The Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA) has significantly contributed to management research centred on India by organising the first India Management Research Conference (IMRC 2024) on December 8, 2024. The three-day conference, “Confluence of Growth, Sustainability, and Resilience,” brought together policymakers, industry leaders and academics to examine opportunities for sustainable growth and discuss current concerns.
Prominent individuals, including Professor Noshir Contractor from Northwestern University in Illinois, Professor Bharat Bhasker, Director of IIMA, Professor Debjit Roy, Convener of IMRC 2024 and Dr V Anantha Nageswaran, Chief Economic Advisor to the Government of India, attended the inaugural ceremony. Dr Nageswaran discussed India’s economic development and emphasised the value of resilience in the face of international unpredictability.
He said, “India’s trade, socio-economic and infrastructural policies from the past few years have begun to bear fruits. Our rank in the World Bank’s Logistics Performance Index (LPI) improved from 44th in 2018 to 38th in 2023. We continue striving for better, but putting things in perspective is also essential. We must understand that we live in a world of much more significant uncertainties and we need to think of more innovative ways to deal with arising challenges.”
“The political and geoeconomic environment is evolving, and in the future, we are not counting on external/export demand as an important growth driver. We also need a more holistic and smarter way of thinking about climate change and energy transition, the socio-economic challenges of Artificial Intelligence, Chinese dominance in manufacturing and so on. That is why all sections of the economy, public sector, private sector and academia must unite to create a domestically strong and resilient economy regarding policies, education and skill availability tailored to India’s needs. I think conferences such as this are important for engaging policymakers, academics, and practitioners to address India’s unique development challenges,” stated Dr Nageswaran.
In his keynote talk, “Tackling Societal Grand Challenges: Present and Future,” Professor Noshir Contractor emphasised the need to tackle problems such as societal inequality, global health solutions, and AI integration.
He said, “From the time of the Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE) to today’s era of Generative AI, we have to learn some lessons. If we consider AI a substitute, it won’t help us. If we think of AI as a means to do more, it will also not entirely help us because it will increase the gap between the haves and have-nots in society. We have to reconfigure how we use AI.”
He added, “All the big challenges we face today are multi-faceted. Suppose we do not create opportunities and synergies to interact as individuals, scholars, and practitioners for a dialogue on these aspects. In that case, we cannot make substantial progress in addressing these challenges. The vision of IIMA in organising IMRC and bringing scholars of 11 different tracks together is only appropriate in this direction.”
Professor Bharat Bhasker described India’s rising economic might in the world economy. “India is at a pivotal moment because even though the world has been tumultuous in the past five to six years, our economy has steadily grown. We also faced the lingering effect of COVID-19, but it also provided us with an opportunity to become the digital leader in the world.”
He stressed that “Yet the challenge against 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 techniques to address our problems and provide practitioners more effective solutions to the management problems that they encounter. 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 address this country’s current and future problems.”
More than 800 people from 600 institutions in 21 countries attended the conference, which also saw 450 research paper presentations and more than 1200 abstract submissions. In a panel discussion on the future of management education, directors from top Indian management schools emphasised the revolutionary potential of research innovation, AI-driven approaches, and experiential learning. The conversation highlighted the importance of retaining a solid basis in uniqueness and creativity while modifying training methods to meet changing industrial demands.
The event’s 11 parallel tracks provided deep insights into various topics, such as entrepreneurship, healthcare management, behavioural sciences, and artificial intelligence. Researchers and practitioners came together to share ideas and work together on sessions on improving gold-based economic policy, funding healthcare breakthroughs and growing businesses. The program was further enhanced with tutorials and keynote addresses by international specialists on logistics optimisation and the psychology of risk-taking in financial decision-making.
IMRC 2024 promoted communication between academics and practitioners by showcasing IIMA’s thriving research ecosystem. The conference created a forum to discuss India’s urgent developmental issues while fostering networking and cooperation. IIMA’s dedication to influencing the direction of management education and research is evident in IMRC 2024, which set a standard for management research conferences in India, emphasising innovation, sustainability and resilience.
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