Making The Most Of The Series

The series has been written by academics from three of the worlds top business schools. The International Institute for Management Development (IMD), Lausanne; London Business School; and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Over 50 professors and other academics have contributed to the more than 100 individual articles or sections.

The structure of Mastering Management is loosely based on the core curriculum of a typical MBA (Master of Business Administration degree), along with some added areas of special interest. We have divided our course into modules. Each issue which will typically include at least three subject areas.

 

We take the view that general management is at least (and probably more than) the sum of its parts. In other words, the general manager must have a working knowledge of all the functional aspects of management (finance accounting, marketing, production and so on) plus the integrative skills needed to help functional managers work together (strategic management, leadership, managing across cultures etc).

It has become acceptable in some areas to regard the academic study of management as at best esoteric and at worst irrelevant. Mastering Management is based on the belief that an academic approach to the study of management has much of real relevance for practising managers. Business Schools and other similar institutions, after all, only offer up a mirror to real life businesses. The best teaching is ultimately based on research within companies, not on ivory tower ruminating. Often, academic research leads to advances in the world of business. The futures and derivatives markets in the financial world, for example, are largely based on research carried out at business schools.

It should be emphasised that Mastering Management is not an MBA programme