How Much Does “Subject Matter” Matter? A Study of Disciplinary Effects in On-Line MBA Courses

Using analogies from Rumelt's (1991) work on industry and business-unit effects and the structure–conduct–performance paradigm, I examine disciplinary and course-specific effects on course outcomes in a sample of 50 Web-based courses conducted over 11 semesters. Adapting the concept of entry barriers from industrial organization (IO) economics to explain subject matter differences, I hypothesize that subjects for which PhDs are offered significantly explain variance in course outcomes relative to subjects for which PhDs are not generally offered. The results of the study showed that while both disciplinary and course-specific effects explained significant variance in the dependent variables, course-specific effects explained greater variance. I conclude with a discussion of future research directions, including encouragement to use theoretical frameworks from mainstream management research to accelerate the quantity and quality of management education research.