Although she was raised in a progressive middle class family in southern India, Sujana Adapa was well aware of gender expectations growing up. “You were told as a female what you could and could not do all the time; the culture is very gender-biased in favour of men,” she says.
It was a similar scenario in Malaysia, where Sujana lived after completing her MBA, except with the added complexity of ethnicity. But this was a far cry from Australia – or so she thought when she began investigating management within small and medium-sized regional accounting firms as part of UNE research last year.
Instead, the Senior Lecturer in Management discovered shocking gender discrimination reminiscent of the 1950s. “Women are being discriminated against not just in terms of the jobs they perform and their career progression, but also their pay and incentives,” Sujana says. “We need to capitalise on all talent within the workforce, regardless of gender, and question these entrenched stereotypes.”
For gender equality is at the heart of corporate social responsibility, the concept associated with responsible management practices, according to Sujana. While she principally teaches marketing-related units at UNE, she has a broader interest in what constitutes good business management, and relishes sharing that knowledge with UNE students. “They are all different ages, come from different ethnic backgrounds and have different work situations,” she says. “I enjoy customising my teaching materials to suit their individual needs.”
And it is this dedication to innovation that has seen Sujana develop an array of impressive multimedia enhanced teaching tools and forge exciting partnerships with local business people. “I like to integrate theoretical concepts with practical examples so that students gain experience in solving real business problems,” she says. “Most students are either working full- or part-time and are time poor. They need a quick grasp of the content and real-life exposure.”
Without any previous online teaching experience, Sujana set about engaging students in new ways.
Enter fictitious businessman Mr Jones, who features in a suite of her problem-solving case studies. Sujana has also developed animated videos and cartoon-based storyboards to impart complex marketing concepts. Inviting local business people to participate in panel discussion videos and to contribute to blogs was another breakthrough, and some 14 captains of industry last year mentored students with entrepreneurial ambitions.
“Getting local business people involved in teaching and research is important because this is the community in which we live, and the university is part of that community,” Sujana says.
“Because we are a regional university, the opportunities are not limited. We can touch the hearts of students on a global stage.”
Last year Sujana was the only recipient of the prestigious Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management’s (ANZAM) Innovative Management Educator of the Year Award, which recognises excellence in the innovative teaching of management. She also earned a Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning as part of the Australian Awards for University Teaching. “But watching students grow personally and in their careers gives me the greatest satisfaction,” she says.