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ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- As a longtime marketing professor at Harvard Business School, Robert Dolan understands well the power of a distinctive brand image. So it was only natural that he would assess the strength of the University of Michigan Business School brand when he was named dean in 2001. He didn't take long to conclude that Michigan lacked a clear and compelling identity. There was no denying that Michigan had long enjoyed a positive reputation as a training ground for general managers, especially at automotive and other manufacturing companies. But what Dean Dolan saw as a much more potent selling point was Michigan's emphasis on practical experience. To him, this was the defining competitive advantage that sets Michigan apart from other top-ranked M.B.A. programs. Thus was born the slogan "Leading in thought and action." "I spent my first year here deciding on a marketing strategy, but I would have been in trouble if it had looked like I was trying to turn Michigan into another Harvard," says Dr. Dolan. "HBS owns the case method; at Michigan, we get students out into the real world and connect theory and practice." | AND THE WINNERS ARE...
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For example, all first-year students participate in teams on some 80 "multidisciplinary action projects," or MAPs, which may involve a corporate assignment, an entrepreneurial venture, an international opportunity or something "experimental." Students may help Northwest Airlines increase the number of passengers using self-service check-in, or they may do a market analysis for an Israeli medical-device start-up. Some work with educational and nonprofit organizations such as the Landmine Survivors Network in Bosnia. They may even contribute research for a book. That's what 10 teams did in helping produce the newly published book "The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid," about how companies can provide products and services to the world's poor and also improve their living conditions. These projects force students to grapple with ambiguous situations without all of the facts and challenges being laid out neatly as they are in many case studies, says Dr. Dolan. "Companies find problem-solving skills at a lot of schools, but they can't easily find people who can quickly define a complicated problem and then work well as a team to solve it." Some students also gain practical experience as managers of the $3 million Wolverine Venture Fund, investing in start-ups. Or they can apply for "dare to dream" grants to refine their own new-business concepts. Many of the investments and new-business ideas involve technology, but not all: One $20,000 grant went to students who envision an "edu-tainment" theme park called the Candy Factory. Ready to Roll This practical focus resonates with corporate recruiters, who rated Michigan first in The Wall Street Journal/Harris Interactive National ranking. Now more than ever, companies are seeking M.B.A.s who are ready to roll their first day on the job. "Michigan students are prepared to function well in any position that they are given," says Don Deliz, strategic alliance manager for Hewlett-Packard Co.'s consumer imaging and printing division. "They have more experience in the corporate world since they have the seven-week 'mini-internship' with their MAP program during the school year, in addition to their summer internship." Mr. Deliz and other recruiters commend Michigan for its "well-rounded" students who work competently in teams and possess strong interpersonal skills. But Michigan received lower scores for students' international knowledge and its faculty's expertise. | CNBC DOW JONES BUSINESS VIDEO
CNBC's Phil Lebeau speaks to Robert Dolan, dean of Ross Business School, about how students gain hands-on experience there.
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The school rates highly with recruiters in such academic specialties as marketing (No. 2 in the Journal survey), operations management (No. 4), strategy (No. 7), and accounting (No. 9). At the same time, some recruiters consider Michigan too closely focused on operations management and the auto industry. However, both current and past school administrators contend that's an outdated perception. "Over the past 25 years, Michigan has repositioned itself and evolved from a regional, auto-focused school to a school with extremely strong corporate connections around the world," says Edward Snyder, dean of the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business and a former professor and senior associate dean at Michigan's business school. Michigan offered its first courses in "higher commercial education" in 1900, and created a separate business school 24 years later. Though a public university, it considers its peers to be private schools like Harvard, Dartmouth and Wharton. Its tuition and fees are in the same league as the Ivies, running $38,688 for out-of-state M.B.A. students and $33,688 for Michigan residents. "To compete with the top schools," Dr. Dolan says, "we have to be able to pay the going rate for first-rate faculty members. That means charging students more than other state universities." But Michigan is less competitive with some of its peers when it comes to its physical amenities. Many business schools, including the Wharton School and the University of Chicago, are promoting their lavish new buildings to prospective students, professors and recruiters. Michigan's facilities, however, look antiquated in comparison. In particular, professors complain about the shortage of space where students can meet in teams or interact with the faculty. New York real-estate developer Stephen M. Ross also noticed the aging facilities on his visits to Ann Arbor and this month announced that he will donate $100 million to his alma mater, the largest gift ever to a U.S. business school and nearly a third of Michigan's current $350 million capital-campaign goal. In return, Michigan has named the business school in his honor. The bulk of the $100 million will be spent on renovations and new construction, including more group-study rooms and informal meeting space. "With all of the new business-school buildings around the country and the competitive market out there, you have to have the greatest facilities to attract the top young people and the best faculty," says Mr. Ross, who received his bachelor's degree in accounting from Michigan in 1962. Focus on the Environment The business school isn't an island at the University of Michigan, where partnerships are increasingly common. The M.B.A. program teams up with such schools and departments as education, engineering, medicine, music, public policy and Asian studies for dual degrees or other joint ventures. But its alliance with the School of Natural Resources and Environment gets the most attention these days. At a time when corporate citizenship has become a hot topic, Michigan is far ahead of most of its rivals. Last year, the Aspen Institute and World Resources Institute praised Michigan as one of six business schools "on the cutting edge" of incorporating social and environmental stewardship into their M.B.A. programs. The social and environmental programs are what attracted M.B.A. student Nick Cucinelli to Michigan. A former member of the Coast Guard and the founder of a yacht maintenance and delivery business, he is now part of Michigan's Corporate Environmental Management Program. So far, he has worked on the issue of "sustainable mobility" at Ford Motor Co. and with the Carbon Disclosure Project, a London-based group dedicated to environmental responsibility. "Those projects give you a context for what you learn in class," he says. "They're the capstones that glued everything together for me." While practical experience is king at Michigan, the school also aims to produce cutting-edge research. For example, it has been a pioneer in a new field of academic research called positive organizational scholarship. Much business-school research focuses on problems and negative corporate behavior. But this new school of thought is more concerned with what scholars at Michigan call "positive deviance." "We're interested in documenting extraordinary organizations that flourish and understanding what makes them different," says Gretchen Spreitzer, associate professor of management and organization. She and her colleagues have worked with corporate executives, a public school district and a hospital nursing unit to spread the message of positive deviance. Michigan would like to win the same recognition in international business as it has in the fields of organizational behavior and corporate citizenship. Currently, it doesn't show up among recruiters' picks for the top schools for international business, but it hopes perceptions will change as it moves to extend its global reach. More students are doing international action projects that take them overseas to learn about other cultures and their business practices. This year Michigan opened the Center for Global Resource Leverage in Bangalore, India, to address the outsourcing of jobs and other issues. And Robert E. Kennedy was recruited from Harvard to strengthen the school's international business curriculum and make the William Davidson Institute's research on developing countries more relevant to corporate executives, economists and government policy makers. "We intend to create and disseminate best practices on operating in emerging markets," says Mr. Kennedy, the institute's executive director. As it shores up weak spots in its M.B.A. program, Michigan also must struggle to preserve one of its most notable achievements: student diversity. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, it produced a large crop of minority M.B.A. graduates and attracted the attention of many corporate recruiters. In fact, recruiters in The Wall Street Journal/Harris Interactive survey still name Michigan as the best M.B.A. program for hiring minority graduates. But as other schools have followed Michigan's lead, the competition for minority students has become much more intense, and Michigan is looking less diverse these days. When Asian-Americans are included, Michigan's minority enrollment represents about a quarter of the total. But only about 11% of the M.B.A. students are black, Hispanic or Native American. That's down from more than 20% in the early 1990s, school officials say, but up from last year's dismal 6%. David Wooten, an African-American alumnus and assistant marketing professor, says, "Last year was a real wake-up call." | 
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发表于 2004-9-22 00:56:00
