What I Learned as a Scholar-in-Residence at the Management Center for Human Values in IIM-Calcutta

- I witnessed how some of my former MBA students have gone from being disposable human-resources for the corporations, to being recognized as âtalentâ in the knowledge economy.

When faced with tough decisions, the senior leadership in businesses and even in business schools, fall back on the maxim: the purpose of business is to make money. By now, in the era of experts on the internet, this phrase is almost pop-culture wisdom. Only a few critical thinkers ask why and how did we become human resources for organizations? Arenât humans the ones organizing, for the purpose of doing together what none of us can do alone?
As a business professor with an earlier career as a strategy consultant to the Fortune 500 corporations, my academic and field experience has taught me that the businesses that thrive are the ones that are focussed on adding value, creating something someone needs, which then leads to making money.
Money is simply the fungible means by which we trade value. The intrinsic value of money is simply that we all trust the currency in which we trade value. Over the past dozen years, working with many professors, policy makers, managers, around the globe, I have co-founded and serve on the board of the U.S. and India chapters of the International Humanistic Management Association (IHMA).

IHMAâs mission is to humanize management, so organizations protect human dignity and create societal well being. The Covid pandemic exposed many of the obscure ways of how our global economic activity is organized: the global supply chain problems, the minimum wage workers overnight turning into the âessentialâ workers, the largest migration of day-laborers from the metros of India back to their villages, etc.
As the world acknowledged these, the research done by several of my IHMA colleagues became more popular than ever before. The increased online connections during Covid led to fresh collaborations across the world in exchange of ideas with others who are aligned with similar values. This is how I ended up learning about and being selected to be Scholar-in-Residence at the Management Center for Human Values (MCHV) at the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (IIM-C).
In January-February 2024, I spent two weeks at this center. It is a rare place with a custom-designed complex of buildings within the IIM-Câs beautiful resort-like campus, that has many old growth trees, six lakes, with several migratory birds, and two bridges that make it easy to walk anywhere on the large campus.
Two IIM-C alums who are now faculty at IIM Bangalore, called MCHV as the heart of the campus. MCHV is the brainchild of Late Prof. Sitangshu Kumar Chakraborty, who founded it back in April 1992. His ideas won the support, to the tune of 40 million rupees in three years, from many companies.
Systemic change is more likely to come from the new connections being forged in a circular peer-to-peer manner, without the gate-keepers of the old hierarchical systems.
On 23 November 1995, the center was consecrated, with the unique architecture that reflects the values he stood for. There is a large circular tent-like auditorium, labeled as the UFO by some, and two similar but smaller similar buildings near it, set amongst colorful flowers, old mango trees, a walking path through the garden with marble slabs bearing inspirational quotes, and a few large meditative sculptures.
The interior of the hall has chairs arranged in concentric circles that rise up from the low central pit where the instructor stands, below everyone else. There is a a large white marble lotus at its center, and there are four portraits on the walls, of Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, Sri Aurobindo and Swami Vivekananda, whose ideas influence the activities of the Center. The smaller buildings host a library of all the books published by these four men and some flexible space.
Prof. Chakraborty and now Prof. Nisigandha Bhuyan, the current convenor of MCHV, enable work that brings the entire variety of Indian philosophical traditions to bear on the practice of management that is still dominated by the dualistic East-West thinking and scholarship. The center brings out the Journal of Human Values that publishes research that asserts how ethics and values are THE core concerns of management.
I had a chance to meet several students, doctoral scholars, faculty, staff and alumni of IIM-C, at the four workshops there, on varying topics for different interests, such as on the relevance of Gandhiâs values of Ahimsa-Swaraj-Satyagraha (Non-ViolenceâSelf-DeterminationâTruth-force) in todayâs world, on the Art of Management: Ideas as Art, on using Poetry as Theory, and using improv theater games for mindful connection with self and others.
Such collaborations amplify the work of both IHMA and MCHV as the world rebuilds towards more humane and just economic system. The currently dominant approach to fix the broken systems is based on reducing the problem X by Y by year Z, whether it is gas-emissions from cars or pollution in general. Given the urgent nature of climate change and as we rebuild, this approach will be insufficient.
It is crucial to rekindle the imagination so decision makers can think of systems that are designed to NOT cause the problems in the first place. Yet, the pursuit of imaginative and bold experiments, use of creativity, is not rewarded. It is personally risky to do so for anyone. Those who have profited, illegitimately, from the existing exploitative and oppressive systems are not likely to reward it.
Systemic change is more likely to come from the new connections being forged in a circular peer-to-peer manner, without the gate-keepers of the old hierarchical systems. Technology is enabling better access to knowledge and freedom for individuals to contribute with their skills and interests, in a manner similar to how Wikipedia displaced Encyclopedia Britannica.
A sign of the times is how some of my former MBA students have gone from being disposable human-resources for the corporations, to being recognized as âtalentâ in the knowledge economy. The workshops I led for the faculty, students, staff and alumni at the MCHV give me hope for the future. There are self-selected groups of creative individuals who are imaginative, creative and eager to contribute their skills and ideas to co-create fresh solutions, provided they are given access to space and their time is freed up from the work that at best is likely to slow down but not reinvent the trajectory of global economic systems.
I left there with a few collaborative projects with my colleagues. Just as the Indian history tells of how king Ashoka embraced the peaceful ways of Buddhism after seeing the grave destruction caused by his hard earned victory on the bloody battlefield of Kalinga, may the organizing of our economic systems be similarly reconsidered to be as many colleagues with IHMA and MCHV at IIM-C are working towards co-creating.
Dr. Jyoti Bachani is a Full Professor at Saint Maryâs College of California. She is the co-founder of the U.S. and India chapters of the International Humanistic Management Association, and a well-published scholar. She is the founder of the group Poetry of Diaspora of Silicon Valley. She translates Hindi poems and has published three poetry anthologies. Amongst the many awards she has earned for her teaching and research, are the prestigious Fulbright Fellowship and Outstanding Lasallian Educator. She earned her degrees from London Business School, Stanford University, and Delhi University.Â