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ABSTRACT
The use of ERP systems can provide a variety of benefits in a business school curriculum. Among the most important benefits is the ability of ERP systems to serve as a focal point for integration of knowledge across functional areas. This paper describes one school's experience with the use of ERP systems in core business classes with particular focus on a promising integration technique based upon the development of a hypothetical example company. A common general description of the company's products, organizational structure, and operations is used across multiple core courses. An SAP instance is populated with sample data designed to illustrate key concepts and case study style materials are used to set the context for analysis of the company's data.
Keywords: Business Curriculum, ERP, SAP, Curriculum Integration
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 The Need for Integration in Business School Curriculum
Over 15 years ago Porter and McKibbin (1988) emphasized the need to adapt business curriculum to assure that we develop graduates with an integrated understanding of business processes and the ability to work effectively in teams to solve key business problems. Closs and Stank (1999, p. 59) note that business has abandoned the "vertical, functional organizational structure characteristic of traditional procurement, manufacturing and physical distribution operation in favor of a more horizontal, cross-functional structure." They suggest that business school curricula need to mirror this change.
In response to this need, a number of researchers have proposed a redesign of the core business curriculum to break down disciplinary silos (Stover et. al., 1997; Ryan and Luthy, 2000; Bailey, Chow and Haddad, 1999). The University of Idaho (Stover and Byers, 2002), Babson College (Gwin and Gwin, 2000), and a number of other schools have made systematic changes across their entire business core intended to achieve a higher level of integration.
Other integration efforts have focused on a subset or "block" of courses within the core (Still and Petty, 2000) and have often centered on a theme, such as, experiential learning (Michaelson, Hobbs and Snead, 2000) or entrepreneurship (Kennedy and Russell, 2002). Frings, Prinzinger and Schneider (2000) suggest that block level integration can take on a number of forms requiring varying degrees of coordinated faculty effort. A highly coordinated approach might require joint teaching of formerly separate...