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Paper S-81

A PRELFtY JNAP.Y RPO11T ON THE ?IOt'OSPL "CO HAVE A

PROGRA M IOR

GIADUATE STUDY IN BUSIN.SS

.kDMINISTRATION AT SIMON FRASER UNIVJfRSITY

PURPOSE

The purpos.sof this memorandum are to explain:

1) The raison d'ctre for a program of post-

graduate study in

business

administration

at Simon Fraser University.

ii) The proposed appioach for such a

graduate

program.

U. OBJECTIVE

The immediate objective is to receive agreement in

principle that Simon Fraser University should try to

establish a Master of Business Administration

program.

It is believed that the Department could be ready to

commence classes in September, 1968.

M. PHILOSOPHY UNDERLYING EDUCATION FOR BUSINESS

MA NA GEMNT

• Experience and "business sense" were, until fairly

recntly, considered to be the fundamental ingredients

of bu.ness success. Accordingly, preparation for

a business career took the form of in-service

training

or "apprenticechip. " This attitude, however, has

changed. In Business, as in the traditional professions,

there gradually developed a systematic body of knowledge

of subctantial intellectual content and new emphasis

began to be placed on formal education for business.

This view of bu.sin;s management ai a profesLlion has

spread rapidly. Ac a reult, in the United States there

are more than 630 university departments and schools

of business ad: ni ratio.. In Canada, every major,

established university offers business administration

courses; at the

graduate

level alone, in Canada, at

least nine English-speaking

and

three French-speaking

universities offer advanced degrees.

The objective of a business school is to provide managers

and entrepreneurs with the theory and principles on

which to base decisions in an environment characterised by

change and uncertainty. This underlying philosophy

and the emphasis on theory rather than on current practice,

was expressed succintl.y ay

lfred North Whitehead in the

Aims of Education and Other £.ssays:

... Whatever be the detail with which you cram your

student, the chance of his meeting in after life exactly that

detail is almost infinitesimal; and if he does meet it, he will

probaoly have forgotten what you taught him about it. The

really useful

training

yealds a comprehension of a few

general principles with a thorough grounding in the way they

apply to a variety of concrete details. In subsequent practice

the men will have forgotten your particular details; but they

will remember by an unconscious common sense how to

apply principles to immediate circumstances.

While one may still succeed in business without graduate

training, or for that matter without a university education

•

all, it has become increasingly apparent that experience

alone is seldom sufficient in an individual's preparation for

senior executive responsibility. Such a person will advance

more rapidly and will utilize his experience more effectively

if he has gained the knowledge of the basic theories and

•

principles

underlying

business in general; and formal

advanced training at the university level is the best means of

acquiring this framework.

IV. GRADUATE EDUCATION IN BUSINESS

A. The Demand For v:anagement Skills

It has been estimated in the Ford Foundation Report on

Business Education that approximately 907o of all university

graduates take jobs with business firms upon graduation and

most of these will be in some type of mangerial position

within 5 years. But, on the other' hand, over 9076 of

university students do not study business administration in

their undergraduate training.

University graduates with advanced degrees

business

administration are actively sought oy employers in commerce

and industry, and in all levels of government. As only one

reflection of this demand, business school graduates typically

have a

broad and attractive choice of offers upon the

completion

• .

:...

SM.

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of their studics. Lt least one excellent reason for Simon

Fraser University's offering of a graduate program would

be to satisfy the needs of local business and government

for management skills.

B. The Needs of the Students

At present only one university in the province, U. B. C.,.

offers graduate study in business. Theirs is a full-time,

day-time program designed primarily for those who are

prepared to devote one or two full years of study.

From a brief sampling of the market it has become

obvious to us that an urgent need exists which is not being

satisfied by U. B. C's curriculum. This need is for a

graduate program which would enable working executives

to pursue advanced degrees on a part-time basis. Many

businessmen,

in middle or senior management positions,

foci the need to return to university for further study, but

are unable to abandon their employment completely.

As an illustration of this demand sometime ago a report

appeared in the press that Simon Fraser University was

planning

to inaugurate a graduate program in business which

would accomodate to some extent the working executive.

Since then our department has been unundated with tekphone

calls and correspondence from interested persons; - Enquiries

have been received from throughout the lower mainland,

Winnipeg, Montreal, Toronto and Kingston; and as farr away

as California and Georgia, as well as from Sinapore, Athiopia

and Ireland. it is significant that many of the enquiries were

from businessmen who were eager to combine their graduate

studies with their employment.

This is not to say that our proposed graduate program at

Simon Fraser University will oe designed exclusively for the

part time business scholar. On the contrary, we wuld

expect to enroll a limited

number

of outstanding recent.,

graduates who may work as TAs or executive trainees during

the course of their studies..,

•

Indeed, our strength will lie in the fact that our graduate

seminars will combine the talents of both-- the young

graduates, for

example,:

from mathematics, engineering,

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scincc, economics etc. , and the more mature businessmen.

Experience in graduate schools elsewhere has shown that the

participation of these "ousinessmen-- scholars, " and their

association with the bright young minds emerging from our

colleges, greatly enriches such programs.

We are convinced that Simon Fraser University can

provide an invaluable service to the community in filling this

gap in management development in

British

Columbia.

In passing, it may be noted that one of the newest and

most aggresivc business schools in Canada,--that of York

University-

has designed its program to serve both the full-

time and the part-time graduate student. Following is a

quotation from the publication Canadian University, Vol. 1,

No, 4, May-June, 1966:

"Part-time students will be accepted at the school, with

evening classes covering the entire field of study. In

addition, the school is to offer an extensive program of

continuing education for management, including both live-

in and late afternoon-evening programs."

C. The Needs of the University

Because of the recent, widespread growth of business

schools, there is a desperate scarcity of well-trained

professors in this field. At Simon Fraser University

this problem is acute.

In the cpartment's recruiting efforts over the past two

years, we have had great difficulty in attracting senior

faculty of the high caliore we hav. come to demand. This

ituation--a.,ic1e from salary issues--is at least partially

explained by the fact that very few, if arty, outstanding

business professors are willing to move to a new university

to toach large classes of undergraduates exclusively. Js

in any department, faculty memoers

in business

administration

expect to spend at least part of their time with graduate

tudnta. If we are to hire new staff and retain those presently

on our faculty, it is imperative that we offer graduate work

as soon as possiole.

4/vA7

5-.

Another problem that has arisen with the growing enrol-

iment in our undergraduate commerce courses is that of

finding ade

uatc numbers of teaching assistants. The

instructional system at Simon

ra3ur University entails a

combination of large lecture gro ups andrAnumerous, small

tutorials, the latter frequently taught by graduate students.

As far as commerce is

concerned,

the lack of a graduate

curriculum has resulted in a shortage of teaching assistants.

In view of the burgeoning undergraduate classes, this problem

will become more serious in the near future. One of the

valuable ancillary benefits of a graduate program will be the

availaolity of this sort of part-time instructors.

Degrees to be Offered

To begin

with, the department plans tooffer a degree

designated as the Master of Business Administration. It is a

widely recognized, professional terminal degree.

•

Lventually we would probably consider offering a doctoral

program leading to the Ph. D. This would

;Do

intended primarily

for those who wished to prepare for careers on faculties of

schools of ousiness and for research positions in industry.

Program.oftudy

Because the MBA. is a professional degree the focus is on

a broad education for ac tive management participation in

business.

Such programs are designed primarily for persons

who have already acquired a sound undergraduate education

and who, in many cases, have returned to universities after

being in the business world.

Typically, courses are based to a considerable degree on

the theories and techniques of the behavioral scientist, the

economist, the statistician and the mathematician. Thus,

the program will teach not only the basic functional areas of

business--finance, production, marketing and personnel--

out also the disciplines that underly these functions, such as

accounting, economics, law, mathematics, etc.

Economics

Personnel

Production

V.arkcting

Finance

A ccounting

•i

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However, the approach to teachin

these su)jects will ce

different from the traditional functional one found in many

ldcr graduate schools of

business.

Our plan is to present

an integrated approach of these functional

areas

and to draw

on the experience that the business man enrolled in the program

has gained. The traditional way of presenting courses is to

divide the business system along functional lines and teach

the subjects as though tiey were distinct and separate units of

marketing, finance, accounting, etc. Schematically, this is

presented in figure 1 wtüch is a pie diagram with the wedges

representing different subject matters.

Figure 1.

Each one of these areas is then further subdivided into

specialties, e.g., marketing is split into marketing principles,

marketing research, promotions, marketing institutions, etc.

Cur proposed integrated approach is to look upon a

usiness as an "operating system" and to present the subject

matter by areas of "process". For example, managements'

requirement for information and controls would form the

backbone of a course. This would include such traditionally

known areas as managerial accounting

. , data processing (from

an operating manager's point of view) and other similar areas.

Other such courses might include: "Business Practices",

"Business Policy and Strategies" and sol on.

•

This method of suojoct presentation may

schematically

presented by the

traditional diagram

but here

the business

system would be viewed cross-sectionally as presented in

Figure Z.

ment info. & Controls.

L3S

Policies

ss Practices

'IC

Business

Strategies

bier such Courses

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Figure II

In this way all the traditional functional

areas

would be

covered but in an integrated way with other

function

require-

ments for similar information. The need for information and

controls in marketing, for example, is not very different from

the similar needs in finance, production, etc. Through this

method of presentation much of the needless duplication

presently in business curricula could be eliminated with the

result that the program would be made much tighter and

cover more information. A parallel for this method of

teaching can be found in some other professional schools

such as medicine where the students learn about the entire

nervous system and how it relates to the different parts of the

body. They are not taught about the nerval aspects of an arm

or leg without considering the relationship to the remainder

of the entire "body system."

method of teaching business subjects in such a manner

will not be without its frustrations. Textbooks are not

presently written along these lines; teachers have not been

taught in this way;(their previous teaching experience is

along traditional lines); and few people are experts in more

than one function of business. This will, of course, place

a heavy load on faculty orienting themselves to such a division

of subjects- - but in the final analysis this is really the way

a ousiness operates.

We feel these above mentioned frustrations can be overcome

by the right type of faculty member. Simon Fraser University

•

should try to recruit senior people, preferably with some

•

business experience, who think this "interdisciplinary" approach

is better than the present traditional method. There are such

•

people available!

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TENTATIVE CURRICULUM

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The program will be a two

year

one; taught in the evenings

(to accommodate the rcgitrants from business); and will have

one entry date a

year (at least initially). .Class sue will

procably oe limited to a mangeable

group;

and high entrance

rcuirements will prevail. This is designed to a quality

program! There will be four courses per yca (two each

semester) and the students will meet at least twice a week

for four hours per evening. Luring the summer between years

there will oe a major report assignment required of each

student and will be on a significant problem of critical

concern to some company (preferably the company with which

they are employed). The ciurse is designed to be a general

management one and will thus offer the students a minimum

of electives (similar to the Harvard Business School Program).

The teaching method will be left open to the individual

instructor but probably will contain a mix of concepts, theory

and principles p p

rosented in a lecture form combined with some

case discussions.

The specific course offerings have not been decided upon

at this date, but they will follow the types of course suggested

above.

Respectfully submitted by the

Graduate Studies in Business Committee

Co-Chairmen

The authors wish to acknowledge the contributions of Dr. J.

Sheroaniuk for his work in a previous document on this

subject and from which we have borrowed liberally in the

first part of this report.