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THE FOX SCHOOL of Business and Management At The Fox School, we are thoroughly committed to providing a quality, student-centered education and professional development relevant to today's digital, global economy. That commitment is reflected in the integration of technology into the curriculum and the classroom and the encouragement of entrepreneurship and innovation in business and education. Supporting and enriching this commitment are research and outreach institutes and centers that respond to the forces driving today's economy — Globalization, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and Information Technology. RESPONDING TO THE FORCES DRIVING TODAY'S ECONOMY TEMPLE Visit The Fox School's Institutes: • Institute of Global Management Studies www.fox.temple.edu/igms • Innovation & Entrepreneurship Institute www.fox.temple.edu/iei • Irwin L. Gross eBusiness Institute www.fox.temple.edu/ebi study of the industry, how it's organized, and what its needs are," Dartigues says. Before moving forward with the Wine MBA, Dartigues and her colleagues interviewed wine profes- sionals throughout the region to discover what the industry would want in a management program. She adds that such exploration often requires a bit of creative detective work to discover an industry's exact training requirements. "You must really listen and be creative with your questions, "Building a specialized program requires a very careful on top of that foundation," says Buick. "Having that core creates a degree that is highly transferable. It's also especially important if you're looking for accreditation." Guillemette of IATA agrees, but admits that it's not easy because people in the industry often won't know what their needs are in terms of training," she says. "Before we created this program, I didn't have any experience in the wine mar- ket. I actually think it was better that way. Rather than be influenced by my own training, I could listen with a neutral ear and be more open to what they were telling me." keting, finance, business research, strategic management, and managing people. We then put the golf-oriented curriculum Limits to Specialization Many educators agree that there is often significant industry support for programs that target a single sector's idiosyncratic knowledge. Still, they admit that there are limits to specializa- tion, and emphasize that a general business curriculum with courses in finance, marketing, and strategic management is still essential. That core must always be a foundation, says Buick of QMUC. Otherwise, specialized knowledge is of little use. "Our program includes five core modules, including mar- to create a comprehensive program that addresses general business topics and specialized courses in the right propor- tions. "When IATA first built a specialized MBA in airline management, it went well for a while. Then, we reached a point that the pendulum began to swing too far the other way. We were at risk of creating the opposite set of problems that we were trying to fix in the first place," says Guillemette. "Now, we're trying to reach equilibrium. We want to teach students the industry as well as the basic principles that apply to any business. So, we looked for a university that already had a program with a strong business core, so that we could build the specialization around that." Because the trend toward industry-specific MBAs is rela- tively new, educators involved in designing programs for par- ticular industries are still in a period of trial and error. They are working to strike the perfect balance between the general business core and industry-specific courses. As they do so, however, one thing is clear: No market is getting less compli- cated. Within these sectors, managers will continue to face increasingly sophisticated, complex environments. For indus- tries that want made-to-order managers who are better equipped to cope with those environments, the made-to- order MBA may be the method of choice. ■ z BizEd JULY/AUGUST 2003 27