Executive MBA

Understand what an organisation is, what it is made up of, and how you can shape it to improve performance.

This module will explore the links between psychology, organisational psychology, organisational sociology, and management science, training you to understand and analyse the relationship between individuals, groups and teams, and the organisational context they work within.

You’ll cover key theories and frameworks, appropriate to a range of organisational contexts, and learn to apply them in practice. We’ll apply these theories to the areas that are important to your organisations now, discussing contemporary challenges. These could include topics as wide-ranging as hybrid working and its impact in motivation, team dynamics, and power networks. You’ll consider the organisation from different perspectives: structural, HR, political, and symbolic. These perspectives will widen your view, exposing you to different ways of thinking that can be taken forward into your other modules, and your own role.

Themes at a glance:

• What is organisational behaviour? Key concepts, approaches, and implications
• Motivation
• Groups and teams
• Organisational structure
• Organisational culture
• Power and organisational politics
• Institutions
• Ethics.

Uncover the underlying concepts of what strategy really is, and why it matters to an organisation.

This module sets out to understand the difference between strategy at the level of the individual business unit, and at the corporate level. Conversations around strategy take place throughout an organisation, meaning that this module will be relevant to you, whatever your career stage.

Your learning will cover two key areas: how to analyse strategy, and how to use strategy to develop and grow your organisation. You’ll first cover the analytical concepts, frameworks, and methods used in setting a strategy, followed by an in-depth look into the application of these tools to encourage growth, create value, and gain competitive advantage. Every theory and tool is taught with you as a practitioner in mind.

The module will encourage you to become a strategist, developing a big-picture, long-term perspective that will facilitate your own development within your organisation and career. You’ll gain an integrated approach to business, understanding the overall strategic intent and the contributions that different functions and teams can make.

Our teaching style encourages you to apply your learnings around strategy straight away, by analysing unique case studies, exploring different contexts through workshop-style sessions, and tasking you with formulating a growth strategy for your own organisation.

Themes at a glance:

• What is strategy?
• Strategic positioning
• Environment/industry analysis
• Competing on resources and capabilities
• Diversification/Internationalisation
• Competitive analysis
• Strategic alliances/co-opetitions
• Modern strategic approach including behavioural strategy and strategy and technology.

Operations are pervasive. Whether you’re managing the ‘traditional operation’ in manufacturing or service operations, sales in a smaller firm, distribution, or risk in a financial firm; the principles of operations are key to driving better performance.

The module begins with understanding how operations deliver the organisational promise – how does it link to the organisational strategy… and how can it inform the organisational strategy? Who are your customers (are they internal or external)? Based on this, how do you design operations and underlying processes?

As the module progresses, we look at how we manage capacity of the operation, how we can measure performance, and what we understand by quality. The module concludes by considering how operations can be improved, and the role of Lean Thinking.

This module hinges around the basic fact that everyone is an operations manager; if you manage resources and/or produce goods or services, you are managing operations. In this module you’ll learn the basic principles of operations management, applying them to a range of organisations (public and private) before taking this logic and employing it in your own complex and unique work situation.

Social and environmental sustainability is embedded within this module, ensuring that you leave as a manager of operations that is able to face this contemporary challenge head-on.

Themes at a glance:

• The operations landscape
• Customer objectives
• Making processes visible
• Process design and organisational fit
• Governance of operations
• Process improvement and redesign
• Linking operations to the wider organisation.

Become a skilled user of financial information, using your knowledge to make the most efficient and successful financial decisions.

You’ll be introduced to the key techniques within management accounting and corporate reporting, building your financial literacy in a management context. This module will enable you to understand and interpret financial and other corporate information, enter into intelligent discussion with financial partners, and use this information to improve your organisation’s fundamentals.

Whilst there will be some calculations, we’ll delve into issues around the numbers and their context, with hands-on, practical analysis of companies in a range of industries, including the companies you and your cohort work for. You’ll be able to apply these tools and concepts to your own organisation, and understand where and how the decisions and actions you take are represented within your organisation’s key financial statements.

Themes at a glance:

• Understanding, analysing, and interpreting financial statements
• Measuring and reporting performance and position
• Relationships between cash flow and earnings
• Costing systems
• Cost information for decision making
• Performance evaluation
• Current issues in accounting.

Build an intuitive understanding of how everyday financial decisions work and learn the fundamental tools to make them.

This skills-based module will help you to think critically, gaining an understanding of the information a finance manager may need, how they think and make decisions, and how they work with other finance professionals. This module will be useful for you, whatever your job role or function, as you will learn how to respond to common problems universally faced by financial managers and those working with them.

We will not focus on formulae or algorithms, instead placing emphasis on the practical application of tools and concepts that can be used in a variety of contexts. Real-life applications and examples cover every area of business, from marketing to consulting, biotech to entrepreneurship, and beyond.

You’ll leave this module with a ‘finance mindset’, viewing finance as a measuring rod for all aspects of a business, with value creation as your ultimate aim.

Themes at a glance:

• Time value of money
• Bond valuation, stock valuation and equity multiples
• Financial securities used by corporations
• Risk and return tradeoff
• Diversification
• Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM)
• Market efficiency
• Capital structure and weighted average cost of capital (WACC)
• Valuation and capital budgeting.

Marketing puts customers, clients, or members at the centre of management decision-making. Whatever your role and whatever your organisation, the concepts and tools shared in this module will help you to develop and maintain focus on those issues that are most important to the experience of your organisation’s customers.

You’ll gain an insight into the value of marketing in increasingly turbulent environments, as well as developing the skills to assess complex market situations, and identify optimal marketing approaches to deal with them. A key role of marketing is coordination of organisational activities to create value for customers. This module will equip you with the ability to ask the right questions and understand the reasoning that goes into defining marketing strategy and shaping marketing implementation.

You’ll be taught by marketing faculty at the forefront of the discipline giving you access to cutting-edge thinking in the marketing sphere.

Our teaching style enables you to immediately put leading-edge ideas into practice and engage in rich peer-to-peer discussions with your cohort. We’ll facilitate with key themes and insights, while encouraging you to reflect on your own business setting, alongside pertinent case studies. Your cohort’s diverse backgrounds will enhance the richness of our conversations.

Themes at a glance:

• Defining the role and purpose of marketing
• Planning and the marketing environment
• Business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) market contexts
• Segmentation, differentiation, positioning
• Identifying, creating and delivering value
• Managing brands and products
• Designing and implementing the marketing mix
• Sustainability and brand purpose
• The future of marketing.

Re-evaluate your approach to leadership, preparing you and your organisation for success in a rapidly changing world.

This module will give you a deeper understanding of how to develop yourself as a leader, asking you to reconsider your pre-established ideas of what it is to lead in an organisation. You’ll gain an in-depth understanding of what leadership really is, where it comes from, and what impact you can have as a strategic leader. You’ll also consider how to adapt your leadership to different organisations, as effective leadership and decision-making approaches can vary with organisational culture.

You’ll be taught experientially; our case studies will enable you to consider the effectiveness of popular frameworks and models, whilst discussions with your module leader and cohort will offer you access to a wide range of leadership expertise and contemporary challenges.

Themes at a glance:

• Leading strategic change
• Self-management,  personal development, and emotional intelligence
• Collaborating effectively with others
• Behaving assertively, communicating clearly, and influencing others
• Leading individuals and teams
• Leading responsibly, ethically and sustainably
• Leading in crisis
• Leadership styles and decision making.

Develop a strategic approach to innovation and entrepreneurship within your organisation, nurturing the knowledge and creativity that can lead to product, process, service, or organisational change.

This module focuses on entrepreneurship and innovation at an organisational level, enabling you to understand and diagnose the capabilities of the setting you work in, and teaching you how to create an environment that embeds entrepreneurship and innovation at its heart. This practical content can be applied to any business context, from for-profit organisations to those in the public or charitable sector.

You’ll cover three key areas: the strategy needed to pursue innovation and entrepreneurship, the processes needed to support your strategy, and the leadership and management practices that can help to incentivise and encourage engagement.

This module is deliberately taught following your other required modules, drawing on ideas and topics that connect with all functions previously covered. You’ll reach back into these modules, and understand how you can use them to build organisational capacity for adapting to a changing environment.

Our interdisciplinary, integrative approach makes extensive use of case studies, simulations, and self-assessment, encouraging you to ask the right questions to effect real organisational change.

Themes at a glance:

• Creative destruction, organizational adaptiveness and sustainability
• The implications of innovation for organisational performance
• Core rigidities, and innovator's dilemma
• Organisational ambidexterity
• Innovation strategy and strategic innovation
• Identifying, valuing and prioritizing opportunities
• Lean startup and customer discovery/development
• Design thinking: understanding users
• Internal organisational environments for Innovation - Leadership and
  management practices; Culture for entrepreneurship and innovation
• Learning processes within organisations
• Evidence-based decision making.

• Entrepreneurial Finance (SF and W)

This module will help equip you with the knowledge to be able to consider and select financing vehicles which are appropriate to securing an organisations’ money requirements and to understand and analyse the issues in the institutional framework in which those decisions take place.

• Entrepreneurship & New Venture Creation (WL)

Taking this module will help you in developing an entrepreneurial mind set, attitude and skills – the necessary hallmarks of successful value creators. It aims to challenge the way you think about entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship and help you engage more effectively with a world in which entrepreneurship is a key driver of change.

Key

SF - delivered in San Francisco, California, USA 

W - delivered at Warwick campus 

WL - delivered at both Warwick and London

Please note that module availability may vary year-to-year depending on student demand and scheduling constraints.

• Digital Transformation (L)

This module offers a business-focused understanding of platform strategy, artificial intelligence, and new data analytics approaches. You will develop an understanding of the skills required for conceptualising digital transformation as well as smaller stand-alone projects that use new technologies.

• Big Data & Business Analytics (S)

This module is run by IE Business School in Madrid, Spain. The module will help you to analyse the application of technology in its wider sphere of social transformational drivers, and apply that in your own sphere of influence, with particular emphasis on the use of data, analytics and big data. You will be introduced to the critical elements of understanding digital products and services and the power of data, so that you can manage the digital transformation of your organisation, and to innovate in a digital world.

Key

L - delivered at WBS London

S - delivered in Madrid, Spain

Please note that module availability may vary year-to-year depending on student demand and scheduling constraints.

• Corporate Finance (WL)

This module aims to provide you with the skills and tools of modern finance theory necessary to critically evaluate decisions from different angles, enabling you to reach your own conclusion based on all available information.

• Financial Analysis (W)

Gain the skills to analyse financial performance of publicly listed firms from an equity valuation perspective and carry out a business valuation building on this analysis.

• Investments & Risk Management (W)

This module will provide you with an in-depth introduction to the theory and practical applications of asset management and risk management.

• Mergers & Acquisitions (WL)

Develop a broad understanding of mergers and acquisitions, including strategic alliances.

• Behavioural Finance: Psychology and Financial Decisions (L)

You will explore the key behavioural biases that people may exhibit when making decisions under uncertainty and discuss the implications of these biases for corporate decision-making and financial markets as a whole. 

• Economics of the Business Environment (L)

This module will introduce you to a number of basic concepts used by economists, illustrate the use of these concepts in business, and demonstrate how economics as a discipline can be used to approach business-related questions. 

Key

W -  delivered at Warwick campus

L - delivered at WBS London

WL - delivered at both Warwick and WBS London

Please note that module availability may vary year-to-year depending on student demand and scheduling constraints.

• Doing Business in China (C)

Develop an appreciation of the intricacies of the Chinese business environment, and an awareness of key success and risk factors while entering or expanding in China.

• Doing Business in Mexico (M)

Develop an understanding of how successful businesses operate in Mexico by referring to relevant business theories and models. 

• International Business (WL)

Build on your knowledge of the global economic and business environment and link this to strategies for managing in changing global contexts. 

Key

C - delivered in Beijing, China

M - delivered at IPADE Business School, Mexico

WL - delivered at both Warwick and WBS London

Please note that module availability may vary year-to-year depending on student demand and scheduling constraints.

• Business & Sustainability (CA) 

Build your understanding of the underlying complexities in tackling sustainability challenges within your organisation. This module will provide an innovative and practical toolkit to support your management and leadership approaches in addressing social and environmental concerns at both societal and business levels.

• Managing Sustainable Energy Transitions (W)

The overall ambition of energy’s role in a sustainable global economy is clear, but the certainty of how to achieve it changes constantly. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to managing energy transitions. This module explores the challenges managers face in achieving sustainable energy transitions in the context of commercial, political and social factors. You will cover key topics such as the role of governments and international organisations in regulating and supporting energy transitions, the challenges that ‘transition risk’ presents to the incumbent fossil fuel industry, and the business opportunities presented by the growth of low-carbon energy systems and services. 

• Creating Sustainable Organisations (L)

The need for businesses to be agile in the face of natural and social change has become essential. This module explores how organisations can achieve positive social, environmental and economic outcomes over time. You will gain a toolset for leading and delivering sustainability strategies across an organisation with the support of key stakeholders. 

• Leading Organisations: Performance, Stakeholders and Governance (L) (W)

In today's complex business environment, understanding the relationships between performance, sustainability and governance is essential for the CEOs and business leaders of tomorrow. This module delves into leading organisations, navigating the relationships with people and stakeholders, reconciling the interests of different stakeholders, designing risk management, evaluating the consequences of incentive structures, appreciating the impact of national systems of corporate governance on decision making. It’s about understanding the broader agenda beyond self, profits, and power.

• Leading and Harnessing Diversity (W)

In the workplace, we constantly interact with individuals from diverse backgrounds and experiences. While this diversity can present challenges, it also offers significant opportunities for creative breakthroughs. Effectively harnessing diversity is a critical skill for leaders. This module explores how to navigate the complexities of diverse teams, ensuring you can confidently participate in and lead them. You will gain awareness of how diversity can make the workplace more interesting, fulfilling, and effective. The module includes readings, case studies, and guest speakers to bring this topic to life.

Key

CA –  delivered in Vancouver, Canada

W –  delivered at Warwick campus

L – delivered in London at The Shard

Please note that module availability may vary year-to-year depending on student demand and scheduling constraints.

• Behavioural Science for the Manager (W)

Learn how to understand key aspects of human behaviour, and how this understanding can help you improve your outcomes in the workplace.

• Leadership & the Art of Judgement (WL)

Draw on great plays, certain philosophical writings, and strands of psychology to get insights into the complexity of human beings, their motives, choices and actions. Use this understanding of complexity to make better choices in organising and managing people.

• Leading & Managing Change (W)

Gain an introduction to an interdisciplinary, cross-national and historically informed understanding of the idea of change and its significance for contemporary organisations.

• Managing Organisational Performance (WL)

Dig into the connections between strategy, performance measurement and decisions and actions, and discuss how these can positively affect the performance of individuals and organisations.

• Negotiation Theory and Practice (WL)

Uncover the theoretical, analytical and empirical tools from economics, organisational behaviour and industrial relations to understand, examine and practice negotiations.

• Project Management (W)

Develop an understanding of project and programme management approaches, gaining a sensitivity to different project environments, and making comparisons and conclusions about them. Increase your knowledge of commercial and behavioural issues in the management of projects, and gain experience in handling project management problems.

• Strategic Leadership for the Healthcare Industry (L)

Develop your knowledge of theories around health systems, apply critical thinking to strategic issues related to health organisations, and review and reflect on contemporary global leadership challenges within the healthcare industry.

• Leading and Harnessing Diversity (L)

Learning to effectively harness diversity in organisations is a critical skill for leaders to hold. This module will help you to navigate the complexities of leading teams with different backgrounds, values and experiences. You'll also gain an awareness of how diversity can make the workplace more interesting, more fulfilling, and more effective.

• Managerial Economics (W)

Gain an understanding of economic policies and their consequences for business decision-making and financial markets. Uncover the causes and effects of policies for improving living standards, stabilising inflation and growth, managing exchange rates, and avoiding sovereign defaults.

• Social Innovation and Reflective Leadership (P)

This module is run by Nova School of Business and Economics in Lisbon, Portugal. The world grows afflicted by persistent and relevant societal challenges such as inequality, climate change, human trafficking, poverty, deforestation and food waste, and the current social and economic systems do not seem to be able to solve them. An economy capable of prevention and resolution for societal challenges requires its organisations' leaders to co-create solutions and have impact. You'll build an understanding of the concepts of social innovation and reflective leadership and their applicability in solving social changes, as well as addressing the latent tensions between performance and progress and the way investment is shaped.

Key

W –  delivered at Warwick campus

L – delivered at WBS London

WL – delivered in both Warwick and London

P - delivered in Lisbon, Portugal

Please note that module availability may vary year-to-year depending on student demand and scheduling constraints.

• Global Challenges for the Public Sector (W)

This module will provide you with a solid understanding of the distinctive challenges faced globally in the delivery of public services. Develop strategies and heighten your ability to deploy tools and methods to optimise public service improvement.

• Improving Health Systems (L)

Extend your understanding of the issues which give insight into successful and failed attempts at improving health systems. Develop an understanding of healthcare improvement strategies which can be applied to your own organisational or national context.

• Strategic Leadership for the Healthcare Industry (L)

Develop your knowledge of theories around health systems, apply critical thinking to strategic issues related to health organisations, and review and reflect on contemporary global leadership challenges within the healthcare industry.

Key

L - delivered at WBS London

W - delivered at Warwick campus

Please note that module availability may vary year-to-year depending on student demand and scheduling constraints.

• Luxury Industries & Brand Management (IT)

This module is run by the SDA Bocconi School of Management in Milan, Italy. This module will introduce you to the best practices of growth strategy implementation adopted by successful Italian and European companies operating in luxury industries using real-life cases and examples. You will develop practical managerial tools and frameworks for the formulation and implementation of strategic positioning in the luxury industry, including how to align business processes to a brand's competitive positioning in the market.

• Strategic Marketing (W)

Explore managing in markets in the longer term from a wider perspective. This module will delve into the longer-term issues in the evolution of markets and competition, and how your organisations can sustain their position against competitors. You will develop your decision-making skills and learn to critically evaluate strategic marketing analysis methods. You will also explore the impact of marketing decisions particularly in terms of customers, competitors, channels and the corporation itself.

Key

IT - delivered in Milan, Italy

W –  delivered at Warwick campus

Please note that module availability may vary year-to-year depending on student demand and scheduling constraints.

• Strategic Leadership Development (L)

Challenge your thinking and feelings about becoming a strategic leader in an uncertain world. This module aims to provide a ‘lived and embodied experience’ of what it means and feels to act as a strategic leader. You will explore, reframe and test what it is to be a leader with a clear sense of purpose, agility and resilience.

• Strategy & Practice (WL) 

Develop an understanding of how strategy is implemented at the individual, team and organisational levels. In this module, you will delve into the processes and tools that can enhance strategy implementation. You will explore analytical concepts, frameworks and methods used in setting long-term direction for an organisation as well as discuss the difficulties found in implementing strategy. 

Key

L – delivered at The Shard, London

WL – delivered at both Warwick and London

Please note that module availability may vary year-to-year depending on student demand and scheduling constraints.

• Design Thinking & Service Design (F) 

This module is run by the Aalto University School of Business in Helsinki, Finland. Design Thinking can help your company to find an advantage in highly competitive global markets as digitalisation increasingly calls for new approaches and business models. In this module, you will develop a big-picture understanding of how design thinking and service design are successfully explored across industries in the Europe and Nordic regions, particularly focusing on innovation processes and co-creation approaches.

• Organisation Design (W)

Gain an understanding of the main elements influencing the design of an organisation, with particular emphasis on the role of management. This module explores the role of management and leadership in the design and implementation of organisational design principles. At a practical level, the module also delves into current organisational challenges, such as the design of flat and agile structures, the design of inclusive, non-toxic cultures and new ways of organising in the face of grand challenges. 

• Supply Chain Management (W).

Develop your understanding of the structural elements of Supply Chain Management (the design of supply networks, the design and management of business contracts and supplier relationships) and the management of business processes that extend far beyond single companies. This module will explore how SCM can provide a competitive advantage for organisations. You will explore key theories and techniques for how to achieve supply chain excellence in your organisation.

Key

F –  delivered in Helsinki Finland

W –  delivered at Warwick campus

Please note that module availability may vary from year-to-year depending on student demand and scheduling constraints.

• Leading Organisations: Performance, Stakeholders and Governance (W)

Dismantle preconceptions about "corporate governance" and gain an understanding of the relationships between performance, sustainability and governance.

Key

W –  delivered at Warwick campus

Please note that module availability may vary year-to-year depending on student demand and scheduling constraints.