Business schools need to improve interdisciplinary communication to make the MBA relevant

Joe Angeles/WUSTL PhotoCorporations enjoy cross-curricular classes at the Olin School of Business’ Knight Center for Executive Education.The debate over the relevance and future prospects of business schools is not new. The same issues have existed since the beginning of formal business education in the late 1800s. The current state of the debate, fueled by declining MBA applications and high profile legal cases involving MBA-trained executives, has proceeded in ignorance of this history, according to Bill Bottom, the Joyce and Howard Wood Distinguished Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis.