Time to Change the Focus of Business Education

In spite of every indication that organizational decision making often involves an integrated perspective of the functional areas of business, many business-school curricula produce functional-area majors who do not have a grasp of the overall business context. Our accounting programs produce great accountants. Our marketing programs produce great marketers. But ask an accounting student about consumer behavior, or ask a marketing student about internal rate of return, and too often the reply will be, "That's not my area." If medical schools took the same approach, a cardiologist couldn't help a choking victim and a urologist couldn't perform CPR. We need to change our focus. I believe we academics share the blame with corporate recruiters for this situation. We are often too busy to change our approach to business education, and corporate recruiters tend to recruit functional-area specialists. (An obvious exception to this, of course, is the consulting company that recruits the "best and brightest" that it can attract, regardless of major.) We need to transform the undergraduate business curriculum in a way that focuses on what business needs people to do, not what they are hired to be. That is, business schools need to focus on successful business behaviors, not being a particular business major. Let's imagine a business curriculum that focuses on what successful business people are able to do, rather than a curriculum that is based on exposure to accounting, finance, marketing and so forth. What behaviors might we include? These come to my mind:

Imagine how our students might be perceived by industry or graduate schools if they were known for proficiency in these behaviors, regardless of their major.