MBA programs are changing just as much as the professions that they service. Tom Kennedy, director of MBA program and assistant professor of business administration at Delaware Valley College, says there are several major challenges that have forced the change.
“A lot of people have MBAs that were used to enter into investment banking and consulting careers, and the economic collapse has created a lot of questions about our curriculum,” Kennedy says. “Another challenge we face is that a lot of people are recruiting people without MBAs because they’re concerned about trying to retain them. Some people even think an MBA is a waste of parchment. Many people are starting to worry that the business school professors are more concerned with theory than with practical application.”
Smart Business spoke with Kennedy about how MBA programs have adapted to face these new challenges.
What steps can MBA programs take to meet the current challenges?
We need to revitalize our curriculums to make them more practical in application. We have to rely on the professors reworking their curriculum and syllabi to reflect that.
That’s important, because customers are requiring a shorter learning curve.
The cost of business today requires that, if executives hire you to join their business, they are expecting you to be able to jump right in and start helping the business right away.
The training cycles have been shortened. Businesses expect people with an MBA to be able to integrate into their company and think very quickly about big-picture implications, whether it’s in finance, accounting, marketing or operations. That’s the essence of a generalist MBA degree. Because of your education, you can break down those silos of business and look for the strategic solution the corporation is searching for.
In the graduate division and MBA programs, we are constantly looking at ways we can meet the market’s needs quicker, be more flexible and produce a real, value-added curriculum based on practical applications.
The academic world can be remarkably flexible. Graduate schools are evolving all the time. You’re going to see much more integrated curriculums going forward.
We’re at a crossroads, too, just like the organizations that we serve.
The final component is the ever-increasing awareness and need for getting the students out in the global marketplace. As companies become more global in their perspective and operations, MBA programs need to reflect this.
