On a recent highly productive trip to India, SMU’s Deputy President and Provost, Professor Rajendra K Srivastava, raised the University’s profile and developed closer ties with academic circles in the country.

An MOU with Birla Institute of Management Technology

An agreement signed by Professor Srivastava on 1 February 2013 was SMU’s fifth Memorandum of Understanding with an Indian academic partner. The agreement with the Birla Institute of Management Technology (BIMTECH) was co-signed by BIMTECH’s Director, Dr H Chaturvedi, in Noida in Uttar Pradesh, India.

BIMTECH was established in 1988 under the aegis of the Birla Academy of Art and Culture, and supported by Birla group of companies, with the vision of developing ethical global leaders and entrepreneurs striving for sustainability and inclusive growth.

Under the agreement, SMU and BIMTECH will explore the possibility of designing, launching and conducting short-duration certificate programmes in Management Education and other areas of mutual interest.

Workshop on “Using Case Studies to Integrate Theory and Practice”

On the same day, Professor Srivastava conducted a workshop on “Using Case Studies to Integrate Theory and Practice” for more than 30 faculty members and researchers at BIMTECH.

During the session, Professor Srivastava focussed on developing and teaching cases by integrating rigour (theory, frameworks backed by empirical evidence) and relevance (real problems, contextual knowledge), with an eye on learning outcomes. Most students learn better from real world situations and examples. Therefore, the use of case studies can be a very effective teaching tool in the classroom as they provide a rich basis for developing the students’ problem-solving and decision-making skills.

Professor Srivastava illustrated the methods for teaching with a case study using two approaches – the first was the presentation of a case (General Electric) to help establish a framework for analysis to address real-life problems, and the second was teaching the basic management principles and then using a case (Zara) as illustrations to reinforce those principles and theories.

The underlying theme of his session was business model innovation, that is, value creation for customers and shareholders via market-facing business processes.