Core courses

The aim of this course is to build a critical understanding of corporate governance. To this end, we will examine the five most prevalent forms of business ownership, namely: government, entrepreneur/family, publicly held, joint venture/equity alliance and investor held. Explicitly acknowledging differences between countries, we will discuss each form in view of purpose, governance structure and individual responsibility. Through class discussion and assignments, Fellows will be encouraged to reflect upon their futures as senior executives and board members in the changing corporate landscape.

Finance is pervasive. It provides a language for allocating resources and making decisions within a company, the language for communicating performance and prospects to external sources of capital. Our aim is to make all Sloan Fellows proficient in the language of finance. To accomplish this we focus on two core areas.

First, valuation: analysing investment projects; assessing the impact of risk, tax and inflation; calculating the cost of capital and target rates of return; knowing how to value a company.

Second, the capital market. To fund their activities most companies make use of capital markets. We therefore need to understand: how capital markets operate; how to raise capital; how to make the choice between debt and equity; how to manage financial risk.

Macroeconomic events exert a significant impact on the business environment - whether it is the long-term changes brought about by globalisation, new technologies and the launch of the European single currency or short-term factors such as recession in Japan or a currency crisis in Argentina. Understanding the changes brought about by these developments, their implications for different sectors, and the likely response of governments to these forces, will be an important component of corporate success. To understand these factors we focus on a range of issues: why some countries are rich and others poor; where growth is likely to come from in the future; the dynamics of international trade: business cycle fluctuations; changes in monetary and fiscal policy; variations in exchange rates.

Interpersonal and teamwork skills are essential to leading any organisation. You will need to practice them intensively throughout the Sloan Fellowship if you are to maximise learning. This course is designed so you can:

• identify your current strengths and weaknesses in these areas
• begin to work effectively in your study group
• develop a personal and a team action plan to work on in the coming months.

The course includes activities such as observing and giving feedback within your study group and a one-to-one session with an experienced tutor to discuss your specific situation.

Management accounting may be more familiar than some other courses because you have probably been directly involved in budgeting and using cost information.
The objective of the course is to enable you to understand how some of the key figures available from an organisation's financial information system can be used in costing, planning and control so that you can improve your own role in decision-making. The sessions are also designed to improve your ability to use financial professionals.

Leading individuals and groups effectively is the key to managerial excellence. Yet, it could be your most difficult challenge as a manager. This course is designed to help you meet this challenge. We tie concrete organisational situations (as reflected in cases and simulations) to essential theories and principles of effective management. There are four modules, each providing a unique perspective on understanding and shaping behaviour. The four perspectives are: (1) organisations as structure and systems; (2) organising as human resource development; (3) organising as politicking; and (4) organisations as symbolic entities. We will look at how each of these perspectives can be used as a 'lever' to transform organisations. The complexity of our analysis will increase gradually as we learn to work with multiple perspectives and levers.

Strategy and marketing are two sides of the same coin. Strategic leaders must be capable of providing marketing leadership. This entails a real understanding of the fundamental business issue of creating value for the customer through market segmentation and differentiation; product design, development and launch; managing suppliers, agents and distributors; building and communicating brand value; creating customer loyalty. At the same time, the firm must be able to capture back to itself a part of the value it creates for the customer through its pricing decisions in order to ensure its long-run viability. Above all, the focus is on developing and implementing marketing strategies that reinforce a firm's broader strategic direction.

Superior performance depends on competitive superiority. However, many firms find themselves adopting bland, 'me too', strategies. To counter this, managers must be able to generate new competitive insights that reshape their strategic decisions. This entails addressing searching questions about the content of their current strategies, but also about their process of strategy formation and execution. The challenge is to link the internal world of the firm, and its resources, with the external world of competitors, customers and other actors. The dynamics of both worlds and their interaction must be understood in order to shape their development appropriately. This course therefore focuses on understanding these two worlds and the strategic roles that you can play within them. By the end of the course, you will know how to position a firm effectively against market forces and shape these to your advantage; how to build the resources and capabilities essential to maintaining - and strengthening - market position; how to link strategy to action at the level of day-to-day activities in which individuals are involved. Our aim is to enable you to assume a strategic leadership role with confidence.

Business has arguably replaced government, religion and, in many cases, family life as the social institution with the greatest influence on people's lives. Top management unquestionably plays a pivotal role in promoting economic and social progress. And yet, it is the Cinderella among professions. The goal of law is justice; the goal of medicine, health. Management, in comparison, lacks a clear ideal. Too few people understand what top managers do and how they add value. This introductory half-core course provides you with a clear insight into top management's role. It also helps show how you can fulfil this role in a way that gives full expression to what you stand for personally and professionally.

This innovative course is designed to help Sloan Fellows think constructively about career and life transitions. It does so by looking outward, at the lives of leaders and notable historical figures, and inward, at Fellows' own past choices and future trajectories. We do this analytically, through frameworks for understanding the forces shaping individual lives, and experientially, through exercises and dialogues that provide opportunities for new insights. The chief means for achieving this are ideas for use, space for reflection, and dialogue for exchange. Our aim is to reinforce creative adaptation to change through insight into oneself, others and the contexts around us. Thereby, we seek to help you gain greater insight into - and control over - your own future.