New MBA Strategy course focuses on sustainability.

The online graduate business program director and faculty, whose passion for teaching leadership that enables skilled foresight, announces a revised take on the skills and knowledge required for strategic management.

The MBA capstone course, “Strategic Management of the Sustainable Enterprise,” provides an opportunity for students to weave together prior studies into a comprehensive and practical opportunity for application. This is the only course in the MBA program that deals primarily with the executive & strategic management of an organization within its external competitive and macro-environment.

Defined by the Brundtland Commission in 1987, sustainability is an ability to meet current needs while not compromising the ability to meet human needs in the future.

This strategic management course draws on concepts learned in prior coursework, integrating them into this view of an organization as a totality. The emphasis on big picture management is a crucial distinction, centering on how to manage the entire enterprise to ensure its success, both now and, crucially, into the future. It thus goes beyond the typical MBA strategic management course to incorporate the concept of sustainability with its emphasis on stakeholders, global impacts, and the sustainability-focused time dimension of strategic decision-making.

How can we collaborate internally (and with outside stakeholders) to devise and enact a viable competitive strategy that incorporates the fundamental values and aims of sustainability?  

Students with a range of professional and industry experiences at various stages in their career  engage in rich dialogue to share their understanding of the course concepts and address this very question. A wide range of experience leads to rich perspectives and enhanced learning. Student diversity this term represents experience in the following industries:

• banking
• healthcare
• higher education
• medical devices
• public utility
• religious institutions
• retail
• technology

⇒ Currently enrolled students should speak to their advisor about when to enroll. Registration starts on January 31 for the March term that starts on March 16.

This course is authored and taught by Dr. Joyce Shelleman, a long-time faculty member who has contributed to the development of leaders in our program for more than ten years.