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E-business, e-education, e-government, social media, and mobile services generate and capture trillions of bytes of data every second about customers, suppliers, employees, and other types of data. The growing quantity of big data is an important part of every sector in the global economy. However, there is a significant shortage of business data analysts. The authors explored a random sample of 215 Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business–accredited U.S. business colleges' official websites regarding their business analytics program offerings at varied academic levels. The findings indicate that only a minority of the 215 colleges offered business analytics programs at varied academic levels.

Although critical thinking (CT) skills are usually considered as domain general (Gabbenesch, 2006; Halpern, 2003), CT ability may benefit from expertise knowledge and skill. The current study examined both general CT ability and CT ability related to business scenarios for individuals (a) expert in business, (b) novice in business, and (c) with no business experience, as well as the effects of educational background on both general and business-related CT. Results are discussed in light of research and theory on CT and business, and implications for future research are discussed.

Assurance of learning and its assessment are critical focal points in collegiate schools of business as programs strive to achieve or maintain Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business accreditation. Prior research suggests that student learning in business core disciplines can be measured by the Educational Testing Service Major Field Test in Business (MFT-B). What factors predict student performance on the MFT-B? The authors examined predictors of student learning not addressed in prior research. The analysis of this unique variable set consisting of high school grade point average, grade on an accounting competency exam, cumulative hours earned, and membership in the School of Business Mentor Association furnishes noteworthy, new insight to the understanding of factors that affect learning in business core disciplines.

As calls for enhancing the ability of business students to think creatively and develop innovative goods and services have become universal, researchers in the area of creativity have expressed concerns that the U.S. educational system may not foster creative thinking. The authors’ research is based on a sample of 442 undergraduate business students enrolled in marketing classes at two different universities. Students’ creativity was assessed using a creativity scale that measured ways of thinking in six different areas. The authors compared creativity scores of different business majors in each of these six dimensions and found that contrary to earlier research findings, students in the quantitative business disciplines of accounting, finance, economics, and information systems outperformed other business majors in some categories of creative thinking. Specific recommendations are presented to include training in a greater variety of dimensions of creative thinking in the business curriculum.

Colleges and universities are being asked by numerous sources to provide assurance of learning assessments of their students and programs. Colleges of business have responded by using a plethora of assessment tools, including the Major Field Test in Business. In this article, the authors show that the use of the Major Field Test in Business for assurance of learning purposes is ill advised. First, it provides no direct evidence of student learning. Second, it offers no useful comparative analyses to other business students or institutions. Consequently, it provides no guidance for curriculum or program changes to achieve better learning outcomes. Thus, use of the Major Field Test in Business offers only a pretend solution to the problem of assurance of learning assessment.

In today's complex global environment, business educators need to play a more strategic role in moving the business sector from a compliance orientation to one in which future business leaders are equipped to serve as strong advocates for human rights and every dimension of sustainability (environmental, economic, and social). While much innovative work is underway to embed human rights in business, the author aims to provide business educators with resources to do likewise so that the emergence of a new generation of business leaders may be fostered—leaders who incorporate human rights into their decision making and serve as powerful influencers in establishing an inclusive and sustainable world.

The authors analyzed curricula from all 61 Canadian undergraduate business programs and found that business schools that contain economics departments, business schools with higher mathematics and statistics requirements, and business schools that have received Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business accreditation are more likely to require additional economics courses beyond the standard introductory level microeconomics and macroeconomics. Among those schools that require one or more additional economics courses, managerial economics is the preferred requirement. The authors also found that many specialized business programs, such as human resources, finance, and international management, include either required or optional economics courses beyond those already required in the school's general business degree program. Based on the findings, the authors make recommendations for business school curriculum development.

Despite academia's best efforts there still remains a gap in communication skills desired by business practitioners and those delivered by new graduates. The authors suggest that this may be the result of practitioners demanding outcome-based skills and academia teaching basic non-business-specific fundamentals of communications. An examination of the literature suggested that outcome-motivated skills can be successfully taught, but that comprehensive outcome skills sets do not exist. Thus, the authors conducted a thorough review of the literature to identify those outcome-based communication skills that management experts, leadership theorists, business education professionals, communication skills researchers, and business development writers have stated are in greatest need in business organizations. They conclude with recommendations and implications for business management and education.

A recent Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (2006) task force called for increased interaction between business schools and the business community to identify essential skill sets and help with the curriculum-management process. An information systems curriculum-assessment study solicited input from recent alumni working in the business community who had demonstrated a solid grasp of the curriculum. An analysis of the responses indicates that communications and teamwork skills are perceived as highly important to the business community. Qualitative and statistical analyses show that the business community perceives value in curriculum content that emphasizes managerial and systems development topics and covers technical topics broadly rather than deeply.

The current business environment is awash in vast amounts of data that ongoing transactions continually generate. Leading-edge corporations are using business analytics to achieve competitive advantage. However, educators are not adequately preparing business school students in quantitative methods to meet this challenge. For more than half a century, business schools have relied mostly on a course in calculus and a course in statistics to meet the needs of their students despite an information-based business climate that has changed significantly. The authors propose that educators prepare students in the areas of mathematical modeling and risk management and quantitative skills, teaching them in the context of meaningful business problems.

Constituents often criticize business schools for failing to provide students with a comprehensive understanding of how business organizations function. Business schools have responded to the mandate with attempts to integrate discipline-specific functional knowledge into a coherent understanding of the evolving business organization. Successful integration of the undergraduate business curriculum will result in students who are more directly involved in the learning process and will increase curricular relevance by translating functional knowledge into business skills. However, curriculum integration is an extensive and potentially disruptive curricular change that may involve cost and is fraught with pitfalls. The authors surveyed deans at member schools of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business International to assess the extent to which and the manner in which integration has taken place within the business curriculum.

In this article, the author examines a number of issues in colleges of commerce in their formative period from 1900 to 1930. He discusses 4 areas: content of business curriculum, professional nature of business and business schools, social responsibility of corporate managers, and integration of the business curriculum. Many of the topics are still important today and can arguably be considered persistent themes in colleges of business.

In this study, the authors reviewed the development of Russian business education in the past decade. This development, fueled by historic changes in Russian society, has affected all aspects of business education, including its organizational structures, demand in different business areas, and mode of teaching. In a short period of time, Russian business education has substantially adjusted to new market requirements and transformed itself into one of the most influential parts of the Russian academic community. However, business education in Russia still has many challenging problems inherited from the Soviet-era planning mentality, which emphasized theory at the expense of practical problem solving.

The need to incorporate business and economic data into curricula has been a driver of technology adoption in business schools. Webbased resources and professional data services, such as Reuters and Bloomberg, are being increasingly adopted by business programs to meet this need. There are clear trade-offs to adopting either technological approach. In this article, the author presents examples of incorporating real-time data from professional data services into a variety of business topics.

Legal studies in business has long been relegated to the second tier among fields of business study. With law and business increasingly overlapping and intertwining, the author of this study sought to investigate whether legal studies in business deserves first-tier status among business disciplines. The author discusses the growing importance of law to business, real and perceived rationales for business law's relegated status, and the discovery of a significant shortfall within the discipline. He offers suggestions that may allow the discipline to reach its full promise.

In light of the recent emphasis on accountability, globalization, and technology skills in business education, in this study the authors investigated the effects of a two-part global Internet research project on student learning. They found that students improved significantly in seven business skills and interests, including increased proficiency with foreign market research based on electronic information sources and improved knowledge of doing business in a foreign market. Also, student understanding of international segmentation and targeting based on country or regional parameters was enhanced. Measures of project sophistication and general satisfaction yielded highly encouraging findings. Most students reported increased interest in further study of, or a possible career in, international business.

The business capstone course—often called Business Policy, Business Strategy and Policy, or Strategic Management in many business schools in the United States—usually involves integrative and strategic learning objectives for students. In this article, the authors describe a theoretical foundation, an inquiry process, and an assessment framework for review and evaluation of such business capstone courses. Perspectives from the scholarship of teaching and learning (SOTL) and related concepts guided the authors in stakeholder networking activities. This effort raised assessment issues and questions that might be useful for other faculty members to consider in developing and reviewing capstone experiences for undergraduate business programs.

The internationalization of the business curriculum is a strategic change that business schools must embrace if they are to prepare students for careers in a global business environment. Various approaches to internationalization exist, but they depend on the availability of resources, administrative commitment, and the level of internationalization that the school wants to achieve. In this article, the authors review various aspects of internationalizing a business program and describe the experience of a small private college.

Researchers surveyed 287 business educators regarding the infusion of e-commerce topics such as success factors, government regulation, and protection of intellectual property, into current business education programs at both the secondary and postsecondary levels. The survey also investigated respondents' personal involvment in e-commerce transactions or learning. The findings suggest that e-commerce is not being highly emphasized or integrated into existing business education programs.

To respond to globalization trends that call for a strategic shift in curricula, business schools must possess or acquire the resources to allow for such change. In this study, the authors investigated the institutional characteristics that might motivate a business school to decide to increase its emphasis on international business education. The authors found seven independent variables that were significant in business schools' tendencies to offer international business courses: age of institution, tuition, student/faculty ratio, class size, whether the school is in a state bordering a foreign country, urban versus rural setting, and study-abroad programs.

In this article, the authors provide a comprehensive, practical guide to facilitate the understanding of the issues faced by a business endeavoring to expand into the e-business environment. This presentation should help business educators understand some of the quintessential questions and concerns that a typical business must answer to pursue business on the Web.

As e-commerce increasingly predominates business transactions, Internet-based technologies are becoming pervasive and increasingly customer facing. As a result, integration between IT and business-strategic functions is increasing. This new cross-functional economy requires Renaissance managers and employees who understand this convergence. In this article, the authors examine barriers that business schools must overcome to produce the needed cross-pollinated employees. Suggestions for business schools attempting to create timely and cross-functional business programs are also provided. Business schools should focus on knowledge development and cross-functional integration and largely cede skill-based training to alternative or ancillary venues. As well, they should integrate e-commerce and technology issues throughout the curriculum.

Because the business world is so dynamic, business professors have long sought ways to bring to life the principles and practices discussed in textbooks. Many professors regularly use cases, role-playing, videos, business periodicals, guest speakers, and a variety of other techniques as teaching tools. Because the Internet has the potential for greatly enhancing the classroom experience in a variety of business courses, this article suggests Internet-based resources to enliven the basic international business class through virtual tours of the global business environment.

The mission-linked AACSB accreditation standards suggest the importance of the strategic management process for business schools. The standards also emphasize customer-driven curriculum changes. This article presents an application of strategic management literature for consideration in the strategic management process of business schools. Specifically, the distinction between market-oriented and customer-led strategies is described, and the particular relevance and importance of this for business schools is explained.

Internships provide opportunities for business students to learn about life in the “real world” without the commitment of a full-time position. Although much attention has been directed to the benefits of internships to students, business schools, and employers, there has been little discussion of the legal ramifications. This study examined legal issues that may be of concern to both employers and business schools.

Like the enterprises that hire their graduates, business schools are facing rising pressure to increase the value added by their services. To meet this challenge in an era of tightening resources, business schools will need to undergo fundamental changes in the way they operate and continuously seek ways to create future value. This article explains the balanced scorecard approach to stimulating and sustaining continuous improvement. It also reports the opinions of 38 business school deans on the structure of a potentially useful balanced scorecard for a business school. Favorable results were reported in the for-profit sector, and business schools will likely find this approach to be worthy of serious consideration.

This study addresses the efficiency and effectiveness of email and the Internet as international business communication teaching devices. To examine a business case and discuss its solution, we paired students in a Japanese business English seminar with students in a U.S. business communication class. Results of the project are discussed, as are the project implications for e-mail/Internet-based international business communication teaching and research.

Business educators are being asked to prepare students for a rapidly changing world in which much business content becomes obsolete every few years. How can they prepare students to be lifelong learners capable of facing challenges as yet unspecified? The answer does not lie in a continually changing curriculum, but in one that prepares business graduates to change and to learn the things they need throughout life. An exciting approach to creating such a business graduate focuses on critical thinking skills. This article describes how a critical-thinking-skills approach can be used to teach any business course and illustrates this point with a case study of an advertising principles course.

An innovative approach to course development is introduced that may facilitate the learning process and better prepare students to satisfy the changing needs of their future employers. The uniqueness of this method lies in the refocusing of basic business concepts. For years, functional area emphasis has been construed as the most efficient method to teach introductory business concepts to all business majors. This article suggests that a stakeholder approach could assist learning while meeting goals proposed by accrediting agencies and the general public.

This study cluster analyzed U.S. business schools along strategic dimensions related to program offerings, student body diversity, and administrative approach. The resultant strategic groups and significant movements among them between 1988 and 1993 were evaluated in light of the critical transitions that have taken place in the business school environment.

This study explores the importance of business policy as a capstone course and examines the role of individual differences and satisfaction with a business game as a learning tool. Results produced through the use of a business game by business policy students at a large southwestern university indicate that students use what they learn in a business policy course. Individual locus of control, need for achievement, and risk propensity were associated with satisfaction with the game as a learning tool. Results also support relationships among group consensus, satisfaction with the group, and team performance. Implications are discussed regarding the use of business games as instructional tools and the role of business policy as a capstone course.

Corporations and universities are engaged in a wide variety of cooperative exchanges, activities, and research with both positive and negative effects. Increasingly, both parties are embracing attitudes and practices typically associated with the other. There is evidence that some of the fundamental value differences that distinguish business from education have become blurred. In this article, we explore some of these value differences, and we argue that the developing interrelationships have both problematic and positive implications. If business education is to continue to develop tomorrow's business leaders, universities and their business schools need to retain a meaningful degree of autonomy and provide a place where orthodox and unorthodox ideas can be freely discussed.

This article uses Michael Porter's “five forces model” to assess the state of competition in the Canadian university-based business school industry. This analysis indicates that Canada's business schools are becoming increasingly vulnerable to competitive pressures and that their competitive fitness is dependent on an agenda of strategic reorientation. Specific susceptibilities and strategic options for dealing with them are discussed.

This article discusses how business schools can be more entrepreneurial. We believe that the revised accreditation standards of the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) reflect a marketplace for business school products and resources that has become much more competitive. Therefore, we argue that institutions that continually assess the value they create and develop the mechanisms and mentality to accommodate continuous change will have the best chances for long-term survival and growth. The observations and recommendations of this article are based on our own and other authors' experiences with the fundamental problems facing business schools in the process of program and curricular change.

A description of a new delivery system for entrepreneurship education is presented in which traditional graduate classroom experience is combined with professional executive development programs. This pedagogy was applied to a course in graduate entrepreneurship open to both graduate students and the business community. Students observed, interviewed, documented, researched, and diagnosed the problems of clients from the Small Business Development Center. Then they formally presented their findings and recommendations to the client, the class, and a panel of evaluators. The findings suggest that this instructional model is useful to graduate students interested in gaining consulting experience, professionals seeking skill development in consulting, small business clients looking for university-based assistance in finetuning their businesses, and experienced consultants who recognize a way to share their expertise.

This study reports the findings of an investigation of MBAs and their views on the teaching of business ethics. The author found that tomorrow's business leaders believe that there are ethical standards that should be followed in business but that current ethical standards do not meet society's needs adequately. Moreover, although most respondents indicated that they can determine what constitutes ethical and unethical behavior, there was widespread agreement among students about whether business ethics should be taught as a required course in business schools.

More than three decades have passed since the last major revision of the business curriculum. Since then, corporate restructuring, industry downsizing, growth of small-business opportunities, and business and government “reinvention” have taken place. Business curricula have also been undergoing reexamination. In this article, we analyze the current state of affairs and offer recommendations for a cross-functional curriculum that provides the foundation students need for career success.

Environmental concerns have been incorporated into policies and regulations that have a profound impact on business and on the need for environmentally oriented business managers. Leading U.S. business schools were surveyed regarding implementation of environmental topics and programs in the curriculum. Results show that business education curriculum has incorporated programs to prepare future managers in environmental awareness.

Our purpose in this research was (a) to determine whether the business communications course, a traditionally important required core course for college and university business graduates, continues to be perceived as a highly valued component of the core business courses and (b) to assess its perceived level of difficulty and instructional effectiveness. The results of this research suggest that business communications is the most important course of all core business courses. Though perceived to be the easiest, it is also perceived to have more effective instruction than five of the other core business courses. Therefore, if changes are forthcoming in the core business curriculum as a result of the recent AACSB accreditation standards, the business communications course should certainly continue to be an integral part of the core.

Business graduates must have effective skills in communication, and constraints in education require that efficient teaching strategies be used. Business communication as a process, not just a product, requires a variety of skills—the ability to use the language effectively, to analyze a reader's situation and needs, and to persuade the reader to adopt the writer's point of view. This study sought to find correlations between business communication course grades and courses in English, marketing, and psychology. Although none of the correlation statistics was higher than .45, the results suggest the following for the business communication course: principles from personal selling should be incorporated; English composition serves as a satisfactory prerequisite; rhetorical writing in English appears to bear only minor similarity to rhetorical writing in business; and more collaboration between English and business teachers could enhance business students' communication competencies.

A three-round Delphi process was used to gather perceptions about what major actions have the potential to influence positively the direction of business teacher education and how important those major actions are. The reliable collective judgments of 21 nationally prominent business teacher education experts were used to identify 21 major actions with consequential potential and 40 other actions with lesser potential to influence the future of business teacher education. These actions were grouped through factor analysis into nine factors, of which four—Redirection of the Discipline, Configuration of the Curriculum, Ideals of the Discipline, and Enhancement of the Discipline—should be given highest priority by the business education community.

Since the mid-1980s, many U.S. businesses have had to come to grips with the total quality management movement. For some reason this movement had escaped the awareness of most business schools until the early 1990s. This study, based upon a survey of U.S. business school deans, attempts to determine what organizational, faculty development, and curricular changes business schools have made as a result of this movement. The results show that a few business schools have moved forward rapidly on the TQM front, but the vast majority are in a wait-and-see, exploratory, or experimental mode.

The purpose of this study was to provide information about the use of technology in Indiana business education classrooms. This information will enable business teacher educators, administrators, state board personnel, and business education professional organizations to evaluate current programs and to encourage and/or implement any necessary changes in preservice and inservice training opportunities. The findings indicate that approximately 25% of the teachers are not using technology at all and about 37% are integrating software programs into existing courses. Computers are not used extensively to teach business content, nor are they used to manage instruction. There was not a strong desire for additional computer-related training of any kind. The emphasis on computer applications rather than on using the computer to teach business content continues a trend identified earlier by other studies in other regions and states.

In collegiate schools of business, the environmental dimension of management education currently enjoys about the same level of acknowledgment that the international dimension did in the 1960s. The need to extend curricula to incorporate environmental studies is already recognized in the business community. Evidence is mounting that business schools will soon be addressing the environmental dimension of management decisions in a comprehensive institutionalized manner. Recent developments in this latest example of curricular evolution are documented.

(1987). The Legal Environment of Small Business: A New Emphasis. Journal of Education for Business: Vol. 63, No. 2, pp. 64-67.