A recent study on MBA syllabi conducted by the Graduate Business Curriculum Roundtable reveals that nine out of ten programs surveyed necessitate that all participants fulfill study modules in marketing, strategy, and finance.
The syllabi within a typical MBA course are subject to periodic changes, a fact that business schools need to prepare for, as corroborated by the majority of B-schools in the fresh survey. Most confirm that they are well-equipped for this.
MBA Programs
The Graduate Business Curriculum Roundtable, previously known as the MBA Roundtable, disclosed its biennial survey earlier this month, covering close to 100 international B-schools with nearly 600 postgraduate business programs catering to scores of students.
The survey results indicate that a majority of schools have procedures concerning curriculum modifications, with a third necessitating regular reviews and a quarter enforcing revisions triennially or every five years.
However, the survey delves further, probing into the actual content of these MBA syllabi and what they exclude. The GBC Roundtable discovered that for the majority of B-schools surveyed, the core curriculum constitutes more than half of a student’s journey in the program, typically demanding instruction in nine study domains.
The most prevalent areas include marketing, strategy, and finance, with 9 out of 10 programs mandating students to finish a course of instruction before graduating. Other fundamental areas encompass operations management, required by 73% of programs, followed by management-accounting (69%), and finance-accounting (65%).
FOLLOWING THE MBA, A MASTER’S IN ACCOUNTING IS THE NEXT MOST COMMON DEGREE OFFERED The GBC Roundtable is a global consortium with a mission to boost postgraduate business education via curricular and co-curricular innovations.
The organization defines curriculum as the all-encompassing content delivered within the formal courses and other required learning experiences, including the structure of those courses, their sequence, as well as co-curricular activities in your graduate degree program(s). The GBC Roundtable authorized an online curriculum survey of graduate business schools between February 1 and March 21, 2023, and released its new report, The Graduate Business Education Curriculum Survey, on May 15.
Within the report, over 200 postgraduate business programs at 99 B-schools divulge information about the curriculum for 110 MBA and 97 business master’s and Ph.D./DBA programs, representing 36% of programs at the B-schools. The institutions cater to more than 68,000 enrolled students with 581 postgraduate business degree programs and 4,901 full-time equivalent faculty. The median student-to-faculty ratio at these postgraduate programs is 16 to 1.
Among the findings, the MBA degree “remains the most prevalent type of postgraduate business program offered by business schools,” as per the GBC Roundtable. “Nine out of ten (93%) schools offer an MBA degree in this year’s survey, a proportion similar to that in 2021. A master’s in accounting (61%) is the next most common degree at business schools, followed by business analytics (39%), finance (35%), and Ph.D. (32%).”
60% OF SCHOOLS REVAMP CURRICULA EVERY 3-5 YEARS OR CONTINUOUSLY Among the nine other pivotal findings in the GBC Roundtable’s report is that four out of five B-schools, or 82%, have a policy concerning curriculum amendments for degree-granting programs: 36% necessitate an ongoing review of the curriculum and 24% mandate revisions every 3 to 5 years. More than a quarter —
Read Full Findings At:Poetsandquants.com
