The history of business studies in Southeast University can be traced back to the establishment of the Business Department of Nanjing Higher Normal School in 1917. The Department of Management Science and Engineering of Nanjing Institute of Technology was established in January 1985. In August 1987, the Nanjing Institute of Technology established the School of Management of Nanjing Institute of Technology on the basis of the Department of Management Science and Engineering, the System Engineering Laboratory of the Institute of Automation, and the Industrial Economics Teaching and Research Group of the Department of Social Sciences. In September 1991, the Department of Economics and Trade of the Southeast University was merged, and the school was renamed the School of Economics and Management of the Southeast University.

After more than 100 years of business studies and nearly 40 years of development, the school has become one of the colleges with the largest number of professional categories and has the largest number of students in the Southeast University. Adhering to the concept of "Innovation is the Future," the school shoulders the mission of "nurturing the talents having the world at heart, casting access to new knowledge of the past and the present," takes discipline construction as the leading aim, focuses on moral education and the major strategic needs of the country, and strives to cultivate talent. To realize its vision that "All Students Will Make a Difference," the school forges ahead with determination, explores and innovates to continue to promote high-quality development in discipline construction, personnel training, fostering teaching staff, scientific research, social services, and international education.

The School of Economics and Management has first-class doctoral degree programs in Management Science and Engineering, Practical Economics, and Business Administration. It has first-level postdoctoral research groups in Management Science and Engineering and Practical Economics. The school has three Master's degree programs of first-class disciplines in Management Science and Engineering, Practical Economics, and Business Administration. It also has two undergraduate majors in Management (Information Management and Information Systems, Business Administration, Accounting, E-commerce, and Logistics Management) and Economics (International Economics and Trade, Finance, Economics, and Financial Engineering). The School strives to strengthen its academic reputation and maintain the dominant position of "Management Science and Engineering" A- (top 10% in the country), "Practical Economics" B+, "Business Administration" B+ (top 20% in the country).

The School of Economics and Managementadheres to the fundamental task of education. At present, it has more than 1,080 full-time undergraduates, 530 postgraduate students, 240 doctoral students, and 1,300 part-time MBA, EMBA, Mpacc, and other professional degrees. Moreover, the employment rate of students is close to 100%, the rate of further study is 60%, and the graduates are widely distributed in the financial system, science and technology platform enterprises, universities and government institutions.

The School of Economics and Management has a group of high-level teaching and research teams, with more than 170 faculty members, including 40 professors and more than 60 associate professors. It has a large number of well-known scholars, such as Sheng Hua, including six national high-level talents, eight outstanding talents of the new century, four members of the Professional Teaching Steering Committee of Colleges and Universities of the Ministry of Education (including one vice-chairman), one famous social science expert in the third session of Jiangsu Province, one young and middle-aged expert with outstanding contributions to Jiangsu Province, thirteen outstanding talents at the second and third levels of the "333" project in Jiangsu Province, one senior professor of humanities, four chief professors, two young chief professors, seven distinguished professors, two young distinguished professors, and more than twenty people who have been selected into the Southeast University Zhishan Young Scholars’ Support Program. The school also employs a number of well-known scholars from other universities in China and abroad as visiting professors and part-time professors.

The School of Economics and Management has attached great importance to international cooperation in running schools, established long-term friendly cooperative relations with more than 30 foreign universities, participated in the construction of the Suzhou Joint Graduate School of Southeast University–Monash University and the Graduate School of Southeast University–Université de Rennes 1, and invited world-class well-known experts and scholars, including Nobel Prize winners in economics, to give lectures at the school. There are more than 30 English-language and bilingual courses covering all undergraduate majors. In the past five years, the school has annually sent more than 30 teachers to participate in international academic conferences and a group of undergraduates are given opportunities to go abroad for further study every year. International education has become an important way for the school to expand the vision of its teachers and students, cultivate international sentiment, and improve the quality of its personnel training and scientific research.

By adhering to the tradition of "economy benefiting the people, management checking and balancing," the School of Economics and Management will continue to strengthen its disciplines, personnel training, faculty, scientific research, social services, and international education; strengthen its characteristics and advantages; and accelerate the construction of a first-class school of economics and management.

(As of June, 2023)