Conjoint Analysis:

Abstract

In a time of growing competition among colleges and universities for the most able students, degree-granting programs must be designed with the needs of the prospective student in mind. Traditionally, the development of academic programs relied on the energy and enthusiasm of a few faculty champions who saw new degree programs as a reflection of faculty interest and competence rather than of market demand. Conjoint analysis is a tool that has been used extensively in developing products since 1971. During the 1980s its use was expanded to help design services in such industries as banking, health care, computers, and hospitality and tourism. This multivariate technique allows prospective customers to make trade-offs on various product or service attributes. Those customer choices enable the development of utility functions for each service feature and thereby form the basis for configuring offerings that may optimize customer preference and market share. This article reports the use of conjoint analysis to determine the graduate management needs of undergraduate business alumni. At question was the type of degree program preferred by this growing population. The results of this study suggest that an accelerated and abbreviated M.B.A. program would be preferred to an M.S. degree. Such a new program would not substantially cannibalize existing programs nor would this shorter M.B.A. program be perceived negatively by potential students.