The predecessor of the School of Business Administration of ZUEL was the Department of Factory Administration and the Department of Trade founded in 1949 during Zhongyuan University period. It came into being in 2000 by the merger of the original Department of Industrial Economics, Department of Trade Economics and Department of Agricultural Economics. In August of 2018, the University made a strategic adjustment in which the MBA School was merged into the School of Business Administration and was renamed as the MBA Education Centre under the direct leadership of the SBA. The School is located in both campuses of the University. Its main building is Wenquan North Building in South Lake Campus, and MBA Education Centre is located in Wenhui Building in Shouyi Campus.


The School possesses 8 departments (centres) such as the Departments of Business Administration, of Marketing Administration, of Economics and Trade, and the MBA Education Centre, etc. and 19 research institutes (centres) such as the Management Cases Research Centre, Centre for Corporation Value Research, Modern Industrial Economy Research Centre, Technological Economy and Management Research Institute, and Research Institute of International Business, etc.. It also possesses the National Exemplary Experimental Teaching Centre of Economic Management, the National Exemplary Virtual Experimental Teaching Centre, the WTO and Hubei Provincial Development Research Centre—a Key Social Science Research Base of Hubei Higher Education, as well as China (Hubei) Pilot Free Trade Zone Research Institute, a provincial think tank platform. 


After more than 70 years of development, the SBA, nowadays, is one of the strongest schools of ZUEL with the largest scale and the richest disciplinary resources. The School boasts rich disciplinary resources which spans across two first-level disciplines—Business Administration and Applied Economics. Applied Economics, containing three second-level disciplines (International Trade, Industrial Economics and Agricultural Economics), is a national key first-class discipline, ranking 10th nationally, and is awarded as A minus discipline (top 5%-10%); Business Administration Discipline, ranks 25th in China and is awarded as B plus discipline (top 15%-20%). The School boasts a complete talent-cultivating system and has ever possessed 2 first-level discipline doctoral programmes and 2 post-doctoral stations of Business Administration and Applied Economics, another 8 doctoral programmes of Enterprise Administration, Industrial Economics, and International Trade, etc., 11 research-oriented master programmes of Enterprise Administration, etc., and 6 practice-oriented master programmes of Business Administration, International Business, etc. as well as 10 undergraduate programmes such as Business Administration. The number of disciplines and programmes in the School ranked first in the University . At present, there’re more than 120 students for doctoral programmes, more than 1,700 students for master programmes and more than 2,500 undergraduate students in the School, ranking first in the University.


The School has a strong faculty team and great scientific research strength. At present, it has 192 faculty members, ranking second in the University, including 144 full-time teachers, of whom there are 37 professors and 68 associate professors. The annual average number of national projects approved and papers published in top journals by the School ranks top in the University. In recent 5 years, the School faculty members have won more than 50 awards at the provincial level and at the Ministry level, undertaken more than 50 national research projects and published more than 400 papers in the prestigious journals at home and abroad, such as China Social Sciences, Economic Research and UTD 24. The School actively serves the national and local economic development and Enterprise Administration practices. For instance, the School co-builds Zhuoyue Wuhan Business School with the Wuhan municipal government to cultivate local management talents, and provides high-end EDP training for the well-known enterprises, such as Gree Electric Appliances, Inc., Dongfeng Motor Corporation, Wuhan Metro, etc. The School continues to promote its internationalisation. In 2011, it became the first university of finance and economics in Chinese mainland that passed AMBA accreditation. At present, it has been maintaining long-term academic exchanges and research cooperation with universities in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Australia and other countries, and foreign research institutions, such as the Institute of Development Studies (IDS). Nearly twenty well-known scholars from the privileged universities of the U.S., Australia, Japan, Hong Kong of China, etc. were employed as overseas visiting professors of the School and Wenlan Chair Professors of the University. The School is building its overseas campus in the ESC Rennes School of Business in France.