EMBA Structure Info

UT’s innovative EMBA program structure combines the benefits of face-to-face classroom learning with convenient Internet-based learning, allowing you to spend more time at your office and at home and less time on campus.

The EMBA Program includes three primary elements:

Four times during the year, you leave the demands of work and family behind for 14 days to concentrate exclusively on learning.  During this time of “high compression learning,” you will take classes; meet with faculty advisors, presentations, and leadership coaches; and work in teams with your peers to carry out assignment and projects.  During residence periods, you will spend time getting know your classmates and faculty continuing the education advantages of the residence period structure well beyond the classroom. 

Coursework in each residence period is designed around a learning theme that is the basis for the integrated classroom sessions in which students participate.  Residence period themes are:

Residence Period 1:  Shaping the Future    
Strategic directions for improving the organization’s performance are taught throughout the program year, but in the first residence period a great deal of class time is spent “learning the numbers” with detailed coverage on how to read and use financial statements and managerial accounting reports.  The emphasis is on both what information financial indicators can provide regarding current performance and opportunities to improve future performance.  Students will consider topics ranging from performance metrics to evaluation incentives, increasing confidence in using financial data to measure and manage organizational and individual performance.

Residence Period 2:  Building an Enterprise Strategy
One of the strategic keys to excellent organizational performance is providing superior value to customers.  Today, competitive superiority does not just depend on what your firm does in isolation.  Rather, it is a function of what the entire value stream or supply chain does cooperatively.  Working across organizational boundaries to integrate a supply chain offers a powerful and difficult-to-replicate source of competitive advantage.  Making a strategic decision to integrate the supply chain or value chain requires leadership that understands and can work cross-functionally to see connecting systems and process that ultimately determine the organization’s competitiveness.

Residence Period 3:  Gaining a Global Advantage
In September of 2007, students and faculty will visit Russia and Poland during a two-week field study focused on first-hand insight into doing business in a global economy.  Site visits to manufacturing facilities and service organizations will be combined with lectures and presentations by business executives from both local organizations and multinational corporations, as well as by educators from local universities.  This hands-on approach is key to fully understanding the opportunities and challenges that exist when conducting business in a global environment.

Residence Period 4:  Making It Happen
Knowing what your organization needs to do in order to remain competitive in the future is a huge accomplishment.  But how do you effectively lead the wave of change needed in your organization to take it to the next level of competitiveness?  The first half of the fourth residence period focuses on leading organizational change.  The second half of the residence period is spent applying all of principles learned throughout the EMBA Program year through a business simulation where students manage all aspects of a business that competes in a global marketplace.