The MBA And Its Changing Formats Over The Years

MBA education has been through several avatars – it has been through ups and downs since it came into existence and has changed formats several times over.

- Rinky Marwaha

Training in accounting and even in activities like book-keeping has been going on from the even the first quarter of the twentieth century – which is almost one hundred years from this date. This was the first form of MBA education. When the MBA actually came into existence, the core subjects included accounting, business strategy, economics, finance and manufacturing and production. These were a part of the syllabus way back then.

MBA is a highly flexible course. With changing economic, political and financial climate of a country, it too remerges as a newbie type of a course. This has happened several times over. Its core syllabus has been modified to suit the current scenarios in as many ways as is possible. Such a tendency has more positives than negatives to it. That it re-adjusts itself to become more conducive with the current happening of a given country is what has given it a very specialized stature.

The case study method of teaching

Take, for example, MBA education in present times. In the United States, there are colleges which are following the case study pattern of imparting this education. This is somewhat of a new trend after the pros of such studies have come into the picture. They are bringing in a culture of incorporating chapters and techniques of learning and teaching after understanding what some companies are going through. Case by case, they pick up a firm and study its method to madness of working ethos. If it is successful or even if not so much so, it is taken as a ground for teaching students what all management can do or for that matter, cannot do. From reports, this manner really reflects practical training in front of the students. They give a live demonstration of what is happening, how all can management principles help or cut back on the functioning of a given company.