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luxury brand management graduates diminish as the luxury market recovers from economic hard times. "In terms of placement, the hiring freezes in the industry have made it more difficult for our students to find jobs quickly," says Degoutte. "We have thus reinforced our career services plan to maximize their exposure to the industry through mailings, company visits, conferences with HR direc- tors and headhunters, and networking with ESSEC alumni." unique to this industry, such as yield management or tech- nology, or cases about ticketing or filling airplane seats, they just weren't there," says Doreen. For the MBA in Golf and Country Club Management at Queen Margaret University College in Edinburgh, Scotland, the lack of current research means that faculty has had to work very closely with golf management profession- als, says Ian Buick, director of the program. Their experi- ence in areas such as golf and resort devel- opment, legal issues for service-based businesses, and even greenskeeping, provide an experience for students that is equivalent, if not superior, to reading a textbook, he says. "Finding research material, books, gram is just that: It's unique. For that reason, few, if any, case studies, textbooks, or reports exist that include information applicable to certain courses. Therefore, a business school often must expend money and man-hours to find available resources and generate other course materials on its own. "Case studies exist for the larger airlines, but cases on other Another problem related to starting a unique MBA pro- aspects of the airline industry are limited or nonexistent. When we tried to find textbooks that defined the principles Center for Aviation Management Education and Research (ICAMER) has become a world resource for aviation man- agement information. That kind of global recognition can be the reward that off- tinuing a niche program, a school amasses a significant amount of industry-specific knowledge that few other institutions can offer. The Molson School is known through- out the airline industry, and its International however, can ultimately be of great benefit to a school, Buick adds. "Our collection of research is growing. We now have seven students in the program who are doing dis- sertations, so we'll soon be a source of lit- erature on the topic." Doreen agrees that in the process of con- and published reports on golf manage- ment has proved quite problematical. We're beginning to find people who are writing in this area. It just takes a while to find them," says Buick. "Luckily, we've had wonderful industry representation, with professionals in the field often serv- ing as guest lecturers. We have a devel- oped golf industry in Scotland, which pro- vides students with good resources for theoretical research." The difficulty of locating resources, sets the costs of a niche MBA, says Doreen. "Every airline and almost every airport in the world knows about our program. We've developed a worldwide reputation and established our- selves as a world leader in this field," he says. "In that regard, the program has been extraordinarily valuable." BizEd JULY/AUGUST 2003 25