Gender Diversification in Business Schools: Exploring the issues Women face in leadership, teams and the campus

Abstract

In India, gender diversity in B-schools has emerged as one of the most contentious topics. Many IIMs have employed special mechanisms to ensure gender diversity in their programs. However, while there is elaborate public discussion on the entry policy for women candidates, there performance post entry into a premier business school has not been mapped. This project looked at the current batch of second year students at IIM A [Batch of 2012-2014]. The study aims at exploring women as a central part of B- schools in three situations — the campus ill general, in teams, and ill leadership positions. We attempted to answer if IIM A has been successful in taking into consideration the dynamics brought on by women. Our concern mainly has been the value-addition by women to the campus and by IIMA to their professional attitudes and aspirations. Finally, we have suggested methods at individual as well as institutional level that need to be undertaken to successfully mould today’s women achievers into tomorrow's business leaders. Research l1as shown that the number of female alumni from IIM A, who have gone on to perform extraordinarily in the Indian corporate structure is miniscule in comparison with their male counterparts. More importantly, many female alumni who went on to marry male alumni from IIM A have chosen to not pursue their professional goals. In the quest to make IIM A, a more equitable business school, a pertinent question must be given due consideration — Is IIM A training its women students as well as it is training its male students? Is it equipping the women students with the required skill set to compete in the competitive business environment existing nowadays? We believed the answer to this question could be achieved through a careful mapping of all the factors that have the capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behaviour of an individual. Hence we drew out a matrix that outlined the various institutions a person passes through as part of IIM Ahmedabad that may influence her personality.