Management as a Profession in India

Management as a Profession in India!

Has management developed as a profession in India? Has it come to stay in India? On these questions there are different opinions among specialists and business executives themselves.

Sir James Lindsay has said that “the pattern in which industrial organisations are developing in India seems to indicate that professional management has not only come to stay but will tend to develop rapidly.”

The following are major trends in this direction:

(a) Rapid growth and satisfactory performance of public limited companies.

(b) Increasing delegation of responsibility in family or proprietary companies.

(c) Increased utilization of specialized managerial services, including consultancy, linked with the development of scientific management, techniques for which professional managers are required.

(d) The evidence of growing demand for management education and the growth of facilities of high quality to keep pace with this demand.

(e) Existence of a large and expanding public sector which badly needs developed professional management.

(f) A quickening of interest in the management movement spearheaded by the All India Management Association (AIMA) which is the apex body of professional managers in the country and is linked with the International Council for Scientific Management (ICSM). India now plays a leading role in the Indo-Pacific regional activities of ICSM.

In the opinion of Shri Dhiraj Lal Managanlal “the progress towards professional management is not only slow but somewhat disappointing especially in the industrial sphere.” I Shri N.K. Somani has also stated that, “Professional management has yet to emerge as an essential distinct and a leading institution. There appears to be attitudinal conservatism which acts as stumbling block to this emergence. ”

In recent years there is a clamour that management of our industrial and business enterprises should be entrusted in the hands of professional personnel. The ‘real’ management in India is still by and large, not in the hands of professionals but owners who in most cases are not professionals but promoters of business, and seasoned businessmen.

Shri P.L. Tandon, former chairman of Hindustan Lever Ltd. states “In most industries the managers have been rarely trained and selected; and selection for what it is worth has taken place once and for all at birth or at the time of entering the hierarchical group and the training has usually come on the job after responsibility.”

It can be concluded that there is undoubtedly a perceptible trend towards professional management though it has a long way to go before it can be said to have come to stay. This is due to the fact that the entry of professional managers with academic training in managerial skills into the Indian managerial scene is rather by compulsion than of choice. The rapid growth of private sector has been faster than that of their families and the emergence of public sector gave them’ a place in the management of industrial enterprises