Concluding Remarks
India had been a strong country in business, economy and technology for many centuries, till the 1700s. Despite enduring invasions of many kinds, India is now quickly reemerging as a contributing competitive country due to hard work, entrepreneurship, education and her noble values such as वसुधैव कुटुंबकम. Institutes of national importance are also expected to contribute to competitiveness through relevant actions and better balances. Choices on the dimensions of institutional excellence are posing key strategic dilemma for the top leadership of accomplished Indian institutes that aspire for next levels in the journey towards becoming world class. The leadership has started appreciating the challenges posed by the accelerating international competition in India and the need for enhancing contributions to competitiveness, particularly of companies. While the serendipitous internationalization of IIT students or alumni can be of some help, without impactful contributions to the industrial competitiveness of local focal firms or clusters, even leading IITs may start ‘stagnating prematurely’, a phenomenon observed for many Indian firms and even industrial houses. India cannot afford to let the IITs slump (Gulhati 2007), but other key stakeholders should not underestimate their responsibility. Among the stakeholders, faculty will have to demonstrate higher energy to be role models for other stakeholders. How do we create people with values to realize an ambitious vision 2020 (Kalam and Tiwari 2015; p. 4), is a vexing problem for India and focal institutes should strive to address it. Dimensions of institutional excellence are emerging to be more complex than envisaged, and hence, we were less able to explore the role of strategic flexibility in depth. However, the paper makes significant contributions in conceptualizing alternate pathways between institutional growth and industrial competitiveness, and the role of strategic flexibility in enhancing balances among them.
