ABSTRACT
This chapter explores processes influencing the Indian Institutes of Management as these institutions mark their traverse in the annals of management education and knowledge creation. My focus is on the first two such institutions in India, IIM Calcutta and IIM Ahmedabad, and what their foundational legacies, governance challenges and creative energies, as harnessed and expended in their evolutionary trajectory, augur for the future. Questions such as “What knowledge is of most worth?”, “How best can inquiring minds and inquiry frames be developed?” and “Where can institutional expertise inform decision-making in the world outside it?” have always been around. But answers can change. Over the past 60 years, there has been considerable churn in the IIMs in relation to the dynamic socio-political environment, the expectations of various stakeholders, international developments in management education and the management of conflicts and change within. The institutional cement is held together not only by the foundational vision and mandate but also by a cycle of activities for task engagement by role holders. The lived reality of the contexts, conflicts and changes affects stakeholders’ “pictures of authority” and “pictures of relatedness” as hermeneutic prisms with which to explore their future traverse.
