AGSM MBA (Executive)

This course is a comprehensive introduction to the topic of leadership. It aims to help students to build the confidence, knowledge and skills to engage in effective leadership in a broad range of contexts. It also provides guidance on self-leadership and actively managing the process of growing as a leader.

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This course explains accounting techniques and terminology, providing you with sufficient conceptual and practical skills to give you the knowledge and confidence to understand complex financial strategies and make better financial decisions. The course assumes that you have limited prior knowledge of accounting and financial management.

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This course explores the issues you face in managing people, groups and organisations.

We ask such questions as:

• What is my role as a manager and a leader?
• What motivates people at work?
• How does my group function, and how can it be more effective?
• What impact does the structure and culture of my organisation have on our performance?

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• What is value, how is it measured and how does a well-run business create or add value?

In examining value, you will be introduced to the three basic ideas in finance: 

• The time value of money, diversification and arbitrage.

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This course examines the accelerating economic relationship between government, business and the third sector to deliver social (including environmental) value in communities and the way in which this drives social innovation.

The course first examines the social economy through the emerging spectrum of organisational forms that generate both social and economic value: from traditional charities, to social enterprises, through to socially responsible business and traditional corporations. Second, the course examines trends and drivers re-shaping the dynamics of social impact.

The course examines the ways in which these changes drive social innovation and it concludes with a review of global trends and organisations that effect social change and impact.

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Major changes are reshaping the role of philanthropy both internationally and in the Australian context:

• Global economic realignments, the privatisation of community services
• New patterns of wealth distribution and of inter-generational wealth transfer
• Greater expectations of the role of corporate citizenship and of corporate philanthropy

These forces are also extending the meaning of philanthropy by encouraging the growth of new forms of social investment, in which commercial enterprise is being shaped by social as well as financial goals, to create innovative, and sometimes hybrid, models of sustainable community services, environmental protection and social development, as well as new business opportunities.

This course will introduce the history, core concepts and current issues in the fields of philanthropy, fundraising and social investment. It will also examine patterns of fundraising and giving, ethical and philosophical perspectives and the management and legal aspects of social investment programs.

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Demonstrating Social Impact is an elective subject for the Graduate Certificate in Social Impact and M Com, MBT or AGSM MBA programs. It provides an overview and introduction to evaluation and social impact assessment, the underpinning principles of evaluation and social impact assessment and examines some of the key social impact measurement approaches increasingly used by leading Third sector organisations in Australia and internationally, including Logic Models such as LogFrame; Social Return on Investment (SROI); and Social Accounting and Audit (SAA). Other frameworks used to measure the impact of corporate social initiatives will also be discussed.

The course will provide the knowledge and tools necessary to understand and apply social impact frameworks and methodologies at a project and organisational level.

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Social innovation, the outcome of the work of social entrepreneurs and others can be developed in almost any context. It is often a response to an identified problem, issue or opportunity. Design thinking and methods take a whole systems, rather than a silo, approach to offer different perspectives to the traditional business tools.

Design for Social Innovation offers participants the opportunity to learn and apply design tools and methods to real projects with a focus on social outcomes.

This course is an elective subject for the Graduate Certificate in Social Impact, and an elective available for all postgraduate students. It provides an overview and introduction to the role and application of design concepts in social innovation and social enterprise.

The course will provide the knowledge and tools necessary to understand and apply design principles at a project or organisational level.

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Corporate Responsibility and Accountability is a specialist course for the Graduate Certificate in Social Impact and an elective for those undertaking the Master of Commerce or MBA or MBT Programs. It examines how business manages its social, environmental and economic impact on society.

The course first reviews the historical evolution and development of the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Citizenship and why it is now a key part of managing the business enterprise.

Second, the course examines what acting responsibly means for corporations in terms of the market, community, environment, workplace and government. Issues covered include business and human rights, business-community partnerships, corporate philanthropy, the human resource management implications of CSR, business and the environment and businesses’ relationship with government.

Third, the course examines how business accounts for its behaviour and impact in society through sustainability reporting and the role of external assurance and outlines debates on the appropriate role of government policy in either regulating and/or enabling responsible corporate behaviour.

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In this course you will learn some of the major frameworks that help you to understand and manage change. Starting with the change agent, you explore the skills needed and the types of analysis change agents use to decide appropriate courses of action.

You will develop your skills and learn a range of different strategies for influencing individuals, groups and the organisation. Change is also considered from an organisational perspective and you will explore how organisations respond to, resist, initiate and drive change.

Your role in understanding and managing the organisation is examined. By the end of the course you will be able to: Understand the main frameworks that describe personal and organisational change Identify the role you play in initiating and facilitating change Analyse effective and ineffective change interventions Choose appropriate strategies to facilitate personal and organisational change.

This course is a prerequisite for MBAX6274 Systems for Change.

Students who have completed MNGT6371 Managing Change are not permitted to undertake this course.

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This course examines how you can sustain change in yourself and your organisation and teaches you the skills to support both processes. You will learn the four-step action research method:

• Implement change, Study and reflect on outcomes, Design new interventions, Continually assess the effectiveness of your actions. The aim is to become competent in using an open-systems model to understand how organisations function.
• You will learn to analyse the extent to which systems enable and motivate sustainable change.
• About one-third of the course is devoted to applying skills to a current, action research project at your workplace.

Prerequisites: MBAX6271 / MNGT6271 Approaches to Change.

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Project management involves the overall planning, control and coordination of a project. It is the process by which the responsibility for all phases is combined within one multidisciplinary function. This course introduces you to the project management skills needed during the lifetime of a project. It explores some key concepts of project management, including project risk management.

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An understanding of economics is essential for the long-term viability of business. The economic environment in which business operates will have a vital bearing on day-to-day decisions. Economics in Management Practice lays the foundations for such knowledge. It provides a basic introduction to those economic principles that are important for business, as well as providing general economic literacy to enable participants to read and understand economic reports and to be able to communicate with and understand business people, economists and policy makers.

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In this course students examine the basic concepts and tools of supply chain management within the broader framework of integrated intra- and inter-firm operations. The aim of the course is to bring together related but traditionally separate sub-disciplines of management: operations management, which deals with the planning, scheduling and control of production activities within the business firm, and supply chain management, which focuses on the market-integrated production activities of networks or chains of specialised firms that sequentially convert raw materials into increasingly complex intermediate and final products. Although these two sub-disciplines have been taught at universities as separate management subjects, it is increasingly apparent that they should be combined. The sourcing of inputs from upstream suppliers and the distribution of outputs to downstream customers cannot be separated from the management of in-house production.

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This course considers the range of risks facing organisations in the areas of finance, operations, IT, innovation and reputation. An organisation’s culture can impact on the effectiveness of its risk management, which needs to be incorporated into all business planning and decision making. The course covers the role of corporate governance and compliance, and suggests methods of developing and implementing appropriate risk management strategies. Some of the effective tools available for identifying, assessing and quantifying risk are presented, along with emerging issues in enterprise risk management.

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For many established businesses, the ability to identify and effectively respond to new opportunities is increasingly central to their success and, indeed, survival. Evidence suggests that innovation in a corporate context can often be difficult. In recent years, however, a growing number of organisations have drawn on approaches and practices more common to small entrepreneurial start-ups to help them identify new market opportunities and how they could respond to these opportunities. This is sometimes called ‘intrapreneurship’.

The aim of this course is to provide students with insights into the intrapreneurship process and to help them develop the skills and knowledge they need to enhance the ability of their organisations to identify new opportunities in the market and respond to them effectively. It does so by giving them hands-on experience of participating in an online corporate challenge.

One of the key aspects to successful intrapreneurship is the ability to work collaboratively across different aspects of the business, often in different locations and parts of the world. For this reason, the corporate challenge is based on group work, where students will work through an online platform to identify and develop a new business opportunity for a corporate partner.

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This is a core course in Business Analytics, which enables organizations to make quicker, better, and more intelligent decisions to create business value in the broadest sense. This course addresses the context of business analytics and the management actions required for organizations to manage business analytics such that they can create value from their data and make progress on the transformational journey to becoming data-driven. Emphasis will be placed on the managing and sourcing data, the analytic process and the role of leadership in supporting the organizational and cultural change associated with the transformation to becoming a data-driven organization.

As part of the business analytics process you will build predictive models. This requires a basic understanding of statistics and you will therefore be required to study the material on basic statistics provided by Harvard online training. IBM’s Watson Analytics will be used to build predictive models and communicate analytic insights.

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This course focuses on advanced financial decisions of corporate managers. First, the course expands on the traditional project evaluation criteria by introducing real options and valuation techniques in the presence of uncertainty. Second, it discusses the use of debt and equity as financing instruments and how to assess leases. Third, it explains how to hedge a company’s cash flows and balance sheet from both domestic and international exposures. The course uses case studies to illustrate the application of theoretical concepts to real-life.

Course outline available soon

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In this course, financial-statement information is discussed as a tool in a wide range of business decisions. We will discuss financial statements from a user’s perspective, and use a variety of tools to break apart financial reports into meaningful units for analysis, forecast financial statements, and value a firm’s shares. We will also look at the role of managerial incentives and accounting rules in assessing the quality of financial statements.

Course outline available soon

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This course seeks to understand what venture capital is, what venture capitalists do and the way venture capital organisations work. This course is primarily geared towards students interested in working in venture capital, or other private-equity organizations. It is also intended for students who expect to work alongside venture capitalists or other private equity investors, whether as managers of firms financed by such investors, as investment bankers taking their firms public, or as money managers investing in these funds. Finally, it is designed for students interested in exploring how aspects of private equity investing can be transferred to the management of projects in established organizations.

Course outline available soon

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The course will provide information and analysis on the latest development in the world of finance and its implications for business strategies. Live financial data and other information from various financial institutions are provided to teach a number of issues that influence global finance and the way multinational companies build their global business networks, their activities and strategies. The Course also brings a fresh perspective from eminent scholars from various leading business schools and financial organizations.

Course outline available soon

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The objective of this course is to introduce students to Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) and the requisite knowledge for the development and execution of corporate transactions particularly within equity capital markets. The course will address transactions such as Takeovers, Acquisitions, Divestments, Initial Public Offerings and Secondary Raisings. Students will utilise common corporate finance tools and knowledge as applied within the context of considering, developing and executing M&A transactions. There will be an emphasis on practical applications of corporate finance skills and knowledge and negotiation within the context of M&A through a mixture of case studies, group exercises and class discussion.

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New course - information coming in 2018

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Strategic Management will help you to apply knowledge in understanding how the managers of modern, technology-rich, sustainable organisations look to generate, communicate and fulfil a strategic vision and deliver outcomes that fulfil the purpose for which the organisations were created.

The course is designed to help you reflect on the role of strategic management and draw on concepts, issues and principles highlighted in your earlier courses in this degree program. As a result, you will understand how integrating and effectively managing the diverse range of technology, specialised and business management disciplines empowers you to be more effective in achieving your organisation's strategic goals in a rapidly changing technological organisational environment.

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In this course, students will first learn the fundamentals of innovation and technology, including the impact of technology on organisational strategy, internal and external factors influence a firm’s technology strategy, diffusion of technology and technology disruption. Students are next introduced to the stages of the entrepreneurial life cycle, categories of entrepreneurial opportunities and processes for generating new business ideas. After translating opportunities into a well-crafted plan and pitch, students will learn various financial strategies to support new business and how to design experiments using minimum viable products to test market-driven hypotheses and refine multiple aspects of the business model. Next, students will explore essential factors influencing customers to adopt new products in the current business environment and approaches to scaling businesses built on new products and services. Finally, the course concludes by analysing how startups can embed globalisation into the foundations of their ventures and looking at strategies of established firms in creating breakthrough innovations.

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Corporations and the individuals who work in them need to ensure that they operate lawfully and in a manner that meets stakeholder expectations and broader community standards of acceptable behaviour. This is true across business entities, not-for-profits and in the business of government. It requires managers to understand and be accountable for compliance with a complex array of legal and non-legal rules and expectations, derived from different sources. The reputational risk which flows from decisions influenced by personal, professional and institutional ethics can be amplified enormously by social media. This course is designed to equip students with the analytical tools to identify and manage the governance, compliance and risk management issues that arise from law, regulation and ethics in the context of businesses’ relationship with society.

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The course is divided into two key themes. Weeks 1-5 focus primarily on the strategic role and organisational value of digital technologies. Weeks 6-10 focus on the strategic management of digital technologies to realise this value potential. Every week there will be a mix of readings and/or case studies that form the foundation of discussions and activities. Some written preparation in the form of a blog post is required every week to ensure students have done the pre-work necessary to engage in these class discussions, which are facilitated face-to-face or via the course forum.

This course provides students with applied, critical thinking and application skills for effective strategy implementation. With a focus on a spectrum of principles and features that influence strategy execution, it helps develop practical insights into organisational transformation. The course aligns with the content of other strategy courses, but focuses on the spectrum of issues to translate strategy implementation detailing how organisations can achieve sustained effectiveness with both its current challenges and future possibilities. In this context, the course deals with themes on the strategic process of managing for change, redesigning structure, human capital and talent management, and smart responses to technology. The course challenges students to think critically and develop useful insights about the concepts and principles on making better strategy.

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Managing Digital Technology increases technical literacy of managers and leaders. The main objective of this course is to give managers a high-level overview of the fundamental concepts, main topics and problems in computer science and information technology and how they relate to business settings, and thus equip them to make better decisions regarding applications of technology, even if they are not technologists themselves. This course takes a top-down approach and emphasises high level mastery of important concepts in computer science and information technology. Students who successfully complete this course will feel confident in any technology organisation and will have an appreciation for the problems in the field, how they affect or constrain business decisions and how it all works.

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Course available in T3, 2021

This course builds on MNGT5202, providing a hands-on internship experience, allowing for immersion in a real-world startup environment. Students undertake an internship in a local startup, experiencing first-hand the thrill of growing an entrepreneurial business. The challenge in the course is to provide the startup with expertise that they may not have, while at the same time living and breathing the startup world from the inside.

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The exact type and structure of a 'financial analysis' depends largely on the specific decision making context in which the analyst is placed - is it equity investment, credit extension, analysis of supplier/customer health, competitor analysis, regulatory overview or intervention, or valuation for take-over or restructuring purposes? However, many of the techniques of financial analysis are common to each. This course devotes considerable attention to these 'techniques' and the difficulties associated with their application; primarily in the context of equity investment/valuation and credit extension decisions. The emphasis is on sharpening analytical abilities in financial statement analysis from a managerial standpoint. Particular attention is placed on developing an ability to 'pierce the accounting veil' to get at the underlying bottom line - cash flow and the inherent volatility thereof. The Core Finance and Core Accounting courses are prerequisites for this elective.

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Through the use of case studies, this course applies the basic concepts introduced in core Finance (MNGT5220) course to the firm’s financial decisions.

We focus on the determinants of the firm's capital structure and dividend policy, estimation of the cost of capital, the valuation of strategic investment opportunities and the application of valuation techniques to the acquisition of other firms.

This course was previously known as ‘Corporate Finance’.

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The venture capital and private equity industry has expanded by at least 3000% over the past fifteen years and is playing a critical role in shaping our economy and supporting innovation. Yet venture capital firms often operate in mysterious ways, with little real public visibility. This course seeks to understand what venture capital is, what venture capitalists do and the way venture capital organisations work. This course is primarily geared towards students interested in working in venture capital, or other private-equity organizations. It is also intended for students who expect to work alongside venture capitalists or other private equity investors, whether as managers of firms financed by such investors, as investment bankers taking their firms public, or as money managers investing in these funds. Finally, it is designed for students interested in exploring how aspects of private equity investing can be transferred to the management of projects in established organizations.

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This course provides a conceptual framework within which the key financial decisions of the multinational firm can be analysed. The course first considers the environment of international financial management, emphasizing the determination of exchange rates. We study international exposures, then analyse investment and financing decisions as they are made by a multinational entity.

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The objective of this course is to supplement basic marketing and marketing strategy courses by focusing on problems and strategies specific to marketing of services.

Problems commonly encountered in marketing services – such as difficulty in controlling quality, managing service failure and recovery situations and an inability to inventory – will be addressed.

Strategies used by successful services marketers to overcome these difficulties will be discussed.

This course was previously known as ‘Services Marketing’.

By participating in this course, students will:

• recognize the similarities and differences between the marketing of services and goods
• critically analyse service-related issues faced by real companies and offer viable solutions and gain a deeper appreciation of the number and extent of their own service encounters

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The aim of this course is to improve decision-making skills and to provide strategies for further improvement in the future. We cover how individuals and groups make decisions and solve problems, individually and in organizations. By the end of the course, students will understand their own decision styles and personal dispositions, make decisions more deliberately and systematically will be able to use decision analysis techniques and group processes, integrate their values into their decisions, and, generally, have increased confidence in their decision-making.

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Negotiation is a central element in managerial life. Negotiations are required not only with external parties but also within the firm. The course will consider both co-operative and competitive dimensions of negotiation and examine the ethical issues which arise.

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The aim of this course is to provide students with the skills required to model and analyse business problems that have financial (revenue and cost) implications and to enable them to effectively present data for effective communication to a business audience.

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The forces of globalisation have increased the permeability of traditional boundaries around countries, economies and industries. These forces include the expansion of international trade and investment, the growth of multinational corporations (MNCs), the ability of information and communications technology to span time and distance, and the shift of the world’s economic centre of gravity from the West to Asia. Because of globalisation, the environment of business is now more complex, more dynamic, more uncertain, and more competitive than ever before.

This course examines important strategic, organisational, and operational issues from the perspective of managers working for local Australian firms or subsidiaries of MNCs based in Australia. Its main objective is to develop an understanding of the international business opportunities and challenges facing these firms and how they can best address these issues when competing in the global marketplace.

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*This course is not open for general enrolments. A separate application process takes place around March each year.
**To be eligible to apply for this competitive and highly popular course, students must have successfully completed a minimum of two AGSM courses with a WAM of 65% or above.

Refer to the International study options for further information.

The interaction between Australian businesses and overseas-based businesses is consistently increasing. As such, it has become critical for the managers of Australian businesses to develop the necessary skills and knowledge to effectively conduct business activities in the complex, dynamic and highly diverse International markets. There is little doubt that future growth in Australia depends on the ability of managers to understand and function in this culturally diverse environment. This course is a field study-based unit that allows students to apply skills they have developed in the core courses of the MBA. The field study trip will focus on a specific organisation’s new or existing products/services/ventures, or entire industries. Furthermore, it will provide the unique opportunity to have open discussions with leaders from both the government and business sectors, as well as with other MBA students from top business schools.

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The first course in the ‘Executive Agenda’, the aim of Strategic Leadership is to provide a learning context and experience that helps students increases their effectiveness as a strategic leader. Strategic leadership brings together the skills of effective leaders (vision, decision making, consultation, emotional intelligence) with strategy formulation and implementation, to address the challenges of modern organisations in ways to enhance prospects for the long term success and sustainable futures. The course builds on the Know, Do, Be model The value of this model resides in the fact that it emphasises three key domains (cognition, behaviour, and identity) important for producing lasting learning and change. In this course students consider how value is created and the challenges facing modern organisations in volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environments while developing the skills and mindsets needed to successfully navigate these environments at a professional and personal level.

The course adopts a blended approach to teaching, whereby students complete a series of self directed and facilitated activities online in conjunction with an intensive 4 day residential program held on the UNSW Campus.

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Innovation is vital for personal, professional and organisational success. Building on the themes from Strategic Leadership, the second Executive Agenda course, Innovation, provides students with a learning environment in which they develop knowledge and skills to respond to business challenges in innovative and transformational ways. The course approaches innovation from two perspectives. Students acquire knowledge and skills from the field of strategy to create and evaluate business opportunities. At the same time, students further enhance their strategic leadership capabilities through structured activities and experiences focused on creating innovative mindset.

The course adopts a blended approach to teaching, whereby students complete a series of self directed and facilitated activities online in conjunction with an intensive 4 day residential program held on the UNSW Campus.

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Building on the themes of earlier Executive Agenda courses, this course extends your strategic thinking and analysis skills to formulating effective growth strategies for your organisation. Successful organisational growth is often a priority for the Board of Directors and senior management, but growth strategies frequently fail to deliver the projected results. For this reason, we adopt an experiential learning model for you to learn how to develop smart growth strategies that create real value. Throughout the course, you will apply strategy concepts and tools to identify, evaluate, and plan the implementation of value-creating growth options.

The course adopts a blended approach to teaching, whereby students complete a series of self-directed and facilitated activities online in conjunction with an intensive 4-day residential program.

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Transformation is the final course in the Executive Agenda. Transformation means dealing with the challenges of uncertainty and change. In today’s business environment, transformation is increasingly an on-going activity rather than a once-a-career event. In this course students learn to accept and embrace uncertainty and build important skills and mindsets to lead organisational business model shifts and transformation projects with confidence in challenging environments. As the final course in the MBA(Exec) program, this course also provides an opportunity to re-calibrate your personal and professional transformation journey, refining your path to success as you exit the program.

The course adopts a blended approach to learning, whereby students complete a series of self directed and facilitated activities online, both individually and in teams, in conjunction with an intensive 4 day residential program held on the UNSW Campus.

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