The Aims And Principles Of The Stirling MBA

 

The Stirling MBA has been based on several key concepts since its inception:

• That it is a general MBA degree, with options for further specialisation, aiming to provide an integrated conceptual and empirical framework within which to understand generic areas of management.

• The programme assumes no prior knowledge of business administration. It is an academic conversion programme, where graduates with first degrees in a diversity of subjects can attain professional knowledge of business administration.

• That the MBA aims to enhance previous management related work experience, a usual pre-requisite for the programme, by helping students to evaluate their practical business experience from a more professional, academic and research perspective.

• That it aims to promote an understanding of a changing, unpredictable and diverse global business environment, and the need for enterprising and flexible approaches and strategies to business management.

The Objectives Of The Programme

• To provide students with a rigorous and critical grounding in key generic areas of management.

• To enhance the student's ability to evaluate practical business experience from a more academic and critical perspective.

• To develop awareness of the changing international business environment.

• To provide students who choose to take a specialist MBA with specialist knowledge of their chosen area.

• To instil a professional and responsible attitude to management.

• To develop self confidence and the ability to present efficient, logical answers to complex problems.

• To provide students with technical and problem solving skills to enhance decision making in business.

• To enable discussion, debate and analysis of business issues and problems within an international context.

• To develop transferable skills (working with groups, presentation and communication skills, problem solving skills).

 

Meeting The Objectives:

The business world is more internationalised, complex, unpredictable and challenging than it was in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when an MBA usually meant an exacting but relatively uncontroversial training in professional management functions. This rigorous traditional approach is still important, but it has been modified to allow for changing conditions. Today academics and practitioners teaching on the Stirling MBA programmes have to allow for more rapid and uncertain change in the core curriculum and learning outcomes. This is done in several ways. Firstly, though functional areas are still the core of the MBA course, there is now an emphasis on the way core management relates in theory and in practice to wider socio-economic and business environments and changing organisational contexts. These issues are strongly brought out in some courses, particularly those on general management, strategic management, marketing and international business. The need for more flexible approaches to management is also strategically catered for by providing a specialism in entrepreneurship and new venture management.

Secondly, there is less stress on teaching specialised technical skills, as these can become redundant quickly. Instead there is a greater emphasis on encouraging flexibility, initiative and self reliance, and in developing personal transferable skills, which retain their value as career paths in business become more varied and unpredictable. Personal transferable skills are developed throughout the programme, but there is generally a progression from formal structured teaching at the beginning of the programme, with an emphasis on information transmission, to less regulated and more variable teaching methods as the programme proceeds. This culminates in the dissertation project, where self direction is the ruling principle.

Courses vary in the extent to which these two principles are applied, but their overall impact in the programme as a whole is considerable.

A professional attitude towards management is strongly encouraged throughout the duration of the programme. The programme contains a great deal of structured teaching, learning and assessment and is very challenging. The attitudes required in the real business world are stimulated in the programme. Students are encouraged to meet the challenges positively and are urged to pay careful attention to time management and the meeting of deadlines. Just as the failure to meet deadlines for reports, orders etc. can be damaging in the real business world, so the failure to meet assignment deadlines without sufficient cause can have serious consequences on the programme. Poor time management is not an excuse that is tolerated.

Finally, the ability to specialise further is provided by variants in the Spring semester, which can lead to specialist MBA degrees.