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Business Process Management Journal Reengineering the undergraduate business core curriculum: aligning business schools with business for improved performance Kenton B. Walker, Ervin L. Black,

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Article information: To cite this document: Kenton B. Walker, Ervin L. Black, (2000) "Reengineering the undergraduate business core curriculum: aligning business schools with business for improved performance", Business Process Management Journal, Vol. 6 Issue: 3, pp.194-213, https://doi.org/10.1108/14637150010313366 Permanent link to this document: https://doi.org/10.1108/14637150010313366 Downloaded on: 17 February 2019, At: 21:50 (PT) References: this document contains references to 28 other documents. To copy this document: [email protected] The fulltext of this document has been downloaded 2674 times since 2006*

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Reengineering the undergraduate business core curriculum: aligning business schools with business for improved performance Kenton B. Walker

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University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming, USA and

Ervin L. Black

University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas, USA Keywords BPR, Business schools, Process management, Undergraduates Abstract Presents and supports a process-centered model of undergraduate business education for the core business curriculum and business school management, consistent with the trend toward process-managed organizations. This model conforms to calls from the public, academic community, and business leaders for improved performance of business faculties and educational institutions and increased capabilities in business school graduates. Outlines five business process courses for the business core curriculum. Benefits of this approach include providing a framework for formulating and implementing a strategy for developing the business curriculum and elimination of redundancy in the coverage of topical material. In addition, the process approach provides a vehicle for the development of interdisciplinary faculty, encourages attention to the need to change, and provides a basis for aligning faculty and institutional reward systems.

Business Process Management Journal, Vol. 6 No. 3, 2000, pp. 194-213. # MCB University Press, 1463-7154

Introduction The purpose of this paper is to present and support a process-centered model of business education, consistent with the trend toward process-managed organizations (Martinsons, 1995). We discuss how a process-oriented curriculum can provide a broader and more integrated educational experience for business students, conforming to recommendations from the academic community and demands by business leaders for increased capabilities in business school graduates. In addition, this proposal addresses some of the problems faced by business schools and faculties identified in the AACSB Faculty Leadership Task Force Report (1996). These problems include lack of alignment between business faculty skills and the rapidly changing needs of business, a linear, disciplinary focus to business education, and faculty reward systems that are inconsistent with those of their institutions. Business education has been subjected to considerable scrutiny and experimentation since the late 1980s as business school enrollments dropped. Porter and McKibbin (1988) report that most undergraduate business programs follow a pedagogical model developed decades ago. As a result, these schools do a disservice to students and employers by continuing to teach business functions as discrete activities (Chronicle of Higher Education, 1984; Byrne,

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1993; Harvard Business Review, 1992). More recently, Stover et al. (1997) relate Aligning the need to ``break down the silos'' in business education by integrating business schools traditional courses in the business curriculum. These views underscore the need for business schools to adopt structures that are responsive and flexible, as their employer-customers have to succeed in a competitive environment. During the past decade, business process reengineering (BPR), or process 195 management, concepts have been widely applied in the business world to achieve efficiency and effectiveness and to be customer-oriented. The application of BPR in the context of higher education is a more recent phenomenon (Porter, 1993; Olson, 1993). Many academic leaders have publicly recognized the challenges confronting business education that are parallel to those confronting much of Corporate America (Harvard Business Review, 1992; Witt, 1994; AACSB, 1996, 1998). Rapid changes in business organizations to improve efficiency and effectiveness place pressure on schools of business to operate in a similar fashion (Davis and Mehta, 1997). Although many individuals are investigating and implementing new technologies to radically change the classroom, pedagogical tools, and instructional delivery to reengineer the teaching and learning process, much work remains to achieve significant efficiency and effectiveness benefits (Olson, 1993). In order to solve these problems, there needs to be a central theme to integrate the activities and management of business schools in a realistic fashion. This paper presents a framework for integrating elements of the core business curriculum and administration of business faculty based on the concept of business processes. This approach permits business students to learn how each of the business disciplines contributes to the important activities of an organization. In addition, the process-based approach provides for more effective management of business school resources. In the remainder of this paper we present a foundation for an alternative approach to organizing, delivering, and managing business education. The concept of business process is explained and related to business education. We provide an outline for a process-centered business core curriculum, and discuss challenges to and advantages of the process approach. A brief history of the organization and management of work To understand the future of business education, we need to review the past. The structure and management of work in most organizations today can be traced to Adam Smith's principle of the division of labor, described in The Wealth of Nations (Smith, 1776). In this book, Smith described how the fragmentation of labor, applied in a pin factory, could yield huge improvements in worker productivity and lower costs. Following this example, American companies became the best in the world at translating Smith's organizing principles into the workplace. Henry Ford and Alfred Sloan are notable in their success at applying the division of labor to developing the assembly line at the Ford Motor Company and to management at General Motors. This model is still prevalent today in all types of organizations.

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The dominant approach to business education is patterned after the Harvard University model of a core (Nelson, 1990). The theory behind the model is that knowledge should be compartmentalized into courses; courses are integrated into the core; and cores are combined into curricula. Business schools are typically organized into functional departments of accounting, finance, marketing, management, and so forth, under the assumption that the delivery of business education can be best accomplished by dividing the effort according to areas of specialty. Cheney (1989) criticized this approach for its lack of interdisciplinary core courses. Dividing work into more pieces was a successful approach to managing the workplace for generations. However, changes in the business environment have caused many to rethink this approach (for example, see Seeley, 1994). Among the changes in the business environment are: (1) a customer revolution in demand for variety, change, speed, and response to increased world-wide buying power; (2) advances in technology creating a substitution of knowledge for capital; (3) a global reorganization of economies and changing paradigms about competition; and (4) ``complete competence'', in a broad sense, is needed at more levels (firms and individuals). Bennigson (1996) argues that the functional divisions created within organizations contribute to perceived contradictions in goals and internal competition that result in confusion, wasted energy, and squandered strategic capital. These ``Balkanized'' organizations (an analogy to conditions in the Balkans characterized by conflicts over boundaries, beliefs, and history), with their hierarchical values and functional silos, are not able to respond to a marketplace that demands flexibility and customer responsiveness. This characterization may also be applied to business schools, which have similar hierarchical values and functional silos. Business processes Efforts to improve organizational performance by changing how the flow of work is managed have led to development of the management technique commonly known as business process reengineering (BPR) (Teng et al., 1996). BPR entails a fundamental rethinking of all aspects of an organization and its activities. BPR defines organizations in terms of a system of business processes and critically examines the processes to identify opportunities for improvement. These reviews often show that organizations can significantly improve performance by redesigning the way processes operate. For example, both production and advertising functions contribute to launching a new product. The management of these groups via physical contact and/or information sharing will affect the success of a new product initiative. In the remainder of this section we define

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process, provide examples of processes, illustrate differences between functional Aligning and process-managed organizations, discuss how processes may be identified, business schools and consider implications of the process perspective for business education. Process must be well understood to be able to apply it in a business, business school, or to develop a process-centered business curriculum. Hammer and Champy (1993) define business process as ``a collection of activities that 197 takes one or more kinds of input and creates an output that is of value to the customer''. Davenport (1993) states that process ``implies a strong emphasis on how work is done within an organization, in contrast to a product focus's emphasis on what.'' This definition is concerned with ordering or structure of work. Processes should be evaluated against process goals, not department or function goals, because most key processes cut across functional boundaries (Rummler and Brache, 1995). Processes can be evaluated in terms of usefulness, consistency, defect rates, and many other measures. Organizations are only as effective as are their processes (Hammer, 1996). Traditional business organizations and business schools take a vertical perspective on the structure and management of work. The outputs of each business function are regarded as discreet. Consistent with the writings of Adam Smith, this structure supports the view that the performance of organizations is maximized by focusing attention on the efficiency and effectiveness of each department. However, functional optimization often does not lead to organizational optimization and is not consistent with the idea of integrated processes (Hammer and Champy, 1993; Davenport, 1993; Rummler and Brache, 1995). As a result, colleges of business may be successful at graduating competent accountants, marketers, and financiers, but not in developing good business graduates (Harvard Business Review, 1992). Rummler and Brache (1995) contend that organizations produce their outputs through a variety of cross-functional work processes such as product development, sales, and manufacturing. For example, the sales and collection process might begin with a telephone order placed by a customer, and end with the deposit of cash. This process might involve personnel from sales, production, purchasing, and finance. The success of the process depends on managing the process participants as an integrated unit. However, traditional organizations use a functional organization chart and measurement system to manage employees and their activities. The purpose of an organization chart is to show which people are grouped together and their reporting relationships. Accounting performance measures, financial control systems, and career paths designed around the organization chart do not encourage behavior patterns consistent with cross-functional efforts. Figure 1 shows a functional organization chart overlaid by a horizontal view of the actual flow of work and relationships between suppliers and customers outside the organization. Management does not give explicit recognition on the chart to the cross-functional relationships, i.e. there is no organizational unit responsible for this collection of activities and there are not likely to be important employee and managerial performance measures.

Figure 1. A process view of a functional organization Designs

Suppliers

Materials

Plant #2

Plant #1

Source: Adapted from Rummler and Brache (1995) p. 8.

Product Development

Product Specifications

Research

Manufacturing

Orders

Products

New Product Ideas

Sales

Customers

Orders

Marketing

Promotions

Needs

Marketing & Sales

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Research & Development

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Figure 2 is a generic model of three high-level processes found in almost all organizations: (1) acquisition of resources and payment; (2) conversion/service provision; and (3) acquisition of customers and the collection of revenue.

Cash

Facilities Resources

Goods/Services Resources

Receive Cash

Market/Sell Goods & Services

Build Product/ Provide Service

Pay Cash

Hire & Use Employees

Marketing/Sales & Collection Process

Conversion Process

Resource Acquisition Process

Customers

Vendors

Employees

Investors & Creditors

Acquire Financing

Financial Instruments

Purchase Resources

Concerned Parties

Basic Activities

Resources Required

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Figure 2. A generic process model of organizations

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In addition, the diagram shows component relationships between process activities, resources used, and internal/external parties to the processes. Within each of these processes there may be a myriad sub-processes. In some instances, a process may be interdisciplinary, such as the resource acquisition process, or they may correspond closely with a particular function such as manufacturing or accounting. Most often, primary organizational outputs from processes and management responsibility are not aligned with the functional disciplines we teach in business schools. There are four primary considerations in defining a process. First, how broadly (or narrowly) does one wish to define the outputs of the organization? Second, how complex and manageable is an identified process (if one is too complex it may need to be split into two or more processes)? Third, how different are the information requirements for a group of activities that might constitute a process (for example, human and capital resource acquisition processes are generally separated for this reason)? Finally, how significant is the process to organizational performance, that is, does it need close monitoring? Over time, some processes may be combined while others may be explicitly recognized. Figure 3 shows an organization chart for a four-process organization. The resource acquisition process is shown as two processes because of significantly different skill and information requirements between physical and human resource activities. Examples are given of functional skills/sub-processes required for each process. Note that fewer cross-functional activities are involved with human resources than for the conversion process. As in business, business schools focused their efforts on education within a department or course (the individual tasks) instead of on the few basic outputs of most business organizations (and business schools). Consequently, business education has not provided a broad, integrating, or realistic experience in the business curriculum and the organization structure of business schools does not support efforts to meet the demands of modern business organizations (Harvard Business Review, 1992). These problems may be overcome by recognizing two primary processes within a business school: (1) the traditional process to produce graduates with specialized, functional training; and (2) a process to teach process and the interdependencies of organizational functions before students undertake advanced coursework in their chosen discipline. The second objective may be accomplished by creating multidisciplinary teams, separate from functional departments, to deliver core business education that describes important cross-functional business processes. Challenges to change in higher education Porter (1993), applying a strict definition of process reengineering, argues that BPR will never be applied to higher education in the foreseeable future and

Managing Financial Resources

Evaluating Project Proposals

Functional Skills/Sub-Processes ♦Capital Budgeting ♦Cash Planning ♦Investment Management ♦Cash Flow Management ♦Fixed Asset Accounting ♦ROI Analysis ♦Project Audits ♦Financial Reporting

Relating to Shareholders and Creditors

Process Owner Capital Resources Acquisition

Training

Paying Employees

Functional Skills/Sub-Processes ♦Manpower Planning ♦Budgeting ♦Recruiting/Selection ♦Training ♦Employee Relations ♦Compensation Administration ♦Payroll Accounting ♦Performance Appraisal ♦Reporting

Recruiting

Process Owner Human Resources Acquisition

CEO

Producing

Paying Vendors

Functional Skills/Sub-Processes ♦Production Planning ♦Manpower Planning ♦Budgeting ♦Cost Accounting ♦Production Scheduling ♦Engineering ♦Inventory Control ♦Accounts Payable ♦Production Reporting

Purchasing

Process Owner Conversion/Service Delivery

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Selling

Collecting Cash

Functional Skills/Sub-Processes ♦Volume Planning & Pricing ♦Budgeting ♦Manpower Planning ♦Advertising ♦Sales Management ♦Shipping/Delivery Tracking ♦Sales Mix/Revenue Analysis ♦Customer Relations/Credit ♦Reporting

Communicating with Customers

Process Owner Marketing/Sales/Collection

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Figure 3. A process-based organization chart

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further states that it should not be applied. His argument for this position is that it will not occur because no one wants fundamental changes in teaching and research, and administrative process redesign in higher education should not be attempted because there is no demonstrated need, benefit, or support for such an effort. Olson (1993) counters that years of reduced budgets, increased costs, and demands for new and improved services coupled with advances in technology require that we do things differently. The AACSB Faculty Leadership Task Force Report (1996) identified a number of problems facing business schools and faculty leadership that support the need for significant changes during the coming years. These problems are summarized by a fundamental lack of alignment between faculty skills with the rapidly changing needs of business. This condition presents significant barriers to implementing a process-based business curriculum and organization. During the last two decades, business practice has changed dramatically (for example, just-in-time (JIT), total quality management (TQM), reengineering, customer satisfaction, complete competence, cycle-time reduction, flat organizations, workforce diversity, and so forth). While business school and faculty competencies also have advanced, the gap between practice and academic teaching and research has widened (AACSB Faculty Leadership Task Force Report, 1996). The reasons for this widening gap, according to the report, include: (1) lack of interaction between faculty and business; (2) changing technologies; (3) delays in incorporating modern business practices in textbooks and other teaching materials; (4) an aging, change-resistant faculty; and (5) a fundamental mismatch between faculty performance measures and objectives of colleges of business to produce graduates attractive to employers and trained to solve practical business problems. An outline of a process-centered business curriculum The basic components of our concept of a process-centered undergraduate business curriculum consist of courses concerned with business strategy, core business processes, and discipline-specific courses[1]. It should be noted that advanced courses required for a major in a specific business discipline are not necessarily changed by the business process approach. After the processcentered business core courses, these specific discipline or major courses (marketing, management, accounting, finance, operations management, and so forth) can be taught in a traditional approach or through an integrated approach; for example, Brigham Young University's accounting curriculum. The following lists provide topical outlines for four process-oriented courses designed to replace the traditional business core curriculum, otherwise known as the common body of knowledge.

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Topical outline for an acquisition of capital resources process course: Financial economic theory. Short-term financial planning and management. Long-term financial planning and management. Financial markets. Risk and return. Cost of capital. Valuation of future cash flows: Developing pro-forma cash flow budgets. Net present value analysis. Internal rate of return. Capital budgeting. Mergers and acquisitions. Fixed asset accounting. Long-term liability accounting. Tax effects and implications. Strategic location decisions: Environmental issues. Legal issues. International issues. Logistical issues. Economy of scale issues. Topical outline for a human resources acquisition process course: Macro/micro aspects of labor markets. Wage structures. Employment law. Manpower planning. Hiring. Training. Organizing. Compensation. Tax issues in compensation. HR/payroll systems. Payroll accounting. Evaluating productivity and behavior. Terminating/retiring employees.

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Topical outline for a conversion/service process course: Managing the conversion/service process. Research and development of new products. Economics of industrial organizations. Market research: Customer satisfaction. Demand forecasting. Materials management. Just-in-time systems. Production planning and scheduling. Cost-volume-profit analysis. Budgeting. Product costing. Inventory accounting. Total quality management. Statistical process control. Production/service information systems. Transportation and distribution. Process management. Ethical issues. Environmental issues. Topical outline for a sales/collection/customer service process course: Concepts in supply/demand. Market elasticity. Market behavior/competition. Strategic planning for marketing products. Analyzing markets and consumer behavior. Analyzing competitors. Sales forecasting and budgeting. Pricing/pricing strategy. Advertising programs. Sales performance monitoring. Marketing/sales information systems. Revenue accounting. Customer service.

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These courses are linked through a series of business cases which are used in Aligning each of the process courses. By doing this, the students are able to examine the business schools business processes within different types of companies and in different situations. For example, students examine manufacturing and service companies which are in growth and mature stages. The material for the courses is taught within the framework of the business process and its relation to a ``real-world'' situation. These four courses represent the basic processes found 205 in most organizations and serve to link the contributions of each business discipline in achieving the broad business objectives of acquiring resources, converting them into products and services, and selling to customers. The list below provides a topical outline for a course about the performance measurement and management process. This course is concerned with how processes interface to achieve the strategy of an organization. Although some might argue that many of these topics should be incorporated into the other business process courses, we recommend that a separate course is necessary for two reasons. First, shareholders in publicly-traded companies represent an important group of customers that are not considered in the other business processes. Second, performance measurement and management can be a complex undertaking that requires a variety of measures from many sources to be evaluated and balanced in order to achieve strategy. An alternative arrangement to this course is to consider internal performance measurement issues in the process courses. This would involve taking much of the material commonly found in the cost/managerial portion of principles of accounting and parceling it out mainly to the course concerned with the conversion process. External financial reporting issues could then be addressed in a separate course. Topical outline for an organizational performance measurement and management course: Customer satisfaction. Process measurement and performance standards. Statistical process control. Quality assurance/quality control. Concepts in efficiency and effectiveness. Performance models. Budgets. Financial reports and audits: Financial ratio analysis. Needs of external stakeholders. Balanced scorecard reporting. Behavioral aspects of performance measurement. Integrating financial and process measures. Performance management ± linking measures to goals and strategies.

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Courses in business strategy should provide a cornerstone, prior to the business process courses, and a capstone experience at the end of a student's education, following the major discipline courses. One common approach to teaching strategy, which fits well with the process-based curriculum, is the contingency perspective. This view holds that strategy is effectively determined through a process of ``fitting'' environmental factors (competition, consumer behavior, government regulations, and so forth) with organizational capabilities, largely determined by the effectiveness (or ineffectiveness) of business processes. A strategy course presented from this point of view permits discussion of how elements (subprocesses) of business processes, considered in light of contextual factors, impact on the development of strategy. Benefits of the process approach for improved performance There are at least three categories of benefits of adopting the process approach for business education. The first group is related to the curriculum development process. The process orientation provides a basis for formulating and implementing a viable strategy for the business curriculum. Process is a vehicle for truly cross-functional thinking. Faculty members who are trained in specialized fields tend to interpret learning objectives from the perspective of their specialty. The process view helps overcome this limitation. It also provides a framework for long-term efforts to develop the curriculum and undertake other departmental and college-wide partnerships with organizations designed to improve performance. This approach can also help faculty define what is to be accomplished by a business program, traditional functional specialists or graduates with better understanding of crossfunctional activities. A process-based curriculum also may serve to attract students and employers and provide a source of competitive advantage for an institution's business programs. The second group of benefits is derived from an effective, efficient educational process. The process approach delivers to students an integrated understanding of how businesses function from an organizational instead of a functional perspective. This is accomplished by presenting the study of business as a series of integrated activities instead of largely independent functions. The process courses help identify and eliminate undesirable redundancies in the coverage of topical material because the process courses force communication and cooperation between faculty of different disciplines when the courses are developed. For example, chapters concerned with financial statement ratios can be found in accounting, finance, and marketing textbooks. Discussions of pricing and cost-volume-profit analysis are found in accounting and marketing texts. Finally, there are organizational benefits to this approach. Process requires that ownership of these courses be shifted from the faculty at large to interdisciplinary process teams. Here, functional concerns and opportunities for delivery of business education services are expressed in the context of

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business process. This arrangement fosters the cross-functional cooperation Aligning among faculty that is already occurring in business to bring about dramatic business schools improvements in performance. Benefits to business schools of interdisciplinary efforts include faculty becoming involved in teaching outside their traditional discipline and acquiring multidisciplinary capabilities[2]. As a result these individuals become more aware of personal benefits of change. They have the 207 opportunity to increase their value to their institution and other prospective employers. Development of broad business faculty is consistent with the efforts of many PhD programs to improve customer satisfaction (AACSB, 1996). Figure 4 illustrates three dimensions of a process managed core business curriculum. The core curricula of most business schools focus primarily on only two dimensions, functional knowledge and skills. This view is not consistent with cross-functional, process-managed organizations (Harvard Business Review, 1992). The functional dimension is retained in this model because it is so ingrained in organizations of all types that it seems unrealistic to eliminate it, and because business continues to need individuals with specialized training (Rummler and Brache, 1995). This curriculum structure includes interdisciplinary teams to teach process courses in addition to function-based faculty to deliver discipline-specific courses needed for a major area of study. Clear customer (process)-supplier (functions) relationships and priorities for delivering business education are established by the process model. Encouraged to address the needs of customer-employers in structuring y,

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Integrative Theme Business Processes (Use one or more process integrators such as business strategy, information systems, communications technology, process technology, change management, business environment, or the like

Figure 4. The three dimensions of business education

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business education programs, opportunities arise to revise the faculty reward system to make it more congruent with the college. New measures of faculty performance are suggested such as participation in and publication of interdisciplinary and practical research projects, development of alliances with businesses, and participation in faculty internship programs. Faculty performance evaluation systems must be able to recognize and reward faculty who become involved in time-consuming activities that help to provide a higher quality educational experience for students and benefit the institution. Examples of these activities include course and curriculum development, more written and oral communications assignments, and student recruitment and retention efforts. In addition, faculty reward systems need to consider group as well as individual measures of teaching/learning performance because business education is largely a cooperative, not an individual, effort. Problems and solutions to achieve a business process-oriented undergraduate core curriculum There are a number of obstacles to implementing a business process approach to the undergraduate business curriculum, but the obstacles can be overcome. Two principal problems are faculty resistance to change and the financial costs of change. Other problems include a culture and reward system that does not support innovation or customer service in the delivery of business education, a lack of teaching materials to support a process perspective, and a number of administrative issues. Solutions to the problems may be found in strong academic leaders (deans and department chairs) and a critical mass of faculty from different disciplines willing to invest their time to develop and deliver an integrated core business curriculum. Faculty resistance to change is the foremost obstacle to changing the undergraduate curriculum. Faculty view courses as ends in themselves rather than means to an end because they serve a diverse student population and support multiple programs. Courses also tend to take on characteristics of ``personal property'' because they exist in isolation with only a few faculty directly involved. Many faculty believe that the content and delivery of basic business education should not be altered, including changing teaching schedules from other than two or three days per week for 50 or 75 minutes. The solution to these problems may be found in creating a separate organizational unit, reporting to the dean, responsible for the undergraduate core business curriculum. This is similar to the approach taken by the University of Denver to integrate the MBA program. Some faculty are vehemently opposed to teaching, or having others teach, outside their area of expertise or to undergoing retraining. However, instructors in junior/community colleges frequently are not terminally qualified but regularly teach courses in multiple disciplines for which students receive credit at four-year institutions of higher learning. We suggest that colleges of business should expect at least a portion of their faculty to possess the same

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broad-based understanding of basic business that faculties (and labor markets) Aligning expect of our students. This view is consistent with the position reported in business schools AACSB Newsline (AACSB, 1996) that ``if faculty members don't know how to think about business as integrated relationships, then students won't learn how to, either''. Not all faculty need to teach the business core[2]. Converting the undergraduate business core curriculum to a process 209 perspective can be expensive. Some of the costs that may be encountered include: (1) summer support to plan the curriculum; (2) release time for faculty to prepare in new areas of teaching and to pilot test process courses; (3) faculty training in new teaching methods and techniques; and (4) ongoing costs of additional faculty if courses are team taught or if smaller class sizes are desired. Some of these costs may be reduced if faculty workload assignments are weighted more heavily toward teaching. The University of Idaho, which implemented an undergraduate integrated core curriculum encountered many of these problems. There were high up-front costs in terms of time to the faculty members involved. They were able to overcome many of these problems by allowing some course releases and rewarding faculty for their efforts with additional summer support. The initial implementation entails the highest cost; however, these costs decrease over time as the faculty learn their new roles and expectations are adjusted. A third problem is the faculty reward system. The traditional faculty reward system is fundamentally misaligned with customers of business schools (e.g. employers and students). Correctly aligned incentives for faculty, departments, colleges, and their customers promote behavior congruent with institutional objectives (to serve customers). Business departments and colleges of business are evaluated based on criteria such as quality of relations with alumni and employers, success of fund raising efforts, and placement of graduates, to name a few. Business faculties are primarily concerned with student evaluations of teaching and publication output. However, student evaluations of teaching address only the quality of the process, not the product (output) (Abrami et al., 1990). In addition, the greatest rewards for publications are often those appearing in specialized academic journals not widely read in the business community. Customers of business education programs complain that new managers are not being trained broadly and rigorously enough for the high technology, high risk international marketplace and that much of the research coming from business schools lacks relevance to real business problems (AACSB, 1996). There are few incentives for faculty to engage in activities outside traditional academic research that is frequently the most important criterion for tenure and promotion decisions and pay increases. New faculty with recent business experience are often well-suited for this undertaking. However, they are

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discouraged from participating because their research may suffer. Administrative support, monetary incentives, release time, and new job descriptions that include a significant curriculum development component are effective ways to overcome this obstacle. There are limited teaching materials to provide basic business education consistent with a process view. It is possible to use traditional textbooks by selecting chapters or portions of chapters to fit the process model. Another recent innovation is the ability to obtain customized textbooks from publishers who are willing to take chapters from various different textbooks to form a customized text. Instructors must have a good understanding of business process concepts in order to effectively link topics from different textbooks, so students learn business as a series of integrated functional efforts. We have discussed development of process-based teaching materials with some major publishers, and we are cautiously optimistic that some will be available in the next few years. Finally, there are some administrative issues concerning faculty and students in integrated courses that involve multiple faculty participants. These problems include measurement of teaching loads, responsibility for student evaluations, transfer credits into and out of the college, service needs to other colleges within the university, the perception and reception of a new paradigm outside the university, and others as yet unidentified. Conclusions: why business schools must adopt the process view We must adopt a process view in business education for at least three reasons. The first reason is because it reflects what business is doing. Just as business schools patterned themselves after business organizations and practices in the past, they should now look to evolving methods and structures designed to meet the challenges faced by today's businesses. There are many documented examples of organizations, including American Standard, Ford, Xerox, GTE, Chrysler, Shell Chemical, and Taco Bell, that have turned to process management techniques to improve organizational performance. Garvin (1995) provides an excellent report on the benefits, and difficulties, of the process perspective in a discussion with senior executives from four diverse industries (Xerox, USAA, SmithKline Beecham, and Pepsi) facing a wide range of competitive challenges. The observations by these executives about processes and process management are very similar including the value of this approach to achieve congruence among strategic direction, organizational design, staff capabilities, and the processes used to ensure that people work together to meet company goals. Business schools face similar challenges to encourage faculty to work together to provide business education that is responsive to the demands of their customers. Business faculties expect their graduates to possess a broadbased understanding of business and to be able to succeed in twenty-first century organizations. It is now time for faculties of business schools to have extensive knowledge about reengineered organizations and to apply what is

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being taught. The effort is already under way. Geiger and Dangerfield (1997) Aligning identified ten schools of business that have, or are developing, ``reengineered'' business schools undergraduate programs[3,4]. Second, developments in modern information technology (IT) demand that process management concepts be implemented, so businesses (and business schools) can reap the benefits of efficiency, flexibility, and customer 211 responsiveness. These characteristics are commonly associated with ``flat'' organizations. Flat organizations have few levels, are organized around customers or processes instead of departments or functions, and their employees know the business, think for the whole firm, and act like owners when they serve the customer. Flat organizations require employees to possess broad business skills in addition to technical competence. True process management and flattening of the organizational hierarchy was not possible until the past decade because old IT could only support the command-and-control structure embodied in the traditional organization chart. The goals, outputs, and performance of organizations are not focused on what occurs in a particular department. However, stand-alone information systems were developed to support information requirements and monitor performance on a departmental or functional basis. This situation contributed to organizational conflicts over implementation of strategy and allocation of resources. New IT permits simultaneous access to information from diverse locations and by different functional groups. Rather than regarding the activities such as producing accounting reports, developing marketing plans, or scheduling the production operation as discreet outputs, the information system can be used to view each of these efforts as merely tasks that contribute to interdisciplinary processes designed to satisfy a customer and generate a profit. Finally, the process management approach provides the opportunity for business managers, faculty, and students to understand the variables that impact on organizational and individual performance. A lack of perspective on what factors impact performance is a significant gap in business education and on the management of business schools. Most business education programs include a capstone policy course intended to provide an integrative view of the functions within a business. However, this is frequently a case of too little, too late. For business faculty, a reward system based on student evaluations of teaching and publication output ignores the basic responsibilities of business schools to their student and employer customers. The process perspective needs to be introduced early in the business curriculum and within the business faculty to ensure that process is indeed paramount to function in business education as it is in business. Notes 1. Several schools have integrated MBA programs (for example, the University of Tennessee, Babson College, and the University of Denver). The University of Tennessee integrates accounting, finance, marketing, operations, and human resources in the context of teamoriented, real-world crises and solutions. Schlesinger (1996) describes the MBA program at Babson. Accounting, marketing, finance, organizational effectiveness, and microeconomics

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are integrated via team teaching or by reference to topics covered by other faculty members. The University of Denver integrated its MBA program in part by having students take part in real-time, profit-oriented business experiments outside the classroom. The integrative efforts included restructuring the college of business around customers instead of functions. 2. This may be of particular benefit to larger colleges and programs in which there are many faculty in a particular discipline and they are less likely to teach outside their area of training. In addition, faculty from other disciplines would interact more and be more likely to do multidisciplinary research. However, highly specialized faculty are often not qualified to build and teach in interdisciplinary programs. 3. The University of Idaho, and Ft Lewis College (Colorado) have committed to large integrated classes of ten or more credits that teach multiple elements of the disciplines to all juniors. The University of Massachusetts at Lowell, does the same thing but only for honors students. The University of Colorado at Boulder, integrates introductions to accounting, finance, management, marketing, and information systems in two six-hour courses. Northern Illinois University offers a nine-hour, junior-level management/ marketing/finance/operations management course. Pennsylvania State University, Brigham Young University, and the University of Illinois (Champaign-Urbana) are using coordinating mechanisms and private sector influences to integrate material across disciplines. The University of Central Florida relies on cases to link standard three- and four-credit introductory business courses. Worcester Polytechnic Institute employs three major writing projects, worth about 21 semester hours, to create the equivalent of an integrated curriculum experience. There was no mention of the approach taken by Pacific Lutheran University. 4. Efforts to integrate the core business curricula are in progress at Western Carolina University (WCU), Fairfield University, Valparaiso University, and the University of Virginia. WCU structured a single, three-semester course meeting six hours per week, producing a total of 18 semester hours of credit. This course relies on experiential learning techniques, team-based learning, and is team taught (see Carland et al., 1997). Fairfield University integrates business policies, organizational behavior, finance, marketing, production operations, and international business into three four-hour courses. In addition, they added an information systems component for this team-oriented, interdisciplinary, experiential, project-driven program. Valparaiso University integrates accounting, finance, management and organizational behavior, marketing, management information systems, and qualitative aspects of production operations management into a one-semester, 12-hour course. The course is team taught by five professors, at least two of whom are present at all times. The McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia, is using a block scheduling approach to core business courses. Students register for a schedule of classes instead of single courses. The purpose of this approach is to foster cooperation and teamwork between functional areas through coordinated scheduling, sequencing, and syllabuses. References AACSB (1996), ``Remaking doctoral education: the missing link to customer satisfaction?'' AACSB Newsline, Vol. 26 No. 4, pp. 1-6. AACSB (1998), ``Excerpts from the 1998 annual meeting address of Joseph A. Alutto, 1996-98 AACSB President'', AACSB Newsline, Vol. 28 No. 4, pp. 10-12. AACSB Faculty Leadership Task Force Report (1996), AACSB, St Louis, MO. Abrami, P., d'Apollonia, S. and Cohen, P. (1990), ``Validity of student ratings of instruction: what we know and what we don't'', Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol. 82 No. 2, pp. 219-31. Bennigson, L.A. (1996), ``Our Balkanized organizations'', Strategy & Leadership, March/April, pp. 38-41.

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Byrne, J. (1993), ``Harvard b-school: an American institution in need of reform'', Business Week, 19 July, pp. 58-65. Carland, J.C., Carland, J.W. and Higgs, R. (1997), ``Innovative education in an integrated business core curriculum: an experiential learning paradigm'', Working paper, Western Carolina University College of Business. Cheney, L.V. (1989), ``Excerpts from the chairman's recent report on a proposed core curriculum for colleges and universities'', Humanities, Vol. 10 No. 6, pp. 4-7. Chronicle of Higher Education (1984), ``The new report on excellence in undergraduate education'', 24 October, pp. 35-51. Davenport, T. (1993), Process Innovation, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA. Davis, J. and Mehta, K.T. (1997), ``Reengineering a school of business of the future: a mission/ vision model for higher education in tranformational times'', SAM Advanced Management Journal, Spring, pp. 8-15. Garvin, D.A. (1995), ``Leveraging processes for strategic advantage'', Harvard Business Review, September-October, pp. 77-90. Geiger, J.J. and Dangerfield, B.J. (1997), ``An analysis of integrated curriculum models in US colleges of business'', Proceedings of the Decision Sciences Institute Annual Meeting, November. Hammer, M. (1996), Beyond Reengineering, HarperBusiness, New York, NY. Hammer, M. and Champy, J. (1993), Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution, HarperBusiness, New York, NY. Harvard Business Review (1992), ``MBA: is the traditional model doomed?'', November-December, pp. 128-40. Martinsons, M.G. (1995), ``Radical process innovation using information technology: the theory, the practice and the future of reengineering'', International Journal of Information Management, Vol. 15 No. 4, pp. 253-69. Nelson, C. (1990), ``Harvard's hollow `core''', The Atlantic Monthly, September, pp. 70-80. Olson, M. (1993), ``We must apply the principles of business process reengineering in higher education'', Cause/Effect, Winter, p. 54. Porter, J. (1993), ``Business reengineering in higher education: promise and reality'', Cause/Effect, Winter, pp. 48-53. Porter, L.W. and McKibbin, L.E. (1988), Management Education and Development: Drift or Thrust into the 21st Century?, McGraw-Hill, New York, NY. Rummler, G. and Brache, A. (1995), Improving Performance, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA. Schlesinger, P. (1996), ``Teaching and evaluation in an integrated curriculum'', Journal of Management Education, Vol. 20 No. 4, pp. 479-99. Seeley, C. (1994), ``Want to read up on reengineering? A reengineering bibliography'', Target, Vol. 10 No. 2, pp. 25-7. Smith, A. (1776), The Wealth of Nations. Stover, D., Morris, J., Pharr, S., Reyes, M. and Byers, C. (1997), ``Breaking down the silos: attaining an integrated business common core'', American Business Review, Vol. XV No. 2, pp. 1-11. Teng, J.T.C, Grover, V. and Fielder, K.D. (1996), ``Developing strategic perspectives on business process reengineering: from process reconfiguration to organizational change'', Omega, International Journal of Management Science, Vol. 24 No. 3, pp. 271-94. Witt, R.E. (1994), ``Reengineering the MBA'', Directors and Boards, Fall, pp. 43-5.

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