The courses at top MBA schools have been overhauled to reflect the changed business landscape. New-economy case studies are now de rigueur, and the number of specialized classes in high tech, e-business and telecom is growing. Harvard Business School now offers 32 electives in these areas; Wharton has 37 courses in its e-commerce track; and MIT's Sloan School of Management offers 43 new-economy courses. "Everyone in corporate America has an Internet strategy," says Phil Anderson, associate professor at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. "MBAs have to learn how to operate in a connected world."
In their efforts to keep up with the accelerating pace of change, many schools are shortening the development cycle of classes in cutting-edge subjects. The old curriculum was geared to the slower rhythms of the old economy, and content gathered dust as it was recycled year after year. Today's MBA students don't want to pay for ancient history lessons. One-third of Harvard's case studies are newly written each year, often gathered from its California Research Center on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park. In August, Wharton will break ground on Wharton West, a case-study research center and executive MBA campus close to Silicon Valley.
B-school curriculum has also grown much more entrepreneurial, reflecting the deep impact the last wave of Internet startups had on the business world. Last year, Harvard changed the title of one of its mandatory first-year courses from "General Management" to "The Entrepreneurial Manager." London Business School reports that 90 percent of its MBA students now take at least one entrepreneurial elective.
Keeping up with rapid change is nothing new for b-schools. Business education as we know it can be traced back to the founding of the Wharton School in 1881. The titans of the industrial revolution elevated management to a science to produce the next generation of business leaders. The science reached its peak in the 1960s and 1970s, when "strategic planning" swept through corporate America. As business fashions changed, schools changed with them, churning out managers who spoke the right language for the times.
The latest transformation is nearly complete. Sanity may have returned to business schools, but there's no going back to the way things were before the Internet. The dot-com meltdown has shown companies that the embattled new economy urgently needs leaders trained in old-economy fundamentals such as cash flow, return on investment - and profits. For their part, b-schools say they are ready to answer the call.
Des Dearlove and Stuart Crainer are the authors of MBA Planet and Gravy Training.
