The Henley MBA

 

What You Study .

 

The Henley MBA is an intense and rewarding experience. It will offer new opportunities and challenges for some, while honing fitness for senior leadership roles. For everyone it will challenge thinking about business and the practical art of management.

 

As a programme member, you will earn very meaningful insights by doing. And your experience, other people’s perspectives and academic thinking are the stimuli for thrilling discussion that help you understand today’s intricate corporate world.

 

The Henley MBA is a journey in three equal Stages. The First Stage relates to the internal management of an organisation, focusing on specific areas of management like people, processes & projects and finance. The Second Stage relates to business choices – a critical aspect in every manager’s life, presenting insights in global environment and strategic direction, strategic marketing and corporate finance and governance. The Third and last Stage of the journey will help transform you into a manager who makes a difference. Here you deal with leadership, change and reputation as well as how, as a manager, you build knowledge and apply it in a management role.

 

Five of the modules covered in the First and Second Stages, will have the added benefit of a selection of elective pathway. For all the modules you will be required to present your ideas and understanding in the form of a report, answering questions as set out by leading academics working at Henley. Your work will be independently assessed and moderated by international business and academic leaders who form part of Henley’s world class team.

 

At the end of Stage One and Two, you will also be required to sit for an examination that relates to a real life situation in business and how you, as a Henley MBA programme member, can distinguish yourself.

 

During the final Stage you will equip yourself with research approaches: design, review, data collection, analysis and in-depth writing. Through these skills you will generate relevant and practical solutions or recommendations for a research-based consultancy project.

 

 

The Flexible Learning Henley MBA mode of study

 

The Henley MBA by Flexible Learning is an intensive and international MBA programme.

 

It is designed to help members develop their international management competencies. It enables them to improve their effectiveness and maximise their contribution to an organisation while also helping them to achieve their career potential.

 

This international programme is conducted together with our partners in three continents: Asia, Europe and Africa. Members on the programme are encouraged to think strategically about business and management in a global context. This is a highly participative programme, which combines personal learning and group work. It emphasises personal development but uses individual and assessments. It is delivered in a format that is based around a learning journey for participants which integrates aspects of personal development that focus on individual and collaborative learning.

 

The Henley MBA by Flexible Learning is structured to allow participants to continue working in full-time employment while studying and to connect their learning to current global, international and organisational issues. Over three stages of roughly one year each, there are opportunities to engage career stakeholders in managerial issues and in programme activities. Programme members will develop their own areas of interest and expertise in the elective pathways and the Management Challenge project (dissertation) and will focus on integrating their learning into their own personal development.

 

Workshops are supported by online learning resources relevant to the subject of study. To get the most from the workshops a Programme Member will use the online material for preparatory work before the actual workshop, and team or individual study afterwards. Programme members will receive a set of key readings, videos and audio clips to amplify or exemplify particular points. These will be supplemented by guided independent reading from ARC (Academic Resource Centre) Online. Opportunities for online chat regarding the modules to broaden understanding, and reflective journals supported by personal or subject tutors. Studying this way is a managerial exercise in itself. It requires you to develop certain skills such as time management, collecting and organising your own notes, producing a regular output of written work and assimilating your tutors’ feedback on your assignments in a positive and productive manner. Guidance on how to do this effectively is provided in your programme materials.

 

At the centre of the programme is the subject module material, which is delivered through HenleyConnect – the Henley virtual learning environment (VLE). Each subject is built around a module study guide and route map, which provides the backbone or spine of the learning process. Branching out from the spine you will be asked to explore inputs such as key resources, chapters from text books, video clips and websites; and to engage in individual practice applications and online conversations in co-operation with others. These will help deepen your thinking about a topic through reflecting on its application in practice, creating outputs that build towards your assignment and encouraging further discussion and debate about a topic.

 

ARC Online contains a wealth of resources to support your studies further, including full-text journal articles, financial and market research databases, ebooks, thought leadership papers from our faculty, a guide to study skills and much more. Access to this dedicated Henley Business School resource is complemented by additional access to the vast learning resources at the University of Reading. The module materials provide the core information required to pass all the assessments. However, to gain full value from the input, you will be encouraged to read around topics from different perspectives, discuss your thinking in class and with others online, reflect on the application of theory in real-world situations, experiment with new ideas, and draw on the wealth of your own professional experience and that of others in your intake in order to reach conclusions.

 

Some further information about Workshops

 

Attendance at the Flexible Learning Starter Workshop is compulsory and you are advised to block the remaining workshop dates out in your diary at the start of the programme. The study schedule for the duration of your programme will be available to you prior to the start of the Henley MBA programme, and this indicates the level of commitment required to progress successfully. Not only will attendance at the workshops make your learning journey a far more fruitful and enjoyable one (ultimately giving you a better return for your investment) but through the many opportunities for group work it will support other individuals in your learning teams, maintaining the mutual support, motivation and commitment to keep going when progress seems difficult.

 

A programme member is expected to prepare adequately before coming to workshops using the materials specified in HenleyConnect. This prior reading will allow a Henley programme member to discuss the concepts and theories of each subject area in relation to management practice and share views with other programme members. A variety of learning approaches are used, including lectures, debates, simulations, reviews, case studies, working in teams and role playing.

 

Henley believes that learning depends on a tripartite relationship between learner, subject tutor and other programme members. Each party has a distinct responsibility as follows:

 n    Learners define the depth of their learning needs, relative to their current competence, and select from various opportunities for learning according to their requirements.

 n    The subject tutor provides knowledge and expertise that is relevant to the learners’ needs, and designs suitable opportunities for the application and synthesis of knowledge and the development of intellectual and practical/behavioural skills. Tutors also provide feedback on progress..

 n    Fellow programme members actively and respectfully contribute their experience and alternative perspectives both to challenge and enrich understanding of practice, and to give feedback to others on the practical/behavioural skills that are defined in the programme specification.

 

Given that people generally feel more comfortable sharing complex knowledge when they have met face to face, workshops are considered to be a critical part of the blend of learning opportunities, which stimulate and maintain the vitality of interactions online.

 

ARC Online – Academic Resource Centre

 

ARC Online, accessed through HenleyConnect, contains a wealth of business reading and is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You can access online services, e-books and commercial databases with links to market research databases, financial databases, company information, academic journal articles and newspapers.

 

As a programme member on the Henley MBA, you are also able to access many of the online learning resources at the University of Reading via your Reading login and password.

 

 

View Structure of P6 MBA (PDF & Powerpoint)