By Carter A. Prescott, Management Communications Consultant

As the global business landscape shifts and changes, MBA programs are following suit. Read on to learn how this is reflected in both the new curricula and emerging programs.

Cross-functional, interdisciplinary curricula
You'll hear these phrases so often they'll sound like a mantra. Across the country, graduate-level business schools are reshaping curricula to teach students the importance of solving problems by synthesizing a variety of subjects, such as combining marketing courses with information technology to prepare marketing managers for using dining mining, customer relationship management, and other IT-based tools.

Faculty members from different disciplines coordinate their syllabi and teach in teams to students who work in teams. When Stanford added a new course in human resources management, for example, it was designed by professors of organizational behavior and economics. Cross-functional approaches have also proved resoundingly popular with students, who give them the thumbs-up in surveys.

New programs
Whether they are specific sequences or subjects woven into the fabric of an MBA curriculum, you'll find strong mentions of entrepreneurship, ethics, innovation, and leadership development in nearly all basic and advanced business programs.

Purdue's PL+S Program (Preparing Leaders and Stewards) provides additional coursework, community service opportunities, self-assessment, and self-directed team consulting projects with companies, all as avenues for developing leadership skills. Harvard's "foundations" program places heavy emphasis on career planning, self-assessment, working in groups, and business ethics.

An emphasis on entrepreneurship reflects the reality that "the majority of MBA graduates will not work in Fortune 500 companies, because they have been downsizing the most," notes Charles Hickman, former director of projects and services at AACSB International, which accredits MBA programs in the United States.

For those who do work inside large organizations, a new perspective has emerged: intrapreneurship. Employees with breakthrough ideas are being encouraged to establish new businesses in-house by developing them as separate ventures under the corporate roof. Schools are also placing greater emphasis on social entrepreneurship, preparing managers to bring their business skills to the nonprofit sector.

On an individual level, the trend in curricula has been toward flexibility. Graduate-level business programs are introducing initiatives to personalize the management development process. If a student's skills are underdeveloped in a certain area, such as finance, she will have the opportunity to take courses that will address that weakness.

This article has been adapted from Peterson's MBA Programs, available for purchase in our online bookstore.