JOURNAL OF THE ACADEMY OF
BUSINESS EDUCATION
VOL. 5                                            CONTENTS                                          SPRING 2004
 

1  Taking Student Engagement To The Next Level: The Enterprise Academy by R. Barth Strempek, John J. Burbridge, Jr. and Kenneth E. Paul

Encouraged by the current business environment, business schools are reexamining their programs with an eye toward experiential opportunities, active learning, curricula innovation and integration. A wide variety of approaches are being developed to enhance student engagement. Of particular interest is the Enterprise Academy (EA) concept. Funded by a grant from the U. S. Department of Education, the EA is an integrated business program utilizing new enterprise start-up as the linking mechanism. The EA addresses higher-level learning objectives (e.g., decision making, problem solving) to improve students’ business literacy and maturity.

10  Explaining Student Satisfaction by Alan J. Brokaw, William A. Kennedy and Thomas E. Merz

This paper uses a set of formative student teaching evaluations along with measures of student behaviors and student characteristics to explain student satisfaction as measured by summative student evaluations of teaching. Data are from three undergraduate courses: American Socioeconomic Institutions, Intermediate Microeconomics and Business Statistics. Empirical results are consistent with previous findings that certain teacher behaviors captured by formative evaluations affect student satisfaction. Results also indicate that student attendance has no significant effect on student satisfaction, while student preferred learning style does significantly influence satisfaction.

21  Improving In-Major Retention And Grade Point Average Through First Year Curricula Linkage: Results From A Business School Longitudinal Study by Donald Lifton, Alan Cohen and Warren Schlesinger 

Academic departments have expanded the typical agenda for First-Year Seminars to use them as tools expressly for in-major retention. This paper reports the empirical results of a longitudinal effort to improve the persistence to sophomore year and grade point average of business students. The approach linked a discipline specific First-Year Seminar in business with the curriculum of an existing "traditional" course, Introduction to Business. The study’s results suggest that curriculum linkage in the first semester may be an antidote to the lure that other disciplines’ appeal might have in swaying business students away from their original choice of major.

28  Gender Differences That Influence Selection Of A Business Major by Wendy Wilhelm, Pamela L. Hall and Terrell G. Williams

Gender inequalities continue to exist among the business disciplines: males dominate Finance, Economics and MIS majors, while females dominate in the areas of Accounting and Human Resources. An on-line survey with 400 business students identified the key factors that influence major choice, and how their relative importance varied across gender and business major. Analysis of variance uncovered significant gender, major and gender X major differences in: (1) perceived career opportunities, (2) personal and social values, (3) perceptions of personal capabilities, (4) sex role expectations, and (5) students’ differential experience with and preferences for male and female professors. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications our findings have for course design, minimizing gender discrimination and addressing the problem of gender stereotyping.

52  Where Are The Racial Minority Business Cases?  by Roger J. Gagnon and Shona Morgan

U.S. Census Bureau projections indicate that minority groups will account for a higher percentage of the population than the non-Hispanic white population by 2060. We examine how academia is responding to this trend by characterizing what proportion of business cases address racial minority business issues.

66  Combining The Marketing And Operations Courses Provides Student An Integrated View Of Business by Jeffrey Schaller, Branko Cavarkapa and John St. Onge

In this paper we describe a course titled "Multi-Functional Business Concepts" which integrates material typically covered in introductory marketing and operations courses. This course is part of the core of the undergraduate business major at our university. We state why integration of the two subject areas is important and we describe our approach to the course. We also discuss the challenges and benefits associated with that approach.

78  Introducing A Multidisciplinary MBA Curriculum: Evolution Of A Team Based Approach  by Mark S. Blodgett, Patricia J. Carlson, Gail K. Sergenian and C. Gopinath

The business world is multidisciplinary. For this reason, managers need competencies in interpersonal skills in addition to analytical perspectives that cross academic disciplines. This paper is the account of an introductory MBA course that addresses these complementary aspects of management education. The process of developing this course has been a three-year effort. This paper provides an in depth look at the current course content and pedagogy and critiques and contrasts the current year with previous years. AACSB-International standards have driven the selection of content and method of delivery for this course.

88  Lessons From The On-Line Teaching Experience: Suggestions For Enhancing The Face-To-Face MBA Classroom by Gregory R. Berry

A professor with eight years of online teaching experience combines his perceptions with those of seventy-four MBA student-learners to identify ten specific benefits of the online classroom. These benefits include greater relevance of interaction, superior cognitive learning, flexibility and autonomy, and the pause-to-reflect found through asynchronous discussion. Five of these benefits are identified by the professor and a further five benefits are identified by the students. The learning from the online experience offers possibilities to enhance the quality of our face-to-face classroom, and suggestions on how to transfer these benefits into the face-to-face classroom are offered.

98  Insights From The Mater: Using Warren Buffet's Chairman's Letters To Better Teach Accounting And Finance by Ronald L. Moy and Engin Kucukkaya

An analysis of the writings of Warren Buffett via Berkshire Hathaway's annual chairman’s letter provides a rich array of insights into a number of topics in business ethics, finance, accounting and insurance. These insights can be used to reinforce concepts taught in the classroom or to promote discussion and debate about various topics such as dividend policy, corporate governance, and risk analysis.

 

Academy of Business Education