Curriculum change requires thoughtful planning and a willingness to experiment with different modes of content delivery. While many business schools are experimenting, few measure student outcomes against the traditional courses they replace. One element of Butler University’s College of Business Administration curriculum revision was a pilot course, "Real Business Experience", in which students developed a professional business plan, sought and received funding from a professional level funding panel, and ran their businesses. To determine whether the pilot course was successful in reaching its goal of "teaching students about the messiness of business and developing more adaptable and confident business leaders" assessment instruments were used to identify student development in both the pilot and traditional courses. The analysis presented in this article suggests that the pilot course utilizing the constructivist approach was successful in achieving its goal, but not always in the ways expected.

The objective of this case is to help develop students’ understanding of financial ratios, their ability to "discover" the story told by ratios, and their ability to write a persuasive report on their findings. It illustrates the importance of management’s discussion and analysis for explaining the behavior of ratios while alerting students to the fact that official company statements are not necessarily unbiased or complete descriptions of the company’s performance. At a time when Wal-Mart’s performance is constantly discussed in the media, the case piques students’ interest and invites them to evaluate media commentary.

Business schools intent on doing more to prevent unethical behavior in the business world need to do more to ensure integrity in the academic world. Based on a review of the empirical evidence on the seriousness of the problem of student cheating, why students cheat, and the role of faculty, the paper presents 10 recommendations for how we can provide ethical leadership and deter dishonesty in the academic world, the effect of which may carry over into the business world.

Service-learning initiatives often fall short of learning. Research suggests that students not only learn more but are more motivated, more productive, and are more engaged through goal setting and self-assessment. We propose a model for service-learning in which students set learning goals and self-assess their progress. The faculty member ensures that a student’s goals conform to course objectives and provides a structured, supportive process. This allows the student to craft the project in a personally meaningful way and to develop goals and plans appropriate to achievement of the project. We provide an example from our experience.

Virtually all business schools around the world teach macroeconomic principles to hundreds of thousands of students every year. More often than not, the standard set of theories is presented to students in a passive fashion and students are generally expected to accept, memorize and recite the materials. We propose a series of active, hands-on exercises developed under a framework of critical thinking skills as a more engaging and effective way of teaching macroeconomic theories.

Benjamin Graham, Warren Buffett, and Peter Lynch have written several books advocating "value investing" and strategic tips for researching securities in bull and bear markets as opposed to relying solely on analysts for security selections. Many of these books are geared towards beginning investors. In this paper, undergraduate business students design a research-based strategy for selecting securities for a client’s portfolio. Students work in teams and collect financial data using The Wall Street Journal, Value Line Investment Survey, and 10K reports to generate a client "recommendation" list. Students are then asked to evaluate their picks against various benchmarks (e.g. the NYSE composite, the NASDAQ composite, and the S&P 500 index) and present as well as defend results. By playing the role of an analyst and defending the model developed to an external reviewer, students will learn how to actively work with professionals in the field of finance and accounting and use the tools developed in prerequisite courses to evaluate a firm’s financial statements and its annual reports.

When attempting to operationalize a worthy, yet ill-defined, mission statement, business schools may consider adopting the framework presented in this paper. The process of clarifying the nebulous concept of "Responsible Business Leadership," which is central to one business school's mission, is outlined in detail. The framework incorporates active participation by four major stakeholder groups to develop a common understanding of this key construct. Exploratory factor analysis identified six clear factors to guide future curriculum and program initiatives thus demonstrating the applicability of this framework for developing meaningful stakeholder engagement and discussion.