25TH ANNUAL

IAJBS WORLD FORUM

- INNOVATE AND FLOURISH -

hosted by

A
CONFERENCE
SUMMARY REPORT
JULY 21-24, 2019

prepared by
Satyakki Bhattacharjee
(xuph19006)
SUBMITTED AS AN ASSIGNMENT TOWARDS
DOCTORAL PROGRAM COURSE WORK - PHASE 1
Contents
Page Content

2 Disclaimer

3 Introduction & Opening

4 Doctoral Colloquium Presentation

6 2nd day Opening

7 Background & Rationale of Theme

8 Conference Objectives, Participation

9 Panel Discussion 1 & 2

10 Panel Discussions 3

11 Day 3, Panel Discussion 1 & 3

12 Parallel Track Discussion 1 & 2

13 Next Steps

14 Connection & Collaboration, Acknowledgements

This experiential reportage is the personal perceptual output
of mine. This is based on interpretations made by me and
does not necessarily denote that IAJBS or XUB has expressly
opined so. This report also is not reflective about policies of
IAJBS and XUB.

All logos and pictures used in this reportage are on fair-use

basis. They are properties of respective copyright owners.

Any strategic decision is best not made basis this report as

due to physical challenges, I have not been able to cover
every event under the scope of this conference. I have not
been able to attend all the parallel tracks due to physical
limitations.

This is an academic work capturing my reflections,

experience, insights and possible collaborative associations.

- Satyakki Bhattacharjee
Introduction

This report is a summary of the experience of the 25th International Association of Jesuit
Business School World Forum – Innovate and Flourish, convened by the Xavier
University Bhubaneshwar. This is an historic milestone for Xavier as the 15th IAJBS
World Forum was also hosted by Xavier, in XLRI Jamshedpur. (Rodolfo P Ang, IAJBS
World Forum, 2019). This report does not contain details of 1st South Asia regional
Chapter Meeting held during the conference.

1st Day Opening

The day one of the conference was the Doctoral Colloquium inaugurated by Dr.Rahul
Thakurta – Dean, Doctoral Program of Xavier University. This was an exclusive event for
the research scholars. The theme of the doctoral colloquium was “Research for a
Flourishing World”.

The first event was a ‘Case Writing Workshop’ conducted by Ms.Tracy Couto, Director –
IgniTED and Jim Joseph, Mr Jim Joseph, Dean, Madden School of Business.

This was indeed a ‘workshop’ wherein I learnt the nuts and bolts of case writing. The
workshop was from the perspective of Case Teachers. I learnt about how not to write a
case study. It was an experiential workshop with group work and reporting. High on
learning, it was also fairly entertaining as the sample exercises chosen by the instructors
were indeed amusing yet complex.

Some of my learnings from the case writing workshop:

1) Readers need to be hooked at the beginning and must be kept hooked throughout
the case.

2) Rewriting the ‘Opening Hook” as group activity

3) Tone and structure of case

4) Creativity of using the ethos, pathos and logos to write a case which makes the
reader stick

5) Keeping the socio-cultural context in mind when writing the case.

6) That, the case must align with the pedagogical demands of the subject being
taught, lest we confuse the students.
 7) The significance of the “closing hook”. The creative liberty we can take and to what
extent we can take so.

8) An important learning was – “Does it need to be real ?” I learnt that some creative
liberty can be taken as long as the whole meaning does not get distorted. That would
deviate us from the pedagogic objectives.

9) The role played by ‘chronology’ and why we as case writers need to be careful not
to miss or mix-up events and sequence of their occurrences.

10) Writing the teaching notes are as important as the writing the case itself. The
importance of classroom open discussion of the case was well understood
experientially. An open discussion throws open many perspectives and elucidates
such learning, that we may not have thought at the time of writing the case.

11) The pedagogic relevance was finally understood and endorsed by visiting the
Bloom’s taxonomy which draws the cognitive hierarchy of learning – Knowledge,
Create, Evaluate, Analyse, Apply, Understand and Remember.

I had a personal reflection in the IQLR class. Case Study and Case Methodology are
different with different objectives though they may sound similar phonetically.

Doctoral Colloquium Presentations

There were total 5 scholars who presented.

1. Scholar Ms. Preeti Sharma was the first to present. She is working on “Recruitment:
The Emerging Challenge”. Having heard her presentation, I felt compelled midway to ask
a few questions. I knew my questions could be hard and so I went to Dr.Rahul to check if
my asking questions is within protocol. He was very encouraging.

I attempted to emphasize to the scholar that her notion of electronic platforms for
recruitment being a recent emergence in India is not factually correct.

That, recruitment has to be studied with the perspective of compensation and benefits
and not in isolation.

That, her area was too broad. It may be of help and research relevance to her, should
she narrows down to industry specifics rather than attempting to generalise the
recruitment practice in the wide-world of Indian Corporates.
2. Scholar Ms. Bhawna Pal presented a literature review on “Employer Provided
Childcare Facilities”. The discussion hovered around the mechanics of a compliance
more than the behavioural or other explorative aspects of childcare particularly for new or
returning mothers. I clarified with her for my own knowledge, if she had explored the use
of creches from two angles : parent's convenience or child's development.

However, by now my learnings from these presentations were immense. I learnt what
happens in a doctoral colloquium. The structure of presentation got clearer to me. Without
going into the merits of the presentation, I took away the learnings of presentations -
facing questions, nature of questions expected and the overall essence of a doctoral
colloquium.

3. Scholar Ms. Priyadarshini Patnaik’s work is in the area of marketing. She presented
her work on “Projection of Women in Advertisement: Changing the Portrayal of Women in
Advertisements”.

The presentation started with some statistical data sharing. The narrative was built that
women are being portrayed in a particular way in Television advertisement. The house
seemed to have acknowledged this social observation. However, soon I felt that the
presentation had a flavour of activism. This was one presentation in which I asked no
questions. I was too much at awe of the insistent and superfluous style of the
presentation which was not very facilitative of my learning.

4. Post lunch, Scholar Ms. Sharmistha Kar made her presentation on “Planning for
Digital Transformation: Implication for Institutional Enterprise Architecture”. I found this
was a good presentations in the entire colloquium. The presentation was well organised.
The literature review (whatever little I know by now) was well presented. I took a lot of
notes in this presentation, particularly the way the scholar had structured her
presentation. The gaps clearly came out of the literature analysis. This was something we
have been taught.

For a literature to be considered acceptable, it must throw-open the gaps which helps the
scoping. This was also the presentation in which lot of discussion happened on the
methodology. Since I was not much trained on methodology by then, I chose only to
listen.
5. Scholar Ms. Sucheta Sucharita presented her work on “Talent Management System:
An Exploration of Issues and Benefits”. My learnings from this presentation is that the
area chosen was too broad. I checked with the scholar whether her focus was on the
Functionality of the TMS or the Effectiveness of the TMS. Though the presentation was
structured well, perhaps, I could not understand how in the entire domain of human
capability management (HCM), the TMS was fitting, and what exactly was the focus of
enquiry. Similar points were highlighted by the faculty. The scholar offered to accept the
suggestions and was open to look into them.

The doctoral colloquium ended with appreciation and thanks to all the presenting scholars
and faculty members present.

2nd Day Opening

The conference was opened by a brief welcome by Prof. Dr.S.Peppin. He invited the
XUB choir to sing an inaugural bible song, the lyrics of which are reproduced below:

You alone are my strength, my shield

To You alone may my spirit yield
You alone are my heart's desire
And I long to worship Thee
As the deer panteth for the water
So my soul longeth after Thee
You alone are my heart's desire
And I long to worship Thee
You're my friend
And You are my brother
Even though You are a King
I love You more than any other
So much more than anything
I want You more than gold or silver
Only You can satisfy
You alone are the real joy giver
And the apple of my eye

Source: LyricFind

It reminded me of my early church schooling in my hometown. I also drew a parallel in my

mind that any event irrespective of the organisers’ faith, begins with an auspicious prayer.
Be it lamp-lighting or a holy song. I see a relevance in the choice of this song in line with
the theme of the conference.
Background and rationale for conference
theme - Innovate & Florish

As I understood, the mission of IAJBS is to strengthen the ability of Jesuit Business

Schools' community of academic leaders to create and transfer knowledge. To develop
scholars into high-calibre business professionals of the world.

The IAJBS conference is a series. The last International Association of Jesuit Business
School World Forum (24th) was held at Seattle. The theme for the 24th IAJBS
Conference was ‘Innovation for Sustainability’. My interpretation is, extending this spirit of
innovation further and to highlight that innovation must eventually lead to larger
community good – the theme of Innovation and Flourish was chosen.

I base this interpretation of mine on what Rev. Father Paul Fernandes, Vice Chancellor -
Xavier University said in his inaugural welcome address: “Rather than what flourish is, we
should ask when we will be flourished?”

His enquiries to the delegates present on how communities flourish, how nations flourish
was very gentle but very deeply insightful.
These questions triggered reflections in me. What struck me is that as business
professionals, we do talk about innovations. We seldom think about innovation in a
perspective other than the utilitarian focus of ‘renewal’, ‘newness’ (Father Paul
Fernandes, IAJBS Conference, 2019) of a product or process rather than larger human
welfare. That, innovation must lead to flourishing was clear from his message Rev.Father
Paul explained the context of ‘flourish’ in a very different way. He mentioned that, to
flourish is to believe in the promise paradigm which leads to fulfilment (Father Paul
Fernandes, IAJBS Conference, 2019). In this promise, lies the capacity to be a good
person, have a good life and to build a good community around us. I also understood that
flourish is a socially inclusive word. It is not a monotonous cliché like 'development' which
has been overused and misused to such an extent that its original meaning has eroded
from the social mindscape.
I found the theming of the conference was logical in a way that it had a sense of
continuity. What was initiated in Seattle’s 24th IAJBS Conference was advanced in this
25th IAJBS Conference. In serial conferences, it is often seen that every year, a theme
comes up that sound nice. Whether it carries forward the spirit generated in the last
conference is rarely evaluated. To prevent serial conferences from becoming isolated but
popular events, this insurance of continuity is a must. From the theme of the 26th Annual
IAJBS World Forum to be held in Mexico, 2020; I am assured about the insurance of
continuity with 'Serving the World through Innovative and Sustainable Business Models'
being the theme for the next conference. ‘Serving the world…’ captures and extends the
spirit of flourishing created in this 25th IAJBS World Forum.
The theme was also relevant to the target audience. A considerable share of the delegate
being from the student’s community, this theme has the potential to sow the seeds of
human flourishing early in their formative minds.

The theme held the conference well.

Conference Objectives
The principal objective of any IAJBS conference is to deliberate on the critical concerns of
people, planet and business. (https://www.ignited.global/about/iajbs)

In this spirit, I understood the objectives of this conference as:

To exchange views at length within academic leaders and visionaries on an adopted

theme that is considered critical to world humanity and growth of education process

To explore possibilities of meaningful collaborations amongst world Jesuit business

schools for reasons academic, community, or larger humanity

To engage as a larger spectrum of scholars, educationists, practitioners for common

growth

Participation

The conference was attended by international Jesuit delegates, students, doctoral

scholars, faculty from other business schools, internal faculty members, corporate
personalities and staff of XUB & XIMB.

The diversity was rich in gender, language, citizenship and work domain.

The spirit of inclusion ensured that even undergraduate students were also made part of
this conference.
Panel Discussion -1

Key Note Address: Innovate & Flourish. Moderator - Prof.Dr.Fr. Paul Fernandes, S.J,
Vice Chancellor, XUB; Director, XIMB, India Speaker: Mr. R. Gopalakrishnan, Author and
Corporate Adviser, Mumbai, India
Mr.R.Gopalakrishnan rose to address the keynote session. He began with his boyhood
memories of Jesuit education and the impact it had on his tender mind. He extended the
narrative on Innovation & Flourish initiated by Fr.Paul and shared that excellence can
never be a destination. He mentioned that innovation is a journey. That it took 40 years for
the inventor to invent a dot pen since the time he discovered that a ball can flow in viscous
fluid.

Mr.Gopalakrishnan did full justice as a keynote speaker and set the tone for the whole
day. Being an excellent orator, he knew the audience very well and connected with real
life simple examples that made the undergraduate students feel at home in an otherwise
high-profile conference.

He personified the process of innovation to that of child birth and growth. He mentioned
that as the child at birth needs nurturance and care, innovation as a process also needs
nurturance and care to grow up into something that is valued by humanity at large.

I must mention here that in my service career I have reported to Mr.R.Gopalakrishnan and
heard such educational anecdotes from him more than often. It was nice to catchup with
him at the side-lines of the conference to exchange notes. On my doctoral scholarship, he
was very motivating and commented – “This is the right time and right step for you”.

Panel Discussion - 2
How to Create a Flourishing Business School in a Global Economy
Moderator-Dr. Amar KJR Nayak, Professor, Strategic Management, XIMB,Bhubaneswar,
India

This panel discussion began with seven questions. The spirit of enquiry of the seven
questions are captured below:

1. - Centricism of business education?

2. - How business education can be made more bio-centric?
3. - Are logics taught in business schools against the principles of sustainability?
4. - How Jesuit business school education can be redesigned to make countries,
companies and corporations more sustainable and less unequal?
5 - Pedagogic changes to make the business school student appreciate sustainability.
6 - Dialogic intervention towards peace
7 - Challenges ahead for business education
Dr.Carlos Mosrales Garcia of IQS School of management drew upon the
Dr.R.Gopalakrishnan and re-emphasised the role of nature in education of future. He
mentioned how his school IQS is working in some areas to address some of the concerns
highlighted in the seven areas of enquiry above.

The discussion was carried forward by Prof Susan Dann of Nat Peter Faber Business
School, Australian Catholic University and Prof Joseph M Phillips - Dean, Albers School
of Business & Economics, Seattle)

Panel Discussion - 3

How to Create a Flourishing Business School in a Global Economy

Moderator - Prof.Arup Varma, Loyola University, Chicago, USA

This panel discussion began with Prof.Arup asking four questions to the panelists. The
spirit of enquiry of the four questions are captured below:

1. - What should business schools do differently to build a flourishing world ?

2. - How should the learnings of a business school graduate be assessed ?
3. - What could be the do's and don'ts for business schools to build a flourishing world
ahead ?
1. - Does business schools teachings lay enough emphasis on building people and
planet besides profits ?

Mr.Richard Lobo - Infosys, Mr. Rana Sinha - Ramakrishna Forgings & Dr.N.S.Rajan
of IDFC Bank deliberated at length on this topic.

The panel discussions were closed by Prof.Dr.S.Peppin.

Day 3 

Panel Discussion -1
Sustainable Community Systems & Peace
Moderator - Prof.N. Manickham, Chair Professor - School of Humanities & Compassion,
XUB. Speakers - Mr.R.Elango, Managing Trustee - Trust for village self-governance,
Tamil Nadu. Ms.Rubina Sen - Programme Manager, DFAT & Co-ordinator GRI South
Asia.

This was a session which gave me the understanding of an important dimension of

Sustainability. The community dimension of sustainability. I learnt that for communities to
be sustainable, they need to be independent.(R.Elango, AIJBS Conference,2019).

Whereas Ms.Rubina Sen helped the audience reflect upon the themes of community
sustainability, Mr.Elango gave elaborate from-the-ground reporting of his rural and
agrarian experiments to emphasize the need for independence to ensure sustainability.

The discussion progressively became richer and entered the domain of governance. With
questions from audience, a mild debate happened around empowerment of local
governing bodies of the level of village panchayats.

This area interested me and I have written to Mr.Elango to explore if i can visit his disctrict
once and learn more about how sustainability can be an approach to community building.

I have also expressed the my desire to Ms.Rubina sen and written to her.

Panel Discussion -2
Impact of Technology Transformation
Moderator : Mr.Tony Henshaw Speakers : Pradeep Mehta - MD, CHINAR, Mr.Manpreet
Singh - KPMG

This panel discussion to me is an evidence that the IAJBS Conference is carefully

curated. From the rural and community aspects of sustainability, this session moves to
the technology side of the community, almost covering the entire spectrum of human
world.

Whereas, in the last session Mr.Elango and Ms.Rubina Sen talked about themes,
independence, empowerment of the local self governing bodies like panchayats, this
session talked about more non-rural aspects. High-tech payment and business processes
and their long transformational impacts and issues. I felt this session could have gone
longer but the audience decided to ask less questions.
Day 3-Contd'

Parallel Track Discussion -1

Regional & Global Sustainability Approaches

Moderator : Dr.R.Elango Speakers : 1) Doctoral Scholar (name not recorded by
mistake) 2) Prof.Tathagat Chatterjee

I deliberately attended this track because my knowledge and understanding of

sustainability is limited and I wanted to learn more. In his presentation, Prof.Chatterjee
made us aware of the 11 Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs) of WHO.

I could relate in the back of my mind, how some of the policies of GOI and the schemes
launched by Hon'ble Prime Ministr are in line with the SDGs.

Hearing Prof.Chatterjee, my interest and need for understanding sustainability

heightened. I also had insights which I shared with him during his presentation. That,
there are unconscious processes that impact the sustainability factors. That, there also
are unseen resources for sustainability.

Parallel Track Discussion -2

EVI Model of Statistics - Party Anonymity & Time Anonymity

Moderator : Dr.R.Elango Speakers : Dr.Bharatee Bhusan Dash & Dr.Sandeep Sarkar

I am not very sure of the exact topic. However, I remeber that Prof.Dash & Prof.Sarkar
presented their developing paper on limitations of the EVI model.

They challenged the model in its Time Anonymity and Party Anonymity.

Basically, they compared the impact of a single party polity versus multiparty polity. They
kept it politicaly independent but on my curious questions, they did mention that they plan
to apply in a real state elections and observe.

My curiosity also led me to ask if psephologists use this model. What they both concurred
is that typical psephologists on TV rather us experience. They were not aware of any of
them using such models.
Next Steps

26th Annual IAJBS World Forum

"Serving the World through Innovative and

Sustainable Business Models"

Will be hosted by ITESCO University, Mexico from July 12th to 15th, 2020

Rationale for next years theme

The next IAJBS Conference's (26th) theme is a clear and logical derivative of the spirit of
'Innovation and Flourish' generated in the 25th IAJBS Conference. In this year's
conference the delegate community chose to sensitise themselves on the theme. There
were aspects like sustainability, community, business education, technology that got
discussed in the breath of innovation, for the world to flourish. We also deliberated about -
"Are logics taught in Business Schools against sustainability?" "Does business schools
teachings lay enough emphasis on people and planet, besides profits?"

The 26th Conference in Mexico clearly shall focus on the above areas. It extends the
discussion in true spirit of a serial work of the Jesuit Thinktank. The continuity of what
began in Seattle, extended in Bhubaneswar and shall continue to Mexico.

This establishes the rationale for the theme chosen for the 26th IAJBS World Forum.
 Declaration of Connections
and Collaborations established

1. Dr. Omar Paganini From UCU Business School, Uruguay reached out to me exploring
possible collaborations in the area of people consulting. I have written him a mail and
waiting response.

2. Mr.R.Gopalakrishnan asked me to write to him and explore mutually interesting work. I

have promised to write him. Shall write to him soon.

3. I connected well with Dr.Soma Sur - Dean, Xavier University Kolkata and she has
invited me to visit her campus and and explore what can be done together

4. I have written to Dr.R.Elango of TVSG, Tamil Nadu expressing my desire to visit his
district and experience his work as a learner.

5. I have written to Ms.Rubina Sen to learn more about her work

6. I have promised Father Alwyn of XUB Media School to introduce the school to the
Chief Broadcast Technology Officer of a top media company of the country

Acknowledgements

I thank Dean-Doctoral Programs for inviting us in the conference. It was indeed a rich
learning exposure

Thank you Madam Seema for convenience in life for logistical and administrative support

Thank you Madam Pramila Satpathy for leading the way in big-campus world

Thank you Prof. Peppin for checking on every interaction, if I filled my stomach

Thank you, my doctoral colleagues for all the help, support, company and some guidance
that all of you gave me.

- Satyakki Bhattacharjee

End of Report