The article looks at a study from 1973 which attempted to provide some empirical data of the nature of a basic management course. The author references papers published within a business management periodical while call for defined standards for the content, instruction, and objectives of such a course. Random members of the American Association of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) were selected to respond to the study's questionnaire regarding foreseeable trends within basic management courses. Factors of class size and teaching method are considered.

A study of 19 manufacturing organizations revealed structural differences between relatively high and low performing organizations. Cluster analyses of the correlations among eleven measures of structure isolated three relatively independent dimensions of (a) decentralization, (b) specialization, and (c) formalization among the ten high performing firms, but failed to produce any such independent dimensions among the low performing firms.

A new instrument for measuring the beliefs, attitudes, or values held by the management of a firm with respect to its various publics is used in a field study of managers in 19 firms. This instrument is effective in differentiating between the management teams in different kinds of business organizations.

Two contrasting models, factory and service, are developed from general systems theory and used to describe the college production process. Issues explored in terms of the models are: open admission, research, facility location, training versus education, instructional methods, academic freedom, instructor evaluation, and the college's responsibility in placement.

The article looks at the findings of a study examining the extent to which relative performance of organization subunits on a set of quantitative measures of performance is in agreement with judgments of relative performance made at higher levels in the organization. The author discusses the adoption of goal setting programs within organizations to establish performance criteria for achievement levels. The study asked headquarters managers in two functional departments of a telephone company to rank field units from their respective function according to their relative overall performance. For the field engineering units, some combination of a few variables were found that related linearly to performance judgments.

In an evaluation of the personalized system of instruction (PSI), PSI-exposed students performed significantly better and retained more knowledge for extended periods than did students taught by a traditional lecture approach. These conclusions support other studies and indicate that schools of business should investigate PSI for use within their curricula.