MBA Makeovers: A Marketing Ploy or True Innovation?

“It’s deeper than a course curriculum. It’s time for business schools to take culture as seriously as the great firms do. That’s beyond the curriculum and forces you to think about your school’s norms and values. What do you stand for as an institution?”

As we move into an era of business where governments are increasingly involved, there is yet another shortcoming in MBA curricula that mustn’t be ignored: the role of government. To help fill this gap, Wharton’s new curriculum includes a significant increase in its microeconomics and statistics content to help students understand risk, markets, and the role of government when markets fall short.

ENRICHING THE STUDENT EXPERIENCE.

The changes to MBA programs aren’t just industry-driven. Some program changes reflect the student experience also. At the University of Virginia, the Darden School restructured its first-year curriculum schedule in order to execute a more integrated program, rather than just focus on the curriculum.

“There are so many things students want to do,’’ Senior Associate Dean for Degree Programs Robert Carraway said in a statement about the revised curriculum.. “We want to help integrate those activities with the curriculum to maximize the benefit, recognizing that students experience Darden as far more than just what goes on in the classroom.’’

Gardial of the MBA Roundtable calls Darden’s approach a blurring of curricular and co-curricular. “We used to think that it’s all about what goes on inside the classroom and whatever happened outside of the classroom was icing on the cake; but it’s very important.”

To this end, some schools are revising their MBA curricula to run parallel with extracurricular clubs, social activities, and recruiting events, focusing on a holistic MBA experience rather than just the classroom experience. In fact, at schools where deans run into strong, entrenched faculty resistant to change, some of the most significant reform can only occur outside the classroom.

One of the most successful of these change efforts was the University of Chicago’s Leadership Effectiveness and Development (LEAD) program many years ago. The only required “course” at Chicago’s Booth, LEAD is taken by all first-year MBA students before the start of the regular school year. The program includes three days at an outdoor leadership resort in Lake Geneva, Wis., executive coaching, team dynamics sessions, role playing, and presentation skill training, It is largely led not by faculty but by trained second-year students and staff.

GIVING STUDENTS MORE CONTROL.

In enriching the student experience, B-schools are also making special efforts to customize the experience. For MBAs, this means increased flexibility and diverse course options so they can tailor program offerings to fit individual career goals. Wharton’s news release announcing its new curriculum includes Dean Robertson’s acknowledgement that MBA students seek the upper hand in shaping their education.

“Our research shows that this generation of business leaders wants greater control over educational choices, continued exposure to peers with deep, global experience and more opportunity in their academic experience to self-analyze and self-reflect,” said Wharton’s dean.

STILL MARKETING.

At the end of the day, MBA curricular changes still have much to do with wooing and courting potential applicants. In this same regard, there is—of course—the ever-present 800 pound gorilla also known as the rankings. Whether they’re viewed favorably or unfavorably, b-school school rankings matter and they play a significant role in the way business schools operate and market themselves.

In the case of UVA’s Darden School, BusinessWeek recently ranked the school #1 for student satisfaction. In discussing the reason for Darden’s curriculum review, Dean Robert Bruner notes that he wants to make sure his school remains at the top. “Innovation is crucially important for schools and we’re investing a lot for program innovation. Not that I thought something was broken, it’s because I want to make sure we hold on to that #1 ranking.”

PREPARING FUTURE LEADERS.

Ultimately, this is what it’s all about; preparing MBA students to lead. While it’s easy to make case studies out of the 2008-2009 financial crisis and to dissect the lessons learned, true curricular innovation reflects a readiness for crises that are to come.

The secret to successful curricular innovation seems to be to remain loyal to the true fabric of the institution while identifying and capitalizing off of what Haas’s Rich Lyons calls “useful differentness.”

Put differently, the schools that do it best are those that are able to produce an MBA product that is distinct and can deliver graduates who are prepared to lead effectively.