TheBerkeleyMBA - Full-time MBA Program, Haas School of ...

of Ideas
The Power
Haas MBA Curriculum
Innovative. Cutting Edge.
Global. Flexible. Team-oriented.
Interdisciplinary. These are some of
the key words to describe the MBA curriculum
at the Haas School of Business.
The Haas MBA curriculum not only teaches
students the fundamentals of management,
but also integrates cutting-edge
developments that business leaders need
in order to thrive in the new economy.
MBA students graduate from Haas with
up-to-date knowledge and a set of skills to
become leaders in any kind of organization
– from dot-com startups and multinational
firms to consulting organizations
and nonprofits.
Haas faculty members emphasize both theory
and practice in the classroom, using a
variety of teaching methods. Case studies,
seminars, simulations, guest speakers, and
group projects all facilitate the learning
process. In addition to traditional electives
in fields such as accounting, finance, and
marketing, leading-edge courses keep students
current in hot topic areas such as e-
commerce, high-tech, and international
marketing. Certificates in corporate environmental
management, entrepreneurship,
global management, health management,
and technology management, as
well as special programs in nonprofit and
public management, real estate, and
socially responsible business, offer students
the opportunity to specialize their programs
of study.
Classroom learning is enhanced by numerous
opportunities to apply the lessons to
real world situations. For example, several
unique courses are offered in managerial
accounting in the manufacturing, service,
Putting It All Together
and high tech industries, and in planning
and control in international corporations.
Student teams regularly work with local
companies such as Hewlett-Packard and
Varian to design cost systems or make recommendations
on existing ones. Similarly,
students taking organizational behavior
courses are assigned fieldwork projects in
which they visit local firms to examine
and make recommendations on organizational
problems.
The Haas MBA Program also draws on the
incredible breadth and depth of the
University of California at Berkeley, whose
graduate programs are consistently
ranked among the best in the world.
Students are encouraged to supplement
business courses with classes outside the
business school in areas ranging from
engineering, law, and urban planning to
foreign languages, international area studies,
and history. Interdisciplinary opportunities
with the university community at
Berkeley enable Haas MBA students to
learn from top experts in almost every
field. Joint courses with Berkeley law, engineering,
Asian studies, and public health
students enhance the educational experience
of many MBA students.
The international aspects of the curriculum
also provide opportunities to spend a
semester of study abroad, to visit other
countries during breaks, and to serve as
consultants for companies around the
world as part of the innovative International
Business Development program.
Above all, the Haas MBA curriculum is
flexible. More than at most business
schools, the Haas School offers its students
the option of arranging a program of study
The Competitive
Strategy Game
When MBA students
around the world learn
strategy, they do so with
the help of a computer
game developed by
Severin Borenstein.
Borenstein’s Competitive Strategy
Game (CSG) gives students a feel for
the complexity of pricing, production,
and market entry decisions in actual
market environments.
CSG is a simulation of the interaction
between eight companies that compete
with one another in four different
markets. CSG teaches basic economic
concepts such as sunk, fixed,
and marginal costs, the opportunity
cost of investment, firm- and marketelasticities
of demand, and product
differentiation, as well as more
advanced strategic concepts such as
first-mover and competitive advantage,
entry deterrence, and oligopoly
interactions.
CSG has been used at 23 universities
in five countries. “It brings to life the
issues that are central to competitive
strategy, but can seem pretty dry
when taught with textbooks and
cases alone,” says Borenstein.
Severin Borenstein is the E.T. Grether
Professor of Business Administration
and Public Policy at Haas and the
director of the University of California
Energy Institute.
Using Fads to
Gain Advantage
Remember quality circles?
How about business
process reengineering?
Conventional
wisdom has deemed
them “fad du-jour” practices pushed
by managers under pressure to find
quick solutions to complex problems.
“Not so,” says Robert E. Cole, who
has spent years researching and consulting
with Japanese and American
business enterprises. “Smart companies
learn to use fads. Stupid companies
don’t.”
In his new book, Managing Quality
Fads, Cole argues that fads – often
derided as a waste of resources –
can improve productivity and quality:
“Businesses often need fads to motivate
people to try new things.” He
has found that successful managers
use fads as building blocks for organizational
learning.
Robert E. Cole is the Lorraine Tyson
Mitchell Professor of Leadership and
Communications II and co-director of
the Management of Technology
(MOT) program at Haas.
15