Information Technology in the MBA Curriculum: The Case for Relevant Topics

While technology can be used as an important competitive tool for organizational survival and growth, many graduate business programs have been unclear in their delineation of which topics should be included within their core IT/IS MBA course. A total of 311 1 year, 2 year, executive MBA students and faculty were surveyed as to which technology topics they believed were most important in an IT/IS core MBA course. “Strategic use of MIS”, “Management’s Information Needs” and “E-Business” were rated as the top three most important topics that should be included in the core IT/IS course. Conversely, “Artificial Intelligence”, “MIS Hardware”, and “Ethics and MIS” were rated as the three least important topics. These survey results indicate that the desired focus for an IT/IS core course should be on the strategic use of technology to support decision-making rather than on specific technology topics. Interpreted in another way, the results suggest that MBA and faculty would prefer that the IT/IS core course be structured with a managerial or business focus versus a technical focus within their MBA curriculum.