Self-Explicated and Full-Profile Conjoint Methods for Designing Customer-Focused Courses

Abstract

Business schools are under increasing pressure from various sources to become customer-focused in their curricula in order to better meet the needs of their students and business professionals. For designing customer-focused courses, customer preferences must be measured and incorporated in curriculum. This study shows how self-explicated and full-profile conjoint methods can be utilized for this purpose. Strengths and weaknesses of these methods are also discussed. For illustrative purposes, two sales management courses are designed by incorporating students’ preferences. One course is for undergraduate students while the other is for graduate students. Five attributes are considered for this purpose: course content, class format, teaching aids, assignments, and real world experience. The most preferred levels of attributes are identified separately for the graduate and undergraduate students. Further, variations in student preferences across gender and work experience levels are considered in designing the courses.