There are perhaps two things that really characterise the University of Michigan Business School. The first is that although it is a state university, it operates like - and competes - in the same market as many of the best private business schools in the US.

Key Michigan Business School statistics

The second is that it is, above all, a school specialising in general management - not finance, not information technology - but general management: from human resources to strategy and organisational behaviour to leadership.

In MBA2002, Michigan ranks in 23rd place behind just three other US state universities, the University of California at Berkeley, UCLA in Los Angeles and the Darden School at the University of Virginia.

One of the biggest issues facing all business schools in the long term is how to retain their best faculty and attract the best from other schools.

However, the problem is particularly acute for state schools where course fees are often maintained at an artificially low level and there is a rigid pay scale, both of which prevent schools from paying competitive salaries.

Sue Ashford, senior associate dean, acknowledges that pay is the "biggest issue. Salaries are going up a lot".

But she says Michigan can pay competitive salaries to its 140 full-time faculty and has the fourth or fifth largest endowment of any of its US peers.

"We lose and we win," she says. "It's how you exercise your market value."

Among other things, the new dean, Robert Dolan, appointed last summer, will be promoting the research of the school within the academic community and to alumni, she says. "We need to tell the research story better. It is a fabulous story to tell."

While general management is its mantra, the University of Michigan Business School has long had a leaning towards incorporating social issues and softer skills into its teaching and has a particular penchant for working in developing economies.

Central to this work has been the William Davidson Institute, set up nearly 10 years ago to look at economic development in eastern Europe and other new democracies.

These days, says Joseph White, former dean of the business school and now senior fellow at the William Davidson Institute, the focus is much more on the socio-political environment in which businesses operate.

Last year, Madeleine Albright, former US secretary of state in the Clinton administration, joined the institute, bringing with her questions about the role of US business in "post-euphoric democracies".

While the events of September 11 raise huge questions about US relationships with developing countries, Prof White argues that the real success of the institute has been involving thousands of Michigan business students in enterprises in developing economies.

He acknowledges, however, that although "in every instance the students have won - the work they have produced has been of a consistently high quality," many of the enterprises they acted as consultants to have not been so successful.

This is not surprising, says Prof White. "If you look generally at consulting projects, some are a total waste of time and some are transforming."

For the full-time MBA programme, many of these projects form part of a summer internship: 17 per cent of the last graduating class spent more than a month on these international projects.

For those who do not travel overseas, Michigan is one of the few US business schools to require an international business course as part of its core curriculum.

Faculty interest in developing economies has meant that, until recently, Michigan has not offered an open enrolment executive MBA programme.

Instead, it concentrated on putting together consortia of companies in South America and south-east Asia, as the companies could afford to pay competitive fees, whereas individual participants could not.

Last autumn, however, the school opened its door to participants on a 20-month EMBA course run in Ann Arbor, the picturesque university town outside Detroit, which is home to the business school.

About 30 per cent of the coursework will be delivered via the web. Faculty were "thrilled" that the participants were much more diverse than had been expected, with students attending from as far afield as California, according to Kristina Nebel, director of admissions.

Concentrating on its role as a general management school, Michigan has been able to build up one of the largest portfolios of open enrolment courses in the US, as well as a healthy business in customised programmes. Indeed, executive education contributes about 25 per cent of the school's revenues, says Prof Dolan.

One of its most recent short programmes, Leading in Difficult Times, was put together in just six weeks following the World Trade Center tragedy on September 11. It attracted nearly 50 participants to learn how to deal with the issues raised, on a personal, organisational and business level. This year, between February and June, the school will be running a series of one-day workshops based on a series of management books written by Michigan faculty. Like the books, each course will concentrate on one pressing management issue.

With all this happening, it is not surprising that Prof Dolan's opening comments on his first six months at the school are "if you could just put a few more hours in the day . . . "

0University of Michigan

Programme length (months)	24	Number of students	432
Percentage of international students	32	Percentage of women students	28
Percentage of graduates employed after three months	94	Audit date: MBA2002
‘I loved going to business school at Michigan. I received an excellent education, met some wonderful networking contacts and friends and received an excellent job after graduation. The excellent education I received will last me a lifetime. I felt the professors, career staff and administration were there to make sure I had the best experience possible.’

US alumnus

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