MBA Curriculum


This is a composite MBA curriculum I have synthesised from multiple sources – mostly high-profile MBA curriculums published by prominent universities. The aim was to generate a longlist of topics I might choose to study as part of my Eccentric MBA in 2022. The sources are listed at the bottom.

Finance

  • Capital markets (equities, bonds, securities, derivatives) and financial institutions (equity markets, private equity, venture capital)
  • Corporate takeovers, mergers, etc [also under Law]
  • Capital budgeting, discounted cash flow, risk analysis and management
  • Credit market analysis, option/derivative pricing, valuation of interest tax shields, weighted average cost of capital
  • Debt finance, equity finance, distributing cash to shareholders
  • Deals and transactions (mergers and acquisitions, restructurings, leveraged buyouts, hostile takeovers, initial public offerings)
  • Investment strategies, portfolio management, risk/return

Accounting

  • Double-entry bookkeeping, ledgers
  • International Financial Reporting Standards
  • Financial statements
  • Accounting reports
  • Financial analysis/valuation for financial management and control, investment, and credit decisions
  • Reporting policy and strategy
  • Budgeting

Microeconomics

  • Value creation
  • Supply and demand
  • Competition and monopoly
  • Pricing methods [also in Marketing]
  • Strategic interaction between firms and auction design

Organisational behaviour

  • Group cultures
  • Performance management
  • Horizontal influence
  • Vision and delivery
  • Organisational design
  • Management and governance

Marketing & Sales

  • Product policy
  • Channels of distribution
  • Communication, branding, advertising
  • Pricing [also in Microeconomics]

Operations Management

  • Process analysis
  • Cross-functional and cross-firm integration
  • Product development
  • Supply chain management
  • Lean Thinking
  • Quality Management

Technology

  • Information technology / digital transformation
  • Technology and operations strategy
  • Silicon Valley style tech world/startups/VCs
  • Sharing economy / collaborative economy (Uber, Airbnb, etc)

Environment

  • Environmental sustainability and relation to political, social, economic sustainability
  • Environmental regulation
  • Global environmental issues, climate change

National Political Environment

  • Policy development, the legislative process
  • National finance and the budget process
  • Economic data, governmental accounting (incl GDP)
  • Lobbying and influence
  • Public procurement

International Environment

  • International trade
  • Balance of payments
  • Foreign direct investment
  • Portfolio capital flows
  • International institutions and agreements
  • ‘Differences and disputes across countries that influence or constrain business opportunities.’

Strategy

  • Strategy theory
  • Competitive positioning (single business)
  • Corporate strategy (multi-business organisation)
  • Understanding comparative costs
  • Cannibalization, network externalities, and globalization
  • Global strategy
  • Strategy and innovation
  • Systems, systems analysis, systems improvement

Leadership & Management

  • Leadership, management and governance systems
  • Objectives, KPIs, reporting
  • Recruitment, induction, performance management, learning & development, exits (resignations, individual terminations, redundancies)
  • Corporate turnaround and organisational transformation
  • [see also Organisational behaviour]

Entrepreneurship

  • Social entrepreneurship
  • Technological entrepreneurship
  • Opportunity identification, securing resources, creating an entrepreneurial organisation, managing it, growing to sustainability, creating and harvesting stakeholder value
  • Entrepreneurial finance, investment models [some overlaps with Finance and Accounting]

Analytics & decision-making

  • Data tools and techniques, statistics, forecasting
  • Technical tools: decision trees, simulation, preference analysis, linear programming
  • Biases, incl sunk cost fallacy, ignoring opportunity cost
  • Value of information
  • Stakeholder analysis
  • Game theory, auction theory
  • Sensitivity analysis
  • Risk management/Hedging – insurance, options incl option to wait, moral hazard, adverse selection, diversification [overlap with Finance and Accounting]

Law

  • Corporate law
  • Contract law
  • Torts
  • Labour/employment law, trade unions
  • Competition law
  • Fraud
  • Insider trading (US, UK, EU)
  • Intellectual property (copyright, designs, patents, DB right, trade secrets)
  • Data protection / GDPR
  • Regulatory bodies
  • [Corporate takeovers, mergers, etc under Finance]

DEI (Diversity, Equity & Inclusion) and Ethics

  • Shareholder capitalism, political economy, governance, institutions, how capitalism functions and varies
  • Alternative conceptions of the corporation.
  • Social sustainability and its relation to economic & environmental sustainability
  • Accountability and corporate reporting; engaging with NGOs, supply chain and other stakeholders.
  • Impact – such as business and society; social capital; measurement of performance; social entrepreneurship; renegotiating boundaries of business and society.
  • Impact investing
  • Reputation and reputation management
  • Trust
  • Regulatory capture
  • Consequentialism, deontology, virtue ethics
  • Book study: Complaint! by Sara Ahmed, which examines what we can learn about power from those who complain about abuses of power
  • [These curriculums seem surprisingly threadbare here even coming with low expectations, depressingly.]

Sector specifics (private)

  • Retail
  • Professional & business services/consulting
  • Financial services (banking, insurance)
  • Fintech
  • Health
  • Pharmaceuticals, life sciences
  • Chemicals
  • Utilities: Energy, Water, Telecoms
  • Construction & housing
  • Engineering
  • Manufacturing
  • Extractive (mining, quarrying, forestry, oil & gas, refining)
  • Transport & logistics
  • Aerospace
  • Defence
  • Creative (media, entertainment)
  • Agriculture
  • Hospitality & leisure (incl tourism)
  • Automotive
  • Aviation
  • Telecoms
  • Real estate

Sector specifics (public & third)

  • Public sector regulatory environment
  • Stakeholder analysis
  • Education
  • Health
  • Social care
  • Local government
  • Charities

Project management

  • [often seen as below the MBA/strategic level]
  • Programme management, portfolio management, project management
  • PRINCE2 for project sponsors
  • Agile

Small business specifics (SMEs)

  • Structure (company forms, CICs, charities, sole traders)
  • Banking and finance
  • VAT
  • Tax / HMRC

Miscellaneous

  • Negotiation
  • Motivation and incentives
  • Behavioural economics
  • Family businesses
  • Philanthropic foundations
  • Business history

Sources