ESMT

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ESMT
Berlin, BE, 10178
Germany

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Demographic Information

Number of full-time MBA students (2011):

Number of part-time MBA students (2011):

Total duration of full-time MBA program:

12 months

MBA faculty (Fall 2010):

Females as percent of student body:

29%

Who Are the Students? See what percentage of the 2010-2011 graduating class came to this MBA program from the private sector, the non-profit sector and government jobs

Private Sector (91%)

Non-profit (6%)

Government (3%)

Description of MBA Program:

ESMT European School of Management and Technology is an international business school based in the heart of Europe in Berlin.

The School was founded in 2002 by 25 leading global companies and institutions to develop entrepreneurial leaders, who think globally, act responsibly and respect the individual.

ESMT's 31 faculty members come from 20 nations (as of January 2011) and have a wide variety of professional and academic backgrounds. ESMT is ranked by the Financial Times among the top 10 in Europe and 21st worldwide for its executive education programs.

Responsible leadership and behavior is built into the school's DNA, represented by its mission statement: ESMT develops entrepreneurial leaders who think globally, act responsibly and respect the individual. The school's MBA program opens with a six-week long discussion module on the context of the general manager, in which issues such as the role of business in society, business ethics and leadership challenges in management are introduced. These themes are followed through in each class during the program. MBA participants can choose from two tracks, the first focusing on the technology management and inovation, the second on global sustainable business.

With a heritage rooted in European values and the potential of technology, ESMT develops and imparts new knowledge to foster sustainable economic growth. With events such as the ESMT Annual Forum, and open talks such as the Climate Lunch, initiated together with BDI (German Industry Federation), and WWF (World Wide Fund For Nature), ESMT provides an international platform for dialogue and exchange about corporate responsibility, responsible leadership, and sustainability.

In 2009, the E.ON Chair in Corporate Responsibility was inaugurated. In the MBA curriculum, CR topics are integrated from the beginning of the one-year Full-time and the 21-month Executive MBA program, e.g., field trips to developing countries, 360-degree feedback sessions, modules on governance, business, and sustainability as well as responsible leadership.

ESMT has pooled experts combining academic knowledge with capabilities to teach and consult. Corporate responsibility and sustainability classes are integrated in all of ESMT’s programs. The key benefits of CR and sustainability programs at ESMT are to understand not only the latest research but to provide key examples of it in cases, thus enabling its transfer into the every day life of participants.

How does the MBA program 'walk the talk' of social and environmental impact?:

ESMT has implemented an innovative water recovery system to allow all rainwater on the campus roofs to be recycled directly into the city's river systems. The school is fully recycling compliant with Germany's strict recycling laws.

In addition to and alongside student-driven initiatives, teams of staff from the degree programs and Executive Education are involved in inititatives which have social impact, such as hosting local high schools for professional guidance workshops, and opening the doors of the campus to educate the local Berlin population on business in general. Staff members are also paid-up members of the school's Social Impact Club.

Academic Department

Course Name: Leadership Competency Development

Instructor: Laura Guillén, Andreas Bernhardt, Derek Abell, Mark Young

The course develops a broader repertoire of key competencies for succeeding in leadership roles. It includes a one-day seminar on responsible leadership, negotiations in appropriately ethical and intercultural contexts, and extensive time on intercultural team management and feedback. Included in the course are two integrative projects. First, students are given a case that throws them into a difficult situation where multiple stakeholders and regulators must be dealt with, and are asked to develop an integrative solution to the company's problems. Second, groups are given project to develop a new, innovative, and high-technology solution that sustainably addresses a need in a developing country. At the end of the program, a final capstone seminar on leadership building after the MBA program rounds out the student's experience.

Course Name: Macroeconomics

Instructor: Michael Burda

The course covers macroeconomic principles from an international perspective and uses examples from developing nations, such as Zimbabwe, to discuss the influences of economic policy on different regions of the world. In class, the course uses multiple examples of countries in various levels of economic development (Namibia, US, Netherlands, Brazil, to name a few) and analyzes the impact of regulation, monetary policy, and other macroeconomic factors that affect not just profitability but also the well-being of society and the sustainability of economic growth. The course finishes with an analysis of the 2008 financial crisis and it’s long-term effects all over the world, from the global banking industry to world food prices and governmental stability in the Middle East.

Course Name: Managerial Accounting

Instructor: Mario Rese

This module integrates accounting knowledge with managerial decision making in an international context, with due regard given to societal and ethical implications. With a clear focus on information from internal accounting—costs and revenues—the course shows the connections between different accounting figures and decision making in the field of strategy as well as in more operative activities. Based on an in-depth analysis of typical cost and revenue structures the course take a closer look on several management tasks—e.g. procurement decisions, production planning, identification of price ranges or coordination between value chain partners—to analyze and discuss the benefits as well as the shortcomings of different accounting information for the identification of adequate management decisions. All in all, the module improves the understanding of the possibilities but also of the difficulties of using accounting figures in the managerial decision process.

Course Name: Managing New Product Design

Instructor: Francis Bidault

This course aims to present some of the concepts and frameworks for the effective management of new product design and development and their applications in society, especially in the context of dynamic environments, i.e. emerging and fast changing industries. Students consider cases in a wide variety of cultures, all focusing on how a new technological innovation is used and produced for the public. Included in the course is a trip to a car factory, where students observe the production stream, human impact and societal influence of a large-scale production operation on a small community.

Course Name: Markets and Regulation

Instructor: Michal Grajek, Paul Heidhues

The course covers competition policy and regulations, emphasizing the rationales of competition policy and the reasons for the laws in place. The session includes cases on the diamond industry (e.g., cartels), antitrust law, and the ethical considerations within these business practices. Focusing on European competition law, state aid, and mergers and acquisitions, the course discusses both the legal limitations to business practices and the economic and ethical reasoning for such policies.

Course Name: Operations Management

Instructor: Catalina Stefanescu-Cuntze

The Operations Management course concerns the activities that organizations do to produce goods and services for their customers. In this course, students study strategies that help organizations sustainably and ethically build a competitive advantage by superior management of each of these activities– sourcing inputs, processing them into finished goods or services, and delivering them to the consumers.

Course Name: Organizational Behavior

Instructor: Zhike Lei

The basic organizational behavioral course at ESMT is first an introduction into how businesses are organized as institutions and as a societal construct. However, the course uses the extremely international nature of the school and incorporates sessions focusing on intercultural and cross-cultural communication, forming teams that comprise individuals from different cultural backgrounds, and power and politics within organizations from different areas of the world. The last sessions of the course discuss the ethical considerations of a global company, touching on sustainable supply chains, the action (or inaction) of management and the inadvertent effects a company's actions can have on people in different parts of the globe.

Course Name: Practice Project and Master's Thesis

Instructor: Zoltan Antal-Mokos

Every student in ESMT’s MBA program must complete a practice project with an external company while to apply the theoretical managerial knowledge gained during the program. Students choose from a variety of projects, companies, and industries, varying by year, but students always have the choice of at least one sustainability project and other projects linked to responsible leadership. Of the nine projects on offer last year, the following projects had specific emphasis on environmental, social, ethical, and/or global leadership:

- Developing a human resources plan for a major insurance company to integrate new media platforms in the company’s educational development programs, specifically keeping the educational program’s environmental impact at a minimum, ethically educating the company’s workforce in new advancements for the company, etc.

- Designing and developing risk management and emergency planning contingencies for a global energy conglomerate to help react to political and environmental emergencies, ensuring that the energy needs of society are met even during and directly after such catastrophes. Specific aspects of planning also given to ethical decisions (first right of use to hospitals and other basic humanitarian needs).

- Creating a market entry strategy for a South East Asian postal service provider to broaden their scope to the wider ASEAN region. Consideration given to political aspect of doing business in various Asian political regimes, sustainable supply chain management in the region, and intercultural considerations of doing business across the region with different religious, ethical, and political ideologies.

- An international business development of a young, entrepreneurial, start-up venture in the renewable energy sector. Specifically dealing with entering an already mature market in another geographical region, dealing with the federal and local government, ethical lobbying approaches, logistic questions of the energy industry in the region in question, etc.

Course Name: Strategic Human Resources Management

Instructor: Laura Guillén, Konstantin Korotov

The course discusses how people can maximize their potential in the context of work and in the interests of various organizational and societal stakeholders. The course looks at human resource management issues in organizations through the lens of a leader as a person who sets the ground rules for the expected behavior in the organization and who determines the principles of managing people in organizations, and through the lens of structures and tools that are available for realizing the leader’s vision through effective management of human talent.

The course incorporates sessions on the global organization and intercultural human resources issues related to running a business in multiple countries and cultural environments. The session includes a self-test on preconceived ethnic biases and a discussion of the test’s results in class. Students also discuss a case of a European manager moving to and working in an Asian country.

Course Name: Strategic Innovation and Creativity

Instructor: Martin Kupp

This course covers examples of successful strategic innovators from different industries and geographic regions to develop a better understanding of the different forms of innovation and also the different perspectives on innovation. The course then takes a closer look at the way companies organize for innovation, looking at the structures, resources, culture and people. Last but not least we will also discuss how innovation and innovators affect the established companies and how they can/should respond to strategic innovation. Particular attention is also given to innovation and creativity in emerging markets, specifically in “bottom-of-the-pyramid” ventures, where market forces and company actions have a particular effect on the world’s poor.