Mangaluru: The 4th International Conference organised by the Post Graduate Department of Business Administration at AIMIT, St. Aloysius College (Autonomous) was inaugurated at the Arthur Shenoi Auditorium on April 4. This year’s theme was “Changing Business Landscape: Implication for Management Education and Research.”
Speaking at the inaugural, Rev. Fr. Denzil Lobo SJ, Director, AIMIT stressed on the immediate need to reinvent, innovate and reform the way we educate and learn in our business schools. Quoting corporate greats, he reaffirmed the call to prepare the students to solve problems that may surface in the future.
In his presidential address, Rev. Fr. Dionysius Vaz SJ, Rector, St Aloysius Institution said that in addition to the goals of profit, growth and humanity, a fourth goal of “Collaboration” should be added to business education and research. He reiterated the goal of the institution was to create men and women for and “with” others. While laying stress on the significance of the spirit of enquiry, he submitted that the institutions had to move from “teaching-learning” mode to “discovery” mode, thereby, fostering critical thinking and analysis.
Rayan D’Souza, Faculty Conference Convener, briefed on the significance of the conference. The conference proceedings and the Aloysius Journal of Management and Research (AJMR) were released during the inauguration ceremony. Dr. Rowena Wright, Dean–MBA proposed a vote of thanks. Dhananjaya K, Co-convener was present.
Soon after the inauguration, Rev. Dr. Oswald Mascarenhas SJ, JRD Tata Chair Professor of Ethics, XLRI and Chairman of MBA Programmes at AIMIT, interacted with the participants via web conference, live from XLRI. In his keynote address, he critiqued the existing research paradigms and opined that research needed to get out of the shackles of “variables” and “quantitative” heavyweights. While regretting the demise of inquiry and research in the present education and curriculum, he insisted on the need to redefine research with new critical inputs, process and desired outcomes. He presented the ELMS (ethical-moral-legal-spiritual) framework to re-look into the “How” of research and education. Responding to a query of the participant on whether humans would become irrelevant with the dawn of Artificial Intelligence, Dr. Mascarenhas clarified that they might take away the “jobs” but not the “work.”
In the track sessions that followed, 52 research papers from UAE, Australia, Singapore and India were presented and discussed. The research papers dealt with diverse themes in business in the silos of economy, finance, human resource, banking, entrepreneurship, technology, business education and corporate social responsibility.
