Through research each scientist grows as a human being
and helps others to do likewise.
Pope John Paul II (1920-2005)
The day I decided to register for a PhD program, the first person who came to my mind was Prof. M.K. Sridhar. Sometime during 1990 Prof. Sridhar, then working as a lecturer at Vijaya College had invited me for a 2-day Conference on Technical Education to be a panellist to talk on the status of engineering education, as I happened to be the president of Consortium of Electronics Industries of Karnataka (CLIK) during that year. Since then we have been in touch with each other.
In 1999 Prof. Sridhar joined Canara Bank School of Management Studies (CBSMS), affiliated to Department of Commerce of Bangalore University (BU), as Reader. Subsequently he served as a Professor, Dean, and Director of the Department of Management Studies at BU. When I met him at CBSMS sometime during 2001 expressing my interest to register for PhD, he was surprised and asked me ‘are you really serious?’ as he had known me only as an entrepreneur. When I said ‘indeed I am’, he said that I should first decide on the area and then specific topic for research, He suggested that I visit Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIM-B) library to have a look at some of the PhD theses to get an idea of the process. He further said, if he has to accept me as a Research scholar, I should develop a synopsis of the research proposal in the chosen topic, for him to decide whether he’d able to guide me or not.
Makam Krishnamurthy Sridhar (b.1954) was born at Manchenahalli, Kolar district. Though afflicted severely with polio in his childhood years and hence wheel-chair bound, Sridhar has been highly focussed on academics. He did schooling at Hindupur, his native place and graduation from Chennai. He further did his post-graduation in Commerce from Bangalore University and PhD from Mysore University. He was initially employed for a short time with Nagarathnamma Meda Kasturiranga Setty Rashtreeya Vidyalaya (NMKRV), a College established exclusively for women, before joining Vijaya College in 1979.
After meeting Prof. Sridhar at CBSMS, as he had suggested I started visiting IIM-B frequently and befriended a few professors in the areas of Entrepreneurship, Human resource, Marketing and Strategy. Apart from doing literature survey to identify a specific topic in the area of entrepreneurship which I had chosen for my research, I developed an article on the emerging Indian Software industry with the help of a couple of professors. This helped me in developing synopsis for the proposed research – Development of Appropriate and Effective Framework for Business Incubators in India
I submitted this proposal to Prof. Sridhar for his perusal by middle of November 2001. He not only confirmed over phone that I can register for my PhD whenever BU calls for applications, but rang me up sometime during December to inform that BU has called for applications for PhD and admission shall be subject to availability of guides. As per BU norms, a Reader / Professor can at any given time guide six Research scholars for doctoral work. Prof. Sridhar was already guiding four scholars. Hence, he could accommodate two more. Prof. Sridhar requested me to inform about BU notification to one Mr.Ramesh who was teaching at T.A. Pai Management Institute, Bangalore, as he too had evinced interest in doing PhD under his guidance. Having fulfilled all the requirements of BU, both me and Ramesh got admission letters from BU, during middle of February 2002 to do doctoral research at CBSMS under the supervision of Prof. Sridhar.
No sooner I received the admission letter I went to CBSMS to inform Prof. Sridhar. After a few minutes of general conversation, he gave me a brochure of a National Conference on the theme Small Scale Industry: Past, Present and the future, organised by Bharthiya Vidyapeeth Institute of Management (BVIM), Sangli, Maharashtra to be held during 12-13 April, 2002. He suggested that I should work on a suitable paper as I had managed Small Scale Industry for over fifteen years, and submit to BVIM before the last date, 15th March. Thus, began my research journey with the writing of a paper – Business Incubation: A Measure to avoid sickness in SSI Units and a Tool for Reengineering.
Around end of 2002 I came across an advertisement of IIM-B inviting papers to be submitted before 31st January 2003 for an International conference on Entrepreneurial Innovation to be held during 3-6 March 2003 jointly with University of North London. I had developed the concept of drawing an analogy of eight systems of human body with eight functional processes of a business organisation to highlight the need for forming the right leadership team for any business to be successful. I shared this concept with Prof. Sridhar to know whether based on this can I publish a paper at the IIM-B conference. He said the concept being innovative and aligns with the area of my research I can develop a suitable paper. Thus, my second paper Entrepreneurial Innovativeness in Team Formation was published. After a year of research work and publishing two papers, I started realising the important role that research can play in the sustainability and success of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).
A paper advertisement issued by Department of Science and Technology (DST) sometime during August 2003, inviting Research proposals that can be funded by a government grant attracted my attention. I suggested to Prof. Sridhar that we can take up a Research study to understand interaction between Technical institutions and Technology based SMEs in South India, which would benefit research work of myself and Ramesh (his topic of research being Technology as a strategy for SMEs’ growth), as well as help the college to build its reputation for doing funded research. He asked me to go ahead and develop the proposal. The proposal got approved by DST and CBSMS received a grant of Rs. Twelve lakhs to conduct the research study in a year’s time. This grant helped us to understand the ground realities of Industry-Academia interactions as well as helped me in particular to participate in two conferences organised by DST at New Delhi and Hyderabad on Business Incubators, the area of my research.
Prof. Sridhar ensured that each of the Research scholars were active in their research by regularly organising a monthly meeting during which there’d be an expert speaking on a relevant topic as well as each of the scholars briefly updating about the work pertaining to their research that they did during the earlier month. One of my major learning during the process of research is Prof. Sridhar’s way of customised handling of each of the scholars without embarrassing them.
2005 was a significant year in my research journey; I presented a paper, Developing Entrepreneurial Society in India through Business Incubation at the International Conference on Creating Entrepreneurship Environment and Developing Entrepreneurial Managers held during third week of March 2005 organised by Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management, IIT-Bombay. This paper was one of the 13 short listed papers published in the form of a book out of over 130 papers presented at the conference. I passed the qualifying examination held during August. I could publish another paper at a conference on Sustainable Development Initiatives for SMEs organised by National Institute for Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises, Hyderabad. Report of the funded project was submitted to DST. Apart from being our PhD supervisor, Prof. Sridhar had played a major role as the Principle Investigator in deftly handling the DST funded research study which went on for eighteen months.
After collecting data from the 40+ Business Incubators operating in India during 2006-7 on various aspects of their functioning through structured questionnaire and analysing the gathered data, I started preparing to write my final thesis during 2008. However, destiny had a different agenda! During September I was diagnosed with a rare type of cancer- Soft tissue Sarcoma and had to be operated. Meanwhile Prof. Sridhar was deputed to State Government and was the Secretary & Executive Director of the newly formed Karnataka Knowledge Commission.
Despite his busy work schedule Prof. Sridhar visited me at my home and said that I can take up thesis writing after coming back to normalcy. He further suggested that as and when I complete the chapters I can send the hard copies to his office and assured to send them back with his comments / edits as soon as possible. After convalescing from operation and undergoing protocol treatment for a few months, I started writing the thesis during early May and completed all the chapters by the end of October 2009. On 4th November I received a congratulatory text message from Prof. Sridhar on my phone for completing the thesis! By a sheer coincidence it was also the tenth death anniversary of my brother who could not complete his PhD due to his untimely death.
Prof. Sridhar apart from speeding up sending the chapters back with his comments and edits, no sooner he received the reports from the two external examiners, fixed up the viva-voce for my defence at an earliest possible date. After the public defence was completed, Prof. Sridhar announced to the audience present that he is happy to gift me doctoral degree for my sixtieth birthday, as I had just completed sixty years a couple of weeks ago!
Apart from serving Karnataka Knowledge Commission as Secretary and Executive Director (2008-13), Prof. Sridhar also served as Member of National Education Policy Committee (2017-20), University Grants Committee (2020-23) and currently he is member of Executive Council of Central University of Kerala and Chancellor of Chanakya University, Bengaluru.
July 23 , 2024 | Ravi 82
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