Faculty Feature: “Publish or Perish”

Meet Dr Murali Raman, Deputy Vice Chancellor, INTI International University

Having served in higher education for more than 20 years, with early trainings at Maybank and Accenture, Professor Ts Dr. Murali Raman is no stranger to the world of academia.

Even during his corporate days, Dr Murali professed a passion for training people and at the turn of the century made the leap by joining Multimedia University as a lecturer for E-Commerce and Management Information Systems.

Born and raised in Negri Sembilan – where he now serves as Deputy Vice Chancellor at INTI International University in Nilai – Dr Murali himself holds several academic qualifications.

After completing his Bachelor’s degree in economics at University Malaya, he received the elite Rhodes Scholarship in 1996 and went on to consecutively pursue his MSc. Human Resource Management degree from the London School of Economics and an MBA from Imperial College, London within two years. No mean feat for the alumnus from Tuanku Muhammad Secondary School in Kuala Pilah!

Shortly after pursuing his role as an academician, he began and completed his PhD in Management Information Systems from Claremont Graduate University, and extended his lecturing capabilities to include Research Methodologies for PhD and Master of Philosophy students.

Sharing about his foray into academic research, he recalled: “I had no clue what a journal or a conference paper was when I first became a lecturer. On my first day in academia, my Dean made it clear that I should start publishing or be ready to perish!”

“For the first six months I received several heart breaking and nerve-wrecking rejections from editors for my papers and began to question my future as an educator. After months of rejections, my humble paper on the Knowledge Economy and what it meant to industries was accepted at the Knowledge Management International Conference in 2001. The rest as they say is history,” he shared.

Joining the workforce at the inception of the Dotcom Era, Dr Murali was naturally drawn to the emerging world of IT and chose Knowledge Management Systems as the focal point of his PhD. He continues to focus his research on IT Management in general, with an emphasis on the use and applications of technology for business and organisational outcomes, enabling his research to provide practical and meaningful impact for business development.

Despite his rocky start, he has been published in more than 70 International journals and conference papers – most of which are backed by SCOPUS or WOS, and has to date 2531 citations, most of which have been within the last five years. Dr Murali has also served as editor of one book, and authored more than 10 book chapters.

Alongside publishing articles, he has shared his research at competitions, conferences and as a keynote speaker throughout the world, including Auckland, New York, Istanbul, Thiruchy, Accra, Lisbon, Rothenberg, Rome, and Seoul, among others.

Despite challenges impacting global mobility and the organisation of physical conferences, Dr Murali has remained a familiar face at industry led webinars on Design Thinking in 2020. This crucial development area, along with other key technological advancements, have critically accelerated the need for digital transformation – a change which, as a Technologist, Dr Murali propounds as necessary for all sectors, including higher education, to embrace.

Amid his personal achievements and accolades as a SCOPUS published researcher, the youngest of six siblings whose father worked as a government servant with the Veterinary Department still believes his biggest achievement is in supporting students.

Having successfully supervised 15 doctoral students, he shared: “The doctoral students under my supervision are my main impact in terms of my research interest and outputs. They continue to inspire me through their own research findings. Woking with them over the last decade has led to us making an impact to the Information Systems Management community of practice, particularly in the area of using IS for Disaster Management and crisis response.”

Serving in both capacities of academic mentor and researcher, Dr Murali has received numerous awards for his efforts, notably:

• The Gold Medal for Innovative Teaching (21s Century) at iCan, Canada, 2019;
• Winner of the European Competition for Knowledge Management Cases, Lisbon, Portugal, 2019;
• The Gold Medal at the Sri Lankan Innovation and Exhibition Award, Colombo, Sri Lanka, 2019;
• The Golden Globe Tiger Awards – For Outstanding Academic Leadership, 2016;
• The Outstanding Academic Leadership Award in Malaysia, 2015;
• World Innovation Award, Seoul, Korea, 2015; and
• The Gold Medal, Augerah Pecipta Negara 2013 – For KM Systems in Support of Disaster Management.

Stepping into the role of Deputy Vice Chancellor at INTI, Dr Murali aims to reinvigorate the development of INTI’s diverse and multi-talented faculty and academic teams, and take the university’s research and academic capabilities to the next level.

Re-emphasising his first experience of stepping into academia, the father of two digital native sons shared these words of encouragement for budding researchers:

“Every paper has a home and therefore one should start somewhere, and scale accordingly. Rejections are part and parcel of a researcher’s life. Embrace every rejection (in research) as vital lessons to learn from, and improve on. The trick is to start doing research.”

“And as you go along, aim to conduct more meaningful research, research that matters and solves problems. Keep moving up the ladder, go for impactful research, and aim higher. At the same time, collaborate with others. Not only does it facilitate diverse perspectives, but when you embark on a research journey with a passionate team, the race becomes more meaningful, and with a sincere heart, that team is endowed with grace to find solutions that will change the world,” he reassures.