The Department of Management Studies, University of Kashmir organized 2 Day international conference from March 15, 2023.
Srinagar March 18(KNB): Covid-19 pandemic began as public health crises worldwide that quickly lead to drastic changes in business environment and its consequential ill effects on business practitioners. Reacting to these challenges, the Department of Management Studies has felt need to organize this conference, whereby, participants can put their heads together sharing their experiences, innovative ideas, viewpoints with an aim to help business practitioners face the challenges and navigate through the COVID lead disruptions.
Additionally, post pandemic business order, role of technology in shaping the emerging business world, developing an understanding about data driven economies and its fallout on business, socio-technological changes and its impact on business education and practices are some of the key areas where the organisers expected participants to deliberated upon.
The inaugural ceremony of the conference began with an invocation and melodic song i.e., our university tarana “ Heee mouj Kasheeri chee aameat…pata wat almeki aagar saari….”and immediately after it, head of the department, Prof.Iqbal Ahmed Hakim welcomed the dignitaries, paper presenters, scholars, students, whereby he drew our attention towards the rationale and expected outcome of the conference.Prof. Iqbal Ahmed Hakim concluded the address with note of satisfaction over the response of the paper presenters and extended gratitude to all present in the jam-packed Hall. Prof.Hakim stated that this international conference received overwhelming response characterized with above two hundred research papers, involving more than 400 contributors from both within and outside the country.
Next to this, the souvenir of the conference where in about two hundred abstracts were published was also released by the dignitries.These souvenirs were distributed among all paper presenters participants. At the same time, two books were also released by the dignitaries on the podium those were published by two young faculty members of the department namely Dr.Tariq Ahmed Lone and Dr. Mansoor Ahmed Khan.
Immediately after releasing the souvenir and the books, Mr.Mohamad Ayoob Shah who conducted the dais proceedings quite effectively introduced Prof. Khurshid Ali, the founding director of the department as Guest of Honour and requested him to say few words on the occasion. The founder of the department expressed his experience, emphasized the relevance of the event, its theme, subthemes and congratulated the department for organizing the event. Prof. Ali gave an overview of as to how this department has been incepted and has struggled through several of its ups and downs.
This was followed by speech of Prof(Dr.) Javed Akhtar, former Dean of Management Faculty and Registrar and an eminent professor from Department of Business Administration; Aligarh Muslim University. Being key note speaker, Professor Akhtar spoke about the relevance of AI and technology to economy, industry and management. Use of Data analytics according to the speaker makes it easier for businesses to analyze and use real-time data to make decisions. One can find the best deal just blinks away ‘not click away’. We shall move from click to blink……the professor said. Use of IA has actually made perfect competition more perfect.
He added that our society is becoming more digitized and virtualized. A virtual world, e.g., the Metaverse, can bring our society some overwhelming benefits, including convenience, energy saving, time efficiency, creativity, and being environmentally friendly. The Metaverse is currently imitating our physical real world as a parallel virtual world; however, the Metaverse will become very different from our physical world. Hence the Professor emphasized that students too need to be equipped with such technical skills to become market ready and we as teachers need to be prepared to go extra mile to help them in this direction.
Finally, The chief guest of the session, the honorable Vice chancellor of this University Prof. Neelofar Khan also addressed the august gathering, whereby, she expressed happiness over the way conference theme as well as subthemes have been decided by the organizers. The session concluded with customary vote of thanks proposed by Dr.Ishtiaq Hussain Quesreshi and a tea break was announced to be followed by technical sessions at three different places like Gandhi Bhawan, Department of Management Studies, main block and centre for central Asian studies simultaneously.
Excluding inaugural and valedictory, there were 15 technical (i.e., 9 offline and 6 online) sessions held in these these two days whereby, as many as 205 Papers were registered by around 400 contributors from both within and outside the country to deliberate upon the highlighted issues in both off and online mode. The contributors were from reputed management institutions of Utterpradesh, Punjab, Delhi, Karnataka, Jharkhand, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Haryana, Rajasthan, (LADAKH), Orissa, West Bengal and obviously from Jammu and Kashmir. Some of the foreign contributions were from china, Dhofar- Oman, and Pakistan to name a few. The technical sessions were classified into some of the special areas of management like HRM & OB, Marketing Management, Finance and Accounting, Data Analytics, Production and Supply Chain Management.
Outcome of the conference.
The Conference attracted a fair amount of attention from Scholars, teachers in the field of Entrepreneurship, Business Management and Social Sciences. The media campaign, conducted prior to the conduct of event resulted in wide coverage of the conference by all leading newspapers. Apart from emails, Conference brochure and invitation cards were widely distributed making all aware about the profile of the institution and the conference. This has resulted in branding of department of management studies and that of our University. The participants presented innovative research ideas in various sessions. This has resulted in enhancement of knowledge of faculty, students, participants and delegates. Further, the conference provided a networking opportunity to participants, thus, creating awareness about the Challenges and Opportunities in Business Management and helped scholars explore thrust areas of research. It also added to the corpus of literature on the subject through the publication of souvenir. Pertinent to mention publication committee shall be publishing an edited book of selected research papers presented in this conference in due course of time.
The day 1 witnessed seven technical sessions. Of these, two were conducted online. Of the total registered papers of 95, as many as 66 papers were presented.
On Day 2, of the total eight sessions, four were held online. Of the total registered papers of 110, as many as 85 papers were presented
Taking together Day 1 and 2, of the total 205 papers registered, as many as 151 papers were presented in these15 sessions.
After all the 15 technical sessions were over, the department had arranged lunch for all delegates, paper presenters and immediately after lunch time valedictory function started in Gandhi Bhawan of the university. The head of the department Prof. Iqbal A Hakimm welcomed the guests and acknowledged the support of university administration for making conference a success. Immediately after his welcome a detailed report was presented by Prof.Mushtaq Ahmed Siddiqi about the inaugural and the technical sessions held in these two days.
After this report, Prof. Farooq Ahmad Masoodi was requested to say few words on the occasion. Prof.Masoodi, Dean academic affairs of the University graced the occasion as Chief Guest and who in his speech congratulated the organizers for fostering an effective research environment where the seeds of innovation that will grow into new technologies will surely reshape the future.
However, he cautioned the listeners that there has to be a consistent approach towards it so that the challenges can be met for goal accomplishment. Business and society form an interactive system and both must connect at the grass root level for affluence.Guest of Honor, Prof A.M.Shah who has been ex-Dean Academic Affairs of the university, emphasised the need for such conferences as it has become imperative for organizations to make their business processes efficient through effective business decision making. Business professionals according to the speaker are in need of real time business intelligence and predictive analysis to make the right decisions.
He also added the significant contribution of the current National Education Policy (NEP) on the education system and need for skills management for developing competency. This was followed by speech of, Prof. Irshad Ahmad Nawchoo, present Dean, research of the University accentuated the need for quality research for knowledge and insights, continuous improvements in the field of business and management in the era of intense competition. While speaking on the occasion he also emphasized the role of collaborations and linkages between academia and the industrial sectors for progressive development.(KNB)
Written by Prof.Mushtaq Ahmad Siddiqi, faculty, Department of Management Studies, University of Kashmir,Srinagar. Email : mailmushtaq@kashmiruniversity.ac.in