Research Productivity in Management Schools of India: A Directional Benefit-of-Doubt Model Analysis

Abstract

Given the growing emphasis on research productivity in management schools in India, the present authors developed a composite indicator (CI) of research productivity, using the directional benefit-of-doubt (D-BOD) model, which can serve as a valuable index of research productivity in India. Specifically, we examined overall research productivity of the schools and the faculty members during the 1968-2014 and 2004-2014 periods in a manner never done before. There are four key findings. First, the relative weights of the journal tier, total citations, impact factor, author h-index, number of papers, and journal h-index varied from high to low in order for estimating the CI of a faculty member. Second, both public and private schools were similar in research productivity. However, faculty members at the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) outperformed those at the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs). Third, faculty members who had their doctoral degrees from foreign, relative to Indian, schools were more productive. Among those trained in India, alumni of IITs, compared to those of IIMs, were more productive. Finally, IIMs at Ahmedabad and Bangalore and the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad have seemingly more superstars than other schools among the top 5% researchers during 2004-2014. These findings indicate a shift in the priority from mere training of managers to generating impactful knowledge by at least two of the three established public schools, and call attention to improving the quality of doctoral training in India in general and IIMs in particular. Suggestions for improving research productivity are also offered.

The Productive Efficiency of Science and Technology Worldwide: A Frontier Analysis

“…In specific environments, some scholars challenge publication in international journals (see Sahoo et al (2015) for a discussion). They consider them biased against developing countries' problems, issues, data, and researchers.…”

“…The discussion concerns the legitimacy of using indexed international publishing as the main output of the scientific community. Nevertheless, the growing tendency to collaborate through international co-authorship is an important counterargument against the isolation argument ("a native writes for natives") (Sahoo et al, 2015). The use of publications as an output measure of research has the disadvantage of being retrospective.…”

“…Authors working on niche areas are cited less. Citationbased analyses can also be biased due to selective citations or self and mutual citations (Sahoo et al, 2015).…”

Attitudes, Anxiety, Skills and Culture in Research: The Case of a Private Higher Education Institutions

“…This pressure leads to more and better-quality publications. On the other hand, it was found out that in India, both public and private schools were the same in research productivity with journal tier, total citations, impact factor, author h-index, number of papers and journal h-index as the main factors for research productivity (Sahoo et al, 2015). Also, the same study found that faculty members who had doctoral degrees from foreign schools were more productive.…”