INSEAD MBA Curriculum Gets an Update

Business as ‘a force for good’ is the underlying theme behind one particularly noteworthy change. This change will see a cluster of courses on the role of business in society take its place in the core (required element) of the INSEAD MBA curriculum. Looking at aspects of the political environment, public policy and ethics, the school’s dean of degree programs, Urs Peyer, describes the new core cluster as an, “innovative ‘big picture’ course.”

The need for business leaders to gain an appreciation of the interactions between business and society has certainly grown in currency in recent years and, for example, is also the subject of a blog run by a group of academics attached to Copenhagen Business School’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) center.

Another significant change to the curriculum is the introduction of a capstone project designed to test the sum of a student’s development over the full length of their INSEAD MBA. In it, students will grapple with a simulated business crisis in teams and will have to present analyses and plans to alumni of the school, who will take on various roles as the project progresses. A similar idea, albeit one which stages a crisis over a 24-hour period, has been offered annually at Michigan Ross School of Business over the past decade.   

The approval of all these new updates to the INSEAD MBA curriculum was initially detailed in the school’s alumni magazine and, indeed, is said to be the product of a two-year review in which alumni as well as current students, faculty, staff and recruiters have all participated.