Cecil Bohanon is a professor of economics. His views do not necessarily agree with those of the paper.
Many employers report that business school graduates are narrowly focused. Accounting majors know accounting but do not see how marketing matters in a company. Marketing majors know marketing but do not appreciate the importance of accounting in the firm. Yet, to be successful in business, one must be able to see the larger picture faced by the firm.
In the Miller College of Business, we are trying to address this issue by giving our students a common case that can be used across the business curriculum.
We want our students to see a single company's problems from the perspective of economics, and then from the perspective of accounting and yet again from the perspective of management, finance, marketing, business law and other disciplines.
We hope this will help our students see a business as an integrated system, and help them become more productive and successful in their careers.
Big Sky Brewing is a real company in Montana, and a few years ago, the company was turned down for a USDA loan. It was later given an opportunity to re-apply for the loan.
Three scholars at the University of Montana wrote a detailed case study about the issues the company faced in this context.
The case gives a wonderful overview of the company as an integrated system, as well as a lot of detail about the various functional areas of the business.
Indeed, it is one of the few cases we examined that had sufficient breadth and detail to be used in a variety of courses. For this reason, we chose Big Sky Brewing as a common case for the core curriculum for the Miller College of Business.
When we chose the Big Sky case, we were quite aware that choosing a beer company might be controversial. We have worked to use this controversy to promote our educational goal.
Our associate dean, a prominent local business leader, and I explained the reason for using the case at an orientation on the case attended by more than 500 students.
We also condemned underage alcohol use and were agnostic about the desirability of legal-age use.
These points were reinforced in a letter attached to each copy of the Big Sky case signed by the dean of the Miller College and by one of the founders of the brewery.
In addition, many instructors using the Big Sky case are giving extra credit to students attending a special session on alcohol awareness offered in conjunction with the case by the good folks at Ball State's Counseling Center.
In our view, the controversy of the case is an advantage: What a great tool to raise issues about the legal, social and ethical challenges businesses face!
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