CURRICULUM

Pre-Program
Orientation
Program Structure
Electives
Majors
International Programs

The Rotman MBA has a key advantage that no other school can match: Integrative Thinking. We provide you with a solid grounding in all the business fundamentals —
Marketing, Strategy, Finance, Accounting, Economics, Operations and Organizational Behaviour — but we also teach you to go beyond these traditional ‘silos’ to see how they interrelate to form the big picture. Our groundbreaking approach teaches you how to build
new models that can shape your business — and the world — for the better.

Success in today’s business environment requires flexibility, creativity, and an ability to turn challenges into opportunities. “If there’s one thing you learn at Rotman, it’s that no one idea is perfect,” says Omar Shaheen ’09, who was hired as a strategy consultant
by Bain and Company upon graduation. “Integrative thinking teaches you to break down contrasting ideas into their component parts to come up with a superior solution that leverages the best parts of each.”

Pre-Program

Before you are immersed in our intense academic program, we offer you some introductory information and learning opportunities. For two weeks in August, participants can choose to take pre-courses in Accounting, Finance and Quantitative Methods, professional skills workshops on topics such as Team Building and Presentation Skills. We also host an orientation for international students, designed to introduce you to the people and services available at the School. 

Orientation

All students begin their MBA experience with a full day of introductory and team-building activities at the Rotman School before heading to a three-day orientation held at a retreat north of Toronto. Largely planned and led by second-year students, Orientation is widely cited as a program highlight, providing students with a great social and academic foundation for the next two years.

View photos from Orientation 2009.

The First Year: The Start of Something Big

The first year’s core curriculum offers you a solid foundation for a lifetime of learning. Beginning in the first week of September, the first year is divided into four quarters, or ‘mini-semesters’, lasting seven weeks each. Working in a small study group of four or five students, you will be exposed to a new way of thinking about management and business, and develop your knowledge, your critical faculties and your practical skills.

1st Quarter (September - October)
Foundations of Integrative Thinking™
Managerial Economics
Managing People in Organizations
Financial Accounting I
Statistics I

2nd Quarter (November - December)
Strategy I
Financial Accounting II
Finance I: Capital Markets and Valuation
Managing Customer Value I
Statistics II

3rd Quarter (January - February)
Negotiations (one-week intensive)
Leadership
Macroeconomics
Strategy II
Finance II: Corporate Finance
Managing Customer Value II

4th Quarter (March - April)
Global Managerial Perspectives
Managerial Accounting
Operations Management
Ethics
Integrative Thinking Practicum

Note: courses are subject to change over time as the School’s innovative curriculum evolves.

The Second Year: Choosing a Direction

The second year at Rotman is all about choice. You have more than 80 elective course offerings to choose from, drawn from the following areas: Accounting, Business Economics, Finance, General and Integrative Thinking, Organizational Behaviour/Human Resource Management, Marketing, Operations Management, Management Science and Statistics, and Strategic Management.

This is your opportunity to specialize by choosing a major, or to enhance your generalist perspective by taking courses from different academic disciplines. While renowned for our strength in Finance, the Rotman School has a wide choice of MBA majors (see below), each with a set of recommended courses to help guide you towards a particular career path.

In order to complete the Full-Time MBA Program, in second year you must complete ten elective courses over three academic terms: fall, winter intensive and spring. The following overview outlines the second year of the program:

Fall Term (September - December)
Five elective courses
Continue or complete the requirements for all joint programs
International exchange opportunity

Winter Intensive and Spring Terms (January - April)
Five elective courses
Continue or complete the requirements for all joint programs
International exchange and study tour opportunity

Convocation (June)
Get set for a great future: yours!

Electives

Electives are chosen from the following areas (click on each for a full listing):

Accounting
Business Economics
Finance
Organizational Behaviour & HR Management
Marketing
Operations Management, Management Science and Statistics
Strategic Management

The following are identified as Integrative Thinking electives:

The Opposable Mind (MGT2917)
Professor: Roger Martin
Instructors: Suzanne Spragge, Jennifer Riel
Day-to-day in your career, and in the rest of your life for that matter, you will be faced with a series of choices, big and small. Of course, some of the choices are simple and straightforward. Most require some degree of careful thought and deliberation. And then there are those few game-changing decisions. These are the choices we make when faced with certain kinds of problems - the kind of problems that seem to change as we attempt to solve them, the kinds of problems that seem to have no good answer, no answer that doesn't entail a series of unattractive negative consequences. The goal of this course is to provide you with a toolkit that helps you tackle these wicked problems. Integrative thinking asks you to refuse to accept the choice but instead to dig deeper into the complexity of the problem, to recognize and use the tension of the opposing answers to create a new solution – a resolution of the tension between the two options. This new answer takes aspects of each but integrates them to create something better than either is alone.

Design Practicum: Business Innovation Lab (MGT 2515)
Professor: Heather Fraser
This half-year course revolves around the three pillars of design thinking – deep consumer understanding, rapid prototyping of concepts that address a consumer need, and business design that make the concept viable in a strategically sustainable way. Students, paired with Ontario College of Art and Design graduate students of Industrial Design, are partnered with clients in order to develop solutions to large-scale, actual innovation challenges they face. As they go through the process, they apply the principles of design and in the process, ‘learn-by-design-doing’.

Innovation, Foresight and Business Design (MGT 2915)
Instructor: Alexander Manu
This course aims to prepare the MBA candidate for the ambiguous challenge of creating and supporting a real culture of innovation within the framework of an organization. In content, manner and style, this course has been designed to focus on developing the candidate’s ability to inspire discovery and learning within teams as well as increasing the value of their own creativity. Students will work with “pre-design” methods that will help them to identify and validate ideas and transform these results into pre-competitive products, services and systems. Finally, this course will explore how these insights inform strategic decision-making and ultimately create wiser policy options, by realigning the desires of people with the potential of new technology and the capabilities of organizations.


Leadership From the Inside Out: Building Relationship Skills That Work
(MGT 2916)
Instructor: Melanie Carr
The main objective of this course is to provide participants with the opportunity to develop and practice models of empathy through an understanding of interpersonal communication, models of conflict resolution, and the development of a reflective stance. This course is predicated on the notion that increased interpersonal and self understanding is key to the design of an ongoing learning strategy and therefore to a successful business career.

Getting IT Done (MGT 2913)
Instructors: Brendan Calder, John O'Dwyer
This is a course about Getting It Done^TM -- ‘It’ being strategy, operating results, annual objectives, culture change, key projects, initiatives, targets, restructuring and employee involvement and commitment. The course teaches proven methodologies and tools that have been continuously improved over 30 years based on the work of Peter Drucker, Bill Reddin and Mike Kami. The course is built around four integrative frameworks: Strategic Planning, Strategic Deployment, Performance Management, and Continuous Improvement. Visit the Getting It Done Web site.

Business Problem Solving: An Integrative Approach (MGT 2000)
NOTE: The first offering of this course will be in the Winter 2010 term
Professor: Mihnea Moldoveanu
The course is intended to give participants a first-hand learning experience in real business problem solving in an integrative framework. In doing so, it builds explicitly on the experiences and lessons of the first-year Integrative Thinking Practicum.
Click here for the syllabus.

Learning How to Learn (not offered in 2009-10)
Professor: Mihnea Moldoveanu
This course builds on the experience and insights of the First Year Integrative Thinking Lab and aims to develop and refine a nexus of adaptive emotional, behavioral and cognitive skills that underlie successful managerial thought and action. This cognitive, emotional and behavioral repertoire is cultivated through interactive classroom exercises, case studies developed by participants individually and in groups, and short presentations from faculty members.

The following are considered 'General' electives:

Many students find it helpful to select courses from a subset of courses offered in a given functional area to enhance their skills and present potential employers with specific functional expertise (e.g. Marketing), while others are interested in developing skills from a set of courses that are traditionally associated with a specific career path (e.g. Investment Banking). All students are able to choose courses from either the core and/or recommended set of courses for a particular major, or from any functional area.  There are no quotas associated with either functional specialization or majors and therefore, access to all courses is dependent upon the bidding process and space availability. Note: most elective courses have a maximum enrolment of 40 students per section. Courses with less than 15 students may be cancelled due to low enrolment.

Note that neither the U of T transcript nor the actual MBA degree makes reference to a given functional specialization or major. Students are encouraged to select from the menu of courses available to enhance skills and expertise, and use the resume and/or transcript of courses taken to provide potential employers with an indication of suitability for a given employment opportunity. “Double majors” or majors are possible given that up to four courses in each functional area or major define a level of specialization. This will allow students maximum flexibility in terms of learning and positioning for future career opportunities. In order to assist students in selecting appropriate courses for the second year of the program, the guidelines for the Majors have been developed by faculty.

We offer MBAs with a Major in:

• Brand Management
• Consulting
• Funds Management
• Global Management
• Health Sector Management
• Human Resources Management
• Innovation and Entrepreneurship
• Investment Banking
• Risk Management and Financial Engineering

BRAND MANAGEMENT
Offered by the Marketing Area
Major Coordinator: Andrew Mitchell (mitchell@rotman.utoronto.ca)

The key to effective marketing is understanding customers and delivering what they want, when they want it, and at a price they want to pay. This requires analyses of both hard numbers and less-structured qualitative information, insight into the reasons behind customer behaviour, and the development of strategies based on this analysis and insight.

Specific topics include analyzing customers and understanding why they buy, gathering and analyzing customer and market data and developing successful programs for communications and distribution.  In the process you will develop an understanding of how customers make decisions and how to influence them, how to analyze markets and the strategies of competitors, how to develop successful advertising and promotional strategies, and how to successfully develop and manage a brand.

Career Paths for Brand Management Major
This major develops the skills required to be an effective marketer in a wide range of businesses, including consumer markets, business to business, financial services, technology, healthcare and the not-for-profit sector.

Major Core Courses

It is also recommended that students in this major choose other courses from the following selection:

View details of these and other Marketing electives.
Click here to read Marketing Majors' accounts of 'a day in the life of a marketer'.

Topics Covered
In this major students will learn how to analyze cross-functional business problems and to justify recommendations applying appropriate frameworks and a diverse set of quantitative tools. Specific topics covered are the consulting industry, the development and presentation of proposals and reports, and the management of change in organizations. In the process students will learn the necessary art of adapting one’s individual style to a team environment.

Career Paths for Consulting Major
The topics covered in this major are critical for entry into the consulting profession whether with a large, medium, or small firm or as a sole proprietor. They are also critical whether working in the for-profit or non-profit sector. In addition, the topics covered will assist students in a managerial role who have to either work with or manage outside consultants.

Students must take at least three of the following courses:

View details of these and other Strategy electives

Career Paths for Funds Management Major
The funds management major is designed to prepare students for careers in the funds management industry. The major players in this industry are pension funds, insurance companies, and mutual funds. In each case the investment decisions are shaped by the objectives of the firm or industry. Our objective is to teach the students to both understand the mechanics of how investing is done and to understand the relation between the investment strategy and the underlying needs of the industry.

Major Core Courses

It is also recommended that students in this major choose other courses from the following selection:

View details of these and other Funds Management electives.

Career Paths for Global Management Major
This major is relevant for those students who expect to be managing in or operating companies that have a significant international business presence. This presence may range from only selling in foreign markets to having actual foreign operations or joint business ventures.

Major Core Courses

It is also recommended that students in this major choose other courses from the following selection:

View details of these and other Business Economics electives.

HEALTH SECTOR MANAGEMENT
Offered by the Strategy Area
Major Coordinator: Brian Golden (brian.golden@rotman.utoronto.ca)

Topics Covered
Health care 1) represents a huge and growing sector in all industrialized economies;
2) is representative of the service and knowledge-oriented focus of the 21st century economy, and 3) has significant management challenges that have not been adequately addressed.

With this in mind, the Health Care Management major focuses on management in health care delivery systems, pharmaceutical and biotechnology sales and marketing, life sciences product commercialization, and related consulting and financial industries. The major will also introduce students to various regulatory bodies and procedures in the health sector.

Students in this major are required to complete four of the Major core courses. Alternatively, and with prior permission from the Major Coordinator, students may fulfill the major by completing three of the Major core courses and one course from the list of recommended courses.

Career Paths for Health Care Management Major
This major is relevant for those students who expect to be managing in or operating for-profit or not-for-profit organizations in the health care sector. This may include positions in hospital administration, government, medical devices, bio-pharma, insurance, new ventures, and venture capital and finance.

Major Core Courses

It is also recommended that students in this major choose other courses from the following selection:

*Experimental Course
+Credit to be approved by Major Coordinator; course projects must be in the Health Sector
++Part of UofT Mississauga Masters in Biotechnology Program

View details of these and other Health Sector Management electives.

Topics Covered
In this major, you will learn how to manage talent, i.e., attracting, motivating and retaining people who will create a competitive advantage for your organization. Organizational paradigms for managing human resources have changed substantially in the last decade. You will acquire skills to work within the new paradigm in which the core HRM functions are leadership, managing change and developing partnerships with line managers.

Career Paths for Human Resource Management Major
A typical career path for many is to work as an HR Manager for an organization in the private sector, the public sector or in other not-for-profit sectors. However, an exposure to HRM is being used increasingly by our MBAs to enter consulting careers in the area of organizational design, organizational strategy, compensation and reward systems, diversity management, etc. Yet another group of candidates begin with the HRM department but move quickly to other organizational functions such as quality management, training and leadership development, based on their aptitude and desire to branch out. Some students also use their knowledge and grasp of HR to start their own entrepreneurial ventures. In this way, the HRM career major prepares you for a variety of possible careers. 

Major Core Course

It is also recommended that students in this major choose other courses from the following selection:

*Experimental Course

View details of these and other Organizational Behaviour electives.

Innovation is pervasive in today’s economy. The most successful managers understand innovation: how to recognize, manage and create value for sustained competitive advantage.  This major will be useful to students interested in launching their own entrepreneurial venture, managing a technology-driven business or consulting to innovative firms. Those interested in investing in or financing innovative start-ups will profit from this major. In addition, students interested in public policy concerning economic growth and technological change will also benefit from this major.

Topics Covered
In this major, you will learn about creating economic value through starting a company or innovating in an existing organization. The emphasis is on recognizing and creating value from new ideas and bringing new products to market. 
Specific topics covered are: the nature of innovation and entrepreneurial activity, the characteristics of successful entrepreneurs, how to create and protect intellectual property, how to develop and evaluate business plans, and how to create new business models and secure financing for new ideas.

Recommended Courses
Courses are drawn from Business Economics, Finance, Strategy, Organizational Behaviour and Marketing to reflect the integrative nature of innovation and entrepreneurship. To qualify for the major, students choose three courses from the following list:

*Experimental Course

View details of these and other Business Economics electives.
View details of these and other Strategy electives

Topics Covered
In this major, you will learn how to evaluate investment proposals, financial strategies and instruments, and the rationale and execution of mergers, acquisitions and divestitures. Specific topics cover how to make capital structure, dividend policy and debt structuring decisions, how to evaluate capital budgeting proposals for the internal acquisition of assets and how to buy other people's assets or sell off assets no long needed by the firm (M&A). In the process you will learn the key legal constraints on corporate activity and deepen your understanding of financial statements.

Career Paths for Investment Banking Major
The topics covered in the major are critical functions needed for managers in non-financial corporations and lead to careers in corporate treasury and the Controllers' department, where the topics are treated as "corporate finance." An understanding of these topics is also needed by investment bankers, when advising their clients on financing and M&A activities. In this case the topics are generically called "Investment Banking." Increasingly, consulting firms that emphasize value based management and shareholder value creation need a thorough grounding in these topics.

Major Core Courses

It is also recommended that students in this major choose other courses from the following selection:

View details of these and other Investment Banking electives.

RISK MANAGEMENT AND FINANCIAL ENGINEERING

Offered by the Finance Area
Major Coordinator:  John Hull (hull@rotman.utoronto.ca)

Topics Covered
In this major you will learn about derivatives markets and how instruments such as futures and options can be used for risk management. You will learn about risk management from a) the perspective of a corporate treasurer who is interested in hedging his or her exposure to interest rates, exchange rates, commodity prices etc, b) the perspective of a fund manager who wants to change the nature of his or her exposure to financial markets, and c) the perspective of a financial institution that trades derivatives and is faced with an increasingly complex regulatory environment. You will also learn how to price a wide range of derivatives instruments. While the major will not convert you into a "rocket scientist" it will provide you with the tools to successfully manage rocket scientists and understand their ideas and conjectures.

Career Paths
Many banks have recruited large numbers of "quants" in recent years but have not developed the managerial infrastructure to use those quants effectively. The risk management and financial engineering major will equip you well to be part of that managerial infrastructure. It will also give you the tools necessary to join groups concerned with structuring complex products that meet the needs of particular clients.

Some past MBAs are now involved in the sales and trading of specific derivatives products. Regulators are requiring banks to use increasingly complex models to evaluate market risk, credit risk and operational risk. The risk management and financial engineering major will enable you to understand these models and play a key role in the development of a bank's strategy for minimizing its regulatory capital requirements. More generally, it is true that derivatives markets (particularly the over-the-counter derivatives markets) are becoming increasingly important to everyone who works in finance. Even if you do not plan to work in a risk management/derivatives function you will find the material you learn from this major useful.

Major Core Courses

It is also recommended that students in this major choose other courses from the following selection:

View details of these and other Risk Management and Financial Engineering electives.

International Programs

The Rotman School offers a variety of international programs to MBA students in the Full-Time, Evening and Morning streams.  Activities include the International Exchange Program and International Study Tours in addition to other conferences and competitions. These initiatives vary in nature and length to appeal to the diverse student population.  For further information on international study opportunities, visit the international study opportunities page.

In Summer 2008, Fall 2008 and Spring 2009, 29 second- and third-year students participated in exchanges at 18 leading universities worldwide, studying everywhere from Switzerland to India to Singapore.

Click here for further information on student exchanges, which can be undertaken in the second year of the program.