New (And Old) Directions In Business Education
As I complete my 20th year at Washburn University and more than three decades in the “business education” business, I am reminded of the many innovations that have occurred, while also thinking that many of the things we do every day haven’t changed much.
This dichotomy raises an important question for all business schools: Where can we best add value as we move forward and not lose focus on what we do best? Let me share my thoughts.
STAYING TRUE TO SOME BASICS.
What we teach in many core courses hasn’t changed much in decades. Why? Because it remains part of business practice and foundational concepts every student needs to learn. Let’s call them “the business verities.”
The simple demand/supply model included in Alfred Marshall’s 1890 textbook is still taught as an understanding of market forces and is a key to economic understanding. Sure, accounting rules and tax laws change over time, but the fundamentals of the accounting equation remain constant — your value is still what you own minus what you owe.
The same is true of the time value of money we teach in finance, the “four Ps” in marketing, the planning, organizing, leading, and controlling functions of management, and the importance of strategic understanding in business decision-making.
Yes, to someone who learned these ideas years ago, they might seem simple or old-fashioned, but guess what — new students haven’t mastered these concepts academically or in the school of hard knocks. This foundation-level knowledge is key, and it is a central focus of our curriculum.
CONTINUED EMPHASIS ON THE ENTREPRENEURIAL MINDSET.
Almost every large, successful business organization has its roots in someone’s garage, bedroom office, or around the kitchen table. From Apple to UPS, it took people who wanted to do something new and different and try to solve a problem or make the world a better place.
We offer all Washburn students the opportunity to pitch business and social innovation ideas, help them develop their business plans, and even provide some seed money so that they can take the next step in the journey.
Teaching the entrepreneurial mindset and process may not pay off immediately, but it has the potential for innovation and progress. We really have no choice but to think about new things, as nothing can be taken for granted.
Twenty years ago, Payless, Westar, and Hill’s were firmly planted as major corporate players in Topeka. Over time, their footprint has disappeared or been reduced substantially.
Fortunately, newer companies, such as Advisors Excel, or reimagined companies, such as Security Benefit, continue to grow and prosper based on new thinking about providing their customers with a better product.
TECHNOLOGY.
Technology is constantly disrupting the status quo. We have all lived through the communications and social community transformations of the last two decades and sometimes take for granted the progress that has been made. Heck, we get frustrated when it takes a couple of seconds to load a web page on our phones!
In the business context, we see a larger and more complex evolution — all that collected data is being processed to aid in decisions; manual business processes that used to demand hours of time are now done with a few lines of code and a push of a keyboard button.
We still don’t know for sure where artificial intelligence will take us as consumers or producers, but rest assured, it is going to change the landscape significantly. We continue to refine our technology-focused courses and make changes to our curriculum so that our students have some understanding (and in some cases mastery) of some of these new technologies. More importantly, students learn that being ready to adopt new technologies in the future will be an important part of their success.
NEW ACRONYMS AND TOPICS.
Every so often, a new concept or emphasis is floated that we must address. Taking our lead from the business world, our faculty critically study things like Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG), Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI), and Sustainability and share them with our students.
We don’t know the following: Will something like ESG be relevant a decade from now? I would argue that we don’t know yet.
Go back and look at the business verities I mentioned previously. They have stood the test of time. Other things, such as the importance of ethics in a business context, seem to cycle in and out of emphasis, usually driven by massive public malfeasance of some sort. Many new concepts wash up on the shore, and then they are mostly swept away again with the next high tide. The shore, however, is never the same again.
ENGAGING SOCIETY AND MEASURING IMPACT.
Our school is accredited by AACSB, the world’s oldest and most prestigious business accreditation body. About once a decade, AACSB updates not only the details of its various standards aimed at high quality and continuous improvement, but it usually suggests a new direction for business schools to explore.
In 2020, the new direction was to identify some key societal areas where we would strive to make an impact, develop metrics to measure accomplishment of related goals, and then measure impact over time.
With approximately 700 AACSB business schools worldwide, the hope is that collectively we could better demonstrate how we impact the world in which we live. Some world-renowned schools are placing their major focus on some pretty lofty goals — things like ending poverty and securing clean drinking water.
At Washburn, our ambitions are more focused on our local region. We believe we can impact “our society” through the following:
Provide skilled, work-ready graduates who can fill the jobs in our growing community.
Be a leader in Washburn’s campus-wide goal of being a place where “first-generation” college students can thrive, provide scholarship aid to help our students as we can, and provide many special opportunities for our students to get hands-on experiences.
Utilize our faculty, students, and Washburn University Small Business Development Center to engage with the Greater Topeka Partnership, the Topeka Community Foundation, and many local and regional businesses and not-for-profit organizations to enhance the region’s economic vitality.
Build on our outstanding record of being a diverse and welcoming school for any student who wants to succeed and encouraging our students to adopt a global mindset.
We want to accomplish some big things over the next few years. We will continually update the curriculum, replace retiring faculty members, retain our AACSB accreditation, search for new ways to assist with the financial needs of our students, and finally, complete something that has been a dream for many years — a complete renovation of the Henderson Building on the Washburn campus so that we can better teach students for years to come. Lots of change!
Our focus, however, will continue to be our mission, which says we will provide “knowledge and personalized experiences to engage students who will enhance the economic vitality of businesses in the region and beyond.” In a world of change, some things remain constant.
DAVID L. SOLLARS | Dean and Professor | Washburn University School of Business
