IIM Udaipur Is The First Indian B-School To Set Up A Consumer Culture Lab

Lab to promote qualitative research in India and foster consumer understanding through cultural insights

Indian Institute of Management Udaipur announced the virtual launch of its ‘Consumer Culture Lab’ to foster consumer culture research in India. The launch of the Consumer Culture Lab and webinar on “Return to Laughter:  Comedy Culture in India” is scheduled for 7^th November 2020 at 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm IST.

This Lab has been set up by esteemed faculty and researchers associated with the institute to cater to the growing global demand for research on Indian consumers.  Talking about his vision behind setting up this lab, Prof. Julien Cayla, Advisor, Consumer Culture Lab said, “I have always believed that more anthropologically-oriented approaches could benefit a wide range of people and organizations in India including government, companies, and students.” The Lab aims to bring together perspectives from anthropology, sociology, and psychology into consumer research in India, enabling students, academicians, and industry professionals to develop a more holistic and nuanced understanding of Indian consumers.

Inviting academics, alumni, and industry experts to the launch, Prof. Janat Shah, Director, IIM Udaipur said, “The Consumer Culture Lab is a reflection of IIM Udaipur’s efforts to develop an ecosystem where creative research and diversity of thought can thrive. A unique initiative in B-schools across the country, this Lab bridges the knowledge gap and initiates a conversation on consumer culture and qualitative research in India.” The B-school aspires to create and disseminate knowledge for both the academic and non-academic researchers interested in understanding Indian consumers, he added.

The webinar ‘Return to Laughter: Comedy Culture in India’ will be held by Dr. Vijay Parthasarathy, a cultural strategist and commercial semiotician with a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. Vijay has done extensive ethnography on stand-up comedy in India and will talk about the history of comedy in Indian culture, and the role of stand-up comedy in shaping global modernity.

The launch will be flagged off by the core team behind the lab, including Prof. Janat Shah (Director of IIMU), Prof. Julien Cayla (Advisor of the Consumer Culture Lab), Prof. Rajesh Nanarpuzha (Faculty at IIMU), Prof. Tanvi Gupta (Faculty at IIMU), and Ms. Rupali Kapoor (Research Officer at the Consumer Culture Lab). The team will also introduce the Lab’s initiatives. For more information, and to register for the launch event, visit: https://cclab.iimu.ac.in/launch/

About IIM Udaipur:

Over the course of more than fifty years, IIMs have become recognized as premier management institutions, comparable to the best in the world for teaching, research, and interaction with industry. IIMU also aims to set a new benchmark in the field of management education by combining excellence in both teaching and research.

The Institute has arrived on the global education stage by getting accreditation from the AACSB (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business) in merely eight years of its establishment. With this accreditation, IIM Udaipur is now counted in the same league of global institutes like Harvard Business School, Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and the MIT Sloan School. IIMU has recently been listed on the QS 2020 Masters in Management (MIM) Rankings as well as the Financial Times (FT) MIM Ranking 2019. IIMU is the youngest B-school in the world on both these rankings. According to the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) 2020, IIM Udaipur is ranked 17th amongst all B-Schools. IIMU is currently ranked 4th in India for research in the field of management according to the methodology used by UT Dallas which tracks publications in the leading global journals.

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