타 대학과 마찬가지로 online apply가 대세!

Admission to the Kenan-Flagler Full-time MBA Program requires the completion of our online application.

The application consists of the following components. Additional details are available within the application itself:

Personal Information

The personal information includes contact information, education and detailed employment history.

Resume

We expect the resume to be one-page in length. Include educational and employment history with titles and dates, in reverse chronological order.

Transcripts

4년제 대학의 학부 과정을 수료하셔야 하고 3년과정의 BA과정(영국등)도 지원가능하세요.

We require transcripts of all academic work completed at the baccalaureate/undergraduate and graduate level. Unofficial transcripts may be uploaded to the online application for the purposes of application review, with official transcripts required upon admission and matriculation.

International candidates must have a college-level education equivalent to an American undergraduate or baccalaureate degree (the same as a first university degree). Generally this is a 4-year degree. There are a number of universities around the world that offer 3-year undergraduate programs. If you received a bachelor's degree upon completion of one of these 3-year undergraduate programs, you are eligible to apply to our program.

Test Scores

GMAT / GRE 도 역시나 요구합니다. 영어는 International student에게는 어디나 요구하는 사항이지요!

We require the GMAT or GRE from all applicants. Our school code for GMAT and GRE is 5816. TOEFL, IELTS or PTE Academic is required for applicants for whom English is not the native language. Our school code for these tests is also 5816. Applicants do not need to submit a TOEFL, IELTS or PTE score if:

• They earned an undergraduate or graduate degree at a U.S. college or university
• Their total education was conducted in English in a native English-speaking country
• They earned an undergraduate degree or graduate degree from India. We will request test scores from some Indian candidates as needed.

Essays

3개의 에세이를 요구합니다. 본인의 장점, 경험, MBA의 지원이유등이 필수 항목이고 각 500단어의 제한을 두고 있습니다.

We have three required essays and two optional essays. The essays for the 2012-2013 application season are:

• Essay One (Required)
  What are the 2 or 3 strengths or characteristics that have driven your career success thus far? What are the other strengths that you would like to leverage in the future? (500 words maximum)
• Essay Two (Required)
  Please describe your short and long term goals post-MBA. Explain how: your professional experience has shaped these goals; why this career option appeals to you; and how you arrived at the decision that now is the time and the MBA is the appropriate degree. (500 words maximum)
• Essay Three (Required)
  What personal qualities or life experiences distinguish you from other applicants? How do these qualities or experiences equip you to contribute to UNC Kenan-Flagler? (500 words maximum)
• Essay Four (Optional)
  If your standardized test scores are low, or if you have not had coursework in core business subjects (calculus, microeconomics, statistics, financial accounting), please tell us how you plan to prepare yourself for the quantitative rigor of the MBA curriculum. (300 words maximum)
• Essay Five (Optional)
  Is there any other information you would like to share that is not presented elsewhere in the application? (300 words maximum)

Recommendations

2개의 추천서도 역시 필수! 학교 자체폼 사용!

The Admissions Committee requires two professional recommendation letters, preferably from supervisors. The recommendations are submitted online through the application. We will also accept recommendations by mail using our recommendation form.

Interviews

역시 인터뷰까지 MBA의 과정의 요구사항은 엄청 많네요..

We have an open interview policy. Any applicant who would like to interview can use our online interview scheduler to choose a convenient interview type and time. More information about the interview process can be found on the Interview and Campus Visits page.

Residency Form (only if NC resident)

If you believe you qualify for in-state residency for tuition purposes, please review the Residency Information page for detailed information. The online MBA application includes preliminary residency questions. If a classification cannot be made based on the information within the application, you will be prompted to submit an additional residency form.

Application Fee

$145 non-refundable fee can be paid by credit card

Core Courses

• Analytical Tools

  
  Objectives:

  Analytical Tools is a basic course in statistics, decision analysis, and simulation modeling. The course has the following principal objectives:

  • To learn the basic techniques of data analysis, sampling and estimation, hypothesis testing, multiple regression, decision analysis, and Monte Carlo simulation;
  • To apply these techniques to practical managerial decision problems;
  • To learn how the microcomputer can be used to assist in the analysis of these problems;
  • To develop basic skills in the use of Excel; and
  • To see how quantitative methods impacts on the meaning of life.

  Teaching Methods:
  The course will be conducted using a combination of lecture and case discussion.

  Materials Covered:
  Hypothesis testing, regression analysis, time series, risk and decision analysis.

• Financial Accounting
• Financial Tools

  
  This course addresses the theory and practice of financial management. The course has the following principal objectives:

  • To provide a good grounding in basic concepts of finance, including the time value of money, valuation, portfolio theory, the role of financial markets, asset pricing, and the risk-return tradeoff;
  • To establish a "finance mindset" that views finance as applied microeconomics in a business policy context, with value creation as a central concept;
  • To develop skills in financial analysis, planning and decision-making; and
  • To develop perspective and judgment in business decisions and an appreciation for decision-making in a complex world.

  Although most of the course materials concern private-sector firms, the concepts and techniques of financial management apply to other types of organizations as well. Topics to be covered in the course are shown in the attached course outline. The course will be conducted using a combination of lecture and discussion. Each member of the class is expected to prepare thoroughly for each session and to participate actively in the class discussion.

• Leading & Managing

  
  In short, this course is about the science of human thought and behavior, and its applications to business. We draw on theories from psychology, sociology, and economics to enhance your ability to understand, and hence predict, how you, and those around you, are likely to think and behave.

  Why do you need such skills, you ask? Although skills in finance, accounting, marketing, operations, and strategy are crucial for organizational success, the ability to manage an organization, its groups, and its individuals is equally important. As you pursue your careers, you will inevitably depend on people to accomplish organizational goals; you will need to work for other people, work with other people, and supervise other people. For this reason, an understanding of the human side of management is an essential complement to the technical skills you are learning in other core business courses.

  How does all this relate to “leading and managing?” By definition, a leader must have followers. This means that to be a leader, you need to understand how to motivate, inspire, and influence other people. You need to assemble the skills, talents, and resources of individuals and groups in ways that best solve the organizational problem(s) at hand. You must make things happen, and often under conditions or timeframes not of your own choosing. Leaders must also understand how to introduce their own skills and abilities into their teams. The successful execution of these goals requires leaders to be able to effectively diagnose problems, make smart decisions, influence and motivate others, wield power effectively, and drive organizational change. In other words, you need a thorough understanding of your own behavior, the behaviors of those around you, and how one impacts the other. Thus, this is not a class designed to teach you everything you need to know about leadership (we have some other activities and electives in the program that focus on this topic more specifically). Rather, this is a class that gives you some fundamental insight into human thought and action, and this insight is one core competency, among many, of effective leaders.

• Microeconomics

  
  Economics is everywhere and understanding it is critical for decision making in most business settings. This class introduces some basic methods of analyzing economic and business situations that are surprisingly adaptable to major problems of today. The course has three sections covering supply and demand, pricing, and risk and uncertainty. In each of these sections you will learn to apply the analytical methods developed to problems covering economic policy and business decision making.

  As you will learn, the lessons of firm theory are straightforward: Among other points, profit is maximized by setting marginal profit equal to marginal cost, it can be increased through price discrimination, and response of other actors (businesses, customers, suppliers etc.) to business choices affects the impact of those choices. The devil is in the details, of course, so we have quite a bit to cover in this class. As you will also learn, supply and demand charts that many of you know so well can be applied in a much broader set of circumstances than you may currently realize. A surprisingly large fraction of topics currently in the news can be understood using basic supply and demand tools, and during this class most of you will ideally gain a new appreciation of hot topics in politics and business.

  While the primary purpose of the class it to teach you economics and make you a better manager, a subsidiary purpose is to develop your analytical and modeling skills. There is some use of algebra, especially early on, which will prepare you for classes later in business school. There is much more extensive use of modeling in Excel: in most businesses I have been affiliated with, covering management consulting, finance and a start-up, Excel modeling has been an essential tool. Those of you with considerable experience in such modeling will find the methods in this class fairly basic, but for those of you who haven’t yet come across Excel modeling in your careers this class will be a quick introduction to its practice.

• Business Strategy

  
  Why are some firms more successful than others? The fundamental question of strategy is how firms can attain and sustain competitive advantage. In this course, we will analyze the sources of competitive success among firms and develop skills and knowledge necessary to be an effective strategy analyst. We will also tackle the complexity and ambiguity associated with making strategic decisions in this era of innovation, changing firm boundaries, and uncertainty. You will enhance your strategic thinking skills by learning the concepts and tools of strategic analysis and by applying them to actual competitive situations in case studies.
• Finance

  
  This course will provide training in the theory and practice of financial management. The primary objectives are as follows:

  • To achieve facility in using finance concepts to make decisions. Decisions will be made in the context of the firm, but the skills will be applicable to many decisions. Decisions will concern:
    • Value Creation
    • Business Policy
    • Financial Decision Making
  • Specifically, well delve into five topics that will give us insight into financial decision making:
    • Pro-Forma Analysis
    • Capital Budgeting
    • Capital Structure
    • Valuation
    • Raising Capital
  • To sharpen thinking skills using economics. To wipe off one small corner of the lens on your mind’s eye.

  The course will be conducted using a combination of lecture and case discussion. Each member of the class is expected to prepare thoroughly for each session and to participate actively in the class discussion.

• Macroeconomics

  
  Macroeconomics introduces students to the major economic factors and relationships most relevant to today's business decisions. Unlike traditional macroeconomics classes, this course focuses on understanding how the current economic environment impacts companies and individuals. Special attention is paid to how economic factors like aggregate demand, employment, and labor productivity affect foreign currency and lending markets. Students are required to follow current events in the global economy and understand how these events impact managerial decisions.
• Marketing

  
  The role of marketing management in organizations is to identify and measure the needs and wants of consumers, to determine which targets the business can serve, to decide on the appropriate offerings to serve these markets, and to determine the optimal methods of pricing, promoting, and distributing the firm’s offerings. Successful organizations are those that integrate the objectives and resources of the organization with the needs and opportunities of the marketplace. Our goal in this course is to facilitate your achieving these goals regardless of your career path.
• Operations

  
  Operations management can be defined as the design, operation, and improvement of the systems that create and deliver the firm's primary products and services. This class provides an understanding of the operations management function and its relationship to other functional areas within the firm.

  In this class, we will develop frameworks to analyze the strengths and weakness of a firm's operations and to develop viable alternatives in pursuing its goals and objectives. We will examine the tradeoffs that managers face in emphasizing one goal (such as high capacity utilization) as compared to another goal (such as customer service). We will compare and contrast the strengths and weaknesses of different strategies and techniques, as determined by industry and global operating environments.

  Ultimately, we hope to stimulate your interest in operations management. Whether you end up in finance, marketing, operations, accounting, or any other field, you will have opportunities to consider and systematically improve the way you do things. Operations management provides tools, techniques, and strategies for making organizations work more effectively and efficiently, and can make you a better manager.

• Managerial Accounting

  
  Managerial accounting provides information for decision making, product–costing, and planning-control-evaluation activities. This course takes the perspective of both the user and the preparer of accounting information. The emphasis is on the fundamental concepts and the strategic importance of accounting data to managerial activity with special consideration given to the underlying accounting procedures and the underlying accounting processes.

  During this course, you should specifically:

  • Develop an appreciation for the role of accounting data in decision making, product-costing, and planning-control-evaluation activities;
  • Embrace an understanding of the data accumulation process in order to facilitate effective communication between managers and accountants;
  • Master specific techniques for using a myriad of accounting information in multiple situations; and
  • Internalize contemporary concerns with respect to U.S. productivity and the world economy along with implications for information systems.

  Teaching Methods:
  A significant amount of group and case work.

  Materials Covered:

  • Product Costing and the Manufacturing Environment
  • Activity Cost Analysis and Planning
  • Profitability Analysis and Planning
  • Contribution Analysis for Decision Making
  • Operational Budgeting
  • Performance Assessment
  • Strategic Management of Price, Cost, and Quality
  • Profitability of Strategic Business Segments
• Ethical Leadership

  
  Examination of the ethical aspects of managerial decision making by means of cases and background readings. Objectives of the course include analyzing moral dilemmas typically faced by managers, understanding and using your current values in making business decisions, increasing your awareness of other people’s ethical perspectives, and assessing the effects of business decisions on the business environment and society at large.
• Management Communication: Presentation Skills

  
  This course, required of all MBA students, emphasizes presentation skills for a general business audience. Work begins with baseline presentations, and the course continues through both planned and impromptu presentations during which students receive and consider feedback from their professor, their peers, and their own self-assessments. With an eye toward presentation best-practices, the course covers issues of organization and persuasion, effective delivery (maintaining executive presence, engaging your audience and handling Q&A, integrating PowerPoint slides, visuals, handouts and notes), and targeting each speaker's individual style and success.
• Electives (up to 4 per module)

Additional Core Requirements

• Teamwork Assessment
• Core Case Competition
• Leadership Initiative Credit

Electives

Innovation is an important part of the UNC Kenan-Flagler culture. Every year, 20% of the electives we offer are new. This practice ensures that emerging topics in business and faculty research are quickly reflected in the curriculum. You may begin taking electives as early as module III of your first year.

A sample of our most popular electives of the past 2 years is grouped below.

Accounting

• Managerial Accounting

  
  Managerial accounting provides information for decision making, product–costing, and planning-control-evaluation activities. This course takes the perspective of both the user and the preparer of accounting information. The emphasis is on the fundamental concepts and the strategic importance of accounting data to managerial activity with special consideration given to the underlying accounting procedures and the underlying accounting processes.

  During this course, you should specifically:

  • Develop an appreciation for the role of accounting data in decision making, product-costing, and planning-control-evaluation activities;
  • Embrace an understanding of the data accumulation process in order to facilitate effective communication between managers and accountants;
  • Master specific techniques for using a myriad of accounting information in multiple situations; and
  • Internalize contemporary concerns with respect to U.S. productivity and the world economy along with implications for information systems.

  Teaching Methods:
  A significant amount of group and case work.

  Materials Covered:

  • Product Costing and the Manufacturing Environment
  • Activity Cost Analysis and Planning
  • Profitability Analysis and Planning
  • Contribution Analysis for Decision Making
  • Operational Budgeting
  • Performance Assessment
  • Strategic Management of Price, Cost, and Quality
  • Profitability of Strategic Business Segments
• Complex Deals

  
  This course develops sophisticated users of financial information. The ability of students to read and utilize information in corporate financial statements and to understand the economic essence of important classes of complex business transactions will dramatically increase. The course applies insights from financial economic theory to explore important issues of corporate governance, organizational design, risk management and managerial incentives and behavior. Many fascinating deals and transactions will be examined, focusing on understanding the economic underpinning of a transaction and its accounting representation in the firm's financial statements. The course approach strips away all unnecessary bookkeeping to focus on grasping the transformation of economic events into accounting information. The material encompasses many recent developments in the world, including cutting edge research findings not yet reflected in existing textbooks, recent accounting scandals or international developments.

  The course will benefit a number of constituencies, including bankers, strategy consultants and deal makers who must understand the economic and accounting implications of varying a deal's structure or make valuation estimates using accounting information; investors and analysts who rely on financial information to guide investment decisions; and corporate managers who must achieve financial reporting objectives, or use financial statement information in formulating strategies and discerning the strategies and situations of competitors.

  The course format involves a mixture of lecture and case discussion. Grades will be determined on the basis of four exams spread evenly over the course.

• Financial Statement Analysis

  
  Financial Statement Analysis is an applied perspective on analyzing financial statements. There are three main skills students will lean upon completion of this course:

  1. Earnings management - how and why managers can move earnings up and down using accounting tricks, and how to detect and adjust for this.
  2. Profitability analysis - how to decompose a firm’s overall profitability into its key elements in order to tell whether the firm is really making money or losing money, where this is happening, and why it is happening.
  3. Statement analysis - how to pull apart a firm’s financial statements and footnotes so that its major business activities and results are clearly visible.

  Financial Statement Analysis is designed to be particularly useful for finance-oriented first-year students preparing for summer internships. The course is also valuable for second-years looking at consulting, corporate finance, entrepreneurship, general management, investment and marketing careers. The course complements, not repeats, material in related courses such as Financial Accounting, Advanced Financial Reporting I and II, Complex Deals and Tax Strategy.

• Tax Strategy

  The objective of this course is to understand how taxes affect business decisions.

  MBA courses generally ignore taxes. When taxes are discussed, the depth of the analysis usually stops with some profound thought, such as “Less taxes are better than more taxes.”

  We will develop a more useful framework using three key themes:

  • Effective tax strategy considers the tax implications for all parties to a transaction;
  • Effective tax strategy considers both the actual taxes paid and the lower returns on tax-favored investments (think lower interest rates on municipal bonds);
  • Effective tax strategy recognizes that taxes represent only one (perhaps minor) cost, among many other business costs.

  We will then apply the framework to a host of business decisions, such as investments, compensation, organizational form, equity valuation, multinational ventures, family wealth planning, etc. You will leave with a new approach to thinking about taxes (and all forms of government intervention), which will be valuable even as laws and governments change.

• Taxes in Finance

  Part of being financially savvy is having an understanding of how taxation affects business decisions, e.g., forming a corporation and raising capital, operating the firm, distributing cash to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases, expanding through acquisition, and divesting lines of business. Taxes have a direct impact on cash flow and often divert 30% to 40% of the firm's pretax cash flow to the government, making the government the single largest stakeholder in many firms. Having an understanding of taxation and how firms plan accordingly is important for just about any career path you choose, whether you will be a an investment banker, venture capitalist, consultant, money manager, CFO, treasurer, controller, taking over a family-owned business, or as an entrepreneur setting up a new business. Taxes are everywhere and it pays to have some understanding of them.

  A recurring theme will be linking the tax strategies that we learn with concepts from corporate finance, financial accounting, business law, and economics. We make extensive use of real transactions to illustrate the impact of tax structure on earnings and cash flow. I think you will find that people who understand the tax consequences and trade-offs of decisions have a distinct advantage in the marketplace.

  Specific topics include:

  1. Tax planning fundamentals
  2. Taxation of corporate operations and financing
  3. Tax information in the financial statements
  4. Taxation of mergers and acquisitions
  5. Taxation of divestitures
  6. International taxation
  7. High wealth tax planning
• Topics in Advanced Financial Reporting

  This course will show students how to account for stock options, income taxes, pensions, leases, derivatives, financial instruments, and asset securitizations. The focus will be on enabling students to extract information from financial statement disclosures, including footnotes, for purposes of equity valuation and financial statement analysis. Many of the topics covered in the course relate to accounting standards that have been both controversial (e.g., the pension and stock option standards) and are currently being reconsidered by the FASB and their international counterpart, the IASB (e.g., asset securitizations). The course will draw on current deliberations by accounting standard setters, and will help students understand the political landscape of standards setting in relation to prominent and controversial events in the financial markets, such as the mortgage market collapse. The course is highly recommended for students concentrating in corporate finance or investments, and complements several electives in accounting and finance including equity valuation and financial statement analysis. The course covers several accounting topics that are also on the CFA exam.

Finance

• Fundamental Principles of Corporate Finance

  
  Fundamental Principles of Corporate Finance is a more advanced course in corporate finance theory and policy. The aim of the course is to rigorously analyze the major issues affecting the financial policy of a modern corporation, such as the choice of its capital structure, dividend policy, share issuance and repurchase and corporate governance system. We will critically discuss costs and benefits of the strategies available to a firm’s top management to address these issues effectively. The course will also examine private equity and venture capital, and the process of raising capital through IPOs and SEOs. The course will conclude with a discussion of the role of corporate financial risk management. Classroom presentation will be mainly theoretical, but will illustrate the main concepts with examples drawn from the real world. Exposition will be analytical, and a working knowledge of basic mathematics and statistics is assumed.

  Prerequisites: BA 280A, BA 280B

  *This course is limited to first-year students

• Investment Banking

  
  This course is designed to prepare first-year MBA students for investment banking internships. The main focus of the class is on financial modeling. The first two classes consist mostly of preparation for the financial modeling workshops (led by the class Teaching Assistants), and last for approximately three hours. There are six four-hour workshop sessions. These workshops are led by Scott Rostan, founder and CEO of Teaching the Street, a company that provides financial modeling instruction to a number of major investment banks. Areas to be covered are financial analysis and projections, use of comparables, valuation methods, etc. We will learn about topics including income statements, balance sheets and cash flow statement projections; depreciation, amortization and working capital schedules; public company comparables analysis; discounted flow analysis and valuation; and recent events concerning investment banking. In feedback from the major investment banks, we are consistently told that financial modeling is the most critical area to master before IB internships.

  The secondary emphasis of this course will be on general knowledge of investment banking and what it takes to succeed as an IB professional.

  The class will meet for one 1½ hours on those days when the Rostan-led workshops are not scheduled. We plan to have several prominent bankers and corporate executives as outside speakers. If needed, some of the regular classes are scheduled as financial modeling review/practice sessions. The course is graded pass/fail.

  The primary target for this course is first-year MBAs with IB internships. The course has also proven helpful to MBAs with corporate finance internships or jobs.

  Prerequisites: none

  *First-year MBAs are given preference for admission to this class but second-year MBAs are eligible.
  *this course is computer-supported, e.g. using computer simulation, special databases, and other high-tech components.

• Real Estate Process

  The Real Estate Process introduces students to the basic concepts of real estate. This course provides a background on the concepts of urban and spatial economics, analysis of markets, valuation, law, development, capital markets and investment analysis. It also familiarizes students with the vocabulary of real estate and exposes them to real-world decision making processes through a series of case studies. Students in this course will build the foundation needed to be successful in the highly competitive summer internship job market.

• Mergers and Acquisitions

  Mergers, Acquisitions and Corporate Restructuring have a dramatic impact on most corporations. Many managers will either directly or indirectly face the challenges brought on by these changes in corporate structure. These mergers that induce change provide an opportunity for gaining insight into key corporate issues.

  The objective of this course is to learn the financial techniques to analyze the valuation and structuring of corporate mergers and acquisitions, with an application of financial theory to solve a set of case studies in strategic decision areas. Students will form study groups to examine and analyze assigned cases for class discussions.

• Applied Corporate Finance

  The objective of this course is to learn how to resolve real corporate finance problems with the help of analysis, theory and judgment and in the context of a corporation's business strategy. Topics include valuation, capital structure, dividends, share repurchases, raising capital, financing and applications of options in Corporate Finance. This is a case study-based course, and students will form study groups to examine and analyze case studies for each topic covered in the course.

• Portfolio Management

  This course covers the basics of portfolio management of financial assets. Particular attention is paid to the process of developing an appropriate investor policy statement; using investment theory to construct an efficient portfolio, and the methods for monitoring and rebalancing the portfolio. The course also covers the ethics required of investment professionals. This course covers much of the material required for the portfolio management section of the CFA exam. Past or concurrent enrollment in the Investments course is highly recommended.

Sustainable Enterprise

• Alternative Energy

  The Alternative Energy course will begin with an overview of traditional energy markets including crude oil, natural gas and electricity in order to understand the competitive forces within alternative energy. We will then review the relevant science concerning climate change to address the policy framework regarding greenhouse gas emissions. The class will thoroughly analyze alternative energy technologies currently in use such as wind, solar and geothermal. Students will present on alternative energy companies to debate the merits of individual strategies and technologies. The heavily debated topic of hydraulic fracturing within shale gases will also be discussed, leading to an analysis of the various alternatives to utilize our nation’s vast and inexpensive natural gas reserve. Upon completion of the course, students will gain an appreciation for the challenges facing our energy future and the opportunities to permanently alter energy’s landscape.

• Corporate Social Responsibility

  This course will look at how business leaders can create sustainable competitive advantage by integrating and aligning corporate social responsibility inside organizations with:

  • core business objectives & core competencies
  • mainstream business functions such as sales, marketing, operations & strategy
  • branding and reputation
  • reporting, communications and messaging
  • expected financial impact
  • expected social/ environmental impact
  • and address trends in global CSR

  Students will develop intellectual frameworks for:

  • current-case best practices of CSR, across sectors
  • the broad and varied concepts in this field
  • the business drivers for CSR
  • positioning CSR as a competitive advantage
  • creative thinking about relevant CSR strategy for a given organization
  • assessing their own company’s level of strategic CSR
  • developing integrated CSR within their own industries, sectors, and firms
  • assuming leadership in CSR strategy development
• Innovations in Green Building

  Green building has gone from a design, construction and operations strategy used by only a very limited portion of the market to one of the most significant forces in real estate development today. In this course, we will explore the varying definitions of green building and development; how it is applied at the community, site and building-level; what it can cost; how it can create economic, social and environmental value; how it can be measured; who is practicing and implementing it; how it is financed; and what third-party standards exist to verify it. Most importantly, the class will focus on new and innovative products, programs, businesses, systems, people, projects and organizations in this space. Students will examine these topics through select readings, class lectures, structured discussion, targeted analytical exercises, and short writing assignments, all with an emphasis on application.

• Strategies in Sustainable Enterprise

  This course will provide students with an in-depth examination of the strategies companies are using to advance the “triple bottom line” through a series of guest speakers representing multiple industries. The pervasiveness of business claims about being “green” and increased societal expectations for businesses to be “responsible” have brought sustainability into the mainstream. Consequently, businesses that desire competitive advantage and leadership have embraced sustainability as an integral component of their strategy. As a result of this course, students will have familiarity with the strategies companies implement to accomplish goals such as to reduce their environmental footprint, market to the “green” consumer, increase employee loyalty, address social issues, and build shareholder value.

• Sustainability Immersion

  The Sustainability Immersion equips leaders with skills and experiences that enable them to advance sustainable business practices immediately after business school and throughout their careers. The immersion applies equally to individuals who intend to work as changemakers within traditional businesses and to those who intend to work in non-profit and mission-driven organizations. The course offers a unique opportunity to synthesize and deepen mastery of core business practices through sustainability-focused experiential learning, individualized feedback, classroom lectures, and guided personal reflection. Thus, the immersion builds upon the general management and functional area training already in place by the second year of the MBA program by adding skills and frameworks specific to the sustainability context.

• Systems Thinking for Sustainable Enterprise

  As we work to create enterprises and industries that enhance the sustainability of life on Earth, persistent challenges such as pollution, resource consumption, and lack of motivation share certain characteristics: they defy quick fixes, they build and dissipate slowly over time, they are rarely “owned” by any department or business but affect all, and their components are tightly coupled. These challenges are often called “systems problems.”

  One powerful approach to addressing these systems problems is “systems thinking,” one thread of which, called “system dynamics” grew out of MIT 1950s. Systems thinking uses diagramming and simulation modeling to understand how to improve the performance of a social/physical system such as a business, an ecosystem, an industry, or the Earth. Together with other approaches designed to accelerate learning among groups of people (approaches such as visioning and reflective conversation), systems thinking can boost the effectiveness of individuals and teams.

  This course will be offered in three day-long seminars and will cover a systems perspective on management towards sustainability, mapping of complex systems, and hands-on experimentation with a small computer simulation model. Students must attend all three sessions to receive course credit.

Management

• Corporate Strategy

  This course covers the fundamentals of corporate-level strategy as opposed to business-level strategy. “Business-level” (business) strategy deals with achieving and sustaining a competitive advantage in a discrete and identifiable business. “Corporate-level” (corporate) strategy deals with the way a company creates value through the selection of a portfolio of businesses and the configuration and coordination of these businesses.

  The primary way in which corporate strategy ultimately creates value is through increasing the ability of businesses in the portfolio to create and sustain a competitive advantage. For example, sharing manufacturing activities may reduce costs. Alternatively, sharing a strong brand may increase differentiation while reducing overall marketing costs. Hence there is a very close relationship between business and corporate strategy. We will be using the tools that you acquired in the business strategy course (MBA 250) extensively. In addition we will be utilizing some tools that you have acquired in other required core courses. The major topics we will cover are diversification (related and unrelated), vertical integration, restructuring, synergy, alliance strategy, and global strategy. We will be introducing a variety of tools to help us analyze these topics.

  The primary objective of the course is to introduce you to the primary decisions, tools, and concepts of corporate strategy. By the end of the course you should be able to:

  1. Understand how multi-business firms can create and destroy value.
  2. Be able to engage in a thoughtful discussion of corporate strategy with senior executives.
  3. Be able to identify opportunities to improve corporate strategy.
  4. Understand and be able to analyze the major benefits and risks of various diversification strategies.
  5. Understand the economic and organizational realities behind the term “synergy.” Be able to identify and analyze synergy opportunities.
  6. Understand the role alliances play in corporate strategy. Be able to analyze the major tradeoffs between alliances and acquisitions.
  7. Understand the role a particular business plays in a corporate strategy.
  8. Understand the nature and strategic implications of both regional/global rationalization and local responsiveness in global strategy.
• Leading Organizational Change

  Leading Organizational Change helps students become effective change agents and leaders of change in organizations. It is to help management consultants working to transform organizations, those working in mergers and acquisitions understand the dynamics of change in new and merged organizations, investment bankers assess plans for restructuring organizations, and general managers understand how to assess the need for and the implications of change to their organizations. Other topics will be: the roles of change agents and leaders; how to build a case for change and develop a "guiding coalition" within an organization; how to deal with resistance to change and how to affect the change in culture that will lead to enduring change.

• Negotiations

  Negotiations offers a basic introduction to negotiation with a heavy emphasis on the development of practical skills. Among other things, this course seeks to develop student capabilities in (a) analyzing your negotiation style, (b) planning for negotiations, (c) dealing with strong emotions, (e) employing "principled" negotiation techniques, and (f) assessing negotiations.

• Power, Politics, and Leadership

  Power, Politics, and Leadership studies of how power is used within organizations. We examine the major advanced leadership issues dealing with managing your boss, managerial sabotage, managerial succession, changing difficult subordinates, gaining promotions, office politics, how to manage a successful career and life. Live, complex cases will be used to develop key principles of leadership.

• Leading and Managing

  This course is about the science of human thought and behavior, and its applications to business. We draw on theories from psychology, sociology, and economics to enhance your ability to understand, and hence predict, how you, and those around you, are likely to think and behave.

  Why do you need such skills, you ask? Although skills in finance, accounting, marketing, operations, and strategy are crucial for organizational success, the ability to manage an organization, its groups, and its individuals is equally important. As you pursue your careers, you will inevitably depend on people to accomplish organizational goals; you will need to work for other people, work with other people, and supervise other people. For this reason, an understanding of the human side of management is an essential complement to the technical skills you are learning in other core business courses.

  How does all this relate to “leading and managing?” By definition, a leader must have followers. This means that to be a leader, you need to understand how to motivate, inspire, and influence other people. You need to assemble the skills, talents, and resources of individuals and groups in ways that best solve the organizational problem(s) at hand. You must make things happen, and often under conditions or timeframes not of your own choosing. Leaders must also understand how to introduce their own skills and abilities into their teams. The successful execution of these goals requires leaders to be able to effectively diagnose problems, make smart decisions, influence and motivate others, wield power effectively, and drive organizational change. In other words, you need a thorough understanding of your own behavior, the behaviors of those around you, and how one impacts the other. Thus, this is not a class designed to teach you everything you need to know about leadership (we have some other activities and electives in the program that focus on this topic more specifically). Rather, this is a class that gives you some fundamental insight into human thought and action, and this insight is one core competency, among many, of effective leaders.

• Organizational Effectiveness

  Most organizations claim that their people are their competitive advantage, but only a few actually achieve their claims or even know what they really mean. This course focuses on how the best organizations leverage the intellectual capital and unique abilities of their workforce to achieve extraordinary results. The course will focus on consulting and improving clients' strategic use of their workforce. Students will study a portfolio of high performance strategies for building and sustaining a competitive advantage. We will integrate the concepts of balanced scorecards and value chains, and students will learn to create organizational metrics for tracking and improving organizational effectiveness.

Marketing

• Global Marketing

  This course examines specific issues involved in developing and executing marketing strategies on a global scale as opposed to a domestic scale. The course is intended to provide a thorough understanding of global marketing strategies, including: (1) fundamental trends underlying convergence of world markets; (2) pitfalls and challenges of entering other countries; (3) ways to design global marketing strategies; (4) the impact of organization structure, management processes, culture, and people on global marketing strategy implementation; and (5) the important and unique role emerging markets play in global marketing strategies. The course will help you achieve your career goals as you work - as virtually all of you will - in or with companies that are active in the international marketplace as well as domestic companies who face active international competitors.

• Brand Strategy

  Most organizations understand that brands and brand equities are an essential source of sustainable compe