The Weatherhead School of Management is different from other business schools. Weatherhead is bold in its ideas, creative in its approach, and adaptive in its interactions within a changing business environment. Weatherhead has enhanced traditional management education by integrating the fundamentals of business with ideas and practices that change individuals, organizations, and societies. Weatherhead graduates are ready to add immediate value to their organizations, their communities, and the world.
Weatherhead is home to seven academic departments comprising 69 full-time faculty members and 71 full-time members of staff. It offers programs at the undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral levels in the Peter B. Lewis Building and executive programming in the George S. Dively Building on the campus of Case Western Reserve University. Located within University Circle, a square mile of educational, scientific, medical, and cultural institutions, Weatherhead counts among its neighbors the Cleveland Orchestra, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Cleveland Botanical Garden, the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, the Cleveland Institute of Art, and University Hospitals. Weatherhead is a business school that attracts interest from every corner of the globe while maintaining its roots in the Cleveland community.
Mission Statement
Developing transformational ideas and outstanding leaders for the advancement of business and society.
Values
- Weatherhead believes that management is a noble profession committed to the advancement of human life.
- Weatherhead values its strong ethical foundation and strives to promote a culture rich in ideas and reflection.
- Weatherhead is committed to increasing individual creative and critical capacities, nurturing new and expansive patterns of thought.
- Weatherhead values research of enduring consequence and judges its significance by the impact it has on management thought, management action, and public policy.
- Weatherhead values learning that is active and collaborative. Students, faculty, and staff together engage important management problems with an innovative, knowledge-creating approach.
- Weatherhead is responsive to the needs of its students.
- Weatherhead considers alumni its important partners and strives to add value to their personal and professional lives.
- Weatherhead values partnerships with the business community and other organizations.
- Weatherhead values meaningful service to society and strives for outcomes that influence and positively change the way people and organizations conduct themselves.
- Weatherhead is a cohesive learning organization with an international outlook.
- Weatherhead values diversity, characterized by open dialogue and mutual respect among individuals with different specializations, backgrounds, cultures, and perspectives.
- Weatherhead is results-oriented and judges its contributions by actions taken and outcomes achieved.
Vision
Weatherhead is respected locally and globally for research of enduring consequence. The school is recognized for attracting and educating managers to design novel solutions to the most complex issues facing business and society. Weatherhead's learning environment is a hub of creative thinking, innovative teaching, and trans-disciplinary research, filled with excitement and a strong sense of community.
Distinguishing Focus
It matters to the Weatherhead School of Management that its education and research efforts help people improve organizations and society. To that end, Weatherhead educates and develops managers of private and public, corporate and nonprofit institutions to combine rigorous analytic skills, design competence, and a bias for execution.
At Weatherhead, students are taught to Manage by Designing and to build the Sustainable Enterprise. These teachings infuse the MBA curriculum; so does the emphasis on responsible commercial practices. Weatherhead confronts today’s most important global issues from a business perspective, and Weatherhead students leave ready to lead that charge, wherever they go.
Specifically, Weatherhead's work is known for instilling in its students:
- Use of disciplined methods to explore, frame, and resolve complex problems and issues
- Ability to use design techniques to generate alternatives that improve on familiar solutions in surprising and valuable ways
- Awareness of the importance of taking into account entire systems when proposing new ways of doing things
Effective execution requires leadership. Weatherhead's learning environments are also known for promoting:
- Change management skills that are required to effectively implement novel solutions
- Attention to the value of designing solutions that are sustainable from economic, ecological, and social points of view
- Ability to actively engage all relevant stakeholders in positive change
Weatherhead School of Management's distinguishing focus on design and sustainability in management integrates and builds upon investments that it has made over the past decade to align with growing interests in organizations and society at large.
Brief History
In 1952, Western Reserve University established the School of Business by combining the Cleveland College Division of Business Administration and the Graduate School Division of Business Administration, and from its founding until 1988, the activities of the School of Business were divided among a number of buildings both in downtown Cleveland and in University Circle. In 1967, the merger of Case Institute of Technology and Western Reserve University created Case Western Reserve University, and the Western Reserve University School of Business absorbed Case’s Division of Organizational Sciences to become the School of Management in 1970. Just six years later, the School of Management launched its Full-Time MBA.
It was in 1980 that the School of Management was renamed in honor of Albert J. Weatherhead III, a Cleveland businessman and industrialist who represented the fourth generation of his family to carry on the Weatherhead name and values, including cultural and educational leadership. By 1999, the Weatherhead School of Management had developed a strong identity, growing out of its space in Nord Hall and requiring new construction. Funded by the philanthropist and entrepreneur whose name it bears, the Peter B. Lewis building, designed by renowned contemporary architect Frank Gehry and completed in 2002, was the answer. Located across the street from the George S. Dively Building, which houses Weatherhead Executive Education programs, the Lewis Building, featuring Gehry’s unmistakable sculptural profile and gleaming stainless steel roof, both sets the school apart from its surroundings and, quite literally, reflects the prestigious neighborhood of the school. Gehry redefined the way a business school should look, just as Weatherhead redefines the way management education should take place.
Accreditation
The programs of the Weatherhead School of Management have been fully accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) International since 1958.
Administration
Robert Widing II, PhD
(Ohio State University)
Dean, Weatherhead School of Management; Albert J. Weatherhead, III Professor of Management; Professor, Marketing and Policy Studies
Fred Collopy, PhD
(University of Pennsylvania)
Vice Dean; Professor, Information Systems
Laura Desmond, BA
(University of Michigan)
Associate Dean, External Relations
Jennifer Johnson, MBA
(Case Western Reserve University)
Associate Dean, Undergraduate and Integrated Studies; Associate Professor, Marketing and Policy Studies
Sharon Martin, MBA
(Baldwin-Wallace College)
Associate Dean, Finance and Administration
Department Chairs
Richard J. Boland Jr., PhD
(Case Western Reserve University)
Elizabeth M. and William C. Treuhaft Professor of Management; Chair and Professor, Information Systems
Ronald Fry, PhD
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Chair and Professor, Organizational Behavior
Anurag Gupta, PhD
(New York University)
Chair and Professor, Banking and Finance; Director, International Programs
Kamlesh Mathur, PhD
(Case Western Reserve University)
Chair and Professor, Operations; Faculty Director, Master of Science in Operations Research and Supply Chain; Faculty Director, Executive MBA
Gary J. Previts, PhD, CPA
(University of Florida)
Distinguished University Professor, E. Mandell de Windt Professor in Leadership and Enterprise Development; Chair and Professor, Accountancy
Jagdip Singh, PhD
(Texas Tech University)
ATT Professor; Chair and Professor, Marketing and Policy Studies
Matthew Sobel, PhD
(Stanford University)
Chair, Department of Economics; William E. Umstattd Professor in Industrial Economics; Professor, Operations