Curriculum

The MBA program is based on a comprehensive redesign of management education.  Working on real-life managerial problems within local conditions in Turkey in relation to the broader global context offers a more enriched basis for the development of managerial capabilities as compared to exposure to abstract theories.

Common Outcomes of Masters Programs:

• Develop the ability to use critical, analytical, and reflective thinking and reasoning
• Reflect on social and ethical responsibilities in his/her professional life.
• Gain experience and confidence in the dissemination of project/research outputs
• Work responsibly and creatively as an individual or as a member or leader of a team and in multidisciplinary environments.
• Communicate effectively by oral, written, graphical and technological means and have competency in English.
• Independently reach and acquire information, and develop appreciation of the need for continuously learning and updating.

Common Outcomes for Institute:

• Develop, interpret and use statistical analyses in decision making.

Program Specific Outcomes:

• Demonstrate an understanding of main functional areas of management.
• Develop the ability to integrate and apply business knowledge in novel situations.
• Understand the global and local business context and incorporate cultural context and complexities into their managerial practice.

• Broadly speaking Sabancı MBA Program engages students with practice of management through activities in four categories:
• Activities in companies:  Company Action Projects
• Courses: Managerial Skills Workshops course, team-work (projects, presentations, etc.) required in courses, Practice Development course 
• Meetings with managers: Executive Insights Seminars (CEOs and company owners are the speakers), guest speakers in lectures, career panels (focusing on sectors or management functions)
• MBA Club activities/projects: Students plan, raise funding for, market and organize events including Marketing Talks, Social Media Summit, Finance Talks, Entrepreneurship Summit, etc.
• Through these activities a Sabancı MBA student gets to meet and listen to anywhere between 75 to 100 top managers and they:
• Have much better information about leading companies in the region (their human resources policies, their challenges, strengths, etc.) which helps them plan their careers better
• Develop their professional network
• Develop essential managerial skills (oral and written presentation, negotiation, team building, interviewing, time management, conflict resolution) by practicing them
• Learn how to manage projects better by actually managing several projects

The Company Action Projects (CAP) is the unique and essential part of the Sabancı MBA program. CAP's distinctive feature is that these are real projects that companies want to undertake. Our "client" companies participate in CAP not only to contribute to our educational mission but also they see real value in the work of our students. Over the years, many projects have been successfully conducted and finalized in a wide range of companies, from small and medium sized local firms to the subsidiaries of multinational corporations. Our experience shows that CAP has been very valuable both for our students and our partner companies.

Highlights

• Four-month long real project at a company
• Students work in teams
• Students work on-site, three days a week, at their project companies
• Each team gets a company advisor
• Confidentiality agreement signed to kick off the project

Recent Company Action Projects: Click here.

Sabanci MBA curriculum has three categories of required courses that serve three distinct objectives.  First, there are background and area courses that provide technical proficiency  (such as Decisions and Uncertainty, Managerial Economics and Marketing). Second, there are courses that are designed to enhance students' understanding of the business environment and increase their contextual awareness (such as Global Business Context, Company Action Projects and Ethics in Business). Finally,  a group of courses are designed to integrate the knowledge gained in other courses into a general management framework (such as Strategic Management and Business Simulation).  In addition to these required courses , electives allow students to specialize in an area of their choice.

Elective Courses* You have to take at least 6 credits of elective courses

Fall Pre-Term (1 or 2 weeks)

Orientation

Civic Involvement Projects (2 days)

Fall Term (September- January)

ACC501 Financial Reporting and Statement Analysis

The course provides a comprehensive introduction to the basic concepts, principles, and standards of financial accounting with an emphasis on how financial information is reported to external users and how it is used in resource allocation decisions. The topics covered include the preparation and use of the financial statements, the recording cycle, sales and receivables, inventories and cost of goods sold, plant assets and intangibles, liabilities and owner's equity, cash flow, EBIT, EBITDA and financial statement analysis.

MGMT 501 Global Business Context

This subject addresses the phenomenon of globalization in connection with a variety of issues that have direct and/or indirect relevance for business and managerial practices. Topics to be covered include: The globalization debate in terms of conceptualization, causal dynamics, socio-economic consequences, and implications for macroeconomic stability, state power and governance. Transnational corporations, globalization versus localization of emerging consumption patterns, information technologies, global financial markets, political and economic consequences of globalization, and accords such as European Union, GATT, and NAFTA will be discussed.

MGMT 504 Fundamentals of Data Driven Business Decisions

This course covers basic statistics tools and concepts to teach students how to apply statistical analysis to managerial decisions. By requiring hands-on statistical analysis using MS Excel, the course also aims to develop the students’ data analysis skills. Descriptive statistics, statistical significance, hypothesis testing and linear regression topics are covered and their applications for a variety of business decision are discussed.

MGMT 508 Ethics in Business

This course examines ideas and perspectives on ethical issues in contemporary business with the objective to expand our capacity for moral inquiry and increase our alertness about consequences of misconduct. We will examine various ethical and moral dilemmas in business decision-making encountering the philosophical issues at the foundation of economic theory and management science. The course will also review recent debacles at corporate world focusing on practical issues such as social responsibility, ethical investments, corporate governance, professional codes of ethics, and morality and future of market-driven societies.

MGMT 514 Economics for Managers

This is the first part of a two-course module in economics. The purpose of the module is to familiarize students with the main economic concepts and the economic reasoning of an economist. In this part, the focus is on the market economy and on the decision-making problem of the individual units, notably firms.

MGMT 596 Managerial Skills Development

Managerial Skills Workshop is a series of seminars and hands-on activities designed to develop various team and professional skills of the MBA students to support them as they embark on their careers.

MKTG 501 Marketing Management

Course objectives are 1) Familiarizing participants with marketing concepts and methods used in processes that integrate innovative and productive capabilities of a firm into its products and services in light of its customers' needs, market challenges, and company objectives; 2) Developing skills to apply these concepts and methods in market analysis, marketing strategy development and implementation design through developing a complete marketing plan in a real market environment.

OPIM 501 Operations and Supply Chain Management

This course deals with the design, production and distribution of goods and services. Managerial issues and decision problems include the design, planning, and control of processes at strategic and operational levels. Concepts and tools used in generating solutions to problems and their implementation aspects are discussed. Operating systems from different areas such as manufacturing, service, and transportation are exemplified to expose students to the similarities and differences in their characteristics. Topics include operations strategy, process design and improvement, quality management, capacity and supply chain management.

ORG 501 Organizational Behavior and Leadership

Organizational behavior is the study of people in organizations-how and why they think, feel and act the way they do. The field, which borrows extensively from the social sciences, includes but is not limited to, topics such as motivation, decision making, leadership, organizational culture, communication, organizational conflict, power and negotiation, team processes, organization change, structure and change. This course is based on a belief that social science has much to offer the practicing manager and that becoming an effective manager of others requires increasing our own self-awareness and a portfolio of managerial skills. Thus, the course combines traditional lectures with the use of cases, group projects and experiential exercises.

Spring Term (January- May)

FIN 502 Principles of Finance

This course develops an understanding of the theoretical and practical issues relating to financial management. Fundamental financial concepts from the perspective of financial managers/entrepreneurs are examined and practical applications within local and global contexts are discussed. Topics include use of accounting information for decision making/performance evaluation, financial statement & ratio analyses, financial planning, time value of money, capital budgeting, risk-return relationship, capital structure, valuation of financial securities & firms, risk management, and derivatives.

MGMT 510 Strategic Management

This course aims to introduce a plurality of perspectives in strategic thinking and action. Strategy as plan, position, perspective and pattern capture the diversity of perspectives that are essential to grasp in managerial practice.

MGMT 511 Business Simulations

The objective of this 30-hour, one-week, intensive activity is to provide an opportunity for the participants to integrate their knowledge of the various management functions through a computer-based simulation environment. The participants, in teams of four to five, make sequential decisions at the beginning of each period over a certain time horizon and report, at the end each period, how their decisions affect the performance of their respective companies. (Measured in terms of market share, profitability and key financial ratios).

MGMT 592 Company Action Project

MBA students undertaking the "Company Action Project" will register for this course in the second semester. The grade will be based on the completed project.

Students can tailor the elective courses they take to specialize in one particular area or to learn more about a number of areas. In order to increase variety and flexibility, electives are offered as half-semester (7 week, 1.5 credit) or full-semester (14 week, 3  credit) courses. In addition to the courses offered to MBA and MiF (Master's in Finance) students, MBA students can take up to 2 courses offered in the undergraduate program or any number of courses offered in other graduate programs (subject to the approval of the MBA Director).

The following list of electives is provided here to give candidates some idea about the type of courses offered in the program. Although the actual list of courses may vary every year, the provided list is mostly made up of courses that are offered regularly.