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COVER STORY The methodologies behind the survey of the Best B-Schools. THE BEST B-SCHOOLS THE BACKGROUND. In May, 1997, BT commissioned the Hyderabad-based organisation design and strategic management consultancy, Consortium for Strategic Management & Organisation Development (cosmode), to design and execute a survey to rank all institutions offering post-graduate courses in business management -- a.k.a. the country's B-schools. THE UNIVERSE. The starting point was the entire set of the 422 B-schools whose MBA programmes had been approved by the All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) till December 31, 1995, the last date upto which a complete list of approved B-schools was available. Institutions offering specialised -- as opposed to general management -- courses were eliminated because of problems of comparison, as were those which had not produced at least two batches of graduate students. Questionnaires were then sent out to the 125 B-schools that emerged from the filter, asking for information on the internal parameters. Only 50 B-schools responded with complete information, and these were then rated and ranked. THE RATING. The model developed to evaluate B-schools has two analytical components: objective and subjective. The former scores a school on internal parameters: the quality of faculty, the students, and the curriculum; the infrastructure facilities; the number of applicants per seat; and number of corporate recruiters. The latter captures the perceptions of recruiters, faculties, students, and alumni. THE SURVEY. Details of the physical and academic infrastructure were provided by the B-schools and verified by BT and cosmode. The subjective survey of the recruiters, the B-school directors, the faculty, the students, and the alumni was conducted by cosmode. THE SCORING. Each B-school was evaluated on an overall score of 1,000. The scores were assigned using the following criteria: Objective Score (400) The total score was the aggregate of the following: Students & Faculty Profile & Curriculum (180)
Library & Classroom & Residential Facilities (72)
Admissions & Placement (148)
Subjective Score (600) Recruiter Score (300) Three hundred corporate recruiters were asked to score each B-School -- 58 responded -- by evaluating the quality of the students they had hired from each on a 10-point scale, with 10 standing for excellent, and 0 for very poor. Only schools which were rated by at least five recruiters were given scores, while the rest were given default scores of 1. A weightage of 30 was applied to the mean scores to arrive at the final score. To compensate for the bias in assessment of their own B-schools by faculty and students, and for the differences in standards imposed by alumni of different schools, a normalising factor was applied to the scores given by faculty, students, and alumni. The normalising factor for each school was computed separately, using the recruiter and director weightages. For both, the weightage was calculated on the basis of the rank that they assigned to each school, using the formula 1.01 - (0.01 × rank). Schools that were not ranked, however, were given weightages of 0.50. For the students, faculty, and alumni of each B-school, the evaluatory component of each parameter comprised a series of statements to which the students were asked to respond on a six-point scale, ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (6). The mean of the scores for each set of statements was calculated and this was multiplied by the normalising factor. The weightages applied were as follows: Faculty Score (150) Three members of the faculty of each of the 50 B-schools were asked for their perceptions of four parameters: Academic Environment (score: 6, weightage: 2.5), Quality Of Students (score: 6, weightage: 7.5), Quality Of Curriculum (score: 6, weightage: 10.0), and the Quality Of Administration (score: 6, weightage: 5.0). Students Score (50) Between five and eight students of each of the 50 institutes were asked for their perceptions of four parameters: Academic Environment (score: 6, weightage: 0.8333), Quality Of Administration (score: 6, weightage: 1.6777), Quality Of Faculty (score: 6, weightage: 2.5), and the Quality Of Curriculum (score: 6, weightage: 3.3333). Alumni Score (100) Ten former students of each B-school were asked for their perceptions of three parameters: Quality Of Networking (score: 6, weightage: 5.55), Quality Of Faculty (score: 6, weightage: 5.55), and the Quality Of Curriculum (score: 6, weightage: 5.55). Schools whose alumni did not participate in the survey were given default scores of 0. The final score for each B-school was computed as the aggregate of its Objective Score, Recruiter Score, Faculty Score, Students Score, and Alumni Score. Overall ranks were given on the basis of this score. The survey was conducted and coordinated by a cosmode team comprising Kalpana Sinha, director; Himanshu Tambe, senior consultant; Javed Jamal, associate consultant; V. Marutish, associate consultant; and Pavan Mohan, research associate; and by a BT team consisting of R. Sukumar and Pareena Kawatra. |
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