On Corporate Social Responsibility

I was relatively silent in today's class discussion on Corporate Social Responsibility despite the several thoughts that were going through my head as things progressed. The professor and several members of the class brought up many points – some which I agree with, and others I disagree with. In this note, I am hoping to put a structure around these thoughts, to clarify my own understanding. I will use instances from within and outside the Nestle case to address the finer points.

What is responsibility?

The most relevant of the four definitions at www.dictionary.com is "a particular burden of obligation upon one who is responsible." A further search of the word "responsible" results in several references to accountability. In the context of a corporation, the question then is about who the corporation accountable to, and what those obligations are. Upon giving some thought, I find that the components of the "pyramid" drawn by Prof. Kaul on the board form an adequate framework to explore the stakeholders and the obligations towards them.

The above classification is not perfect, nor are the various rows mutually exclusive of each other. However, these are the stakeholders that most readily enforce a corporation's performance on each dimension. The row on which I struggled the most was in determining the stakeholder that enforces ethical obligations. The most powerful I believe is the marketplace – a company which has engaged in unethical behavior, be it against its customers, competitors or collaborators, will be ultimately punished by the marketplace (which is constituted by these three parties).

The point that comes out of the above table is that while the first three obligations end up getting enforced on most corporations, the social component gets enforced only through the response of one of the other three stakeholders.

At this point, I have a couple of concerns with the direction the class discussion on this paradigm went.

1. Philanthropy is not an obligation. On the other hand, the "R" in CSR is an item of obligation. This was what was brought up by Adi Gupta (perhaps bluntly), and is a matter that merits considerable discussion. Most corporations substitute philanthropy for social responsibility. I will discuss this a little later.
   
2. What divides ethics and philanthropy is not a fine line – there is a clear distinction between the two. In very simple terms, ethical behavior is necessary to prevent harm (to those affected directly or indirectly by one's activities), whereas philanthropic behavior is directed to create welfare to those affected. The fine line involved here is between the questions of what one "ought to be doing" and "could be doing." Philanthropy is only one of the things an individual or corporation "could be doing" for general welfare.
   

 

What is a corporation's responsibility towards the society?

A corporation's responsibility to the society is to ensure that the sum total of its activities do not result in a net loss to the society's welfare. This objective can be pursued in the following ways:

• Welfare creation: Perform activities that create welfare, in a way that may or may not be related to the organization's business
  
• Impact mitigation: Offset the ill-effects of your business through other actions
  
• Impact minimization: Minimize the ill-effects of your business on the society
  
• Benefit maximization: Maximize benefit to society due to your business
  

 

For most corporations, this list represents an increasing order of difficulty. The topmost item on this list is "philanthropy". In my opinion, this should form only a small portion of a firm's social responsibility. However, most firms appear to use their philanthropic activities as a proxy for the other three. At General Electric, where I worked for four years, employees are encouraged to contribute (time or money) to a variety of activities, organized by Habitat for Humanity, The United Way, or Elfun. The company was generous in matching monetary contributions to any of several listed causes. And as the article by Bhattacharjee and Sen indicates, these go a long way in attracting, retaining and motivating the best talent. And yes, they provide sufficient freedom and flexibility to not make it feel like a top-down mandate. But is this really enough? I was disappointed that the discussion in the class could (for various reasons) not dig deeper into the other three questions I mentioned above.

 

Should CSR necessarily be altruistic?

Part of the discussion centered around the cynical view that firms undertake "CSR"-related activities for its ultimate economic benefit. I see no issue with a firm deriving benefits in any sphere due to its activities in any other sphere. The Body Shops profits from selling natural cosmetics, as well as from highlighting the fact that they don't beat down the self respect of women by advertising using supermodels. Dell is on a quest today to become the "greenest technology company" and has so far focused on minimizing the environmental impact of their operations – and are not demure about their efforts. IBM has taken a more direct route – they are hoping to profit by making their products "green". Similarly, Nestle is perfectly justified in launching an "Ethical Coffee" blend, to capture customers who will respond to the same. It is when we equate CSR with philanthropy that the issue of altruism creeps in. In my opinion, the two issues must not be confused, as they commonly are.

 

Partner's Blend and Nestle's Social Responsibility

I'd like to analyze Nestle's Partners Blend along the four lines listed above. The question of whether they should go with their own notion of fairness to coffee growers or follow FLO's guidelines is secondary, and will be briefly discussed later. Information about the case discussed in class is here.

Welfare Creation: In undertaking £500,000 worth of developmental activities in Ethiopia and El Salvador, Nestle has (conveniently) added points to its "Social Balance Sheet." That they advertise and benefit from this must not detract from the fact that the coffee growers have also benefited. At 300 tonnes per year (1 ton = 2200lb), this contribution amounts to 25p per pound of coffee. It must be noted that this is in fact larger than the $0.05/lb that FLO promises farmers.

Impact Mitigation: The "impact" under question is the fact that most coffee growers end up getting a substantially smaller portion of the proceeds of selling coffee than they are entitled to, mainly because of the large number of intermediaries involved in the trading chain. Nestle helped mitigate the coffee growers pain of having to depend on coffee alone by supporting SEM to improve their coffee quality and helping diversify their income streams. Note that increasing purchase price (as advocated by FLO) is only one of the ways to mitigate revenue under-realization from coffee beans.

Impact Minimization: By purchasing 20% of their coffee directly, Nestle is clearly trying to minimize the ill-effects of multiple intermediaries – by cutting out intermediaries. It is at this stage that it becomes relevant to ask about increasing this percentage. As the largest single seller (and buyer) of coffee in the world, this is a company that may have the financial muscle to survive through increased costs through increased prices, if need be. Nestle has the power to transform the entire coffee market, and they must consider making it their aim to do so. The question brought up by Sanjiv – "What then if all coffee becomes Fairtrade equivalent" – could simply be answered by saying that the purpose of several social organizations should be to make their own existence redundant!

Benefit Maximization: Making the goal of maximizing benefit to coffee growers is certainly a harder pill to swallow, because it cuts right into the company's goals to offer their products at the most competitive price in the market. That said, in most cases, companies may not be investing enough in plucking the low-hanging-fruit simply because those benefits do not accrue to them. For example, Nike could either set "minimum standards" (minimizing impact) or "target conditions" (maximizing benefits) for the working conditions at their manufacturing facilities in Asia. The cost of having one Nike employee oversee these facilities continuously is not very significant.

 

The Fairtrade Question

After reading part (B) of the case, I was relieved that both Nestle and FLO did the right thing. One of the most unfortunate outcomes of several social ventures is that countervailing opinions on "what is the better thing to do" slow down the delivery of any amount of "good" to the intended beneficiary, let alone the "better". To me, the debate between Nestle and FLO was, at least in part, about this. Ultimately, both organizations were able to agree that coffee growers would benefit from the launch of Partners Blend, and were able to lend credibility to each others' efforts. Since this step has been crossed, it remains to be seen how far Nestle slides along the spectrum of activities constituting social responsibility.

Summary

Corporate Social Resposibility is much more than philanthropy. It is the obligation of the corporation to ensure that the sum total of its activities do not result in a net loss to the society. Evaluating the net impact of a corporation's activities on the greater society is certainly very challenging, and a difficult metric to reach consensus on. Stakeholders who are least vocal and whose interests are furthest from the economic value created by the firm, are the ones most likely to be impacted negatively. The responsibility of a firm lies in identifying the negative impacts of its activities, and either offsetting or minimizing these effects. Philanthropic activities must not be used as a proxy to fulfill a firm's social responsibility.

 

Terrorism and War

I must confess that my reaction to the Mumbai attacks of last week was very different from mine to the September 11^th attacks. My reaction this time was more like the reaction of my American friends at that time. At that time I thought: "We see bombs go off in India all the time. We had the 1993 Bombay Blasts – we kind of take it in our stride (sadly)." This time, though, the fact that these attacks were so different from what we are used to, shocked me, made me angry, and feel helpless. Now I understand how Americans felt on September 11^th – it was not the scale of the attack, but the fact that something so different happened on American soil for the first time. Bombs have always gone off everywhere in the world – perhaps with a much smaller frequency in the US – but events like 9/11 and 26/11 indicate a turning point in the history of terrorism. The question is – what can we do to nip these changes in the bud. The US has been successful in preventing a recurrence. Will India be successful?

Thinking of which, what is the right approach to dealing with terrorism? More specifically, at what stage in the chain of terrorism does a state get involved? Here are some "entry points"

Peaceful means

• Root cause: Assuming we know the root cause of the terrorists' unhappiness – be it allowing Kashmir to secede, or pulling US troops out of Iraq, or whatever – is just "giving them what they want" or "negotiating with them" sufficient? The peace-lovers certainly would like to start at the "root cause" level.
  
• Reparations: This is along the same lines – but some of the "root cause" lies in the past – a group of people may be so upset over events of the past that they have taken up arms against the innocent. Can we set things right? Can we rebuild the Babri Masjid?
  
• Engage, educate, uplift: Get involved in the lives of people in areas from where terrorism is thought to arise, spread education, self-confidence, etc.
  

Defensive means

 

• After the attack: Track them down now that we have proof they did something bad
  
• During the attack: Get at them once they've started attacking
  
• At our doorsteps: Assume they'll attack, and just protect our important landmarks/facilities
  
• Inside our territory: Assume they're already here, and hunt them down before they even try to attack
  
• At our borders: Prevent them from entering our borders
  
• On their turf: Spy on their turf, find out what they're trying to do, and attack them to defend from specific planned attacks
  

Offensive means

• Go attack known terrorists anywhere in the world
  
• Go attack areas which may be known to breed terrorists
  
• Go attack terrorist training camps
  
• Go to war with the "host country"
  

 

If we look at the above list of bullets as a continuum going from one extreme to the other, The Bush Doctorine clearly focuses on bullets closer to the bottom of the list. But then the big question is this – is going to war with the host country really worth it?

Is it really a good idea to go to war with Pakistan?

Notwithstanding the threat of a nuclear showdown, it never makes sense for India to go to war with Pakistan. Let us say there were no nuclear weapons involved here. What would be our goal in going to war with Pakistan? Signing a new peace agreement? Taking over and ruling that country? Controlling their military forces? Controlling their civilian government? Beating their civilian government down to submission? Gaining the ability to freely roam that country to then weed out those that would plan terrorist attacks against India?

None of these are worth our while. Some may argue that the last reason (being able to enter Pakistan and clean up all terrorist camps), is the best reason. I don't think it is realistic.

Think about this – The US, once it decided that elements in Iraq posed a threat to US security, decided to enter that country and wipe it clean. They haven't succeeded in cleaning up terrorists from that country. It is possible that they will, in the future. But a rich and technologically advanced country as the US has been there for almost 6 years without being able to "clean up terrorism." Can India, with the risk of geographical proximity to Pakistan, realistically, (after defeating them in a war) go on to cleanse terrorism in a reasonable time frame? No way.

My point is that India should avoid a war with Pakistan not because I love peace, or not because I am afraid of nuclear warfare, but simply because it is not worth our while even if we were to win it.

So where exactly should we fight the War on Terror?

Tightening borders, continuously gathering and processing intelligence, hunting down terrorists that have arrived/grown within India, are the necessary and most rational means. The issue is – we may want to do this – and we are certainly spending enough money on defense to be able to do this – but we do not have the leadership, discipline, and political wil to actually make it happen. We are bound by our own devices of corruption, over-deliberation, red tape, and inefficiency – from doing what we all believe and agree is right.

Victory to All

The past week's incidents in Mumbai have left me ever more livid – at all parties involved (but the victims) – the terrorists, our politicians, and in part, our security forces. I'm going to say things in this blog which are highly politically incorrect, but I have to say my piece.

The Terrorists: I'm pissed that a bunch of terrorists have the audacity to enter our great country and hold us at ransom. It really doesn't take India a whole lot to destroy anything that remotely suggests itself to be a training camp in the mountains. But it is out of sheer respect for diplomacy and for the avoidance of "collateral damage" (remember the words of Madeleine Albright) that we haven't sent in our armed forces. Just what is accomplished by such an act of violence I do not know. Gaining attention? Do they want any more attention after 2 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? What is it exactly that they want? The release of all their friends in Jail so they could go ahead and plan more such attacks? Redefining of all international borders from the Middle East to South Asia? Now – it is clear that this is not going to happen. And even if it did happen, it would be too much for them to handle. Revenge? What exactly does revenge mean, and what does it give? I'm flabbergasted. Even if I tried to understand the motivations, I can't. Well, whatever they wanted to achieve – it does seem that they achieved. They killed people, created fear, gained attention, proved that they were capable of beating us hands down in urban combat. They won.

Our politicians: The less said the better. All too eager to point fingers at everyone but themselves. Right now, the Congress party has definitely won – thanks to Soniaji's decisive action of firing the Home Minister Shivraj Patil. If they can fire Vilasrao Deshmukh (oh, not for failing to secure the state, but for showing up at the Taj Mahal Hotel with Ram Gopal Varma the filmmaker), they would have double victory for having acted even more decisively. The BJP on the other hand must be counting its lucky stars – for such a beautiful opportunity having landed right on their laps a few months ahead of the General Elections. They clearly won, because the country was far safer under them. Sure, setting off an atom bomb in the desert certainly made our country much safer. Well, let's see what they come up with when they win this next election.

Mumbai police: Our thanedaars and hawaldaars have become martyrs for their incomp… ahem – lack of training. All the way up to the Head of the Anti-Terrorism Squad became sitting ducks in their very own police vans, for the terrorists to just kill and hijack. They could have learned more from watching a couple of Hollywood movies for crying out loud. Have you guys seen Die Hard? But for now – they have won through martyrdom.

Our "Elite" National Security Guard: They definitely won the battle for us – they were the heroes of the hour(s). NDTV aired a one hour special thanking them for having ended the hostage situation. Sure. But what took them 10 hours to reach Mumbai? Last I remembered, I could buy a ticket online, drive over to the New Delhi Airport, navigate the "security" lines, get onto a Jet Airways flight, land in Mumbai, and take a taxi to arrive Colaba in less than 6 hours. I thought the Government gave these guys their own aircraft or something. Having arrived, it still took 60-odd hours to clear up the mess… only to find out that more terrorists were hidden in the Taj Mahal Hotel. To me, it was only an eventuality that they would finish off the 10 or so terrorists. They would have run out of bullets eventually, you see? I wish more of them had been caught alive so that evidence could be squeezed out of them. But oh no – I'm going to get into so much trouble for saying something bad about the NSG commandos who saved the day. I think as individuals they were all great soldiers, and have done a fantastic service to our nation. As an organization, NSG hasn't impressed me. But for now, they won the battle too.

So you see – everyone won. Who lost? The real martyrs – the fatalistic denizens of our country – both citizens and visitors, who go about their lives, walking around in the open, knowing all too well that human life is too cheap for our "leaders" to count, but valuable only as political currency. All that the politicians care about are our left index fingers – so they could be marked with the indelible ink of our vibrant democracy once every five years.

American Lie

It has been 8 months since I left the US to study in India. I'm back for a month this November – a month which I thought would be a test of my own temptation to resettle back in the US. It's been an interesting month - with Obama getting elected, Bombay burning down, and the American Retailer almost having a heart attack in anticipation of their beloved consumer's behavior.

But what I'd like to talk about is my exchange with a true blue (white) American from the midwest, who was a friend of a friend, and who was also a self-proclaimed Republican. This person had recently been to India, and practically ran back to the US almost as if she was running away from a Warzone. She had an earful for me about how crazy, crowded and uncontrolled India was, and how they are so bad about maintaining their parks and public places. In the conversation that ensued, I understood, for the first time in 9 years, the Lie that the "heartland" of America lives under. The best way to communicate my frustration is to give some nuggets of my conversation:

• Me: "Did you know that India has 1.2bn people, which is 4x the US population of 300mn, and India has one third the area of the US?"
  
  • Answer: "The US has 300mn people? I didn't know that"
    
  • OK – now – where do I start with someone who doesn't understand that different countries have different population densities
    
• She: "I saw how crazy the Indian drivers were. Now I understand why all the cabbies in NY City drive like crazies – they are all from some third world country, and this is how they drive there"
  
  • OK – all cabbies anywhere in the world drive like they own the road.
    
  • Most of these cabbies learned to drive after coming here… not back in Somalia or India.
    
• She: "I just went the museum in xxx town (in the US). They had excellent funding and resources for kinds activities … which neither the Museum of Natural History in NYC didn't have. I think it is because xxx town has a large black population – the government gives them additional funding"
  
  • This comment ticked me off so much that I could only walk away from there.
    

I've heard of Americans living a Lie earlier, but having this conversion in person shocked me about the level of racial stereotyping that is prevalent in the Heartland of the US.

Energy Blog

I have been meaning to write on energy for a while now. I have started a new blog: http://saurienergy.blogspot.com

In India, at last... (and it is just the beginning)

It is 6:23am on Feb 25th. I'm in Hyderabad, a little jetlagged naturally (which is why I'm up writing a blog). I landed hours ago, and am still getting used to the idea. I'm tempted by habit to open up my browser and go check out NYTimes.com or cnn.com or Reuters' US news section - but am strangely uncertain if I should be interested in Hillary v/s Barack anymore. (Of course I'll stay interested just as I was deeply interested in BJP v/s Congress during my first few months in the US). For now, I'll have to start getting used to a new set of news and finance websites.

I thought I should capture what I did over the last few weeks, after I left California and my job, and what has going through my mind.

It was a little difficult getting used to not having 50 emails a day from work, and another 50 overnight from the engineers in Taiwan. For the first week or so I couldn't sleep beyond 730am even though I was not working anymore. I temporarily assumed charge of the kitchen for a couple of weeks, and cooked while my wife went to work. I actually didn't mind being the "househusband", actually :). I found out what shows are on TV during the day - Re-runs of Tim Allen's Home Improvement, mostly. I used my time to catch up with lots of "technology reading". Solar energy, biofuels, and the like. I'll write separately on my thoughts about solar energy.

I spent a lot of time thinking about this decision. Here are the answers I came up with. This was sort of a reality check, and it was good to discover for myself that my thought process was still consistent.

(Q) Why MBA?
(A) Too much technology goes waste because it developed for the sake of itself, rather than to serve a need. Engineers make things because they find it cool, and because they can. I'd like to approach technology from the other side. What solutions will people pay for? That's what, I think, matters. And as an Engineer, I don't have the tools to answer this question. (Just as an example, I don't believe Hydrogen fuel cell cars will sell, because that's what they are - engineer's cool toys).

(Q) Why in India?
(A) IIMA is a great school. Regardless of what the global rankings say. It is like IIT - not ranked, but clearly very high quality. But more importantly, because India has palpable and contageous energy. When I visited my hometown in interior Andhra in April/May of 2005 and 2006, I realized that it was the middle of the exam-result-admission season. There was only one topic on the minds of every youth around me - their educational path. The 15-year old son of the rickshaw puller wanted to know what specialization to follow in the local Polytechnic school once I helped him look up his SSLC scores on the internet (!). The neighbor's 17-year old son was busy studying for IIT and EAMCET exams, and came to me for advice on how to prepare and what coaching material to focus on. Then there was this other neighbor's daughter who went to a local degree college, and wanted to know what computer course to take. "Anna, is C++ better or Java or Oracle?". Since her dad couldn't pay for her computer course, she had saved up some money and worked hard to get into the computer institute with a discounted fee. All this - I miss the excitement of an Indian education, and the Indian focus on academic achievement and performance. That's why I want to study in India.

(Q) Did I really want to quit my job or was all I needed a 1 month vacation?
(A) This was an interesting question. 3 weeks into my "retirement", I felt refreshed enough to take on the stress of my old job again. This reminded me of a couple of things. (1) Every job will have aggravations; I should not be running away from one job hoping that the next will somehow be better. (2) Long vacations indeed help get re-energized, more so than short vacations do.

(Q) What will I miss most about the west when I return to India
(A) Good, clean public restrooms.

Well - I'm looking forward to the next year at IIMA and more years working in India...

stuff... stuFF... STUFF!

It's January 8th, and finally... finally my house looks somewhat empty. I move out on the 13th. Most of the stuff is now gone. The shippers came over and picked up my 23 boxes (including my bicycle) this afternoon. My furniture is ready to be hauled away by a friend. My 2 suitcases to India are packed.

Everything else - needs to be thrown away.

And it is this "everything else" that has been worrying me for the past month. How the hell do I get rid of all this. This includes: random CDs, tapes, cups, plates, worn out shoes, nails, screws, drywall anchors, coathangers, power strips, cleaning supplies, random towels, merchandize boxes, old magazines, photo frames, audio cassettes (yes, those still exist), cables, computer keyboards, icecube trays, half-used groceries, perishables, trashcans (throw trashcans into other trashcans?), old cellphones, chargers, lamps, paper, shelf liners, random pots & pans, small electrical appliances, etc etc etc. I can't take these with me to India. I can't really give everything to someone else - most of this stuff is worn out, dirty, used, cracked, and generally unseemly. I have made perhaps 6 trips to Salvation Army, Goodwill, and the local recycling company and donated may be a dozen large garbage bags full of clothes and thrown away another half dozen boxes worth of e-waste.

And so I had a couple of good friends come over to help me out this evening. We filled out perhaps 10 large garbage bags worth of stuff and threw them away in the dumpster. We tried to separate out the recyclables, but it was not easy. I'm sure we didn't do a very good job. They did their best to take away whatever stuff seemed usable to their own homes. Finally though, it's all gone. Very conveinently out of sight.

This raised several questions in my mind. (1) Did I really need all this stuff? Couldn't I have lived with 10% of this stuff? (2) If I have so much stuff, how about everyone else together? (3) What's going to happen of all this stuff that I disposed of? (4) Did my father's generation have 10% as much "stuff"? 20%? 1%? (5) How much of the stuff that we all own (let's say, the average middle class resident of the western world) do we really need? how much of it do we really use (which is different from "need") ...

All rather tough to answer. Perhaps B-school will help me tackle these sorts of questions. But today I made a decision - to leave as little trash as I can behind on this earth. That means acquire as little stuff as I need. To try and buy used and recyclable items. And to donate periodically to those who can use surplus. After all, I'm no King Tut to be buried with all my worldly belongings...

Road to PGPX-III at IIMA

It's past midnight on Saturday Jan 5th 2008, and I'm sitting in the middle of all my stuff in half-filled boxes, preparing for the shipping company to come pick it all up Tuesday morning. It's still sinking in - I'm moving back to India, after 8 years.

While I'll talk about my thoughts and reasons for going back to India separately, I thought I should capture the useful information in a blog first - how I got into the PGPX program at IIMA.

1. GMAT
I decided I had to get started on this in March 2007, a couple of days after my 29th birthday. I acquired a bunch of GMAT books (the whole set: Barrons, Aarco, Petersons, Kaplan, etc.) from someone on craigslist for $70 that weekend. I started preparing for my GMAT. For the next 3 months, I spent about 30-60 minutes in the morning before going to work, and may be 1-2 hrs in the evenings taking short practice tests. I did this perhaps 3-4 days a week. I had about 4-5 computerized tests available at my disposal - including those from Kaplan and Pearson, the company conducting GMAT itself. I took the full-length tests in the last 3 weeks before the exam. I found the Kaplan tests to be too difficult, and scored around 680 in both my tests. The Pearson tests were easier, and I scored around 730 in both those practice tests. The actual GMAT interface is exactly the same as the Pearson one. I also spent the last 2 weeks preparing for the analytical writing section - and was glad I did. It helped me get into the habit of organizing my thoughts and putting them in writing within the 30 minute time limit. I took the GMAT on June 29, and scored 770 (I was quite happy).

Summary: My total effort was 4-6 hrs a week for 2 months, 4 practice tests in the 3rd month, 2 weeks of analytical writing practice.


2. Application to IIMA PGPX
The application deadline for PGPX-III Round-1 was Aug 10th. I had to fill in a summary of my work experience including job responsibilities and accomplishments in each of my jobs so far, extra-curricular activities, awards, hobbies, and of course, educational background. On Sep 10th, as promised, the interview shortlist was released and I was able to log on to my application portal website to find that I had been selected to attend an interview in Newark, NJ on Oct 8th. I had to submit my 4 essays by Sep 18th. The essay topics were provided even during the 1st round application, and I should really have not waited until the shortlist was released to start working on those. Nevertheless, I spent 7-8 sleepless nights and crunched through 500-word summaries of my strengths/weaknesses, ambitions in applying to IIMA, proudest achievements, and the like. We did end up getting a couple of extra days on the essays, and finally had to turn them in by the 20th of September, 2007.

3. Interview
The interview was held in the Newark Airport Ramada hotel. My interview was on the afternoon of Oct 8th, which was the 3rd day of PGPX interviews in Newark. There were 2 interview panels of 3 professors each, and each panel took 6-7 candidates in each half-day period. When I got there a list was put up, and I was with "Panel 2", in one of the upstairs rooms, and I was the 3rd among 8 candidates that panel was going to interview that afternoon, starting at about 2pm. It was a generally low-key affair, in that the candidates were waiting in chairs placed in a lobby, and that the interviews didn't actually start on time (perhaps they ran over in the morning). The panel was also very accomodating when it came to a couple of candidates who needed to catch evening flights - they switched the interview sequence around.
When I was finally called up, the panel got settled, pulled up my records on their laptops, and took my certificates. They then had me start my short presentation, which they listened to as they also perused my documents and application. After my pitch, they launched into questioning. I had worked at GE for 4 years, and that is where the interview started
Q. If you were the CEO of a large company like GE - what would be your biggest problems?
A. ... How to increase profits and shareholder value
Q. But - the CEO of GE is not really involved in profits, that's why he has heads for each division...?
A. Actually he has to figure out what other divisions/businesses to get into, and what businesses to get out of. He also needs to figure out who the right persons are to lead these businesses. CEO also needs to be involved in integrity, policy, culture matters, as well as dealing with Governments... blah blah.

Q. Do you think Jack Welch was a good CEO? Yes/No, and why
A. ... yes, I think because...
... long discussion about Jack's performance relative to previous and next CEO. Panel clearly very knowledgable about GE and Jack. Of course, after the interview I had 5x more to say about Jack Welch's legacy which didn't come to my mind in the interview.

Q. You seem like a total techie - pure engineer, then R&D scientist etc. Why business?
A. blah blah... I have found too much of my R&D/technical work go to waste because engineers don't know what the market wants and the business guy doesn't know what engineers can do for him... I want to bridge the gap...
... continued discussion about bringing new technologies to market
... continued discussion about disruptive technologies, Clayton Christensen, etc.

Q. You say one of your weaknesses is that you are impatient - how will you deal with it.
A.... blah blah.

Q. Have you had to deal with legal issues
A. yeah, mostly IP, patents, non-disclosures, technical collaborations, government research contracts, confidentiality etc. General employee-manager stuff.

That's the high-level summary of my interview. After coming out I naturally thought of 10 other things I could have said, and 20 other places where I should have not rambled as much. But that's life.

4. Selection
Oct 31st - I happened to be in India actually. Promptly after 5pm the logon page on the IIMA PGPX website changed from "applications are closed" to "please login to view your results". I found out I was selected. That was it - elation, happiness - I'm going to move to India, study in IIMA, and (hopefully) find a job in India.

So there - a brief summary of my 9 month journey from concept to completion (of the application phase). I'll be out of California in a week, and out of the US by February 2008.