Letters from the readers
In your B-school survey process, in the HR and functional head category,
it was surprising to see Chandigarh having the same sample size as
Bangalore; and Kolkata and Patna having higher sampler sizes than
Bangalore and Hyderabad.
ISB query on B-school Survey
We are students of ISB, Hyderabad. In your B-school survey process, in the HR and functional head category, it was surprising to see Chandigarh having the same sample size as Bangalore; and Kolkata and Patna having higher sampler sizes than Bangalore and Hyderabad. This is an inappropriate geographical representation of the spread of top business organisations in India. Further, what sort of MBA aspirants have you considered? The average age of class of 2012 in ISB is 28 years, with average five years work experience. So the profile of a potential MBA candidate at ISB is very different from IIMs where the average age is 24. Finally, we also believe that the use of perception methodology is incorrect for surveys of such variety as they fail to take objective data into account.
Dinker Vashisht, Marami Kar ISB, Hyderabad
Editor's Reply
The respondents base in the Business Today B-school survey, 2011, in each of the five stakeholder categories was divided into four zones to minimise zonal bias. In the East Zone, the two cities the survey was conducted in were Kolkata and Patna, with a skew towards Kolkata, which explains the high respondent numbers there. All zones had a higher representation in metros, including for HR and functional heads, because there were not too many such respondents in the smaller cities. MBA aspirants surveyed included those who plan to appear for MBA entrance tests in the next one or two years; out of 203 aspirants, 55 had work experience and 148 did not, and were in the age bracket of 18 to 40 years. The survey, as in previous years, was based on perceptions of stakeholders. Many B-schools, including ISB, are not comfortable sharing factual data, which Business Today could use to make comparisons.
Correction
In Rankings Through the Years (cover package, September 4, page 70), the ranking of year 2000 was inadvertently labelled 1999. We regret the error.
We are students of ISB, Hyderabad. In your B-school survey process, in the HR and functional head category, it was surprising to see Chandigarh having the same sample size as Bangalore; and Kolkata and Patna having higher sampler sizes than Bangalore and Hyderabad. This is an inappropriate geographical representation of the spread of top business organisations in India. Further, what sort of MBA aspirants have you considered? The average age of class of 2012 in ISB is 28 years, with average five years work experience. So the profile of a potential MBA candidate at ISB is very different from IIMs where the average age is 24. Finally, we also believe that the use of perception methodology is incorrect for surveys of such variety as they fail to take objective data into account.
Dinker Vashisht, Marami Kar ISB, Hyderabad
Editor's Reply
The respondents base in the Business Today B-school survey, 2011, in each of the five stakeholder categories was divided into four zones to minimise zonal bias. In the East Zone, the two cities the survey was conducted in were Kolkata and Patna, with a skew towards Kolkata, which explains the high respondent numbers there. All zones had a higher representation in metros, including for HR and functional heads, because there were not too many such respondents in the smaller cities. MBA aspirants surveyed included those who plan to appear for MBA entrance tests in the next one or two years; out of 203 aspirants, 55 had work experience and 148 did not, and were in the age bracket of 18 to 40 years. The survey, as in previous years, was based on perceptions of stakeholders. Many B-schools, including ISB, are not comfortable sharing factual data, which Business Today could use to make comparisons.
Correction
In Rankings Through the Years (cover package, September 4, page 70), the ranking of year 2000 was inadvertently labelled 1999. We regret the error.
