Fixing Real Work Issues: Curriculum Offers Hands-On Experience
October 22, 2008While you might not think of executive MBA courses as an opportunity to address real problems in real time at your own company, students taking Wharton's Management of People at Work are required to do just that. Working in learning teams, each group selects a real issue being faced by one of the team member's companies and then works to develop the best possible solution.
Perhaps you need to figure out how to bridge the divide between clashing cultures following an acquisition. Or maybe you need to redesign compensation or career paths to retain top talent in a company facing low morale. Or maybe you have the classic start-up issue of a charismatic leader who just can't delegate or let go. This course — through the Field Application Project — is just the place to not only analyze those issues, but also to find solutions.
As a Wharton EMBA student, your first-year learning team essentially becomes a consulting group on behalf of the corporate sponsor, framing the specific problem, identifying issues and figuring out the best tools and concepts to provide solutions. At the end of the project, your group presents its findings and recommendations to company executives. It's not just a great learning experience, but it's also a great value to the company.
In addition to the Management of People at Work course, the first-year core curriculum covers key business concepts including economics, finance, financial and cost accounting, management science, marketing, operations management, the governmental and legal environment of business, statistics, and strategy. By the end of the first year, students are ready to pick from a wide range of electives — one of the largest selections of any business school. Past elective choices have ranged from new product development and international finance to marketing research and venture initiation.
And of course, given today's global business environment, an International Seminar is a required part of the program. The International Seminar marks the culmination of two core courses: Competitive Strategy and Global Strategic Management. Students and faculty choose the destination and then research and plan an intensive week of corporate visits. Past seminars have taken place around the world in countries such as Argentina, China, Germany, India and South Africa.
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EMBA Student's Team Project - Immediate Benefit at Work
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