SOM Studies Business in India, Holds First Study-Abroad Course
As India takes its place as a leading global economic power, the SOM is taking steps to help its students and faculty learn more about Indian business, economy, and society.
Sharing Business Strategies
In January, SOM Professors Stacy Blake-Beard and Deborah M. Kolb served as visiting faculty at the India School of Business (ISB) in Southern India. Blake-Beard and Kolb spent three weeks in the region, where they co-taught the course “Gender and Leadership” to 23 male and female MBA students. The class also included several female exchange students from top-tier U.S. business schools.
“Before the first class I wondered: How would the concepts and issues I was teaching translate in Indian culture? How would I be received…as a woman, as an American, as an African-American?” said Blake-Beard. “I saw a classroom of students who were inquisitive, interested, and genuinely willing to jump in and explore the readings and to integrate their experiences to create a forum for learning. I experienced firsthand the power of exchange in diverse classrooms. My experiences on both sides of the world suggest that having classrooms with diverse perspectives and people from different lands and different experiences is priceless.”
“The SOM also has reached out and actively recruited Indian women to our MBA program - and their contribution to my class has been quite rich,” added Blake-Beard. Not only are we trying to go out and experience and contribute to the Indian view in India, but we are also seeking to expose our students here to an international perspective.”
Founded six years ago, ISB is a privately run business school with a small permanent faculty and a robust visiting faculty program, where students learn from faculty members from around the world. During the visit, Kolb also delivered a workshop on gender and negotiation to women professionals at Deloitte’s regional office in Hyderabad and met with students and faculty at the Indian Institute of Management at Calcutta.
Kolb described this presentation as “one of the best days of my teaching experience. The group we presented this to - 80% were from India and 20% were from the US – was so engaged, so dynamic, and had so much valuable input and insights,” she said. “The panel session was terrific and included two women from the U.S. and two women from India. We asked them to speak about opportunities they had negotiated for, how they negotiated their work and personal lives, how they were able to claim credit for the work they had done, and how they had developed mentoring relationships. The participants all gained some valuable insights….”
A Historic Study Abroad Experience
In March, SOM Professors Vipin Gupta and Lynda Moore accompanied 18 students to India for the SOM’s first study-abroad course. The program was designed to help Simmons students gain an in-depth experiential appreciation of the cultural and economic diversity of India, and of the potential of women’s leadership as a critical development force for promoting Indo-U.S. business relationships.
“The study course was perhaps the first course in the world where students visited six states of India in nine days, and experienced firsthand the generous hospitality, national festival celebrations, cultural performances, urban and rural life, and traditional dress,” said Gupta.
“They heard inspiring stories of women entrepreneurs and leaders, visited a knowledge process outsourcing center, and met Dalai Lama at Dharamshala,” Moore added. “The course covered adventure, business, culture, and debriefings of northern India. This was a memorable visit for the students, which is likely to remain with many of them for their entire lives.” During the course, Gupta and Moore set up a student blog where students and faculty could share their reflections and experiences: http://somtravelcourse.blogspot.com.The trip was organized in collaboration with three Indian universities, and several Indian students joined the SOM students in the program to ensure a rich cultural exchange.
During the second part of the study-abroad course, which begins May 24 for 10 days, students and faculty with travel to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for a cross-cultural comparison of women leaders in India with women leaders in UAE and those in the U.S.