When Meredith Unruh graduated from college in 1995, e-commerce was virtually unknown and she was only starting to use e-mail. But five years later, those technologies are shaping the workplace she will reenter later this year after finishing her MBA at the Graduate School of Business. "I could never have predicted this," Unruh says.
Very few people did. But officials at the GSB plan to keep a closer eye on the Internet economy in the future. In December, they announced a $20 million gift that will fund Dean Robert Joss's first major initiative: a think tank called the Center for Electronic Business and Commerce. Three e-commerce pioneers -- Charles Schwab & Co., General Atlantic Partners and eBay -- provided most of the initial funding.
Business schools across the country have been rushing to set up programs that focus on online commerce. (Vanderbilt University launched the first e-commerce concentration in 1995.) But Stanford is approaching the subject from a broader perspective, using the center to do research and create courses that will feed into the entire curriculum -- from Management in an Information Age to Information Technology and Supply Chain Management. "We believe that, within five years, the effects of electronic commerce will be ingrained in all aspects of our curriculum," says Garth Saloner, professor of strategic management and economics, and one of the center's co-directors.
Stanford's Business School, whose students have launched start-ups like eLoan, Gazoontite.com and BabyCenter.com, is among a small number of schools with a required course on electronic business in the MBA core. The GSB also offers 10 related elective courses and is developing an executive program focused on electronic commerce to start next fall.
The e-commerce center gets off the ground as business students increasingly are lured into industry before graduation with the promise of stock options at high-flying start-ups. Unruh, who worked last summer for a company called Guru.com, can name a half-dozen classmates who stayed on at their summer jobs instead of returning to school last fall. A few more left in the middle of their second year of school. Some stories -- like that of Jenny Lefcourt and Jessica DiLullo, who left Stanford and founded Della.com, a successful gift registry site -- are the stuff of legend.
The new think tank isn't designed specifically to retain students, but Unruh says her classmates are excited about the prospect of research opportunities that put them in touch with Silicon Valley companies and more up-to-date case studies. "People are psyched about the money and the momentum," she says. "Putting structure around it is good."
