1 Liberal Arts And Management Education: Re-emphasizing The Link For The 21^st Century by Philip Bobko and Manuel J. Tejeda

Our analysis re-emphasizes the importance of joining liberal arts content with business education. We realize that many business schools have moved in the direction of increasing a focus on such knowledge bases, and feel that it is so crucial that further motivation in this direction is warranted. The re-emphasis is accomplished via a logical and philosophical cross-linking of (a) content domains in the organizational sciences, (b) liberal arts issues underlying those domains, and (c) understanding the needs that will be faced by 21st century managers, including increased globalization and technological advances.

11 Creating Exciting Majors by Combining Business with Other Majors by Hershey H. Friedman, Linda Weiser Friedman and Antony Arcadi

Most undergraduates major in a single area of study. However, students interested in several disciplines may be reluctant to choose one over the other, and in certain areas, e.g., law, there is no single appropriate major. Furthermore, many universities find that the number of majors in various liberal arts areas is extremely small. The authors propose combining business with liberal arts areas. Combining two fields produces a synergistic effect that expands the number of quality programs greatly at a very low cost. Results of three exploratory surveys, and an application of this approach at a single college, are discussed.

18 Student Teams and Learning Achievement by Douglas B. Rusth

The use of student learning teams has become a standard teaching methodology in many university classrooms. The question of whether this transition from individual work to teamwork creates a difference in learning achievement is one of great importance. If teamwork is developed at the expense of learning achievement, the universities will be doing a disservice to both student and employer. This study explored the issue of differences in learning achievement between students working in learning teams and those working individually. The results indicate that students learn equally well, whether in a team or individual setting.

24 Differences in Predictors of Grade Point Average for Internal and External Master of Business Administration Students by Audrey B. Davidson and Stephan F. Gohmann

We examine the influence of a student's application status on their graduating GPA in an MBA program where application status is defined as internal if the student has an undergraduate degree from the home institution and external if the student received the undergraduate degree from some other institution. We find that the GMAT score is not a significant predictor of graduating GPA for internal students, but the coefficient for the undergraduate GPA is almost double for the internal applicants relative to the external applicants.

33 Student And Faculty Assessment Of The Virtual MBA: A Case Study by Neil Terry, James Owens, and Anne Macy

This paper examines student and faculty perceptions of online instruction based on the case study of an MBA program at a regional university. The results indicate students and faculty have mixed feelings about Internet-based instruction. The majority of students feel the quality of Internet-based instruction is inferior to traditional campus instruction but acknowledge the advantages of Internet-based instruction like making it easier to manage work and school, lowering the indirect cost of education, and allowing more time with family. The primary concern with Internet-based instruction from the perspective of the faculty is the time-intensive nature of the instruction mode.

39 Maximizing The Benefits Of An Ancillary by H. Eugene Baker III

Conveying a difficult concept to students is often a daunting task. Depending on the nature of student experience and background, finding examples that students can relate to is difficult. Fortunately, it is common practice today for many management textbooks to be accompanied by supplemental materials to aid the instructor in this effort. These aids run the gamut from student study guides to supplemental lecture materials. One of the more popular recent additions have been video segments designed to accompany textbook chapters. This paper focuses on an instance where an alternative use of one such ancillary video resulted in what was perhaps a better use than was originally intended. It is suggested that all ancillary materials, especially videotape segments, be viewed with the possibility of alternative uses in mind.

43 The In-Basket Exercise As An In-Class Development And Assessment Tool by Denise Daniels and Susan Crandall

In-basket exercises are one of the most common tools used in assessment centers to assess job applicants’ or incumbents’ abilities to apply their knowledge to real-world problems. These exercises are frequently used in business for both assessment and developmental purposes. While such exercises are discussed in many management classes, students rarely have an opportunity to experience the in-basket process. This article presents ideas about developing in-basket exercises as a method of student development and evaluation. We provide an example of an in-basket activity that allows students to apply theoretical or classroom concepts to practical, real-world Human Resource Management problems.

58 The Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Program As A Service-Learning Project by Ann Dawson and Susan Weihrich

The accounting profession has outlined the skills needed to have a successful accounting career: communication skills, intellectual skills, and interpersonal skills. All of these skills are significantly enhanced if the students are involved in service learning projects. The purpose of this paper is to report how one university has successfully integrated the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program into the accounting curriculum to make the service learning component of the course an integral part of the students’ accounting curriculum. In addition, specific guidelines related to role of faculty, preparation of students, and management of the VITA sessions are presented to enable a school to implement such a project.

65 Does The Role Of Students Used In Client-Sponsored Marketing Research Class Projects Affect Mail Response Rates? by Charles Comegys

About half of the colleges/universities in the U.S. that have marketing majors offer client-sponsored courses, and of those, two-thirds offer two or more courses and one-third have five or more projects per class. Of the institutions that offer client-sponsored marketing courses, the most popular offering is marketing research courses. Although a considerable amount of research has addressed the impact of various factors on mail response rate, virtually none has considered the impact of student involvement on response rates in mail surveys. The results of this experimental study show that cover letters to survey instruments that clearly indicate that they are student research projects have lower response rates than identical instruments sent by a client company executive.

72 Instruction, Skepticism, And Accounting Students’ Ability To Detect Frauds In Auditing by Freddie Choo and Kim Tan

We conducted an experiment to address two research questions: (1) Would extensive classroom instruction on professional skepticism (hereafter IOS) change accounting students’ attitude of skepticism (hereafter AOS)? (2) Would IOS interact with AOS to affect accounting students’ ability to detect frauds in auditing? We found that IOS did not change the students' AOS, which suggested that their AOS might be innate and resistant to change. We also found that IOS interacted with AOS to affect the students' ability to detect frauds, which suggested that students needed to learn fraud-specific knowledge in order to detect frauds.

Academy of Business Education