Entrepreneurial Spirit-An essential ingredient for a Bschool graduate!!

By- Prof.Parag Amin

I will not be grossly wrong if I say that Entrepreneurial spirit is the need of the hour! While Entrepreneurship is , in todays context, the In-thing or the most happening topic for various round table discussions and conferences, sadly not much is being said about the Entrepreneurial spirit. In my view, Entrepreneurship is the most misunderstood term. What we very commonly understand by this word is that someone is starting his/her own business. India, traditionally has been at the forefront of entrepreneurship whether it be in terms of its various traditional businesses or innovative businesses and business practices. However, these traditional businesses were never glorified. They remained subdued but continued to be passed on from one generation to the next. W hat is pertinent to note is that these businesses, though successful but largely unsung, mainly remained within the families. As a result, we have not heard of any case studies based on traditional or family business. Management institutions and faculty members, to date, remain enamoured by and loyal to Harvard and Ivy League Case Studies. Case study after Case study is unleashed on the unsuspecting Management students all through their tenure at the B-School under the guise of bridging the gap between theory and practice! However, we still have the problem of most of our graduates not being Employable! The basic problem is that these Case studies are discussed in the class and forgotten. There is hardly any doing component for the students, thereby reducing involvement and participation of students and in turn, the overall effectivity. This is the reason why, I have increasingly started feeling the need for developing the Entrepreneurial Spirit amongst our budding Managers and Leaders! Entrepreneurial Spirit is more subtle, internal and a positive force that prompts a person to be a self starter, self driven, take calculated risks and more importantly instills the essence of ownership. Such people are the need of the hour. For one to have an Entrepreneurial spirit, one need not be an entrepreneur! As a matter of fact, industry needs people who will work like entrepreneurs in their given job role. If they really do so, they will be winners in their own right and if B-schools could help shaping up such resources, the problem of Employable graduates may, to a great extent, be solved. It is thus of utmost importance for B-schools to evolve a clear roadmap for instilling this spirit of entrepreneurship amongst their students and make it an essential ingredient of their overall development and personality.

Several leading institutions have already shown the path of achieving the above goal by setting up very successful Entrepreneurship cells and Incubation centres. In most of these institutions, becoming a member of an entrepreneurship club is optional and left to the students. As a result, only those students, who either have some family background or who have a genuine urge to take the uncharted path or do something different become members of the club. Very few of those actually reach the level of making viable business proposals and eventually incubating the idea. In my personal view, there is no better solution to developing Entrepreneurial Spirit than by introducing the concept of Learning by doing!This must be made an important part of the curriculum. This will surely enable the students to put to practice what they learn, thereby firming up their conceptual understanding as well as practical applicability of concepts. Moreover, Learning by doing can very easily be facilitated by the Entrepreneurship Cell by mobilizing support from their alumni as well as other entrepreneurship networks. This will surely facilitate holistic learning and development. There are some institutions that have made entrepreneurship compulsory for all their students. They have surely realized the benefit and have made it an essential ingredient of their delivery. There are quite a few advantages of this model. One obvious advantage is it will enable the institutions to foster innovation through student enterprises. Moreover, it will reduce the pressure of placement and instead allow the institutions to concentrate on its core area. The innovation will in turn lead to syllabus revision/updation and purging of things that are no more relevant. More importantly, each student, by virtue of having undergone the process, will be much better equipped to deal with corporate requirements and hence better accepted. Alternately, the student has an option of becoming an entrepreneur. This spirit of Entrepreneurship not only helps one in becoming an entrepreneur, but also plays a vital role in one carving a highly successful corporate career, if he/she so decides. Moreover, it will also help the student in his/her social life. One of the other important advantages is it will help differentiate oneself from the crowd!! India has the distinct advantage of having over 50% of its population under the age of 30 years. It is time we think of producing Employment Generators rather than Employment Seekers! Also, if India has to progress fast, the spirit of Entrepreneurship is what is required to augment and catalyze this growth. We cannot forget that it was this very spirit that enabled to rise like a phoenix from the ashes of the infamous Hiroshima & Nagasaki bombings!!

Prof.Parag Amin is a founder member of Higher Education Forum and is working as Associate Dean-New Initiatives & Innovation at SIES College of Management Studies. He can be reached at parag20@gmail.com