商學院思考重組MBA核心課程

While building Lego skyscrapers is not usually on the MBA agenda, students at Fairfield University’s Dolan School of Business in Connecticut will break out the bricks this autumn as part of efforts to promote cross-disciplinary learning. But while projects such as this can prompt students to think in different ways, a tougher challenge is breaking down silos in the teaching of the core curriculum.

儘管建造樂高(Lego)摩天大樓通常不是MBA的議程，但美國康涅狄格州費爾菲爾德大學杜蘭商學院(Fairfield University’s Dolan School of Business)的學生們將在今年秋季打破陳規，作爲推動跨學科學習的努力的一部分。然而，儘管此類項目可以促使學生們以不同角度思考問題，但更爲嚴峻的挑戰在於打破核心課程教學中的“豎井”。

Since 1950, when management writer Peter Drucker published a Fortune article, “The Graduate Business School”, questioning whether management education institutions had successfully established their purpose, academics, deans and administrators have worried whether the MBA reflects the evolving realities of business. Now, some are questioning the relevance of the traditional MBA, with its core curriculum serving up a carefully packaged menu of disciplines such as accounting, finance, marketing, human resources and operations management.

1950年，管理作家彼得•德魯克(Peter Drucker)在《財富》(Fortune)雜誌上發表了《研究生商學院》(The Graduate Business School)一文，質疑管理教育機構是否成功實現了其目的。自那以來，學者、院長和管理機構擔心MBA是否反映了日新月異的商業現實。現在，一些人質疑傳統MBA是否與現實脫節，其核心課程提供了精心打包的學科組合，比如會計、金融、市場營銷、人力資源和運營管理。

The trouble is that in today’s business world, roles no longer fit these neat functional packages. As geographic borders continue to erode, managers need to handle an increasingly diverse range of issues – from climate change to cyber terrorism.

麻煩在於，在當今商業世界中，這些純粹的職能性教學已無法再滿足職位需求。隨着地理邊界持續消失，經理們需要處理從氣候變化到網絡恐怖主義等日益多樣化的問題。

“The world’s challenges are not siloed,” says Peter Boatwright, marketing professor at the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, which last year launched an Integrated Innovation Institute of which Prof Boatwright is co-director.

美國匹茲堡卡內基梅隆大學泰珀商學院(Tepper School at Carnegie Mellon University)市場營銷學教授彼得•博特賴特(Peter Boatwright)表示：“世界的挑戰不是豎井結構的。”泰珀商學院去年創辦了一個“融合創新研究所”(Integrated Innovation Institute)，博特賴特擔任聯席主任。

In the days when most students left campus to take up traditional positions in large corporations, the core curriculum line-up made sense. However, students now seek jobs from a far wider range of postgraduate options, from start-ups to healthcare systems and social enterprises.

在大多數學生畢業後去大企業擔任傳統職務的時期，核心課程組合是有意義的。然而，現在的學生在畢業後有了更廣泛的就業選擇，從初創企業到醫療體系和社會企業。

“More and more students are interested in starting their own business and in social entrepreneurship, where some of the problems – like health and the environment – don’t fit into neat little boxes,” says Dan LeClair, executive vice-president and chief operating officer at AACSB International, the accreditation body.

認證機構國際商學院聯合會(AACSB International)執行副總裁兼首席運營官丹•勒克萊爾(Dan LeClair)表示：“越來越多的學生有意自己創業和加入社會企業，其中有些問題，比如健康和環境，根本不是豎井教學所能解決的。”

“Students aren’t stepping into a functional role,” says Olav Sorenson, director of the core curriculum at Yale School of Management, whose integrated curriculum focuses on business decisions and complex systems. “They are stepping into a situation where they have to address problems that span multiple parts of the organisation.”

耶魯大學管理學院(Yale School of Management)核心課程主管奧拉夫•索倫森(Olav Sorenson)表示：“學生們當前進入的不是職能性崗位。他們面臨的形勢是必須解決牽涉組織內部不同部門的問題。”耶魯大學管理學院的融合課程聚焦於商業決策和複雜體系。

A changing economy also means executives must take on additional roles. “There’s economic pressures post-recession,” says Nigel Peters, managing partner at Alium Partners, a search company that provides senior interim executives to its clients. “Companies have to do more with less – and that means multiskilling.”

不斷變化的經濟形勢也意味着高管們必須擔任額外角色。Alium Partners管理合夥人奈傑爾•比德斯(Nigel Peters)表示：“衰退之後經濟壓力加大。企業不得不少花錢多辦事，而這意味着必須掌握多種技能。”Alium Partners是一家爲其客戶提供臨時高管的獵頭公司。

The question for schools is how to respond. Some are adding new, non-traditional business experiences as electives or one-off programmes.

商學院的問題在於如何就此作出迴應。一些商學院增加新的非傳統性商業案例作爲選修課程或者一次性項目。

The Lego project at Dolan School of Business is one example, as is the recent staging by England’s Warwick Business School of Shakespeare’s As You Like It, designed to expose students to complex decision-taking and creative thinking.

杜蘭商學院的樂高項目就是一個例子，英格蘭的華威商學院(Warwick Business School)最近上演的莎士比亞(Shakespeare)劇作《皆大歡喜》(As You Like It)也是如此，該舞臺劇旨在讓學生們接觸到複雜的決策和創造性思維。

Another approach is to form partnerships with other schools on campus to offer joint degrees or to create new cross-disciplinary institutions. At Carnegie Mellon University, the Integrated Innovation Institute brings together the Tepper School of Business, its College of Engineering and its School of Design.

另一種方法是與校內其他學院建立合作關係，提供聯合學位或者創建新的跨學科機構。在卡內基梅隆大學，“融合創新研究所”讓泰珀商學院、工程學院(College of Engineering)和設計學院(School of Design)聯合起來。

At Yale, the approach has been to design core courses that, rather than focusing on functions, are built around the different responsibilities executives might take up, whether customer facing or operational. Within each course, the first half covers basic business tools with the second covering how a particular function connects to areas such as accounting, information systems, strategy or organisational design.

在耶魯大學，方法是圍繞高管可能承擔的不同責任（無論是面對客戶還是運營方面）、而不是致力於職能設計核心課程。在每門課程中，前半部分涵蓋基本商業工具，後半部分涵蓋特定職能如何與會計、信息體系、戰略或組織設計等學科聯繫起來。

The idea, says Prof Sorenson, is “to help the students see how all those pieces connect”.

索倫森表示，這種想法是“幫助學生們理解如何將所有這些學科聯繫在一起”。

In introducing an integrated curriculum, Yale’s relatively small size made it easier for faculty to collaborate, he says. The school also reduced class sizes for a period of time after launching the programme.

他說，耶魯推出了規模相對較小的融合課程，這更便於該大學教職工彼此協作。耶魯還在推出該項目之後的一段時間內縮小了班級規模。

For many schools, however, reshaping the core curriculum will be tough in the face of the tenure system, the time pressures of teaching and an academic environment in which expertise is highly specialised.

然而，對許多學院來說，面對終身聘任制、教學的時間壓力和高度專業化的學術環境，重塑核心課程將會很難。

“Much of the research done by business faculty is defined by a function or silo,” says Mr LeClair. “That makes it more challenging for schools to repackage the curriculum.”

勒克萊爾表示：“商學院教職員工做的許多研究都有職能性或豎井的特徵。這爲商學院重新打包課程帶來了更大的挑戰。”

Even at Yale, the transformation was significant. “You’re talking about taking the entire core curriculum of a school – which in an MBA programme is typically 50 per cent of the teaching – and completely reorganising it,” says Prof Sorenson. “That’s a massive shift.”

即便在耶魯大學，轉變也是巨大的。索倫森表示：“你們談論的是拿走商學院的整個核心課程（在一個MBA項目中，這通常佔到教學的50%）開刀，對其進行徹底重組。這是一個巨大的轉變。”

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So why should schools make the investment? Part of the answer lies in increased competition because of the growing availability of commoditised business knowledge and the rise of massive open online courses (Moocs).

那麼商學院爲何要進行這種投資？部分答案在於，隨着商業知識日益商品化和大型網絡公開課(Massive Open Online Courses,簡稱Moocs)的興起，商學院之間的競爭也在加劇。

Mr LeClair points to the “unbundling” taking place in higher education, largely driven by Moocs. “Students can take more control of putting together their own curriculum by picking courses at multiple institutions,” he says.

勒克萊爾指出，高等教育出現了“分類計價”，這在很大程度上歸功於大型網絡公開課的興起。他說：“學生們可以在多個院校選課，從而更有能力整合自己的課程。”

And if business education is becoming a commodity, schools will have to work increasingly hard to justify their high price tags and the opportunity cost of a full-time MBA.

如果商業教育成爲一種商品，商學院將不得不日益加大努力，證明攻讀全職MBA的高價和機會成本是物有所值的。

“To the extent that the MBA is a standardised product, as with any industry, you start to worry about competition from low-cost providers,” says Prof Sorenson. “So increasingly we’re going to see schools trying to differentiate themselves.”

索倫森表示：“既然MBA是一種標準化產品，那麼和任何行業一樣，你開始擔心來自低成本提供者的競爭。因此我們將會逐漸看到商學院努力顯得與衆不同。”

Integrating the curriculum is one way of doing this, particularly given the growing appetite for courses that feature innovation.

融合課程是實現這種目的的一種方法，尤其是考慮到人們對以創新爲特徵的課程的興趣日益增長。

“Innovation occurs at the intersection of different perspectives,” says Mr LeClair. “When you break down silos both within the business school and with other schools on campus, you create opportunities for new ideas – that’s a particularly important benefit in the long term.”

勒克萊爾表示：“創新產生於不同觀點的互動中。當你打破商學院內部以及商學院和其他院系的豎井的時候，你爲新思想創造了機會，這尤其有利於長遠發展。”