Foundational Value of Statistics Education for Management Curriculum

The purpose of this paper is to propose a unique and distinct value of statistics education for management. The 1986 inaugural conference on "Making Statistics More Effective in Schools of Business" (MSMESB) proposed valuable guidelines for reforming statistics education in schools of business. However, a survey conducted by McAlevey & Everett (2001) identified that their impact has been minimal, and argued that structural problems many business schools have are the potential cause. We argue these structural problems exist because the value of the body of statistical tools for management is ambiguous and has not been made explicit. The "unique and distinct value" of statistics for management can be identified as the body of tools necessary to meet the "inherent needs" of a manager charged with making predictive judgments facing data. The need arises because "human information-processing capacity" is quite limited, as the findings of researchers in cognitive psychology testify. These findings also affirm that the basic statistical concepts needed for processing data cannot be learned from management experiences. Copyright 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation (c) 2007 International Statistical Institute.