IT for managers: journey of a core MBA course over 10 years

Abstract

This paper narrates our experience with a course on Information Technology (IT) that is part of the MBA core of a premier management school in India. World over, there is a trend to drop IT-related course(s) from the core MBA curriculum since, some believe, IT being embedded in all business disciplines need not be taught separately. We argue that with IT becoming omnipresent, every line manager needs to be aware of its possibilities. The students need a course whose content should be dynamic as emerging IT concepts of yesteryears become entrenched today, and newer ones emerge. Over 10 years, we turned around a core course that was once disliked, to one which is now considered to add significant value. We emphasize the journey that utilized student feedback as important signal for successful course design. We believe every school, given its forte and target students’ profile, needs to discover its own IT-related core course through a similar journey.