A women-only IIM would ensure equitable management education to women, make for research opportunities on leadership issues faced by women and be a good proposition to recruiters who increasingly prefer women over men for competitive jobs, argues Prof Ganesh Prabhu, Professor of Strategy at IIM Bangalore. (Special column written for the PaGaLGuY B-school Rankings, 2010)

Women are under-represented at the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), with the ratio ranging from 1:4 to 1:6. The CAT itself has a low women applicant ratio of about 1:3 indicating that fewer women apply to the IIMs. Given the growing research evidence that women can be better managers and more successful entrepreneurs, it is desirable for the IIMs to enable more women apply. The IIMs have debated on ways to improve this ratio without much success. The recent decisions in some IIMs to increase the weight of school grades in their selection process may help, as girls typically do better than boys at the school level. However this may not increase the women applicants for CAT.

Fewer women in an IIM classroom may lead to them being isolated from informal class learning processes and may prevent them from contesting elections to student bodies. These effects are countered by instituting inclusive norms at the IIMs, but more women in the batch will effectively negate the need for such norms and will let women take up leadership roles on campus more easily. The low proportion of women in the IIMs may also have a negative impact on potential woman applicants as they find fewer women from their senior batches in the IIMs. Where the proportion of women is high (for example in the human resources stream at XLRI or TISS), there is usually an increase in women applicants over time. The low percentage of women at the IIMs may give a false impression to applicants that getting into the IIMs may be tougher or that sufficient opportunities do not exist for women in management careers. In reality, women who do well at the IIMs are often sought after by the top recruiters, who typically offer them better job profiles across a variety of functional areas.

The rising cost of an IIM education has also possibly affected women from middle class or lower middle class families applying for the IIMs, as parents may be reluctant to risk taking large educational loans that exceed their annual family income, especially when the applicant has siblings who seek family funding for higher education. The quantum of financial aid given at the IIMs to students from poorer families is typically decided on the basis of family income but this may not adequately meet the resource gap of women applicants with siblings. Women from conservative families also face additional constraints in applying to the IIMs. A major issue is the reluctance of Indian parents to send their daughters for higher education outside their home city, a reluctance that may stem from the low percentage of women in the IIMs. This means that many women applicants may be actively discouraged from applying, if there is no IIM in their home city. The initiative to start a number of new IIMs in every state will hopefully address this issue and should lead to more women applicants.

One possible way of encouraging more women applicants to the IIMs is to designate atleast one of the new IIMs exclusively for women, preferably one in a central location in the country. An IIM exclusively for women can offer an initial lower fee to enable promising students from less affluent families to join, with scholarships replacing the lower fee over time as the IIM gains in reputation. The mere presence of one such IIM will encourage more women applicants to all the IIMs as they see greater chance of being selected. Women will be also able to get parental permission more easily and thereby apply to all the IIMs. Apart from those who join the IIM exclusively for women, this will lead to more women being selected at all the IIMs. If the daughter does gain admission to an IIM outside her home city, her parents may be less likely to discourage her from taking up the IIM offer on hand.

Our experience of running a summer program for women entrepreneurs indicates that faculty gain new perspectives on management issues by teaching an all women group with a more diverse educational background. An IIM exclusively for women is also likely to have greater diversity of educational backgrounds then the typically engineer dominated IIMs. Faculty at this IIM will therefore be able to offer some unique elective courses that are based on the diverse interest of its batch; courses that cannot be offered at other IIMs due to the lack of sufficient interest. For example, women may have a greater interest in starting or running service oriented businesses or social enterprises while better managing work life balance. Women may be concerned with managing changes in careers and often have to deal with significant timeouts in their careers. Given the range of family commitments over their lifetime, many women may find self employment options more suitable than full-time jobs, due to the greater flexibility that self employment allows. Women also face distinctly different leadership issues. An IIM exclusively for women may draw many women faculty who may want to offer elective courses as well as do research in these areas. It may also draw faculty from other IIMs to teach here attracted by the greater diversity of the batch. There is significant funding available from various government sources for women related issues across sectors and the IIM faculty may be able to draw on such funds more easily. This may help faculty initiate new research projects and build their research careers.

We find that most of the top recruiters at the IIMs prefer women applicants over men of equal calibre in the batch for almost all the job profiles they offer. An IIM exclusively for women is very likely to draw most of the top recruiters at the other IIMs even in its initial years. Such an IIM may also attract many new recruiters who may find its students more suited for the positions they offer due to the greater diversity of educational backgrounds and the unique courses that they have undergone. While the liability of newness may affect a new IIM exclusively for women, as it would affect any other new IIMs, it is likely that its uniqueness will enable it to create a brand and a position that will attract high quality students, good faculty and the best of recruiters, as its alumni prove themselves over time.

Prof Ganesh N Prabhu is Professor of Strategy at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Bangalore and has previously chaired the Post Graduate Program and Placements at the school. The views presented here are personal.