Overview

1 Strategic Thinking I

The introductury module about Strategic Thinking takes on the broad topic of how to achieve, enhance and sustain business performance. The module covers the basic tools and frameworks of strategic analysis that lay at the foundations of strategic thinking. After a general introduction to 'strategy' and 'strategic management,' the module is structured around three different elements that reflect different factors that influence strategic success. The focus will be on:

· Methods to analyse the industry and competitive environment, and understand how value is created and captured by different players

· Internal configuration of activities and organisational capabilities that allow a firm to gain and sustain competitive advantage in an industry

· The process of strategy making and its implications on implementation

Subject to change.

2 Strategic Leadership

A focused and clearly communicated strategy is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for successful long-term company performance. Without good leadership, even the greatest advantages will melt away. Therefore, leadership is needed to bring strategy alive and to inspire and align people to make strategy happen.

Leadership is about setting overall direction, motivating, and aligning people. The Strategic Leadership module is intended to increase your effectiveness and skills in understanding, analysing and leading behaviour within organisations. The module will cover the topics management vs. leadership, leadership by playing to one's strengths and self-leadership and interpersonal relations.

Subject to change.

3 Corporate Accounting

This first accounting module, Corporate Accounting, concentrates almost exclusively on learning how to read, interpret and analyze financial statements by means of systematic ratio analysis. While these skills are practically useful as such, they also introduce the basic framework for economic analysis of the internal operations of a company. This framework will be developed further in the module Management Accounting.

Subject to change.

4 Financial Management

The purpose of the first finance module, Financial Management, is to provide a thorough knowledge of financial analysis and financial decision making. Financial theory consists of a set of concepts that will help you allocate resources over time and of a set of quantitative models to help you evaluate alternatives, make decisions and implement them. The same basic concepts and quantitative models apply to all levels of decision making, both from an individual and from a company's perspective.

Subject to change.

5 Service Business Approach

The first module within marketing, Service Business Approach, aims at giving the participant a solid understanding of how marketing has developed both theoretically and practically from the 1950's until today. The intention is to present the basic concepts and tools which are important when dealing with marketing issues. The participant will be introduced to the Nordic School of Marketing within Service thinking, and Customer Dominant Logic.

Subject to change.

6 Business Relationships in Networks

The Business Relationships in Networks module continues with the idea of business relationships by considering a broader picture on the connections between business actors. Business Relationships in Networks aims at giving the participant a thorough understanding of business-to-business markets by focusing on relationships between companies and other actors influencing the company's activities. Parts of this business network perspective will be presented and consequences of this view discussed. A central topic of the module will be managing the company's relationships in a complex and dynamic network context. The second part of the module is about both internal and external networking in relation to innovation management.

After completing this module the participants should be able to understand and analyze business-to-business relationships and networks from a strategic and value creating perspective as well as understand the importance of innovation management.

Subject to change.

7 Management Accounting

The Management Accounting module introduces cost and management accounting topics, such as activity based costing, target costing, budget models, capacity management models, and other useful things to know. The perspective is throughout that of the user, as opposed to the provider, of management accounting reports. The primary learning tool is a sequence of cases.

Subject to change.

8 Customer Oriented Business Models

The objectives of the Customer Oriented Business Models module are as follows:

· To introduce contemporary thinking about customer oriented business development and organic growth.

· To introduce the idea of market definitions - finding markets that grow.

To discuss experiences from business model design.

Subject to change.

9 Corporate Renewal and Change

» The purpose of the Corporate Renewal and Change module is to enhance the participants' ability to lead and sustain changes in international settings.

» Successful change management requires good organization analysis skills, being able to diagnose the organization from different perspectives. We will examine issues related to designing organizations, discuss the political dimensions of organizing, but also deal with crucial people and interpersonal aspects of change.

» Case studies will be used to illustrate how different frameworks and tools can be used to successfully lead change in different contexts: as firms aspire to enhance their innovativeness across borders, internationalize their operations, and manage networks and international joint ventures.

Subject to change.

10 Strategic Human Resource Management

Management is basically about getting things done through people. The Strategic Human Resource Management module is intended to address how firms can and do manage human resources as a source of competitive advantage. Hence, the course will expose the participants to the intersection between Human Resource Management (HRM) and competitive strategy. The purpose is not to get into technical details of HRM that are best left to specialists - be it the use of selection tests or specifics of job evaluation. Rather, the course adopts the perspective of the general manager who addresses human resource topics from a business perspective. The participants will get a broad perspective on services in consumer as well as industrial contexts.

The challenge of effective HRM is greatest in international firms with operations in culturally and institutionally diverse environments; therefore, international dimensions of HRM will be extensively dealt with. The role that HRM plays in resolving the dilemmas of coordination and conflicts in international firms and in managing strategic change will also be discussed.

Subject to change.

11 Value Based Management

The goals for the Value Based Management module are as follows:

1. Establishing principles for sound value based management (VBM)

2. Overview of valuation principles, skills and metrics

3. Understanding the link between corporate strategy and value creation

4. Understanding and identifying strategic managerial flexibility (real options)

5. Looking for a sensible and profitable Corporate Governance culture

After a completed module participants should:

- understand and even perform intermediate level project or acquisition valuations

- understand key value drivers (KVD) and identify KVD:s in own organisation

- understand cash flow and true profitability (value creation)

- understand how a sound VBM culture enhances corporate strategy

- understand how corporate strategy depends on managerial flexibility

- understand how a company's share price is linked to company fundamentals (link between cash flow and value)

Subject to change.

12 Corporate Finance

The goals for the Corporate Finance module is as follows:

1. Understanding link between corporate financial decision-making and corporate strategy and value creation

2. Understanding and identifying strategic managerial flexibility (real options)

3. Discuss sensible and profitable corporate governance culture

After a completed module participants should:

- understand different financial instruments

- understand the main goals of corporate financial policy

- understand how financial decision can enhance value

- appreciate the difference between bad corporate governance and good

Subject to change.

13 Management Control Systems

The Management Control Systems module focuses on the organizational role of management accounting, i.e. not so much on how to use numbers for making better decisions as on how the numbers that are used impact and interact with behaviour. We will mainly work with four issues:

· Budgeting and forecasting
· Next-generation ERP systems
· The organizational role of the finance function
· Scorecards, strategy maps, and measuring enterprise value

Subject to change.

14 A Contemporary Service Business Challenges / Marketing Track

The Contemporary Service Business Challenges module will combine the current service business approach on selected topical issues within business.

The first topic, Multi-Channel Marketing Communications and Social Media, focuses on contemporary challenges in marketing communications. Access to information sources and on-line spaces has not only empowered customers but enabled companies to create new ways of providing service. The participants will develop an understanding about how firms can employ multiple channels to acquire and serve customers. In particular, the opportunities and threats of the multi-channel environment are reviewed. Finally, the implications of social media and deployment of different social media such as social networks and blogs will be discussed in relation to Service Business.

The second topic concerns ethics and emerging markets. Ethics will be discussed both as an issue within business relationships but also from a service business perspective as it challenges all companies due to consumer and customer empowerment. Emerging markets applies the Service Business approach, concepts and tools on the Chinese and Indian market. To the success on the market, knowledge of the business environment, consumer behavior and alternative sustainable strategies are needed. This part of the module will increase your knowledge and understanding on what to consider on emerging markets. Moreover, it will provide skills to deal with special market conditions in emerging economies in an ethical and sustainable manner.

Subject to change.

14 B Financial Instruments and Markets / Finance Track

The aim of the Financial Instruments and Markets module is to make the participants familiar with fixed income, stock, and derivatives markets and the instruments traded on these markets. After completing the module the participants will be able to understand the pricing of various types of financial securities, and to understand the characteristics of each instrument in order to be able to evaluate these instruments as investments.

Subject to change.

14 C Global Leadership / International Management Track

The Global Leadership module will combine current and leading thinking on global leadership development with practical and situational skill development, to create measurable improvement in global leadership performance.

Key topics:

- Exploring the advances in neuroscience on leadership behavior.

- MBTI: The impact of personality type on facing diversity and global challenges

- X-Teams - creating and leading high performance global teams

- Five minds of a global manager

- Linking communication & influencing skills to global success and results

- The role of self-leadership in achieving global results.

- Individual global leadership development strategy and action plan

Subject to change.

15 Management in Context

Expedition abroad: The general objective of the Management in Context module is that the participants enhance their understanding of and learn to deal with the management & leadership challenges facing companies in different contexts and in China in particular. Themes covered are:

» Economic environment

» Political environment

» Cultural environment

» Legal-Ethical environment

» Competitive context

Subject to change.

16 Knowledge Management

The objective of the Knowledge Management module is to learn to understand and analyse the relationship between the company's intangible assets and how to generate value from them in the market place. The specific goals of the module are:

1. to establish the principles of knowledge management

2. to provide an overview of the factors that constitute a company's knowledge-based strategy

3. to further the understanding of value creation mechanisms

After a completed module participants should:

· have learned to apply a new perspective; how to "see" the intangible assets of their organisation and how to generate value from them

· be able to analyse an organisation's knowledge strategy and its collaborative climate

· be able to formulate guidelines for developing an organisation's intangible assets

Subject to change.

17 A Customer Brands / Marketing Track

The Customer Brands module deals with how to analyze and develop marketing and branding strategies and practices that are integrated across the value creating process. You will receive analytical tools to understand how brands are related to value.

Subject to change.

17 B Portfolio management / Finance track

The purpose of the Portfolio Management module is to give an overview of how to combine risky assets into portfolios. We will look at portfolio characteristics (return, risk) and the role of asset co-movement when looking for optimal portfolios. Furthermore we will review the central asset pricing models (how the rate-of-return requirements are determined), and performance evaluation tools. The focus is on practical applications in active and passive portfolio management.

Subject to change.

17 C Managing International Mergers and Acquisitions / International Management Track

» The Managing International Mergers and Acquisitions module concentrates on the management of international mergers and acquisitions with a focus on post-merger and post-acquisition integration.

» The objective is to learn to understand and manage key challenges that organizational members involved in mergers and acquisitions are confronted with. We examine various schools of thought and approaches to integration. This includes strategic, HR, cultural, political and learning perspectives.

» Discussions and group work exercises focus on real-life cases that are used to highlight particularly important issues.

Subject to change.

18 A Towards Service Business / Marketing track

The Towards Service Business module focuses on challenges companies face when moving towards a service business orientation and strategy. Key topics:

- Service Design, Innovation and Development

- Service Investment

- Value

- Service Business in practice

The module offers practical tools and ideas for managing business from a Service Business perspective on various levels of the company. Focus will be on analyzing and developing companies' service offerings.

Subject to change.

18 B Risk Management and Financial Intermediation / Finance Track

The aim of the last module in finance, Risk Management and Financial Intermediation, is to develop participants' ability to use the fundamental building blocks of financial theory for understanding and to deal with the financial world. This could be viewed as an applied summary of the whole field of finance.

We will create a framework for understanding the architecture and dynamics of the financial world in general and risk management in particular. The financial world is the arena where "finance happens". Pricing and handling risk and uncertainty is what finance is all about. The framework is applied to real-world phenomena and institutions in case studies that are discussed in seminar-sessions a few weeks after the lectures.

Subject to change.

18 C International Strategy and Management / International Management Track

To be specified.

19 Strategic Thinking II

This last module Strategic Thinking II revisits the main subjects that have been covered in the executive MBA program: finance, strategy, accounting, relationship marketing, and management and organization. During this module, the subject areas are discussed from a strategic perspective. Certain key issues covered in various parts of the program will be revisited, but the focus is on discussing contemporary issues and trends within each of the areas.

Subject to change.

MBA Thesis Workshop

At the end of the programme each MBA participant presents an MBA Thesis. It is the final demonstration of the student's analytical skills and ability to apply the frameworks and concepts discussed within the programme. Preparatory discussions attended both by colleague students, program facilitators and contact person add structure and substance to the paper.

An MBA Thesis workshop is organised in order to facilitate the writing process. In the workshop, participants receive feedback on their proposals and support in advancing with the MBA Thesis.