, and helped design and teach its first required module on ethical decision-making. Mary’s books include Giving Voice to Values: How to speak your mind when you know whats's right and several titles on ethics and diversity. She is editor of the Giving voice to Values book series published by Routledge, and also edited eight books in the Business Ethics and Corporate Citizenship Collection from Business Expert Press. Her articles have appeared in Harvard Business Review, strategy+business, BizEd, CFO Magazine and Risk Management. She lives in Hamilton, Massachusetts.

10. Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Talk to mark his 152nd birth anniversary by Prof. Raghurama Raju - Conducted on 05th November, 2021.

Prof. Raghurama Raju has been teaching Philosophy for close to 3 decades. Among his many distinctions, his research in contemporary Indian Philosophy is noteworthy which is very useful and relevant for the present time. He has written many books which relate to Mahatma Gandhi, one of which is "Debating Gandhi - A reader " which was published in 2014. Another one is Ramachandra Gandhi- The Man and his Philosophy. He has also worked on many journal papers and often keeps writing articles in newspapers about Mahatma Gandhi.

11. Making a Life versus Making a Living by Sri Gurcharan Das – Conducted on 06th October, 2021.

Gurcharan Das is an author, management guru and public intellectual, known for a much-acclaimed trilogy on the classical Indian ideal of life’s goals. India Unbound was the first, on artha or ‘material well-being’—it offers a personal account of India’s recent economic rise and is available in 19 languages. He graduated in philosophy with honors (phi beta kappa) from Harvard University and later attended Harvard Business School (AMP) where he is featured in three case studies. He was CEO of Procter & Gamble India and Managing Director, Procter & Gamble Worldwide. At 50, he took early retirement to become a full-time writer. He writes a regular column for the Times of India and five Indian language papers, and contributes to Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, and Foreign Affairs. He is a speaker to some of the world’s largest corporations.

12. Religion and legitimization of hijra (trans*) identity in Maharasthra, India held on February 14, 2019
Speaker : Prof. Sibaji Bandyopadhyay – Speaker Professor BoisvertMathieu, Université du Québec à Montréal

13. “Almost beautiful in the purity of whiteness”: decimating the everyday corpses in Bombay City: 1887 – 1953 – held on January 08, 2019
Speaker : Speaker : Ms. Sohini Chattopadhyay, a doctoral student in the department of History at Columbia University

14. The Mahābhārata: The Book of Books held on November 05, 2018
Speaker : Prof. Sibaji Bandyopadhyay – Former Prof. of Comparative Literature, Jadavpur University.

15. Why Should One take Rights Seriously? held on August 30, 2018
Speaker : Prof. Gopal Guru – Editor, Economic & Political Weekly Journal

16. 'The Political Foundations of Modern India' held on January 13, 2016.
Speaker : Dr. Ananya Vajpeyi, Fellow – Carnegie Council on Ethics in International Affairs/CSDS, Delhi

17. 'Values of Financial Inclusion and the Bandhan Experience' held on December 18, 2015.
Speaker : Mr. C.S. Ghosh, Chairman and MD of Bandhan Bank

18. 'Non-rational Processes in Leadership…and Life' held on November 30, 2015.
Speaker : Dr. Sudhir Kakar, Psychoanalyst and Writer

19. ‘Exploring values : Interdisciplinary perspectives’ held on March 13, 2015. The seminar has lead to a special issue of the Journal of Human Values published by Sage. Co-convenors of the seminar, and guest editors for the special issue of Journal of Human Values are Prof Manish Thakur, IIM Calcutta and Prof Dev. N. Pathak, South Asian University, New Delhi

20. ‘Operationalising Gross National Happiness in Bhutan: Implementation of a multidimensional approach to development’ held on February 09, 2015.
Speaker : Prof. Jit Tshering, Head of the Department of Research and Consultancy, Royal Institute of Management, Thimphu

21. ‘Good numbers and scientific temper for good democracy’ held on Jaunary 09, 2015.
Speaker: Mr. Karthik Shashidhar, freelance management consultant Columnist for Mint, Resident Quant at the Takshashila Institution for Policy and Research, Bangalore.

22. ‘The challenge of negotiating modernity in India’ held on December 09, 2014.
Speaker : Prof Ramnath Narayanswamy, Economics and Social Science Area, IIM Bangalore

Workshops

1. Workshop on Spatial Justice and Stewardship : Theoretical Dialogues among schools of thought held during March 20-22, 2019
at Institut Français de Pondichéry, India Co-Hosts: Institut Français de Pondichéry & MCHV, IIM Calcutta

2. BEING (MORE) HUMAN IN A DIGITISED WORLD Co-Hosted by Management Centre for Human Values, IIM Calcutta (MCHV) and Association for Information Systems – India Chapter (INAIS) held during February 1 and 2, 2019
Coordinated by : Prof. Priya Seetharaman, Indian Institute of Management Calcutta and Prof. Saji K Mathew, Indian Institute of Technology Madras

3. Workshop on Film Appreciation held on February 25, 2018.
Coordinated by : Prof. Moinak Biswas, IIM Calcutta and Patturaja Selvaraj, IIM Indore

4. “Workers and Margins : Understanding Erasures & Margins” held on March 24, 2017.
Coordinated by : Prof. Nimruji Prasad, IIM Calcutta and Patturaja Selvaraj, IIM Indore

5. 'Yogasutra and the strengthened self' held on November 29, 2015.
Coordinated by : Dr. Yashoda Thakore

6. ‘Using Documentary Films in the classroom’ held on March 20, 2015.
Coordinated by : Dr. Jessie Curell, Team Leader and Education Specialist for the National Film Board of Canada.

Conference

1. International Colloquium on 'Localising Global Values' (jointly with the Commonwealth Local Government Forum) held during January 28 – 29, 2016