Undergraduate Programs – Changes in Disciplines Offered 2001-02, 2010-11

By Jessica Brown

Business schools have a difficult job in determining which academic disciplines they should include in their program offerings. They need to offer a well-rounded education and, at the same time, prepare their students for those business disciplines that will be most helpful when finding the right career after graduation.  How often do business schools readjust their program offerings? Have they changed in the past 10 years? To take a look at program offerings via disciplines, we created a controlled set of376  schools that participated in both the 2001-02 Business School Questionnaire and the 2010-11 Business School Questionnaire and used this set to find what percentage of schools offer specific discipline degree programs at the undergraduate level.

For some disciplines, there were very few changes. Seven of the 29 discipline represented in the data set changed by less than 1% or 3 schools in increase or decrease. Of the remaining 22 disciplines, 19 disciplines were offered by fewer schools in 2010-11 and three disciplines were offered by more schools in 2010-11 than 2001-02.

In 2001-02, the discipline offered by the most schools at the undergraduate level was Accounting at 90.4% of the controlled set of schools offering at least one undergraduate program in accounting. In 2010-11, that had decreased to 84.3% of the same set of schools offering at least one undergraduate program in accounting. While this was still the highest percentage for that year, indicating that accounting programs are still very popular offerings, it does show that the focus may be beginning to shift.

 

While some of the most popular programs have shown a slight decrease over the past 9 years, the three disciplines making the greatest gains were General Business, Supply Chain/Transport/Logistics, and Entrepreneurship/Small Business Administration.

Disciplines showing the largest decreases in percent of schools offering programs at the undergraduate level:

 

Discipline	2001-02	2010-11	Controlled set	2001-02	2010-11
	School Count	School Count	School Count	School Percent	School Percent
HR Mgt - incl Persnl & Ind/Labor Rel	131	97	376	34.8%	25.8%
Production/ Operations Mgt	93	60	376	24.7%	16.0%
Marketing	319	287	376	84.8%	76.3%
CIS/ MIS	249	218	376	66.2%	58.0%
Finance - incl Banking	314	290	376	83.5%	77.1%
Accounting	340	317	376	90.4%	84.3%

 

Disciplines showing the largest increases in percent of schools offering programs at the undergraduate level:



 

Discipline	2001-02	2010-11	Controlled set	2001-02	2010-11
	School Count	School Count	School Count	School Percent	School Percent
General Bus	144	177	376	38.3%	47.1%
Entrepreneurship/ Small Bus Admin	77	98	376	20.5%	26.1%
Supply Chain/ Transport/ Logistics	38	54	376	10.1%	14.4%

Comments

[Bookkeeping Services Brisbane]

There maybe a shift in programs because of the ever evolving world of business. Business schools should also keep up with the trend. This is actually good news because it simply shows that the schools who keep up with the trend will produce more knowledge in today’s world of business.