EMBA curriculum changes with times

Executives enrolled in the Richard Ivey School of Business EMBA programmes can expect training that tackles issues from a broad perspective.
In a reform of the curriculum, the top Canadian business school has incorporated ideas of cross-enterprise leadership into its programmes on top of the case study method of teaching of which it has always been proud.
The cross-enterprise model is a major break from the traditional emphasis on “functional disciplines”.
“You can’t have a stagnant course in an environment where changes happen every nanosecond,” said Kathleen Slaughter, associate dean of the school’s Hong Kong-based Asian campus. “If you were doing business in China three, four years ago, the environment is totally different now.”
Rather than dwelling on functional disciplines such as finance, accounting and marketing, the new curriculum starts with the premise that the main task of leaders is to tackle cross-enterprise issues.
“We focus on what the issues are and the alternatives for solving them. We are trying to train up effective executives who need to make decisions in the face of ambiguity. The class discussions will help them see how others see what the problems are.”
Professor Slaughter said the curriculum change had the strong support of the school’s Asian advisory board headed by Henry Cheng, managing director of New World Development.
Ranked 14th worldwide in last year’s Financial Times survey on EMBAs, Richard Ivey is the second largest producer of business case studies after Harvard University, and the No 1 producer of cases in Asia. The school is attached to the University of Western Ontario in Canada.
Professor Slaughter said many of the Asian cases focused on the mainland, but emerging markets such as India and Vietnam were not left out. The myriad of cases were intended to develop students’ analytical skills, she said.
“Some schools just tell students what a company did, giving them information that executives had in making a decision, but that information may not have any impact on decision. We will continue to use the case study method to let students step into the role of decision-making, developing the ability to analyze situations from the perspectives of top managers.”

March 4, 2006
South China Morning Post