Weatherhead School of Management plans Global MBA program

A newly established Global MBA program will enable students at Case Western Reserve University’s Weatherhead School of Management to experience education in China and India, in addition to Cleveland. The Weatherhead School is joining with the School of Economics and Management at Tongji University (SEM-Tongji) in Shanghai and Xavier Labour Relations Institute (XLRI) in Jamshedpur, India, for the shared academic venture, slated to begin the in the second half of 2013. Each institution expects to enroll 20 students. Recruitment begins this summer, allowing for sufficient lead time. The whole initial cohort of 60 students will study at SEM-Tongji during the fall semester of 2013, at XLRI in the spring semester 2014, and at Weatherhead School for the fall semester 2014. Each student will spend the required fourth semester concentrating on electives at his or her home institution. Program leaders expect to attract students who are eager to study outside their home nations and want to team with students from other nations. The Global MBA will help the selected students secure substantial academic experience abroad and also help them build a global business mindset through collaborative projects with others in the cohort. “This program will allow students to go beyond just visiting a country and to truly immerse themselves in a culture, and in a new way of doing business,” said Simon Peck, associate professor of marketing and policy studies and faculty director of the full-time MBA program at Weatherhead School. “Students will be placed in multinational teams and will engage deeply in special projects for multinational businesses in each location. This is an unparalleled opportunity for experiential learning across cultures and industries.” The three schools have organized the curriculum around:

• Language of Management (broadly, this includes accounting and finance);
• Management Analytics (techniques drawing on statistics, operations management, economics and marketing);
• Strategic Thinking (strategy and entrepreneurship);
• Managing Teams (organizational behavior and leadership);
• Understanding the Global Environment (including an in-company project).

The Global MBA, in partnership with highly regarded schools in China and India, is designed to be an additional differentiator for Weatherhead School. The program’s cost is expected to be comparable to that of a traditional MBA. “We are breaking exciting new ground,” Peck said. “We think these graduates will be particularly attractive to organizations with significant sales internationally. Of course, we routinely place students in these sorts of organizations, but we are responding to a demand for a more globally aware manager.”