NEW DELHI: About 29% of Indians aspiring for a management degree are actually aspiring for global assignments, another 26% of the aspirants are seeking respect out of graduate management education (GME). Nearly one fifth of the aspirants are looking for skill upgrades, and in comparison to 13% of global aspirants, just 1% of Indians are looking at a B-school degree as a career revitaliser. And a significant 8% of Indian aspirants see an MBA degree as their ticket to an improved socio-economic strata.A first ever candidate segmentation survey by Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) decodes why someone pursues or aspires to be an MBA. Shared exclusively with TOI, the study was conducted across 15 countries including the US, UK, Russia, China and India among others. Unlike previous GMAC studies, where majority of the respondents are from GMAT (the admission test for top global B-schools ) and Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) schemes, this time out of the total only 43% of the respondents have taken or are planning to take either of the tests.The motivation factor for Indian aspirants for a GME are very similar to that of the US aspirants, while reasons for pursuing an MBA degree for a Chinese aspirant is significantly different with nearly half of the Chinese respondents looking at the degree as a career revitaliser. For Indian aspirants, as the study revealed, bulk of the candidates are "global strivers" and "respect seekers". Skill upgradation and innovation are also in the priority zones, serving as motivation for 19% and 12% of aspirants respectively."For a long period of time B-schools around the world looked at students in terms of demographics - gender, age, nationalities, but didn't get to the core motivation behind why people want to study graduate management education. After all being a man or a woman doesn't drive them. What drives them is a particular type of aspiration. So we thought the time was right as the market has overall matured as to really look at the global candidate market place from segmentation point of view," said Sangeet Chowfla , president and CEO, GMAC.The respondents were interviewed in local languages "in order to remove the bias that comes out of language," said Chowfla.