Meet Andreas – one of our programme directors

The Executive MBA programme is designed to provide deeper insights into the complexity and dynamics of contemporary business, where few parameters remain static for long. In this environment, where change is perceived as the only constant, managers tend to succumb to the temptations of simplistic, ‘quick-fix’ management models and fads that seldom lead to meaningful and sustainable change.

The Executive MBA programme invites managers to identify potential solutions to managerial problems, not only by providing access to a variety of novel ideas, the latest scientific management perspectives and theories as well as tried and tested models, but also by compelling them to reflect on and develop ways of working actively on making their organisations understand these solutions in a meaningful way. Only when novel managerial ideas, tools and models are perceived as meaningful in the organisation does sustainable change stand a chance of becoming a reality.

The Executive MBA programme provides an excellent opportunity to identify and reflect on sustainable change for several reasons:

Firstly, it brings together highly experienced and motivated managers and dedicated, world-renowned lecturers to discuss, analyse and reflect on the pressing managerial, business-related and societal issues of our times. Focus is not only placed on identifying these issues but also on finding sustainable solutions for addressing them as part of everyday management.

Secondly, the programme situates managerial challenges in the context of a Nordic business and management tradition and the changes currently unfolding in Asia – particularly in China and India. Chinese and Indian professors lecture on the programme, providing a link between their fields of expertise and wider questions related to business, management and culture in Asia. Furthermore, participants are given the opportunity to become immersed in the Indian and Chinese cultures when the group travels to Hangzhou, Shanghai and Bangalore to attend seminars at universities, visit companies and other organisations, interact with local academics, managers and public officials, or simply experience the hustle and bustle of these two Asian superpowers. Becoming immersed in these ancient cultures usually produces a kind of critical stocktaking of one’s own assumptions, ideas and experiences. People do things differently, think differently, have different values and aspire to different things – in their private as well as professional lives. We need to understand these differences between different individuals, groups, organisations and cultures on a much deeper level if we want to produce sustainable change that is truly meaningful.

And, thirdly, the programme combines different modes of teaching and learning to connect the participants’ wide-ranging experiences and the expertise of the faculty. For example, case studies are used extensively and participants work predominantly in groups on assignments and projects that are closely related to the challenges they experience in their everyday work lives.

In summary, the Executive MBA programme provides a unique platform for learning: its participants continue to engage in their daily work as managers while also being given the opportunity to constantly reflect, along with others, on what they are doing – the challenges they are facing, the actions they are taking and the changes they are undertaking, or should be undertaking in the future.