08832323.2012.670671
Journal of Education for Business
ISSN: 0883-2323 (Print) 1940-3356 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vjeb20
The Role of Economics in Canadian Undergraduate
Business Education
Colin F. Mang & Natalya R. Brown
To cite this article: Colin F. Mang & Natalya R. Brown (2013) The Role of Economics in Canadian
Undergraduate Business Education, Journal of Education for Business, 88:4, 187-193, DOI:
10.1080/08832323.2012.670671
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Date: 11 January 2016, At: 21:01
JOURNAL OF EDUCATION FOR BUSINESS, 88: 187–193, 2013
C Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
Copyright
ISSN: 0883-2323 print / 1940-3356 online
DOI: 10.1080/08832323.2012.670671
The Role of Economics in Canadian Undergraduate
Business Education
Colin F. Mang and Natalya R. Brown
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Nipissing University, School of Business, North Bay, Ontario, Canada
The authors analyzed curricula from all 61 Canadian undergraduate business programs and
found that business schools that contain economics departments, business schools with higher
mathematics and statistics requirements, and business schools that have received Association to
Advance Collegiate Schools of Business accreditation are more likely to require additional economics courses beyond the standard introductory level microeconomics and macroeconomics.
Among those schools that require one or more additional economics courses, managerial economics is the preferred requirement. The authors also found that many specialized business
programs, such as human resources, finance, and international management, include either
required or optional economics courses beyond those already required in the school’s general business degree program. Based on the findings, the authors make recommendations for
business school curriculum development.
Keywords: business, curriculum, economics, management, managerial economics, quantitative
studies
While the scope of economics goes beyond applications to
management practice, the core principles of economics nevertheless form the foundation for the understanding of business operations, pricing strategies, financing and investment
decisions, and strategic decision making. For this reason,
all four-year undergraduate business programs require students to take introductory economics (usually introductory
microeconomics, and introductory macroeconomics as well).
The need to produce well-rounded business graduates, able
to think critically, with a broad skill base and the ability
to analyze situations from multiple perspectives has been
recognized for many years. Gordon and Howell (1959) and
Pierson (1959) recognized this need as the central mission of
undergraduate business education. These reports provided a
blueprint for business schools in the United States to tackle
program development, curriculum structure, and academic
standards. In light of recent economic events, a growing societal interest in environmental issues and sustainability, and
the increasing pace of globalization, an understanding of the
societal implications of business decisions and of the firm’s
place in society is now more essential than ever in achieving
Correspondence should be addressed to Natalya R. Brown, Nipissing
University, School of Business, 100 College Drive, Box 5002, North Bay,
Ontario P1B 8L7, Canada. E-mail: [email protected]
the mission of producing the next generation of business leaders. It is often observed that enrolment in business schools
rises during recessions as people find themselves with limited employment opportunities and take the opportunity to
improve or acquire new skills. The most recent economic
downturn has been no different as enrolment in business,
management and public administration programs in Canada
increased by 6.5% for the 2008–2009 academic year relative
to the 2007–2008 academic year, while enrollment across all
other programs increased by only 3.1% over the same period.
As business educators engage a growing number of students
in discussions about the root causes of the global economic
recession, these faculty are provided with an additional opportunity to be transformative in terms of shaping the nature
of future business practices and of changing the perceptions
of the role of the business enterprise in contemporary society. As fallout of the most recent economic crisis, criticisms
have been levied on business education by the public and
even members of the business education community. There
is much debate on whether business schools should respond
to the criticism and, if so, how they should respond. We feel
this research is timely given the role that economics can play
in answering the call for more attention to sustainability and
long-term thinking. This study is a first step in that it examines the present status of economics in Canadian business
schools.
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188
C. F. MANG AND N. R. BROWN
While many business administration courses take the perspective of the manager of a firm, economics courses incorporate the perspective of society as a whole. The study of
economics beyond the introductory level provides business
students with stronger analytical training, and a framework
for understanding the impact of events in the macroeconomy at the firm level, as well as the social implications of
decisions made at the firm level. In the 1980s, the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB)
recommended that all of their member schools require nine
credit-hours (i.e., three one-semester courses) of economics
as part of their bachelor’s degree programs. Although as of
1998 the AACSB no longer makes such an explicit recommendation, more recently, the AACSB has emphasized the
need for business schools to demonstrate a rich variety of
viewpoints and to provide students with multiple frames of
reference, which additional economics courses can provide,
in order to prepare students for careers given a changing
global context. Beginning in 2009, our university’s School
of Business embarked on a series of major curriculum revisions which involved reviewing the core learning objectives and course requirements for our bachelor of business
administration (BBA) program. Presently, the amount of
economics content within the program is being reviewed.
Similar to many undergraduate business programs, our program presently requires two introductory courses (microeconomics and macroeconomics) and one upper level course in
managerial economics. We were asked to assess what economics content undergraduate students should be expected
to know beyond microeconomic and macroeconomic principles, and whether those concepts should be delivered through
one or more additional economics courses, or simply integrated into other business courses, keeping in mind the
desire to expose students to multiple frames of reference
and to provide students with a vivid picture of the role of
the firm in today’s society. In order to guide our decision
making, we surveyed existing research examining the way
economics is taught in business schools. However, to our surprise, we found very little recent research conducted in this
area, and none relating specifically to the prevalence of economics within undergraduate business programs at Canadian
universities.
The goal of our study is to examine how economics is
taught in business schools at Canadian universities and to
identify factors which influence the number of courses offered. By doing so, we hope to provide a guide for other
business school faculty who are tasked with the responsibility of curriculum revision and to provide an overview of the
present practices of other business schools, which can be used
as a point of reference for comparison purposes. To accomplish this task, we needed to examine the nature of economics
courses that are required for business school students in the
general stream of a business program. In instances where
schools required additional economics courses beyond the
introductory level, we wanted to know what types of upper
year economics courses were required or recommended for
students in the general business streams at these schools.
In addition, we looked at the number of business programs
that offered a stream–specialization–concentration–major or
joint degree in economics, as well as whether any of the
other streams–specializations–concentrations–majors (e.g.,
accounting, finance, human resources, marketing) offered
in each business program contained additional required, recommended, or optional economics courses.
In some Canadian universities, faculty members who
specialize in economics and faculty members who specialize in other business disciplines (such as accounting,
human resources, marketing, and operations) are administratively located within the same academic unit, such
as in a School of Business and Economics. However,
it is more common for economics faculty to be located
within a Faculty of Arts or a Faculty of Social Science,
while faculty members from the other business disciplines
are located in their own Faculty–School of Business or
Management. Of particular interest to us was how the
number of required economics courses and the offering of a
stream–specialization–concentration–major or joint degree
in economics varied with the administrative location of the
economics faculty. A secondary objective of our study was
to examine the level of mathematical and statistical rigor
required by Canadian undergraduate business programs. We
wished to examine how mathematics and statistics course
requirements varied across Canadian business schools as
we suspected that a preference among business faculty for
requiring greater mathematics and statistics coursework
from undergraduates would also translate into a greater
preference among those business faculty for requiring additional economics courses because of the quantitative nature
of upper year economics courses. To answer our questions
we collected curriculum data from all 61 Canadian public
universities that offered four-year undergraduate business
degrees by reviewing their 2010–2011 academic calendars.
Having collected information on the number of required
economics courses, the availability of optional economics
courses for business school students, and the number of business schools offering students the opportunity to specialize
in economics, our curriculum data suggest that economics in
fact is widely valued as an integral part of business education
at Canadian universities. While we observed that business
schools that contained an economics department tended to
require more economics courses both as part of their general business degree program and as part of one or more
of their streams–specializations–concentrations–majors, we
did not observe a similar relationship between the opportunity to specialize in economics and the number of required
economics courses. We also observed that schools that required more courses in mathematics or statistics also tended
to require more courses in economics, which we attribute
to a preference among the business faculty at these schools
for a higher degree of quantitative content throughout the
ROLE OF ECONOMICS IN CANADIAN BUSINESS EDUCATION
business program, which can be provided in part by upper
year economics courses.
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LITERATURE REVIEW
The role of economics in business schools, and in particular, the optimal length of a business student’s exposure
to economics courses, seems to be a relatively understudied topic. Several American studies have examined the role
of economics as part of general business education. Bowen
et al. (1950) identified the economics content that formed a
necessary component of a general business program including: general economic principles (e.g., supply and demand),
the economics of the business enterprise, money, public finance, fluctuations in employment and analysis of present
economic conditions, government and business, labor relations, and international economics. Bowen et al. did not
recommend a specific number of economics courses; rather,
in addition to one or more general economics course, they
argued that many of these economics concepts should be integrated into later business courses such as marketing and
finance. Philbrook (1957) also acknowledged the interdependence between economics and other business disciplines
while Owen (1958) demonstrated the importance of incorporating economics into a business program. More recently,
Miller (2000) and Daraban (2010) argued for increased integration of economics concepts throughout business courses
both as a way to help reinforce the subject matter covered
in introductory economics courses and also as a way to link
together the material covered in other business disciplines so
that students perceive their programs of study as a continuous
process, rather than as a series of discrete subjects.
Gordon and Howell (1959) and Pierson (1959) extensively examined the curricula of business schools in the
United States. While Gordon and Howell recommended that
undergraduate business programs include four courses in
economics (specifically introductory microeconomics and
macroeconomics, as well as intermediate macroeconomics
and a course in managerial economics), Pierson recommended five courses in economics (the additional one being
a course in money and banking systems). The number of
required economics courses was revisited by Chen and Zane
(1969), Maloy (1976), and Deal (1977), who demonstrated
that less than half of American business schools followed the
recommendations of the Gordon and Howell and Pierson reports to include more economics courses beyond the standard
introductory microeconomics and macroeconomics. Douglas
(1979) argued that the reluctance of business faculty to include a greater number of upper year economics courses
was due to the fact (or perception) that economics faculty
were not offering advanced courses that were of value to
business students. He argued that courses in intermediate
microeconomics and intermediate macroeconomics could
be perceived as being too far removed from the realities of the
189
business world and instead recommended offering courses
in managerial economics and business conditions analysis as
alternative economics courses whose applied nature would
provide business students with a more practical education in
economics.
Jesswein (1982) surveyed the number of required economics courses and the availability of economics as a specialization, concentration, or major for business students
in American undergraduate business programs and compared these factors to the administrative location of the economics faculty. Jesswein found that business schools which
housed economics departments were more likely to offer
business students the opportunity to specialize in economics
through the business program—91.2% of business schools
that housed an economics department offered an economics
specialization as part of the business program while only
14.9% of those schools in which the economics faculty were
separate did. Second, Jesswein found that business schools
that housed an economics department were more likely to
require additional economics courses beyond introductory
microeconomics and macroeconomics—76.5% of business
schools which housed an economics department required additional upper year economics courses compared with only
53.7% of business schools that did not house an economics
department. This finding led Jesswein to argue that the quantity and type of economics courses required in American
business schools is heavily influenced by the administrative
location of the economics department, which encouraged us
to determine whether this pattern also exists in Canadian
universities.
DATA
In order to study the inclusion of economics in Canadian business programs, we examined all 61 public universities from
across all 10 Canadian provinces who offered a four-year
undergraduate business degree program—usually leading to
the award of a BBA, a baccalauréat en administration des affaires (BAA), or a bachelor of commerce (BComm) degree.
Our data thus comprise the population of Canadian business
schools. For consistency in reporting, we treat two-semester
(or full-year, full-credit) courses as being the equivalent of
two one-semester (or half-year, half-credit) courses. Of the
61 institutions surveyed, 44 had an economics department
located in a faculty separate from the other business disciplines, 11 institutions had an economics department located
within the Faculty–School of Business or Management, and
six institutions did not have an economics department.
As shown in Table 1, the majority of business programs
required students to complete only two courses in economics.
In all but two cases the two required courses are introductory
microeconomics and introductory macroeconomics; however, one university requires microeconomics and managerial economics while another requires macroeconomics and
190
C. F. MANG AND N. R. BROWN
TABLE 1
Number of Universities Requiring One or More
Economics Courses as Part of an Undergraduate
Business Degree Program
TABLE 2
Number of Universities Offering Specializations in
Economics to Business Students and the Number of
Required Economics Courses in the Business
Program
Number of mandatory
one-semester economics courses
for a business degree
Item
1
2
3
Number of required economics
courses
4
Item
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Economics department located
within the business school
Business and economics in
separate schools–faculties
No separate economics program
1
5
5
—
1
32
8
3
—
6
—
—
managerial economics. Only two schools required a single
semester of economics, indicating that most business school
curriculum designers appreciate the need to provide a sufficient minimum level of economics education spanning two
semesters. Sixteen of the 61 schools, roughly one quarter of
the total, shared our belief that additional economics courses
are valuable components of a business program. While only
one quarter of universities with separate economics departments require three or more economics courses in their business program, nearly half of business schools that contain
their university’s economics department require an additional
economics course beyond the standard two. This finding is
consistent with Jesswein (1982), who reported that American universities where the economics faculty are integrated
within the business school were also more likely to require
additional economics courses in their business programs. Not
surprisingly, schools that do not have a separate economics
program have no additional required economics course beyond the standard microeconomics and macroeconomics, as,
without a separate economics program, they would be unlikely to have the faculty resources necessary to deliver additional economics courses.
While the administrative location of the economics faculty members does appear to impact the number of required economics courses in the business program, we
were also interested to see if the presence of a stream–
specialization–concentration–major in economics within the
business degree program or the presence of a joint degree
in economics and business would increase the likelihood
of a school requiring additional economics courses in the
business program. As shown in Table 2, 54% of institutions
which have an integrated business and economics department
offer business students a specialization in economics. In contrast, only 36% of universities which separate business and
economics departments into separate faculties offer business
students the option to specialize in economics. It is clear that
schools with integrated departments are more likely to offer
a specialization in economics which we believe is the result
of the economics faculty having greater input into the overall
Economics department located
within business school;
economics offered as
stream–specialization–
concentration–
major or joint degree in
business
Economics department located
within business school; no
specialization in economics
available for business students
Economics department in separate
faculty; economics offered as
stream–specialization–
concentration–
major or joint degree in
business
Economics department in separate
faculty; no specialization in
economics available for
business students
No economics program
1 or 2 economics
courses
3 or 4 economics
courses
3
3
3
2
12
4
21
7
6
—
design of the business school curriculum at those institutions.
Also shown in Table 2, for institutions at which the economics
department is housed within the business school, the number
of programs requiring additional economics courses is essentially half, regardless of whether the business school offers
business students the opportunity to specialize in economics.
For universities that separate economics and business departments into distinct faculties, the proportion of schools
requiring additional courses is exactly one quarter of the total, regardless of whether the business school offers business
students an economics specialization. We conclude that, in
Canada, there is no relationship between a business program
offering a specialization or joint degree in economics and
the number of economics courses required to complete the
business program.
Although, the majority of business programs require only
two economics courses, several streams–specializations–
concentrations–majors (other than economics) within business programs have additional required or optional economics courses. Common required or optional economics
courses include financial economics for finance majors, international trade and international finance for international
business majors, and labor economics for human resources
majors. Table 3 indicates the number of schools which
ROLE OF ECONOMICS IN CANADIAN BUSINESS EDUCATION
191
TABLE 3
Number of Schools With Additional or Optional Economics Courses as Part of Other Specializations Within the Business Program
Item
Additional economics courses required for one or more
streams–specializations– concentrations–majors
Additional economics courses optional in one or more
streams–specializations– concentrations–majors
4
1
14
3
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3 or 4 required economics courses
in general business program
2 required economics courses in
general business program
include additional upper year economics courses either as
required or as an optional component of their curriculum for
students wishing to pursue a specialization in a particular
business field. Eighteen schools have one or more business
specializations that require additional economics courses and
an additional four schools have one or more business specializations that provide students with the option of taking additional economics courses as part of their program of study.
This fact, combined with the information presented in Table 2
that shows that 22 of the 61 schools—more than one third of
the total—offer business students the opportunity to specialize in economics, indicates that economics is indeed widely
valued as an integral component of business education.
Another question we have posed is whether a business
school faculty’s preference for quantitative study affects the
number of required economics classes in the business program. Because economics, theoretical and applied, contains
a great deal of quantitative analysis, business schools that
emphasize mathematical and statistical rigor may have a natural preference for requiring additional economics courses
as well. As shown in Table 4, as the number of required math
and statistics courses increases, so does the likelihood that
a school requires additional economics courses. Among the
13 schools with only one required mathematics or statistics
course, only one school required three or more economics
courses. Among schools with two required mathematics or
statistics courses 27.6% required three or more economics
courses. That figure increased to 30.7% for schools that required three mathematics or statistics courses and 50% for
schools that required four mathematics or statistics courses.
It is not surprising that schools that require very little in the
TABLE 4
Number of Schools With Required Economics
Courses in Business by Required Mathematics
and Statistics Courses
Required semesters of
mathematics and/or statistics
4
3
2
1
1 or 2 required
economics courses
3 or 4 required
economics courses
3
9
21
12
3
4
8
1
way of math or statistics preparation are much less likely to
require additional economics courses that could require those
skills, whereas schools which provide extensive training in
mathematics and statistics are more likely to require students
to take courses which make use of those skills.
Given that, up until 1998, the AACSB recommended three
half-year courses in economics, we investigated whether
business schools that presently hold AACSB accreditation
are more likely to require more than two economics courses.
At the time of writing, only 17 of the business schools examined held AACSB accreditation, and while some received
their accreditation after 1998, nevertheless, we wished to explore whether the curricula of accredited schools would still
match the old recommendations. The results are reported in
Table 5. All schools with AACSB accreditation and an integrated business and economics department–faculty as well
as 40% of schools with AACSB accreditation and separate
business and economics departments required three or more
economics courses as part of their general business curriculum. In contrast, only 33.3% of nonaccredited schools with
an integrated department and 17.2% of nonaccredited schools
with separate business and economics departments required
three or more economics courses. Therefore, although the
AACSB no longer recommends a minimum of three economics courses as part of a business program, AACSB accredited schools in Canada are still more likely than nonaccredited schools to require three or more courses.
A final question that we posed concerned how the type
of economics courses offered to business students differed
based on whether the economics faculty were located within
the business school or not. In particular, we were influenced
by Douglas’s (1979) comment that some upper year economics courses might be perceived among other business
faculty and among business students as being too disconnected from the content covered throughout the rest of the
business program. We were interested to see if economics
faculty located within business schools would be more responsive to the curriculum needs of business students and
be more likely to offer applied economics courses with a focus on business issues (such as managerial economics) rather
than theoretical economics courses (such as intermediate microeconomics). Table 6 shows the percentage of schools surveyed which require the listed introductory and upper level
economics courses at part of their Bachelors degree program.
192
C. F. MANG AND N. R. BROWN
TABLE 5
Required Courses by AACSB Accreditation
AACSB-accredited schools
Item
Nonaccredited schools
1 or 2 required
economics courses
3 or 4 required
economics courses
1 or 2 required
economics courses
3 or 4 required
economics courses
—
2
6
3
9
6
24
5
—
—
6
—
Economics department located
within the business school
Business and economics in
separate schools/faculties
No separate economics program
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Note. AACSB = Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business.
The majority of these universities required introductory
microeconomics and macroeconomics. Only one university
in our sample offered a one-semester course combining
macroeconomic and microeconomic principles. In general,
the percentage of schools requiring managerial economics
or giving students a choice between taking managerial economics and intermediate microeconomics is larger than the
percentage of schools that require intermediate microeconomics alone. However, 27.3% of the universities that had
the economics department located within the business school
required the applied managerial economics, while 9.1% provided the choice between managerial economics and intermediate micro and only 9.1% required students to take a
theoretical upper year economics course (either intermediate
microeconomics or macroeconomics) instead of an applied
economics course. In contrast, at schools with separate economics and business faculties, 13.6% required students to
take a theoretical economics course while only 4.5% provided students the option of choosing between an applied
course and a theoretical course, and 4.5% required an applied course (managerial economics). These results show
that applied upper year economics courses, which are of
greater practical value than theoretical upper year economics
courses, were much more likely to be offered to business
students when the economics department is administratively
located within the business school—the proximity of the
economists to the other business faculty seemed to encourage the business faculty to include more economics courses
in the business program and to encourage the economics
faculty to provide applied courses which are more relevant to a business student’s education—and of course the
two effects can be mutually reinforcing. This result adds
more support to Jesswein’s (1982) argument that the type of
economics coursework required in business schools is influenced by the administrative location of the economics department. Also shown in Table 6, AACSB-accredited schools are
also more likely to require managerial economics. While we
have already shown that 47% of accredited schools required
additional economics courses beyond microeconomics and
macroeconomics, the fact that six of the eight schools who
do so either required managerial economics or provide managerial economics as an option to fulfill the third economics
TABLE 6
Economics Requirements for a Bachelor’s Degree in Business (Percentage of Schools Requiring Course)
Required course
Introductory Microeconomics
Introductory Macroeconomics
Introductory Economics
(combined in one semester)
Managerial Economics
Intermediate Microeconomics
Managerial Economics or
Intermediate Microeconomics
Intermediate Microeconomics or
Intermediate Macroeconomics
Upper Year Macroeconomics
Other
All
universities
(61)
Universities in which
economics department
is within the business
school (11)
Universities in which
economics department
is outside the business
school (44)
Universities with
no economics
department (6)
AACSB-accredited
business
schools (17)
98.3
96.7
1.6
100.0
90.9
9.1
97.7
97.7
0.0
100.0
100.0
0.0
100.0
94.1
0.0
11.5
3.3
4.9
27.3
0.0
9.1
9.1
4.5
4.5
0.0
0.0
0.0
17.6
0.0
17.6
3.3
9.1
2.3
0.0
5.9
4.9
3.3
0.0
0.0
6.8
4.5
0.0
0.0
0.0
5.9
Note. AACSB = Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business.
ROLE OF ECONOMICS IN CANADIAN BUSINESS EDUCATION
course requirement demonstrated to us that faculty at these
schools appreciate the benefit to business students that this
applied economics course has over theoretical economics
courses.
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CONCLUSIONS
In this article, we have presented an overview of the economics courses required in undergraduate business degree
programs in Canada. The large majority of these programs
require two semesters of economics courses as part of their
core required curriculum while a substantial minority requires three or more courses. It is clear that the two schools
that provide only a single semester of economics courses are
outliers within group and that having two required economics
courses is viewed as the minimum necessary exposure to economics content.
However, given that schools that require a greater number of mathematics and statistics are also more likely to
require a greater number of economics courses, students at
some schools seem to be exposed to an overly high degree
of quantitative work while students at other schools may be
underexposed as their programs of study contain very few
economics, mathematics, and statistics courses. In order to
provide a balanced education, with a sufficient level of exposure to quantitative studies, we recommend that all schools
with only a single semester of mathematics or statistics consider requiring students to take three semesters of economics
(in the absence of a second semester of mathematics or statistics). As well, for schools that already require two semesters
of mathematics or statistics, we still recommend considering
a requirement for three economics courses in order to provide
a well-rounded and diversified educational experience with
sufficient exposure to quantitative techniques.
For those schools that choose to require a third economics
course in addition to the standard introductory microeconomics and macroeconomics, we recommend a course in
managerial economics. Among the universities that have economics departments integrated within the business school,
managerial economics is the most commonly required additional course. We believe that the presence of the economics
faculty within the business school is a factor leading to the
requirement of an additional economics course, a view that
193
is shared by Jesswein (1982); however, we also believe that
the collocation moderates the course offerings of the economics faculty which is why they are more likely to offer
managerial economics, an applied economics course that is
highly relevant to business studies, rather than a similar, but
more theoretical and less business-practice oriented, intermediate microeconomics. The nature of a managerial economics
course fits more naturally with the other content covered in a
business program, a fact that we believe is recognized more
clearly by economics faculty members who are collocated in
an administrative unit with colleagues from other business
disciplines, leading to a higher incidence of the course being required at those schools. Therefore, we recommend this
course as the required upper year course for those schools
which require three economics courses in their business
program.
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of contemporary schools of business. Journal of Economic Education, 13,
66–73.
Maloy, T. M. (1976). A survey of economics requirements of AACSB
schools. Collegiate News and Views, 29, 5–7.
Miller, J. R. (2000). Economics in the integrated business curriculum. Journal of Education for Business, 76, 113–118.
Owen, J. P. (1958). The role of economics in education for business administration. Southern Economic Journal, 24, 353–361.
Philbrook, C. E. (1957). The disciplines of economics and business. Southern Economic Journal, 23, 434–444.
Pierson, F. C. (1959) The education of American businessmen: A study of
university-college programs in business administration. New York, NY:
McGraw-Hill.
ISSN: 0883-2323 (Print) 1940-3356 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vjeb20
The Role of Economics in Canadian Undergraduate
Business Education
Colin F. Mang & Natalya R. Brown
To cite this article: Colin F. Mang & Natalya R. Brown (2013) The Role of Economics in Canadian
Undergraduate Business Education, Journal of Education for Business, 88:4, 187-193, DOI:
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Date: 11 January 2016, At: 21:01
JOURNAL OF EDUCATION FOR BUSINESS, 88: 187–193, 2013
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Copyright
ISSN: 0883-2323 print / 1940-3356 online
DOI: 10.1080/08832323.2012.670671
The Role of Economics in Canadian Undergraduate
Business Education
Colin F. Mang and Natalya R. Brown
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Nipissing University, School of Business, North Bay, Ontario, Canada
The authors analyzed curricula from all 61 Canadian undergraduate business programs and
found that business schools that contain economics departments, business schools with higher
mathematics and statistics requirements, and business schools that have received Association to
Advance Collegiate Schools of Business accreditation are more likely to require additional economics courses beyond the standard introductory level microeconomics and macroeconomics.
Among those schools that require one or more additional economics courses, managerial economics is the preferred requirement. The authors also found that many specialized business
programs, such as human resources, finance, and international management, include either
required or optional economics courses beyond those already required in the school’s general business degree program. Based on the findings, the authors make recommendations for
business school curriculum development.
Keywords: business, curriculum, economics, management, managerial economics, quantitative
studies
While the scope of economics goes beyond applications to
management practice, the core principles of economics nevertheless form the foundation for the understanding of business operations, pricing strategies, financing and investment
decisions, and strategic decision making. For this reason,
all four-year undergraduate business programs require students to take introductory economics (usually introductory
microeconomics, and introductory macroeconomics as well).
The need to produce well-rounded business graduates, able
to think critically, with a broad skill base and the ability
to analyze situations from multiple perspectives has been
recognized for many years. Gordon and Howell (1959) and
Pierson (1959) recognized this need as the central mission of
undergraduate business education. These reports provided a
blueprint for business schools in the United States to tackle
program development, curriculum structure, and academic
standards. In light of recent economic events, a growing societal interest in environmental issues and sustainability, and
the increasing pace of globalization, an understanding of the
societal implications of business decisions and of the firm’s
place in society is now more essential than ever in achieving
Correspondence should be addressed to Natalya R. Brown, Nipissing
University, School of Business, 100 College Drive, Box 5002, North Bay,
Ontario P1B 8L7, Canada. E-mail: [email protected]
the mission of producing the next generation of business leaders. It is often observed that enrolment in business schools
rises during recessions as people find themselves with limited employment opportunities and take the opportunity to
improve or acquire new skills. The most recent economic
downturn has been no different as enrolment in business,
management and public administration programs in Canada
increased by 6.5% for the 2008–2009 academic year relative
to the 2007–2008 academic year, while enrollment across all
other programs increased by only 3.1% over the same period.
As business educators engage a growing number of students
in discussions about the root causes of the global economic
recession, these faculty are provided with an additional opportunity to be transformative in terms of shaping the nature
of future business practices and of changing the perceptions
of the role of the business enterprise in contemporary society. As fallout of the most recent economic crisis, criticisms
have been levied on business education by the public and
even members of the business education community. There
is much debate on whether business schools should respond
to the criticism and, if so, how they should respond. We feel
this research is timely given the role that economics can play
in answering the call for more attention to sustainability and
long-term thinking. This study is a first step in that it examines the present status of economics in Canadian business
schools.
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188
C. F. MANG AND N. R. BROWN
While many business administration courses take the perspective of the manager of a firm, economics courses incorporate the perspective of society as a whole. The study of
economics beyond the introductory level provides business
students with stronger analytical training, and a framework
for understanding the impact of events in the macroeconomy at the firm level, as well as the social implications of
decisions made at the firm level. In the 1980s, the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB)
recommended that all of their member schools require nine
credit-hours (i.e., three one-semester courses) of economics
as part of their bachelor’s degree programs. Although as of
1998 the AACSB no longer makes such an explicit recommendation, more recently, the AACSB has emphasized the
need for business schools to demonstrate a rich variety of
viewpoints and to provide students with multiple frames of
reference, which additional economics courses can provide,
in order to prepare students for careers given a changing
global context. Beginning in 2009, our university’s School
of Business embarked on a series of major curriculum revisions which involved reviewing the core learning objectives and course requirements for our bachelor of business
administration (BBA) program. Presently, the amount of
economics content within the program is being reviewed.
Similar to many undergraduate business programs, our program presently requires two introductory courses (microeconomics and macroeconomics) and one upper level course in
managerial economics. We were asked to assess what economics content undergraduate students should be expected
to know beyond microeconomic and macroeconomic principles, and whether those concepts should be delivered through
one or more additional economics courses, or simply integrated into other business courses, keeping in mind the
desire to expose students to multiple frames of reference
and to provide students with a vivid picture of the role of
the firm in today’s society. In order to guide our decision
making, we surveyed existing research examining the way
economics is taught in business schools. However, to our surprise, we found very little recent research conducted in this
area, and none relating specifically to the prevalence of economics within undergraduate business programs at Canadian
universities.
The goal of our study is to examine how economics is
taught in business schools at Canadian universities and to
identify factors which influence the number of courses offered. By doing so, we hope to provide a guide for other
business school faculty who are tasked with the responsibility of curriculum revision and to provide an overview of the
present practices of other business schools, which can be used
as a point of reference for comparison purposes. To accomplish this task, we needed to examine the nature of economics
courses that are required for business school students in the
general stream of a business program. In instances where
schools required additional economics courses beyond the
introductory level, we wanted to know what types of upper
year economics courses were required or recommended for
students in the general business streams at these schools.
In addition, we looked at the number of business programs
that offered a stream–specialization–concentration–major or
joint degree in economics, as well as whether any of the
other streams–specializations–concentrations–majors (e.g.,
accounting, finance, human resources, marketing) offered
in each business program contained additional required, recommended, or optional economics courses.
In some Canadian universities, faculty members who
specialize in economics and faculty members who specialize in other business disciplines (such as accounting,
human resources, marketing, and operations) are administratively located within the same academic unit, such
as in a School of Business and Economics. However,
it is more common for economics faculty to be located
within a Faculty of Arts or a Faculty of Social Science,
while faculty members from the other business disciplines
are located in their own Faculty–School of Business or
Management. Of particular interest to us was how the
number of required economics courses and the offering of a
stream–specialization–concentration–major or joint degree
in economics varied with the administrative location of the
economics faculty. A secondary objective of our study was
to examine the level of mathematical and statistical rigor
required by Canadian undergraduate business programs. We
wished to examine how mathematics and statistics course
requirements varied across Canadian business schools as
we suspected that a preference among business faculty for
requiring greater mathematics and statistics coursework
from undergraduates would also translate into a greater
preference among those business faculty for requiring additional economics courses because of the quantitative nature
of upper year economics courses. To answer our questions
we collected curriculum data from all 61 Canadian public
universities that offered four-year undergraduate business
degrees by reviewing their 2010–2011 academic calendars.
Having collected information on the number of required
economics courses, the availability of optional economics
courses for business school students, and the number of business schools offering students the opportunity to specialize
in economics, our curriculum data suggest that economics in
fact is widely valued as an integral part of business education
at Canadian universities. While we observed that business
schools that contained an economics department tended to
require more economics courses both as part of their general business degree program and as part of one or more
of their streams–specializations–concentrations–majors, we
did not observe a similar relationship between the opportunity to specialize in economics and the number of required
economics courses. We also observed that schools that required more courses in mathematics or statistics also tended
to require more courses in economics, which we attribute
to a preference among the business faculty at these schools
for a higher degree of quantitative content throughout the
ROLE OF ECONOMICS IN CANADIAN BUSINESS EDUCATION
business program, which can be provided in part by upper
year economics courses.
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LITERATURE REVIEW
The role of economics in business schools, and in particular, the optimal length of a business student’s exposure
to economics courses, seems to be a relatively understudied topic. Several American studies have examined the role
of economics as part of general business education. Bowen
et al. (1950) identified the economics content that formed a
necessary component of a general business program including: general economic principles (e.g., supply and demand),
the economics of the business enterprise, money, public finance, fluctuations in employment and analysis of present
economic conditions, government and business, labor relations, and international economics. Bowen et al. did not
recommend a specific number of economics courses; rather,
in addition to one or more general economics course, they
argued that many of these economics concepts should be integrated into later business courses such as marketing and
finance. Philbrook (1957) also acknowledged the interdependence between economics and other business disciplines
while Owen (1958) demonstrated the importance of incorporating economics into a business program. More recently,
Miller (2000) and Daraban (2010) argued for increased integration of economics concepts throughout business courses
both as a way to help reinforce the subject matter covered
in introductory economics courses and also as a way to link
together the material covered in other business disciplines so
that students perceive their programs of study as a continuous
process, rather than as a series of discrete subjects.
Gordon and Howell (1959) and Pierson (1959) extensively examined the curricula of business schools in the
United States. While Gordon and Howell recommended that
undergraduate business programs include four courses in
economics (specifically introductory microeconomics and
macroeconomics, as well as intermediate macroeconomics
and a course in managerial economics), Pierson recommended five courses in economics (the additional one being
a course in money and banking systems). The number of
required economics courses was revisited by Chen and Zane
(1969), Maloy (1976), and Deal (1977), who demonstrated
that less than half of American business schools followed the
recommendations of the Gordon and Howell and Pierson reports to include more economics courses beyond the standard
introductory microeconomics and macroeconomics. Douglas
(1979) argued that the reluctance of business faculty to include a greater number of upper year economics courses
was due to the fact (or perception) that economics faculty
were not offering advanced courses that were of value to
business students. He argued that courses in intermediate
microeconomics and intermediate macroeconomics could
be perceived as being too far removed from the realities of the
189
business world and instead recommended offering courses
in managerial economics and business conditions analysis as
alternative economics courses whose applied nature would
provide business students with a more practical education in
economics.
Jesswein (1982) surveyed the number of required economics courses and the availability of economics as a specialization, concentration, or major for business students
in American undergraduate business programs and compared these factors to the administrative location of the economics faculty. Jesswein found that business schools which
housed economics departments were more likely to offer
business students the opportunity to specialize in economics
through the business program—91.2% of business schools
that housed an economics department offered an economics
specialization as part of the business program while only
14.9% of those schools in which the economics faculty were
separate did. Second, Jesswein found that business schools
that housed an economics department were more likely to
require additional economics courses beyond introductory
microeconomics and macroeconomics—76.5% of business
schools which housed an economics department required additional upper year economics courses compared with only
53.7% of business schools that did not house an economics
department. This finding led Jesswein to argue that the quantity and type of economics courses required in American
business schools is heavily influenced by the administrative
location of the economics department, which encouraged us
to determine whether this pattern also exists in Canadian
universities.
DATA
In order to study the inclusion of economics in Canadian business programs, we examined all 61 public universities from
across all 10 Canadian provinces who offered a four-year
undergraduate business degree program—usually leading to
the award of a BBA, a baccalauréat en administration des affaires (BAA), or a bachelor of commerce (BComm) degree.
Our data thus comprise the population of Canadian business
schools. For consistency in reporting, we treat two-semester
(or full-year, full-credit) courses as being the equivalent of
two one-semester (or half-year, half-credit) courses. Of the
61 institutions surveyed, 44 had an economics department
located in a faculty separate from the other business disciplines, 11 institutions had an economics department located
within the Faculty–School of Business or Management, and
six institutions did not have an economics department.
As shown in Table 1, the majority of business programs
required students to complete only two courses in economics.
In all but two cases the two required courses are introductory
microeconomics and introductory macroeconomics; however, one university requires microeconomics and managerial economics while another requires macroeconomics and
190
C. F. MANG AND N. R. BROWN
TABLE 1
Number of Universities Requiring One or More
Economics Courses as Part of an Undergraduate
Business Degree Program
TABLE 2
Number of Universities Offering Specializations in
Economics to Business Students and the Number of
Required Economics Courses in the Business
Program
Number of mandatory
one-semester economics courses
for a business degree
Item
1
2
3
Number of required economics
courses
4
Item
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Economics department located
within the business school
Business and economics in
separate schools–faculties
No separate economics program
1
5
5
—
1
32
8
3
—
6
—
—
managerial economics. Only two schools required a single
semester of economics, indicating that most business school
curriculum designers appreciate the need to provide a sufficient minimum level of economics education spanning two
semesters. Sixteen of the 61 schools, roughly one quarter of
the total, shared our belief that additional economics courses
are valuable components of a business program. While only
one quarter of universities with separate economics departments require three or more economics courses in their business program, nearly half of business schools that contain
their university’s economics department require an additional
economics course beyond the standard two. This finding is
consistent with Jesswein (1982), who reported that American universities where the economics faculty are integrated
within the business school were also more likely to require
additional economics courses in their business programs. Not
surprisingly, schools that do not have a separate economics
program have no additional required economics course beyond the standard microeconomics and macroeconomics, as,
without a separate economics program, they would be unlikely to have the faculty resources necessary to deliver additional economics courses.
While the administrative location of the economics faculty members does appear to impact the number of required economics courses in the business program, we
were also interested to see if the presence of a stream–
specialization–concentration–major in economics within the
business degree program or the presence of a joint degree
in economics and business would increase the likelihood
of a school requiring additional economics courses in the
business program. As shown in Table 2, 54% of institutions
which have an integrated business and economics department
offer business students a specialization in economics. In contrast, only 36% of universities which separate business and
economics departments into separate faculties offer business
students the option to specialize in economics. It is clear that
schools with integrated departments are more likely to offer
a specialization in economics which we believe is the result
of the economics faculty having greater input into the overall
Economics department located
within business school;
economics offered as
stream–specialization–
concentration–
major or joint degree in
business
Economics department located
within business school; no
specialization in economics
available for business students
Economics department in separate
faculty; economics offered as
stream–specialization–
concentration–
major or joint degree in
business
Economics department in separate
faculty; no specialization in
economics available for
business students
No economics program
1 or 2 economics
courses
3 or 4 economics
courses
3
3
3
2
12
4
21
7
6
—
design of the business school curriculum at those institutions.
Also shown in Table 2, for institutions at which the economics
department is housed within the business school, the number
of programs requiring additional economics courses is essentially half, regardless of whether the business school offers
business students the opportunity to specialize in economics.
For universities that separate economics and business departments into distinct faculties, the proportion of schools
requiring additional courses is exactly one quarter of the total, regardless of whether the business school offers business
students an economics specialization. We conclude that, in
Canada, there is no relationship between a business program
offering a specialization or joint degree in economics and
the number of economics courses required to complete the
business program.
Although, the majority of business programs require only
two economics courses, several streams–specializations–
concentrations–majors (other than economics) within business programs have additional required or optional economics courses. Common required or optional economics
courses include financial economics for finance majors, international trade and international finance for international
business majors, and labor economics for human resources
majors. Table 3 indicates the number of schools which
ROLE OF ECONOMICS IN CANADIAN BUSINESS EDUCATION
191
TABLE 3
Number of Schools With Additional or Optional Economics Courses as Part of Other Specializations Within the Business Program
Item
Additional economics courses required for one or more
streams–specializations– concentrations–majors
Additional economics courses optional in one or more
streams–specializations– concentrations–majors
4
1
14
3
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3 or 4 required economics courses
in general business program
2 required economics courses in
general business program
include additional upper year economics courses either as
required or as an optional component of their curriculum for
students wishing to pursue a specialization in a particular
business field. Eighteen schools have one or more business
specializations that require additional economics courses and
an additional four schools have one or more business specializations that provide students with the option of taking additional economics courses as part of their program of study.
This fact, combined with the information presented in Table 2
that shows that 22 of the 61 schools—more than one third of
the total—offer business students the opportunity to specialize in economics, indicates that economics is indeed widely
valued as an integral component of business education.
Another question we have posed is whether a business
school faculty’s preference for quantitative study affects the
number of required economics classes in the business program. Because economics, theoretical and applied, contains
a great deal of quantitative analysis, business schools that
emphasize mathematical and statistical rigor may have a natural preference for requiring additional economics courses
as well. As shown in Table 4, as the number of required math
and statistics courses increases, so does the likelihood that
a school requires additional economics courses. Among the
13 schools with only one required mathematics or statistics
course, only one school required three or more economics
courses. Among schools with two required mathematics or
statistics courses 27.6% required three or more economics
courses. That figure increased to 30.7% for schools that required three mathematics or statistics courses and 50% for
schools that required four mathematics or statistics courses.
It is not surprising that schools that require very little in the
TABLE 4
Number of Schools With Required Economics
Courses in Business by Required Mathematics
and Statistics Courses
Required semesters of
mathematics and/or statistics
4
3
2
1
1 or 2 required
economics courses
3 or 4 required
economics courses
3
9
21
12
3
4
8
1
way of math or statistics preparation are much less likely to
require additional economics courses that could require those
skills, whereas schools which provide extensive training in
mathematics and statistics are more likely to require students
to take courses which make use of those skills.
Given that, up until 1998, the AACSB recommended three
half-year courses in economics, we investigated whether
business schools that presently hold AACSB accreditation
are more likely to require more than two economics courses.
At the time of writing, only 17 of the business schools examined held AACSB accreditation, and while some received
their accreditation after 1998, nevertheless, we wished to explore whether the curricula of accredited schools would still
match the old recommendations. The results are reported in
Table 5. All schools with AACSB accreditation and an integrated business and economics department–faculty as well
as 40% of schools with AACSB accreditation and separate
business and economics departments required three or more
economics courses as part of their general business curriculum. In contrast, only 33.3% of nonaccredited schools with
an integrated department and 17.2% of nonaccredited schools
with separate business and economics departments required
three or more economics courses. Therefore, although the
AACSB no longer recommends a minimum of three economics courses as part of a business program, AACSB accredited schools in Canada are still more likely than nonaccredited schools to require three or more courses.
A final question that we posed concerned how the type
of economics courses offered to business students differed
based on whether the economics faculty were located within
the business school or not. In particular, we were influenced
by Douglas’s (1979) comment that some upper year economics courses might be perceived among other business
faculty and among business students as being too disconnected from the content covered throughout the rest of the
business program. We were interested to see if economics
faculty located within business schools would be more responsive to the curriculum needs of business students and
be more likely to offer applied economics courses with a focus on business issues (such as managerial economics) rather
than theoretical economics courses (such as intermediate microeconomics). Table 6 shows the percentage of schools surveyed which require the listed introductory and upper level
economics courses at part of their Bachelors degree program.
192
C. F. MANG AND N. R. BROWN
TABLE 5
Required Courses by AACSB Accreditation
AACSB-accredited schools
Item
Nonaccredited schools
1 or 2 required
economics courses
3 or 4 required
economics courses
1 or 2 required
economics courses
3 or 4 required
economics courses
—
2
6
3
9
6
24
5
—
—
6
—
Economics department located
within the business school
Business and economics in
separate schools/faculties
No separate economics program
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Note. AACSB = Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business.
The majority of these universities required introductory
microeconomics and macroeconomics. Only one university
in our sample offered a one-semester course combining
macroeconomic and microeconomic principles. In general,
the percentage of schools requiring managerial economics
or giving students a choice between taking managerial economics and intermediate microeconomics is larger than the
percentage of schools that require intermediate microeconomics alone. However, 27.3% of the universities that had
the economics department located within the business school
required the applied managerial economics, while 9.1% provided the choice between managerial economics and intermediate micro and only 9.1% required students to take a
theoretical upper year economics course (either intermediate
microeconomics or macroeconomics) instead of an applied
economics course. In contrast, at schools with separate economics and business faculties, 13.6% required students to
take a theoretical economics course while only 4.5% provided students the option of choosing between an applied
course and a theoretical course, and 4.5% required an applied course (managerial economics). These results show
that applied upper year economics courses, which are of
greater practical value than theoretical upper year economics
courses, were much more likely to be offered to business
students when the economics department is administratively
located within the business school—the proximity of the
economists to the other business faculty seemed to encourage the business faculty to include more economics courses
in the business program and to encourage the economics
faculty to provide applied courses which are more relevant to a business student’s education—and of course the
two effects can be mutually reinforcing. This result adds
more support to Jesswein’s (1982) argument that the type of
economics coursework required in business schools is influenced by the administrative location of the economics department. Also shown in Table 6, AACSB-accredited schools are
also more likely to require managerial economics. While we
have already shown that 47% of accredited schools required
additional economics courses beyond microeconomics and
macroeconomics, the fact that six of the eight schools who
do so either required managerial economics or provide managerial economics as an option to fulfill the third economics
TABLE 6
Economics Requirements for a Bachelor’s Degree in Business (Percentage of Schools Requiring Course)
Required course
Introductory Microeconomics
Introductory Macroeconomics
Introductory Economics
(combined in one semester)
Managerial Economics
Intermediate Microeconomics
Managerial Economics or
Intermediate Microeconomics
Intermediate Microeconomics or
Intermediate Macroeconomics
Upper Year Macroeconomics
Other
All
universities
(61)
Universities in which
economics department
is within the business
school (11)
Universities in which
economics department
is outside the business
school (44)
Universities with
no economics
department (6)
AACSB-accredited
business
schools (17)
98.3
96.7
1.6
100.0
90.9
9.1
97.7
97.7
0.0
100.0
100.0
0.0
100.0
94.1
0.0
11.5
3.3
4.9
27.3
0.0
9.1
9.1
4.5
4.5
0.0
0.0
0.0
17.6
0.0
17.6
3.3
9.1
2.3
0.0
5.9
4.9
3.3
0.0
0.0
6.8
4.5
0.0
0.0
0.0
5.9
Note. AACSB = Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business.
ROLE OF ECONOMICS IN CANADIAN BUSINESS EDUCATION
course requirement demonstrated to us that faculty at these
schools appreciate the benefit to business students that this
applied economics course has over theoretical economics
courses.
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CONCLUSIONS
In this article, we have presented an overview of the economics courses required in undergraduate business degree
programs in Canada. The large majority of these programs
require two semesters of economics courses as part of their
core required curriculum while a substantial minority requires three or more courses. It is clear that the two schools
that provide only a single semester of economics courses are
outliers within group and that having two required economics
courses is viewed as the minimum necessary exposure to economics content.
However, given that schools that require a greater number of mathematics and statistics are also more likely to
require a greater number of economics courses, students at
some schools seem to be exposed to an overly high degree
of quantitative work while students at other schools may be
underexposed as their programs of study contain very few
economics, mathematics, and statistics courses. In order to
provide a balanced education, with a sufficient level of exposure to quantitative studies, we recommend that all schools
with only a single semester of mathematics or statistics consider requiring students to take three semesters of economics
(in the absence of a second semester of mathematics or statistics). As well, for schools that already require two semesters
of mathematics or statistics, we still recommend considering
a requirement for three economics courses in order to provide
a well-rounded and diversified educational experience with
sufficient exposure to quantitative techniques.
For those schools that choose to require a third economics
course in addition to the standard introductory microeconomics and macroeconomics, we recommend a course in
managerial economics. Among the universities that have economics departments integrated within the business school,
managerial economics is the most commonly required additional course. We believe that the presence of the economics
faculty within the business school is a factor leading to the
requirement of an additional economics course, a view that
193
is shared by Jesswein (1982); however, we also believe that
the collocation moderates the course offerings of the economics faculty which is why they are more likely to offer
managerial economics, an applied economics course that is
highly relevant to business studies, rather than a similar, but
more theoretical and less business-practice oriented, intermediate microeconomics. The nature of a managerial economics
course fits more naturally with the other content covered in a
business program, a fact that we believe is recognized more
clearly by economics faculty members who are collocated in
an administrative unit with colleagues from other business
disciplines, leading to a higher incidence of the course being required at those schools. Therefore, we recommend this
course as the required upper year course for those schools
which require three economics courses in their business
program.
REFERENCES
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