B-Schools as Living Labs: Why Collaboration with Industry and Society Matters

Imagine being treated by a doctor who has never seen a patient. Or commissioning your home from an architect whose designs have never left the studio. Or hiring a lawyer who has never stepped into a courtroom. Professional education becomes professional only when it solves real problems for real people.

Medical schools have hospitals; architecture programs have design studios; law schools have moot courts; learning is alive, messy, unpredictable, and deeply human. Management education should be no different. Yet it is ironic that business schools, the very discipline that claims to understand how systems behave, and work, have too often relied on simulations instead of society, and case studies instead of real industry problems. Dr. Radhika Shrivastava, CEO and President, Fortune Institute of International Business (FIIB), sheds light on B-Schools as Living Labs: Why Collaboration with Industry and Society Matters.

The Age of Shrinking Skills and Expanding Complexity

We live in an era where change outpaces our vocabulary. Innovation cycles collapse, digital platforms scale in months, and AI is rewriting how organisations think and create value. Most professional skills now last less than five years, even shorter in analytics, fintech, and AI-driven roles. Predictability has vanished, and modern challenges from climate risk to supply chains are interdisciplinary, data-heavy, and socially entangled.

In an era where the world itself is a live, high-stakes case study, B-schools cannot produce merely job-ready graduates; they must cultivate problem-ready leaders who can learn, unlearn, and reimagine continuously.

New-age B-schools must embrace living lab ecosystems where students tackle real problems, co-create solutions with industry and society, and navigate ambiguity and complexity. An MBA achieves its true purpose only when learning extends beyond campus walls into the markets, organizations, and communities it seeks to transform.

Living Labs: The Classrooms of the Real World

Living labs are dynamic environments where students, faculty, industry, and communities co-create solutions to real challenges. They are not academic add-ons; they are microcosms of society, spaces where ideas are tested, data interrogated, technologies piloted, and human behaviour witnessed in its raw form.

Unlike static assignments or textbook cases, living labs require students to work with real stakeholders confronting real constraints. Solutions emerge iteratively, shaped by experimentation, evidence, negotiation, and failure. In this process, students stop consuming knowledge and start producing it, becoming effective decision-makers.”

Their value today is unmistakable. As organisations grapple with sustainability transitions, AI integration, digital governance, and inclusive growth, they need graduates who can operate amid ambiguity, think across disciplines, and design interventions that are both analytically sound and socially sensitive. Living labs cultivate precisely these capabilities.

Why B-Schools Must Embed Living Labs Into Their Core

To remain relevant, B-schools must move beyond occasional projects and embed living labs into the very architecture of learning. This requires intentional partnerships with industry seeking innovation, with governments seeking solutions, and with communities seeking inclusion. Faculty shift from content delivery to facilitating inquiry, while campuses provide collaborative policies, infrastructure, and platforms for experimentation. Most importantly, institutions must recognise that leadership must be lived, tested, and refined in contexts that carry real consequences.

The benefits of living labs extend across the entire ecosystem. Students graduate not just with analytical skills, but with empathy, adaptability, and a deep understanding of complex, real-world systems. Industry gains practical insights, innovative solutions, and talent capable of navigating high-stakes challenges. Society benefits from interventions co-created with academic rigor ranging from community development projects to inclusive business solutions. For academia, living labs generate rich, context-driven research and case material that is grounded in India’s socio-economic realities, creating knowledge that is both relevant and actionable.

In essence, the future of management education lies in transforming campuses into living labs immersed in society and industry to reclaim their true purpose as drivers of economic and social progress.

Disclaimer: The content above is presented for informational purposes as a paid advertisement. The Tribune does not take responsibility for the accuracy, validity, or reliability of the claims, offers, or information provided by the advertiser. Readers are advised to conduct their own independent research and exercise due diligence before making any decisions based on its contents and not go by mode and source of publication.