The Masters in Labor and Human Resources Program in the Fisher College of Business at The Ohio State University has recently developed and implemented a new graduate curriculum in human resources. Impetus for the new curriculum was the formation of a corporate advisory board. The new curriculum emphasizes analytical and leadership skills as well as the functional content knowledge needed for graduate students to become effective internal human resource consultants. Both the need for this type of curriculum and the process used to develop the new curriculum is reviewed. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

While it has long been recognized that the human resource function must take a more customer-oriented perspective on the design and delivery of HR programs, this view has focused primarily on internal customers. However, external customers can provide important input into HR activities (e.g., job analysis information), they can participate in HR activities (e.g., selection decisions), and they can use HR activities (e.g., receive training). By expanding customer orientation in the HR function to focus explicitly on external customers, a more direct relationship between human resource management and competitive organizational performance can be established. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.