The Master of Business Administration (MBA) is a master's degree in business administration, which attracts people from a wide range of academic disciplines. The MBA designation originated in the United States, emerging from the late 19th century as the country industrialized and companies sought out scientific approaches to management. The core courses in the MBA program are designed to introduce students to the various areas of business such as accounting, marketing, human resources, operations management, etc. Many MBA students select an area of concentration as part of their graduate program and focus approximately one-third of their studies in this area. For example, someone with a concentration in marketing may take additional courses focused on digital marketing, international marketing, etc.
Accreditation bodies exist specifically for MBA programs to ensure consistency and quality of graduate business education, and business schools in many countries offer MBA programs tailored to full-time, part-time, executive, and distance learning students, with specialized concentrations.
The Tuck School of Business, part of Dartmouth College, was the first graduate school of business in the United States. Founded in 1900, it was the first institution conferring advanced degrees (masters) in the commercial sciences, specifically, a Master of Science in Commerce degree, the forebear of the modern MBA degree.
In 1908 the Graduate School of Business Administration (GSBA) at Harvard University was established; it offered the world's first MBA program, with a faculty of 15 plus 33 regular students and 47 special students.
The University of Chicago Graduate School of Business first offered working professionals the Executive MBA (EMBA) program in 1940, and this type of program is offered by most business schools today.
In 1950 the first MBA degrees were awarded outside the United States by The University of Western Ontario in Canada,[1] followed in 1951 with...