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MBA Concentrations (Part II) – US B-Schools

Non-Profit Management

Non-profit corporations face unique challenges, including finding and maintaining funding, grant management, and maintaining the highest of ethical standards. Some students attend business school to further their understanding of such corporations in particular. It may seem an odd choice to some, given the cost of business school, and non-profits, it would seem, are not able to pay the salaries necessary to pay back loans. However, non-profit corporations now make up close to 8% of salaries paid, so there is money to be made (especially in higher positions) while still helping one’s fellow man. Indeed, non-profit corporations find MBAs particularly attractive. Not all schools offer the concentration and their course offerings vary, so look carefully into non-profit concentrations.

Notable Schools

• Yale Business School
• Stanford Business School
• Harvard Business School

Marketing

Marketing involves both creative and technical skills. The work of marketers is thus part imagination, part detailed analysis. Working in market research, brand management, and channel marketing, marketers need a diverse skill set. MBA concentrators in marketing improve upon and build the skills necessary to succeed and find their place in the marketing industry. This concentration is for people interested in human behavior, innovation, as well as hard numbers and facts.

Notable Schools

• Wharton University of Pennsylvania
• Fuqua Business School at Duke University
• Northwestern University

Real Estate

Real Estate concentrators go on to perform functions within commercial or residential real estate, including investment, management, and development. Though recently residential real estate development has suffered from the mortgage crisis and general slowdown, commercial real estate remains a growing sector. Real Estate concentrators improve on their negotiation skills and learn creative methods of solving problems. The real estate sector does not heavily recruit on business school campuses, but students can find positions through networking and legwork.

Notable Schools

• Wharton
• University of North Carolina (Kenan-Flager)

Healthcare

The healthcare concentrator works on the skills necessary to tackle some of the most contentious ethical issues, issues of life and death and poverty, while developing businesses and maintaining profits. Healthcare concentrators go on to careers running hospital or medical groups or pharmaceutical companies. Thus, it is important that students have an interest in health as well as in solving contemporary civic responsibilities relating to issues of caring for the sick along with meeting the budget and profit expectations of corporations.

Concentration in health care is not offered everywhere, but we recommend that students choose a business school location within the region in which they will seek employment. In this way they can get to know companies and hospitals as well as the legal and social issues unique to particular regions.

Human Resource Management

Human Resources management is a changing field. It involves an understanding of how people function best, how people of different and similar cultures and backgrounds merge in the office, how to evaluate potential, and ultimately how to make a business use its employees in the most efficient and productive manner possible. Human resources concentration develops these diverse skills.

Notable Schools

• Krannert School of Management of Purdue University

Operations and Production Specialty and Supply Chain Management

Operations and production are also key aspects of business. Linking products with consumers and creating the products themselves involves developing an intricate understanding of a business and its networks. Students interested in logistics, in the foundations of goods and where they originate may find this concentration particularly interesting, especially in the current global marketplace. Some MBA operations concentrators go into consulting and others work as facility managers in a wide breadth of industries.

Notable Schools

• Carey School of Business of Arizona State University
• Krannert School of Management of Purdue University