The Content of the Basic/Required MIS Course in a Latin-American MBA

The panel is about the basic/required MIS course in Latin-American MBA programs. Given the current insufficiency of qualified MIS faculty in Latin-America this course is frequently taught by faculty from other areas and its content is often highly technical. The panel (introduced and moderated by Dr. Carlos Ferran) will discuss the current and the ideal content of this course as well as avenues to move forward. Two panelists are resident faculty in Latin-American universities (Dr. Aurora Sanchez –UCNA in Chile– and Dr. David Montesinos –INCAE in Costa Rica–), one visits Latin-America regularly to teach MIS in MBA programs (Dr. Enrique Mu), and one is completely unrelated to Latin-America (Dr. Janis Gogan) who will question why the course should be any different to the ones taught elsewhere. The panel is of interest to Latin-American academics but also for any academic interested on what should be included in the basic/required MIS course in MBA programs regardless of geography. Panel Facilitator: Dr. Carlos Ferran ([email protected]; Pennsylvania State University, Malvern, PA, USA): Dr. Ferran is an Assistant Professor of MIS at the Pennsylvania State University. He Holds a D.B.A. from Boston University and a Master in Finance from Universidad Metropolitana (Venezuela). Dr. Ferran was born in Venezuela and is the current Editor-in-Chief of the AIS’s Journal RELCASI (Revista Latinoamericana y del Caribe de la Asociación de Sistemas de Información). He has taught and given academic lectures in IAE (Argentina), INALDE (Colombia), IESA (Venezuela), and ULA (Venezuela). His latest publication appeared in Management Science. He is currently the vice-president of publications for the Latin American and Caribbean Association of Information Systems (LACAIS).