Designing Innovative and Evolving Curriculum in Mission Centric Ways A framework to design curriculum that helps a business school to evolve continuously and remain relevant to the ever-changing needs of students, business and society; to maintain the curriculum current and relevant; enables to evolve continuously in tandem with a dynamic environment; helps in meeting the changing expectations of students, recruiters, businesses, society and all stakeholders and, finally, communicates the distinctive feature of the programme.

1. Designing Innovative and
Evolving MBA Curriculum in a
Mission Centric Way
Dr. A. K. Dey
Professor, BIMTECH
22nd October 2019
AACSB Asia Pacific Conference, Seoul
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2. The MBA trains the wrong people in the wrong ways with the
wrong consequences
Henry Mintzberg is Cleghorn Professor of Management Studies
at McGill University in Montreal, Canada
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How Business Schools Lost Their Way
Warren Bennis and James O’Toole
HBR, MAY 2005 ISSUE
The End of Business Schools? Less Success Than Meets
the Eye
Jeffrey Pfeffer and Christina T. Fong
AMLE, Volume 1, Number 1, September 2002
Criticism of Management Education
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3. Criticism of Curriculum
• All management experts were critical about curriculum
– the most important element
• Curriculum should be relevant to Businesses, students,
society – all stakeholders
• Mintzberg: Poor design of curriculum produces
inefficient managers
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Bad Management Theories Are Destroying Good
Management Practices
SUMANTRA GHOSHAL
AMLE 2005, Vol. 4, No. 1, 75–91.
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4. Books Challenging Management Education
Common theme: Equipping 21st Century managers will need new tools
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5. Inevitable changes in 21st Century
• Need for new solutions in a rapidly changing
world
• Societies are changing rapidly and profoundly
• Signaling imminent change in knowledge and
skill set
• Different mix of skill set will be needed in 2030
• Harvard Bus School also changed after 100 years
of incremental changes in curriculum
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6. Changes in Society: Env, Eco & Soc
• Environmental
– Climate change and the depletion of natural
resources
• Economic
– Scientific knowledge is creating new opportunities
and solutions that can enrich our lives, while at
the same time fuelling disruptive waves of change
– Financial interdependence at local, national and
regional levels has created global value chains and
a shared economy 6

7. Changes in Society: Env, Eco & Soc
• Social
– As the global population continues to grow,
migration, urbanisation and increasing social and
cultural diversity are reshaping countries and
communities
– In large parts of the world, inequalities in living
standards and life chances are widening, while
conflict, instability and inertia are eroding trust
and confidence
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9. Definition of the curriculum
UNESCO divides the curriculum
into three interrelated
dimensions
Intended curriculum is
guidelines and
frameworks that
specify what is to be
learned by the
students and they
should be able to do
Implemented
curriculum that is
actually taught in the
class including the
mode of delivery
Attained curriculum is
what the students
have actually learned
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10. Curriculum Design
Most important
component of
management
education
Poor Design
results into
inefficient
managers
Changes in
curriculum should
be relevant for
• Students
• Businesses
• Society
• All Stakeholders 10

11. Curriculum Design: Challenges
How to
make it
current
and
relevant?
How to
evolve
continuously
in tandem
with dynamic
environment?
How to meet
changing
expectations
of students,
businesses
and society?
All
stakeholders?
How to
communicate
the distinctive
feature of the
program?
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12. Mission Centric Redesigning
Mission
Program learning goals
Program intended
learning objectives
Course intended learning
outcomes
Redesigning in
four aspects
• Program
structure
• Program content
• Course Content
• Pedagogical
approach
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13. Role of Innovative Curriculum
Encourages the
learner to apply
higher order
thinking:
synthesizing,
analysing, reasoning,
comprehending,
application, and
evaluation
Produces
different
learning
experiences
Results in
significantly
and
noticeably
better
learning
outcomes
Helps the B
School in
achieving
more focused
positioning
Strengthens
the
competitive
advantage
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14. Innovative Curriculum
What to
teach?
• Creative initiatives in
curriculum planning and
implementation processes
by learners, teachers,
academic leaders,
and curriculum specialists
affect the content
How to
deliver?
• Flipped class room
• Problem or work
based learning
• Blended learning
• Student led learning,
self paced 14

15. Degree of effects produced on
Learning Experience
Who Initiated the
New?
Incremental
Improvement
Radical
Redesign
Lead Actors Moderate High
Supporting Actors Low Moderate
Extent of Newness?
Lead Actors: Recruiters, Students and Faculty
Supporting Actors: All others 15

16. Innovative and Evolving Curriculum
Academia‐
Industry
Connect
Strategic
Intent
Benchmark
with
competing
institutes
Final Curriculum is approved by Academic Council
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17. Dimensions of Innovation
Aligning all
activities with the
vision and mission
of the school
Transforming the
school from quality
culture to impact
culture
Focusing on
affective and
behavioral
attitudes
Connect with the
local community
Focusing on
leadership traits
and the industry
sector
Producing
entrepreneurs
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To create uniqueness select a judicious mix of few.
But not all at a time!

18. Curriculum Framework
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19. Curriculum Framework
• Based on
– Characteristics of the student
– Learning styles
• A student can apply a learning style depending on
– Interest, capability
– Facilitated by pedagogy
• Six layered, inside‐out
– Gen Bus Mgmt Knowledge, Master level knowledge, Skills,
Values, Innovative & Evolving, Unique Design
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20. Knowledge: General & Master’s Level
• Next two stacks are management knowledge
– General graduate level & master’s level
• Bouquet of courses to be offered is decided by
the knowledge areas
• Appropriate pedagogy to be selected to
maintain proper mix of knowing, doing and
being
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21. Skill, Values, Innovative & Evolving
• Next three layers Skill set
• Communication, Ethics, Analytical, Use of IT, Inter
Personal, Multicultural, Application orientation
– Values and Ethical conduct (Next slide)
– Innovative and Evolving design
• Benchmark, Academia – Industry Connect & Strategic
Intent
• Align with VMV, Quality to Impact, Focus on behaviour
and attitude, Connect Local Community, Leadership
Trait and Produce Entrepreneurs
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22. Differentiated & Lean
• Final layer is for building differentiation in the
curriculum
• Differentiate by focusing on
– Content, Delivery, Evaluation & Feedback
• Supply chain of knowledge delivery, skill set
building and inculcating values can be made
lean by gradual removal of wasteful activities
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23. Values: Which? How?
• Among knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values,
the last item is sparsely discussed in management
literature
• For higher education values are
1. Freedom of thought and expression
2. Share knowledge
3. Reasoned, an evidence‐based, rigorous argument to
reach a conclusion
4. Respect for diverse and often contradicting views
5. Pursuit of truth
6. Concern for empathy
7. Adherence to ethical practices 23

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25. Ethics for Business Leaders
• AACSB: Four areas are cornerstones of a
comprehensive and viable ethics education
– RESPONSIBILITY OF BUSINESS IN SOCIETY
– ETHICAL LEADERSHIP
– ETHICAL DECISION‐MAKING
– CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
• The curriculum should sensitize students
through live examples
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26. Aligning with input variety
• For Institute
– Students’ educational background and aspirations
– Can be met with bouquet of core and electives
• For the higher management sector
– Institutes deploy varying degree of resource intensity
– Based on the respective positioning in the minds of
stakeholders, an institute is able to attract a particular
category of students, faculty, recruiters
– The design must have built‐in flexibility and depth in terms
of rigour
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27. Three levels of rigour in curricula
• Immersive Curriculum
– The curriculum gives an immersive feeling so that the students and
faculty feel completely involved in the delivery of management
education (Knowing)
• Experiential Curriculum
– Such a curriculum is designed with higher content of observing and
experiencing the application of management concepts (Knowing &
Doing)
• Evolving Curriculum
– With periodic and structured inputs of industry experts (via Academic
Advisory Board, Academic Council etc.); benchmarking results with
peer group of institutions (at least one International and one Indian)
and strategic inputs of the institute, this type of curriculum retains its
innovative flavour and evolves into a more customer (students and
recruiters) centric process (Knowing, Doing, Being)
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28. Summary
• Presentation started with criticism of management
education and curriculum
• Understood the rapid changes
• Defined Curriculum, design, and redesign
• Conceptualized role and effects of Innovative curriculum
• How to design an innovative curriculum
• Proposed a framework
• Values of higher education
• How ethics can be operationalized in a curriculum
• Three levels of rigour in curriculum to address diversity
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Dr. A. K. Dey
ak.dey@bimtech.ac.in
M: +919810387104
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ajoy‐k‐dey‐b3520115
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AjoyKumarDey
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1179184939
BIMTECH: https://www.bimtech.ac.in/faculty‐directory/9/akdey

30. Thank you
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