Military Doctrine Development and Curriculum Development

Abstract

One of the complaints about the development of military doctrine over the past several decades is that “we are
always preparing to fight the last war.” One of the complaints that surfaced during a four year long study into the
development of a common framework for supply chain management curriculum development was that the text books
used in the curriculum development process were out of date. In other words, we are preparing students for the real
world by teaching them about the historical business world and not the emerging business world. While this
approach may work in the liberal arts such as history, it is in the words of Freire, doing a disservice to the students
and not adequately preparing them for the real world. This study looks at a methodology for developing business
school curriculums in particular. The study reviewed syllabi, job announcements, and textbooks for the top rated
schools and for those not in the Top 25. The gap between what industry is asking for and what schools are teaching is
much wider for the not-Top 25 schools than for the top ranked schools.