Program Overview

Before you are immersed in our 20-month program, we offer you some learning opportunities so you can hit the ground running in September. For three weeks in August, participants take academic pre-courses, attend professional skills workshops, and learn about the people and services available at the School.

The MBA Pre-Program is not compulsory, but most students take part since it’s a great way to meet people while brushing up on your business basics. Here’s what to expect:

• Prep courses in Accounting, Finance and Quantitative Methods
• Workshops on Academic Writing, Business Communication, and Presentation Skills
• Self-Development Lab introductory courses on self-management and mindful career planning

For our international students, prior to the MBA Pre-Program we host International Students Orientation Week. The week is designed to get our international students comfortable in their new surroundings, get tips on navigating the Canadian business culture and more. 

Following the MBA Pre-Program at the end of August before classes start, students take part in Orientation, hosted by Rotman faculty, and designed to set the foundation for your academic experience. The interactive two-day program gives new students a chance to focus on what they want to get out of their time at Rotman and learn about the resources available to help them accomplish their goals.

After orientation, the first year class attends Orientation Camp – a weekend retreat organized and hosted by second year students. It’s a great way to meet everyone and get comfortable with the Rotman community before classes begin.

Students begin the program with a course called People/Teams/Diversity, focusing on the management of effective group dynamics. 

Decision Making with Models & Data

This course introduces students to model-based decision making. The notion that problem solving can be improved by the explicit and systematic use of models is at the core of Integrative Thinking. Business decision-makers rely on models all of the time. Models are simplified representations of reality and represent one’s beliefs about “how the world works”. Given that every business decision must be based on some sense of “how the world works”, every decision is, explicitly or implicitly, contingent on a model.

Leading People in Organizations

This course provides a framework for understanding how alternative forms of organizational structure impact an organization’s performance, how organizations and managers influence the thoughts, feelings, and actions of its members, and how the behaviour of individuals and groups influence organizational effectiveness. Topics include motivation, leadership, decision-making, managing groups, work design, organization design and structure, and organizational environments.

Managerial Economics

This class focuses on microeconomics and its applications to managerial decisions. Topics explored include supply and demand analysis, cost concepts, profit maximization, perfect and imperfect competition, game theory, imperfect information, agency theory, and firm organization. Managerial economics is fundamental to finance, marketing, strategy, organizational behaviour, and nearly every other field of business. It is therefore directly relevant both to your education at the Rotman School and to your career.

Financial Accounting

Financial accounting involves the study of the systems, procedures and policies that an organization employs to assist it to make decisions about virtually all matters which affect the financial health and performance of the entity. The course will be presented from the perspective of those who are users, rather than preparers, of accounting information. The course will explore strategic cost analysis and related management techniques, such as: activity based costing, activity based management, relevant cost analysis, and planning and control. The topics will emphasize that financial accounting is most effective when it is developed in the context of the organization's strategy, rather than as an end in itself.

Managing Customer Value

The premise in this course is that customer value is a prerequisite to business success. We explore what the term “customer value” means, how to align the company’s product or service with customer needs and distinguish it from competitive offerings. The task involves marshalling the efforts of the company and its network partners to provide customers with a superior total package of benefits – comprising the product itself, associated services, brand image, appropriate pricing and availability. An intimate understanding of customers’ needs and behaviour is critical and we will focus strongly on this topic. Students will be engaged in active research and interpretation of information about potential areas for delivering value. The course develops skills in strategy development, research and analysis, and judgment in making business decisions that touch on customer value.

Fundamentals of Strategic Management

These courses introduce students to the basic concepts, frameworks and methodologies useful to managers in crafting and executing business strategy. Integrating concepts and tools learned in other courses, the focus is on the fundamental conditions that enable a firm to conceive, develop, and sustain a superior strategic position. The material covers the functions and responsibilities of senior management, the issues affecting the success of the organization, and the decisions determining its direction. Upon completion, this course helps students acquire the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed for a managerial approach to running a business in today’s competitive environment.

Finance I: Capital Markets and Evaluation

The first module of our introductory Finance courses focuses on capital markets, including discounted cash flow, portfolio theory and firm valuation. 

Statistics

This course teaches future managers how to extract information from data using statistical tools and how to apply probabilistic thinking to managerial problems. Topics include statistical study design, process control, inference, regression analysis, time series, model building, probabilities and decision analysis. Applications to all functional areas of management are discussed. Upon course completion, the student will be better able to:

• Identify and formulate problems where statistics can have an impact
• See the relevance of statistics and apply what has been learnt to career practice and to other business courses
• Distinguish between routine and special problems requiring statistical analysis
• Understand statistical methods for quality improvement
• Assess data with healthy skepticism and seek expert help when needed
• Recognize when better data and information are needed for decision-making

Economic Environment: The Macroeconomy

An overriding objective of the course is to develop managerial perspectives on macroeconomic and global issues. Students will develop an understanding of aggregate output and cyclical patterns in GDP as well as factors that determine employment, prices, interest rates, and exchange rates. 

Operations Management

Operations is the term that refers to the process by which organizations convert inputs (e.g., labor, material, knowledge, equipment) into outputs (goods and/or services) for both internal and external markets. In this broad-spectrum course we will study how to manage this process. We will study both strategic issues related to how firms determine how they will compete as well as tactical and operational decision making. We will consider issues related to designing, measuring, controlling and improving operations. Operations management was initially concerned with manufacturing operations. But many of the ideas developed have direct application in service operations such as health care, financial services and restaurant/hotel management. Within the context of the course, we will discuss several manufacturing and non-manufacturing environments, however, the emphasis of the course will be on the fundamental ideas that govern operations in an organization.

The objectives of this course are:

• to expose you to the main concepts of operations management. 
• to provide you with tools which can be used in the management of operations. 
• to develop your ability to analyze a process and present reasoned recommendations that address problems found

Finance II: Corporate Finance

The second module of our introductory Finance courses focuses on applications for corporate finance, including cost of capital, capital structure and dividend policy.

Economic Environment: The Global Economy

In an increasingly globalized economy, developments globally are intertwined with these questions and must be considered. Therefore, both national and international macroeconomic factors will be covered. The conduct of fiscal and monetary policy will be discussed in the context an open economy, and an understanding of the drivers of international trade and capital flows will be developed. Implications for corporate profitability and risk will be highlighted. Economic Environment: The Global Economy provides the basis for understanding these inherent opportunities and underlying risks.

Managerial Accounting

Management accounting involves the study of the systems, procedures and policies that an organization employs to assist it to make decisions about virtually all matters which affect the financial health and performance of the entity. The course will be presented from the perspective of those who are users, rather than preparers, of accounting information. The course will explore strategic cost analysis and related management techniques, such as: activity based costing, activity based management, relevant cost analysis, and planning and control. The topics will emphasize that management accounting is most effective when it is developed in the context of the organization's strategy, rather than as an end in itself.

In the final core term, students can begin to specialize or broaden their skill set by choosing three core electives to prepare more in-depth for internships or a preferred industry focus:

Core Elective I

Core Elective II

Core Elective III

The second year at Rotman is all about choice. You may specialize by choosing to focus on a major or function, or enhance your generalist perspective by taking courses from different academic disciplines. While renowned for our strengths in Strategy and Finance, the Rotman School has strengths in a number of functional areas, reflected in the choice of MBA emphases (similar to majors) and learning pathways:

MBA Emphases and Learning Pathways	Elective Courses
Data Analytics and Modeling Leadership Finance Marketing Global Management Strategy Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and  Business Design Sustainability and Society        View full descriptions of MBA emphases and learning pathways	Accounting Business Economics Finance Integrative Thinking Marketing Operations Management Organizational Behaviour and HR Management Strategic Management