A business school is a university-level institution that teaches topics such as accounting, finance, marketing, organizational behavior, strategy and quantitative methods. They include schools of business, business administration, and management. There are four principal forms of business school.

1. Most of the university business schools are faculties, colleges or departments within in the university, and teach predominantly business courses.
2. In North America a business school is often understood to be a university graduate school which offers a Master of Business Administration or equivalent degree.
3. Most business schools are faculties, colleges or departments within in a university, and teach predominantly business courses. Also in North America the term "business school" can refer to a different type of institution: a two-year school that grants the Associate's degree in various business subjects. Most of these schools began as secretarial schools, then expanded into accounting or bookkeeping and similar subjects. They are typically operated as businesses, rather than as institutions of higher learning.
4. In Europe and Asia, some universities teach business only.

Business school degrees

* Associate's Degree: AA, ABA, AS
* Bachelor's Degrees: BBA, BBus, BComm, BSBA, BBS
* Master's Degrees: MBA, MMR, MSMR, MPA, MAcc, MHA
* Doctoral Degrees: Ph.D., DBA, DHA, DM

Business school use of case studies

Some business schools center their teaching around the use of case studies. Case studies have been used in graduate and undergraduate business education for nearly one hundred years. Business cases are historical descriptions of actual business situations. Typically, information is presented about a business firm's products, markets, competition, financial structure, sales volumes, management, employees and other factors affecting the firm's success. The length of a business case study may range from two or three pages to 30 pages, or more.

Leading exponents of the case study method of instruction include the Harvard Business School, the Darden School (University of Virginia), the Tuck School (Dartmouth), Stanford University Business School, Richard Ivey School of Business (University of Western Ontario) and INSEAD (France and Singapore). Examples of widely used case studies are "Lincoln Electric" and "Google, Inc.," both published by the Harvard Business School.

Students are expected to scrutinize the case study and prepare to discuss strategies and tactics that the firm should employ in the future.

Three different methods have been used in business case teaching: (1) prepared case-specific questions to be answered by the student, (2) problem-solving analysis and (3) a generally applicable strategic planning approach.

The first method listed above is used with short cases intended for undergraduate students. The underlying concept is that such students need specific guidance to be able to analyze case studies.

The second method, initiated by the Harvard Business School is by far the most widely used method in MBA and executive development programs. The underlying concept is that with enough practice (hundreds of case analyses) students develop intuitive skills for analyzing and resolving complex business situations. Click here for more information on the HBS case method. Successful implementation of this method depends heavily on the skills of the discussion leader. Only a few teachers are able to become truly great case discussion leaders. Jim Erskine at the Ivey School is a prime example of such a teacher.

The third method does not require students to analyze hundreds of cases. A strategic planning model is provided and students are instructed to apply the steps of the model to six to a dozen cases during a semester. This is sufficient to develop their ability to analyze a complex situation, generate a variety of possible strategies and to select the best ones. In effect, students learn a generally applicable approach to analyzing cases studies and real situations. This approach does not make any extraordinary demands on the artistic and dramatic talents of the teacher. Consequently most professors are capable of supervising application of this method.

History of Business Cases. - When the Harvard Business School was started, the faculty quickly realized that there were no textbooks suitable to a graduate program in business. Their first solution to this problem was to interview leading practitioners of business and to write detailed accounts of what these managers were doing. Of course the professors could not present these cases as practices to be emulated because there were no criteria available for determining what would succeed and what would not succeed. So the professors instructed their students to read the cases and to come to class prepared to discuss the cases and to offer recommendations for appropriate courses of action. Basically that is the model still being used. See a critique of this approach. - Top Business Schools Directory - Best Business Schools