At both the graduate and undergraduate levels, well-defined projects for students with business organizations can become an important part of the educational process, make relevant the theoretical concepts the students receive in classrooms, and at the same time build closer ties with business organizations from the point of view of placement, research ideas and external funding. An important ingredient in successful student projects, from the perspective of both the educational institution and the sponsoring company, is oversight and control by individual faculty members in the business school. Such oversight provides legitimacy for the project and the course credit assigned, while also providing quality control methods for the student product, from the perspective of the company. Faculty involvement in such advisory capacities should be viewed as part of the teaching obligation, and the success of individual faculty members in administering and advising such activities should be given positive consideration in performance appraisals, assuming consistency of institutional mission. Project advisement is an efficient way for faculty members to understand the issues that businesses face, as well as the application of analytic techniques for solving business problems.
Some residencies are as short as three days, some involve an executive on campus for an entire year.
This avenue, which is usually low cost to the school, is an important way to bring business expertise into the classroom, and into the faculty. Often these people have departure packages that provide substantial income so they do not require major financial expenditures on the part of the school being visited. This frequently presents problems in the classroom and in scholarship. Business schools can encourage summer or other short-term internships for junior faculty members in organizations that are at the cutting edge in the faculty member's field of expertise. This type of exposure in business organizations should be encouraged and rewarded for junior faculty members in the promotion and tenure process.