Education

Although most managers have studied at colleges and universities, many of those who work in small stores or are self-employed have relatively little formal education. On the other hand, many managers working in high-tech industries and as senior executives in large firms have degrees in engineering, law, and graduate business administration. An education, if well assimilated, opens doors in a wide range of organizations, although much can be learned about human behavior and group dynamics from the "school of experience."

There is a trend to employ graduates of liberal arts programs because managers recognize the need for generalists as well as specialists. Another source for management recruits is the army. Some claim to prefer young ex-army officers to M.B.A.s, especially if the officers are West Point graduates. The military gives personnel responsibility faster than many civilian organizations, and military officers learn to work with and depend on people around them.

The West Point of American management schools is the Graduate School of Business Administration at Harvard University. At Harvard, students may earn an M.B.A. in two years. Those who acquire the degree often have an undergraduate degree in engineering, science, economics, or liberal arts. Which combination is the most desirable depends upon individual goals. Many other universities and colleges throughout the country use the Harvard program as a model.



Business education at the collegiate level began in the latter part of the nineteenth century. The first collegiate program, called the Wharton School of Finance and Economy, was started in 1881 at the University of Pennsylvania. Today, America has more than 2,700 colleges and 700 collegiate business schools and departments of business administration.

Speaking at the 1989 American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), Bob Jaedicke, dean of Stanford's business school, suggested that management educators must look outward to the marketplace to find better ways to prepare managers for leadership. Jaedicke noted that new work markets move faster and with more flexibility than current academic models and that students and midcareer managers must prepare for an era of global business. Jaedicke suggested that students become less specialized and concentrate more on major business themes, such as global markets, nonmarket forces, the management of technology, and management ethics.

CORPORATE CLASSROOMS

There is a trend for U.S. corporations to bring education to the workplace and provide their own settings, some of which are quite elaborate. This has become vital at a time when more than 20 percent of the workforce is functionally illiterate. Admittedly, education, when sponsored by a corporation, is for profit rather than for life preparation, as when administered by colleges and universities. However, corporate education is essential to U.S. economic health because by the year 2000,65 percent of all jobs will require at least a high school education.

American business is spending about $30 billion a year on training. It is estimated that U.S. companies are currently training and educating nearly eleven million people annually, which is close to the total enrollment in America's four-year colleges and universities. Still, the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that only 11 percent of employees receive formal job training, and only another 14 percent receive informal training.

With more than 700 schools offering a graduate program in business, nearly half of graduate students are women. Like their male counterparts, many are employed full-time in the business world. Some M.B.A. students will specialize in finance, statistical analysis, fixed-income analysis, or management information systems, for example, while others will enter a program that emphasizes employee management and human resource information systems (HRIS). A "typical" program might include quantitative analysis, behavioral foundations of management, financial accounting, marketing, economics, human resources, and management of organizational change. Employee-students who attend company schools usually get the courses free of tuition, and some get a full salary while learning.

Universities tend to lag several years behind what is happening in the workplace, whereas the corporate educational system focuses its content on the realities of the business world. Corporate programs are gaining recognition from the same regional accrediting associations that endorse conventional college courses. Classes are taught by company instructors, and some of the programs grant degrees.

Many corporations, especially larger ones, have made major commitments to providing general and technical training for all employees. In suburban Chicago, Motorola has instituted a far reaching goal of providing forty hours of training a year to every one of its several hundred employees. The "Motorola University" has general curriculum goals, developed by a central staff made up of educators, former executives, and a variety of contract employees. Within that framework, Motorola gives individual company divisions freedom to develop or purchase training geared to their own specific needs.

At Xerox Corporation, management training for newly hired managers (most of whom have M.B.A.s) and for employees moving up the ranks consists of several phases. The first section, made up of readings and lecture/group participation sessions, is designed to teach employees Xerox's basic principles of service and customer responsiveness. Subsequent topics include core management skills in finance, personnel, planning, and more. These courses, which last forty to sixty hours, are taught by company executives and corporate training personnel. To permit students to improve performance in weak areas and to learn new skills, Xerox also offers self-instructional modules for individual study.

According to Multinational Business (Winter 1989), a number of U.S. institutions are finding a growing niche in serving the needs of executives returning to school. These programs, which are often taught on evenings and weekends, include B.A., M.B.A., and other related degrees. These programs, according to Multinational Business, are much more likely than traditional programs to have a curriculum driven by market demand.

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS STUDIES

Some colleges are meeting the demand for preparation in international business through certificate programs because few of them have departments of international education. Such a certificate program might include:

1. Requirements for a B.S. or B.A. in business administration
   
   
2. Mathematics in business applications abroad
   
   
3. Elements of statistical methods for the metric system
   
   
4. Two years of a foreign language
   
   
5. Principles of economics, international economics, and comparative economic systems
   
   
6. Psychology, sociology, anthropology, history, and political science
   

International business certificate students are encouraged to spend one or more summers overseas either working or in an exchange program. If you are interested in studying abroad, you should request information early from your department head or faculty advisor to be sure that you have time to meet all course requirements. You may also qualify for assistance for the trip.

Among business schools currently offering exchange curricula for students are New York University and Washington State University. The Programme Internationale de Management is a network of U.S. universities and institutions in Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan, Sweden, Brazil, Spain, Italy, and Canada. The network offers exchange programs for master's degree business students.

Owing to a shortage of American business professors with international experience, some U.S. universities are beginning to establish business programs in foreign countries. For example, the Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth has opened Japan's first M.B.A. program. There are American business schools throughout Europe.

THE M.B.A.

Increasingly, those who hope to climb executive ladders are choosing to acquire M.B.A. (master of business administration) or similar advanced management degrees. If a college degree was once the mark of a person on the fast track, the M.B.A. has replaced it as the indicator of great things to come.

The typical M.B.A. program is a traditional two-year full-time graduate program. Having, owing to economic and social factors, the "typical" model is neither necessarily the most feasible nor the most popular-for many thousands of students. Many persons pursuing the M.B.A. degree are not fresh from their undergraduate training. A large number are full-time employees of firms; more than half of these are receiving tuition reimbursement from their employers.

Annual salaries for M.B.A. graduates may go as high as $100,000. However, a recent article in U.S. News and World Report stated that the average annual starting salary for a graduate of one of the top twenty-five M.B.A. programs was approximately $49,000.

BEGINNING MANAGERS

Inexperienced young people rarely enter management positions directly from college unless they go into family-owned firms or start their own businesses. However, most large companies do recruit management trainees from college campuses. Interviewers check a student's interests, extracurricular activities, judgment, ambitions, maturity, grade point average, and management potential. A few companies give tests. Some look for special skills in engineering, accounting, finance, or law. Trainee positions become stepping-stones to management positions.

Here are some helpful hints for those entering training programs:

1. Get a general education, preferably a college degree, before specializing. The M.B.A. is considered the specialized degree for managers.
   
   
2. Acquire specific knowledge in accounting, finance, economics, world markets, organization, production, foreign languages, domestic and foreign policy, group dynamics, and computer technology.
   
   
3. Be willing to work and study hard.
   
   
4. Improve your decision-making techniques and keep track of lessons learned from experience.
   
   
5. Don't be afraid of new ideas, try new approaches, and think up alternate solutions to problems.
   
   
6. Learn to get along with all types of people; learn how to help them change.
   
   
7. Keep your career on track. Periodically reexamine your goals and ways to reach them.
   
   
8. Assume responsibility willingly but thoughtfully.
   
   
9. Don't kid yourself; face your shortcomings and decide what to do about them.
   

There are all kinds of good management opportunities out there. Every organization is looking for competent, levelheaded leaders. Your first step is to find opportunities that match your interests and capabilities. Then study, learn from experience as well as theory, and make your knowledge work for you.

MIDMANAGEMENT PROGRAMS

Those who cannot afford to spend four to six years in college to prepare for leadership roles in business and government may choose associate degree programs in community colleges. Such programs are designed to prepare people for first-line management (supervisory) jobs and are an effective way to begin a management career. Two appealing characteristics of this approach are:

1. A shorter preparation period. This enables you to start working for a good company sooner, though not at a high level. Nevertheless, you gain experience sooner, and your company may help finance your education.
   
   
2. Lower cost. Tuition is generally lower at a two-year school than at a four-year school.
   

As many companies help employees earn a degree after they are employed, community college mid-management students should be careful to select courses that will transfer to four-year schools. Two-year schools offer many non-transferable courses that are sometimes designated as vocational or technical courses. Typical business transfer courses are accounting, computer programming, learning equipment, and special living/learning modules with roundtables where students can interact. At AT&T's center near Denver, students participate in volleyball games designed to break down communication barriers. Xerox Corporation's setting is a pyramid-type structure in the Virginia woods, while Armstrong World Industries (floor-coverings) meets in a modest nineteenth century farmhouse outside Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Beneficial Corporation (household finance) has its executives meet on an estate in rural New Jersey. Sun Company uses a mansion near Philadelphia to which they have added classrooms.

These corporate investments are viewed as important tools for teaching corporate culture and style as well as developing management competence. For instance, the IBM center at Armonk, New York, was especially designed to look important and to demonstrate the company's interest in leadership.

EDUCATIONAL COSTS

Education is expensive. Tuitions at state universities have risen, as have those at private colleges and universities. To prepare for a management career, a person should plan on completing a bachelor's degree, which can cost from $4,000 to $25,000 a year, depending on whether one lives at home and whether the school is state supported or private.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, managers have more schooling (61.2 percent hold college degrees) than workers in all occupations combined (only 26.4 percent hold college degrees). The proportion of managers with four or more years of college has increased dramatically.

It is also true that there is considerable variation among managers in specific occupations. Self-employed managers who work in small stores have relatively little formal education; more than half have only a high school education or less. However, in technical fields such as data processing and engineering, a graduate degree is almost obligatory. Graduates with an M.B.A. from a prestigious school have an opportunity to move up the management hierarchy in a wide range of industries. Continuing education is also important during a management career.

More information about training programs and career development is available from The American Management Association, P. O. Box 319, Saranac Lake, NY 12983.

For information about institutions offering special programs in business and management, consult directories or catalogs of institutions of higher learning available in public libraries.

The Dictionary of Occupational Titles (U.S. Department of Labor) also gives a wide range of occupational information. The publication is available in most public libraries.