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Discussion & Conclusions
An examination of the literature, the AACSB guidelines, and the mission, goals, and curriculum of the CSU Fullerton business school identified seven core competencies of potential relevance to business school education: written communications, oral communications, computer skills, teamwork skills, cultural awareness, ethics, and functional-area competence. This study addressed three major research questions with respect to these competencies. First, are they actually important to business students and to the employers of business students? Second, which specific tasks do business school graduates need to perform within each competency in the course of their daily professional lives? Third, is the CSU Fullerton College of Business and Economics able to teach these competencies effectively? Findings related to these questions have relevance for business school curricula across the CSU system and present a baseline (both in terms of study design and results) from which business schools throughout the system can perform research tailored specifically to their educational programs.
In general, this study showed that interpersonal skills are considered to be important, with oral communication ranked as the most important competency for success in the corporate environment. This reaffirms the recommendations of the Porter and McKibbin report (1988), of the AACSB (2001), and of employers outside of this sample (Bullis, 2001; Hope, 1997). Despite the importance of oral communication, Cal State Fullerton was perceived by the present sample as teaching it only moderately effectively (the competency was ranked as the fourth most effectively taught in the school). This suggests that more emphasis could be given in the curriculum to oral communication skills, and the author applauds faculty who have moved away from the traditional classroom model in which the teacher speaks and the students listen. The present findings suggest that we might benefit from activities such as discussions, group activities, role-plays, and classroom presentations that allow students to develop a variety of communication skills.
Consistent with prior findings (Brown, 1994; Stewart et al., 1996, AACSB, 2001), ethics was also considered to be important by both employers and alumni. However, CSU Fullerton was considered to have taught ethics only moderately effectively (the competency was ranked fifth). One reason for this lack of attention may be that ethics is a difficult and sometimes ambiguous topic to discuss in a classroom setting and, in today's politically correct environment, educators may find themselves shying away from such discussions. The data presented in Table 3 shows that employers rate having written ethical standards in the company as important. In terms of how ethics should be included in the curriculum, Stewart et al. (1996) found that students preferred to have ethics integrated into a number of different courses rather than having it as a stand-alone course, and Brown (1994) suggests that role-plays are an appropriate vehicle for integrating ethical concerns into courses.
It is noteworthy that both groups give a ranking of moderate importance to cultural awareness while prior findings give a high level of importance to cultural awareness (AACSB, 2001; Hofstede 1984, 1991, 1993; Kwok, Arpan, & Folks, 1993; Kwok, & Arpan, 1994; Malekzadeh, 1998; Monye, 1995; Odenwald, 1993; Sauser, 1993). This is likely due to the skewed ethnicity of the current sample: 75% of the CSU Fullerton alumni sample is White and 94% of the companies for which they work are headquartered in the U.S. Only 67 alumni said that they worked with diverse co-workers, and 62 mentioned interacting with diverse customers and clients. While ethnic-racial data was not collected from the employers, we do know that 96% of their companies were headquartered in the U.S., so in comparison with the population in general the present sample faces a disproportionately small number of the challenges imposed by living and working in a diverse business environment. Historical research into the ethnic-racial background of our campus student body showed that in 1995 44% of the student body across the campus as a whole was White, 22% Asian, 18% Hispanic, and 17% other, while in 1985 the campus population was 69% White, 12% Asian, 9% Hispanic, and 9% other. In view of this, the large number of Whites in the present sample is understandable but does, nevertheless, limit the generalizability of the present findings. Further research is needed that looks at the perceived importance of cultural awareness and sensitivity with a more diverse sample.
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