A SURVEY AND ANALYSIS OF THE PERCEPTIONS OF BUSINESS EXECUTIVES AND COMMUNITY COLLEGE BUSINESS INSTRUCTORS OF THE DESIRED CONTENT EMPHASIS FOR THE INTRODUCTORY COLLEGIATE BUSINESS COURS

The major purpose of the study was to determine the desired content emphasis of the introductory collegiate business course and design a model based on the perceptions of business executives and community college business instructors. The national samples consisted of 217 business executives from Fortune's 500 companies and 266 community college business instructors in institutions with a minimum full-time enrollment of 1000 students as listed in the American Association of Community-Junior Colleges Manual of 1982. One hundred nine business executives and 192 business instructors responded to a questionnaire which contained 27 course topics organized into 7 teaching modules regarding the introductory collegiate business course. They indicated the degree of importance given to the 27 course topics using a 5-point scale. Space was provided for additional topics to be included.;Computations of frequencies, percentages, means, and modes were completed for the 27 course topics and 7 teaching modules. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov Two-Sample Test was used to evaluate the significance between the business executives and the business instructors regarding their perceived importance of each course topic. The test was computed at the .05 level.;Major conclusions, based on the findings were: (1) There exists only a moderate degree of commonality among community college instructors regarding the appropriate content emphasis for the Introduction to Business course. (2) Community college instructors are not placing adequate emphasis on the topic Private Enterprise System in the course. (3) Business executives appear to perceive Introduction to Business as a business training course, rather than an educational course designed to broaden students' overall knowledge of contemporary business.;Major recommendations were: (1) Instructors should reference this study's content emphasis model for determining topic coverage and emphasis. (2) Business division chairpersons should stress faculty development by requiring and/or encouraging such activities as taking advanced business courses, temporarily returning to work in a business setting, attending conferences sponsored by business and industry, and regularly reading important business news publications. (3) Instructors should place more emphasis on the course topic Private Enterprise System. (4) Instructors should cover the topic Social Responsibility of Business, even though business executives gave it a relatively low importance rating.