business and marketing colleges

business and marketing colleges

The Evolution of Business and Marketing Education in Colleges

1. Introduction to Business and Marketing Education

What began as a means of facilitating business transactions via word of mouth, drawing of signs, by mark, by letter, and by a specialized language has developed into publication, visual and auditory messaging, monetary facilitation, spatial institution visibility, and general business oversight and guidance. Most presently, people have found a science to it, and several disciplines within it to both study the market system mechanism and to incorporate a greater sense of its application and impact into the curriculum within our colleges.

Business and marketing education is an ever-evolving program in colleges around the world. The evolution of the field is shaped and changed by political, corporate, academic, sociocultural, demographic, and technological influences. Business recognition and understanding had its beginning in Europe during the time of the fall of ancient Greece and the downfall of the Roman Empire, a specialized division of societal labor based on the exchange of products facilitated by traveling merchants.

2. Historical Development of Business and Marketing Colleges

The impact of market forces on the college business and marketing education areas, while less pervasive than in some other areas of the collegiate scene, has been marked by its play on the college commerce institution. The vast growth of numbers of undergraduates during the fifties and sixties deflected faculties and administrations alike from the rigorous refinement of the body of knowledge necessary for a well-disciplined curriculum. Yet despite the national emphasis on undergraduate student numbers, the number of colleges decreased as many institutions decided the increased costs warranted increased per-credit expenditures. With opinion in support of more relevance shown by academia as well as industry, college business programs have had to make response to regional, national, and even international concerns regarding their mission and their product, the student offspring. The current success of colleges and the depth of social concern, government involvement, and business activism make this the most opportune time in a quarter century to review the undergraduate business and marketing education dimension.

The institutions for the formal education of businessmen and marketing officials have been of relatively recent origin, an outgrowth of the characteristics of the business field itself. The rapid development of large-scale business establishments in the United States in the past one-half to two-thirds of a century prompted the establishment of such formal courses and contributed to the establishment of major instructional academic units. The next decade saw additional academic and faculty expansion; a continuing review of the body of knowledge considered in college business area was accelerated; accrediting agencies were strengthened; several new professional and graduate degree programs were added; opportunities to take colleges were increased; funding formulas recognizing the high costs of contemporary business and marketing education were adopted; and detailed occupational outlook studies were conducted. The result of this period of curricular revisions and increased alumni need recognition produced colleges that were relevant, rigorous, and professionally respected.

3. Curriculum and Specializations in Modern Business and Marketing Programs

Regional schools tend to incorporate many of the interests most significant to the area into a number of technical courses. For example, prominent areas of specialization in a business college curriculum in the southeastern United States tend to be in bank management and engineering management. In regional colleges, interest in small business or medium business development could become an area of specialization or at least a discipline within the management infrastructure. Sales management will become more commercialized, hyper-agglomerated, more external, and more community-specific. Specialty courses and curriculum related to sales in schools such as engineering, forestry, architecture, and city planning are needed in the technical disciplines within colleges of business, planning, economics, and commerce. It seems now that business management disciplines are establishing themselves in colleges of business in three ways. They establish themselves as fields for in-depth study in the M.B.A. Programs, in the Ph.D. Programs, and in the research centers in some colleges of business. Prominence should grow in schools in socially oriented universities, in urban universities, and in large state land-grant universities. Specialization in different forms of management is made necessary by the changing characteristics of management in the large corporation as it meets the demands of a plural society.

All business programs in colleges and universities have followed the natural evolution of organization and administration. Business programs in earlier centuries dealt mainly with providing employees for the government in the form of writers and mathematicians. Business training in the mid-nineteenth century included four or five major disciplines. The most significant features of the nineteenth-century plan were training in the techniques of commercial arithmetic, penmanship, and punctuation. With the advent of the modern industrial age, business sought specialized knowledge, training, and skills in order to compete favorably. The basis for this shift is found in the more centralized, controlled, broader corporate entity of today. The shift from the entrepreneurial aspect of business management must be mirrored in business education, and this thesis focuses on two emerging areas of business education. Areas of management specialization such as operations research, purchasing, and personnel reflect this trend. In time, there will be curricula modifications in marketing, financial management, and business administration in which varied management interests are advanced.

4. Industry Partnerships and Experiential Learning Opportunities

In many of these cases of expanded partnerships between higher education institutions and the business community, corporations are also assuming leadership roles in the learning process. Mentorship initiatives, corporate-sponsored competitions, grant funding, company site visits and tours, and ‘professor-in-residence’ programs leverage corporate perspectives and experiences to supplement classroom learning. Companies located in close proximity to business schools are a ready source for business leaders to speak in classes and provide support in other experiential learning initiatives. Guest speakers are especially enriching if they can create excitement about next-generation opportunities that don’t yet exist. Both instructor and student experience are enriched through interaction with company representatives and the added knowledge that the company partnership signals improved chances for student placement, increased job opportunities, and pipeline-building potential.

Perhaps the most significant advancement in business education to surface in the last decade lies in the rekindled relationship many academic programs have with the local and regional business community and the increased level and variety of experiential learning opportunities that programs offer. Tailored internships and cooperative education programs, faculty-led student consulting projects, student-run investment funds, business plan competitions, and service-learning initiatives abound, and demand for these activities continues to grow as students become more focused on their career development. Moreover, integrating real-world experiences into the curriculum has not diminished the importance of internships; rather, program directors are better at recognizing and capitalizing on these experiences for all involved. Companies, industry associations, and institutions are forming partnerships to increase student preparedness, enhance workplace readiness, and help shape the learning process.

5. Future Trends and Innovations in Business and Marketing Education

Barriers arose with respect to business and marketing education in both universities and colleges. These include historical, moral attitudes, business faculty, expediency, philanthropy, and accreditation. With changes likely to occur in our business, society, and colleges, the barriers should be removed. Since it has been noted that the study of business has been a concern throughout recorded history, it should continue to have an important place in higher education. The colleges serve public needs; if the needs are there, why should not colleges teach the students totality? They teach the English and foreign languages, the history, mathematics, science, psychiatry, and other subjects for which there is public demand. One role of higher education is to help people achieve their own goals, and this certainly includes economic success. Higher education has recognized that there is more to life than simply existence. That is why colleges should be free to discuss the entire range and variety of human living.

As indicated earlier, the Latin or Roman period emphasized training in oratory and rhetoric, and the study of logic and grammar. Medieval higher education focused on theology, with education in schools such as Oxford and Cambridge provided mainly by serving as clerical training centers. The primary emphasis of the scholastics was the search for methodological ways to rationalize religious revelation. In spite of the fact that the ultimate emphasis was religious, there began to be some recognition of the interaction of church and society. When there was contact with the Saracens, Westerners became aware of the possibility of personal gain and of general economic welfare.