Guide Note

A college or university-level division specializing in classes and seminars on business related subjects are generally referred to as a Business School or “B-Schools”. Most Business Schools are colleges within a university’s administrative structure. Degrees conferred range from Associate’s Degrees (AA, AS and AAB) to Doctoral Degrees, (Ph.D.), depend on the university’s academic accreditations.

At the associate and undergraduate level instruction is predominantly lecture and skills based. These instructional methods are quantitative in nature and provide students with the basic skill sets required to resolve business issues and problems.

At the graduate level the majority of Business Schools develop their instructional methods around the use of case studies. Historical descriptions of actual business situations and events business case studies generally present information about a business’ products, markets, competition, management and other factors that affect a company’s success or failure. Developed case studies range in length from a few pages to a hundred pages or more. The most popular source of business case studies is the publishing unit of the Harvard Business School. The current top selling case study is Google, Inc.

The case study model of instruction allows students to develop the problem-solving and strategic planning skills necessary to analyze and resolve complex real-world business situations.

Fast Facts

1. Lisbon’s Aula do Comércio, (School of Commerce), was the world's first school to specialize in business instruction
2. The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania was the first business school created within a broader university structure
3. The University of California, Berkeley’s College of Commerce, later renamed the Haas School of Business, was the first business school at a public university
4. The Tuck School of Business, at Dartmouth College, offered the first master's degree in business administration, called the "Master of Commercial Science"
5. The Harvard’s Business School conferred the first business degree called the "MBA"
6. The University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business offered the PhD program and the first Executive MBA program
7. The University of Chicago was also the first "B-School" to have a Nobel Laureate on its faculty
8. The Ross School of Business, at the University of Michigan, was the first business school to publish an academic journal that promoted academic scholarship