Purpose and overview of the Strathclyde MBA

The Strathclyde MBA is based on collaborative learning where work experience, knowledge, understanding and applicable skills are shared, worked with and reflected on.

While the Strathclyde MBA draws on a number of specialist areas, its aim is not to train specialists. Rather, its purpose is to enable you to develop as excellent managers who know what they need to know of diverse areas of management and who have the ability to integrate such knowledge.

The MBA seeks to help you to develop ways of grappling with opportunities and problems in the practice of management by developing as reflective, open-thinking, adaptive learners. This will be facilitated through enhanced understanding of the interplay of theory and practice in management.
We believe that the structure and content of the Strathclyde MBA reflect these aims. They are encapsulated in the diagram below and are explained in more detail below.

A constantly changing environment means that executives need to continually develop to remain effective and to add value to their organisations.

MODULE 1 - The Learning Manager

The first module of the Strathclyde MBA is called ‘The Learning Manager’, and, as the name suggests, it is based on the notion that an excellent manager never stops learning.

It fully explores the concepts and skills of management and learning that will not only be applied and developed throughout your MBA studies but throughout your career.

This developmental approach allows the transfer of learning into practice and is a vehicle for you to analyse and learn about aspects of your role as a manager, how you interact with others and your thinking in running your organisations.

The second module, ‘Management Fundamentals and Processes’, enables you to explore the languages, concepts, skills and application of specialist areas from the perspective of the general manager.

In order to be a good and adaptive manager, you need to be aware of the different disciplines that are brought to bear on organizational processes and working life. This module enables you to travel through a range of management fundamentals and processes that would normally be operated by specialist units in large organisations.

You will consider five distinctive areas: Marketing Management, Operations Management, Managing People in Organisations, Managing Financial Resources, and Managing Information and Information systems.

The third module, ‘Management, Strategy and the International Environment’, develops your ability to work as a manager in a modern, complex organisation by using and integrating a wide range of techniques and theories pertinent both to day-to-day management and to strategic change.

We provide you with frameworks that we expect you to practise and apply. Consequently, there will be practical and theoretical elements to this module.

In particular, the final stage will involve the evaluation and analysis of a real-life case study in which you will have the opportunity to apply and test your learning.

The fourth module, ‘Personal/Subject Development’, allows you to choose where to develop further, either continuing a generalist approach or seeking to understand a particular subject in greater depth.

While some of these elective subjects are available on a part-time or flexible learning basis, many course members take advantage of the very wide range of electives offered as one-week units at USBS each year in May, June and July.

Subject to availability, these full-time weeks in Glasgow facilitate a ‘fast track’ through the programme from a part-time study perspective, but, more importantly, such attendance allows you an excellent opportunity to learn alongside like-minded international colleagues.

To reflect the latest management thinking, these subjects are revised annually, so schedules for the current year are subject to change. However, our Admissions Office will be delighted to supply you with the most current subject list of examples of the types of electives on offer.

Finally, the fifth module, ‘the MBA Project’, enables you to explore in a depth a managerial, organizational or environmental issue and, by so doing, to put into practice relevant knowledge and skills, and to reflect on learning outcomes.

The project is an integral part of the MBA programme and must be completed satisfactorily before you are eligible to graduate. It provides an ideal opportunity to build on what you have already learned. The primary aim is to enhance your own learning in an area of your choice, and you are encouraged to undertake projects within organisations. Whenever possible, we assist you in identifying appropriate organisations or contacts. The final Project Report is expected to be 13,000 – 16,000 words in length.

Overall, the process of the Strathclyde MBA can be summarised as follows:

• You start with skills and processes of learning – vital to the adaptive manager
• You will then explore, from a managerial perspective, the contribution of specialist areas to management and organisation
• Following that, you will develop understanding of techniques and theories of management and strategy, and integrate the diverse areas of theory and practice
• Subsequently, you will choose a path of further development
• And, lastly, you will reflect on your learning, which launches you on your post-MBA career as an ongoing learner – able to understand, work with and manage different forms of thinking and practice.