Background
Founded in 1909 in Helsinki
Hanken School of Economics is one of the oldest university-level business schools in the Nordic countries. Its professors have been at the forefront of renewing the Nordic economic and social science for most of the 20th century. Today, the faculty enjoys high both national and international esteem and has closer ties with the Finnish high-tech industry and world class industry than ever.
Some 2 300 students are enrolled in HANKENs degree programmes - over 100 of them are doctoral students. HANKEN graduates are working not only in Finnish private and public companies but also for leading companies all over the world. Apart from business expertise, languages and cultural understanding are perhaps their best known trademarks. HANKENs basic degree is a four-year full-time Master of Science (Econ.). In the field of professional continuing education HANKEN has offered general as well as customized management training since 1976.
In the year 2000 Hanken was accredited by EQUIS (European Quality Improvement System). The accreditation shows that the education and research at Hanken is of an internationally competitive standard. Due to the fact that the accreditation is time-bound Hanken continuously develops the quality of the school's systems. In total, 34 business schools in Europe are accredited by EQUIS, e.g. London Business School, Henley Management School and Stockholm School fo Economics. Hanken was re-accreditated in the years 2005, 2008 and 2011.
The Hanken MBA Programme
The Hanken MBA Programme is not a traditional executive training programme to give you just baseline information about business related issues. This two-year, part-time program offers three specialization alternatives: finance, relationship and service marketing, and international management. These areas form the core of Hanken's competence profile. In addition to these, the programme consists of modules in the areas of e.g. accounting. This structure makes the Hanken MBA distinct from other similar programmes.
Thus, the Hanken MBA Programme continues the spirit of the Hanken education. While developing the programme we have identified a need for a more focused MBA, where a broad-based program could be combined with in-depth studies in areas where Hanken has a distinct lead and advantage. Hanken today is particularly strong in finance, relationship and service marketing, and international management where we are not only in the front-line in these areas in Finland, but also excel on a worldwide basis.
Over the past five years, Hanken has consistently aimed at attaining closer cooperation with all branches of industry. In practice, this has meant the fast growth of a number of specialized research institutes at core departments, e.g. Center for Relationship Marketing and Service Management (CERS), Wallenberg Centre for Financial Research (WCEFIR) and Centre of International Economic Law (CIEL). Having worked closely with many renowned European and American universities, we are proud to conclude that researchers at Hanken are not only keeping up with the thinking of others, but are very much involved in shaping frontline research in their respective fields. CERS, with its staff of thirty, is currently the largest customer relationship research center in the world. The faculty of finance, in turn, is recognized as the most respected training institution in its field in Finland. Finally, the Institute for Corporate Competence Development was one of the first research and development centers in the Nordic countries to put the growing understanding-based view of competence into practice in corporate learning processes.
In addition to the MBA Programme, Hanken also works with different branches of industry by initialising multi-client projects and forming partnerships with large firms. For the MBA student, this implies that the material forming the core of the curriculum has been empirically studied, thoroughly discussed and extensively tested. In addition, the learning process of the Hanken MBA is facilitated by highly acclaimed speakers from both the corporate and the academic world.