MBA Plus: Target Excellence

 October 8-9, 1996

Introduction Benefits Participants Program Outline For more information Registration Form

Introduction | Benefits | Participants | Program Outline | More Information | Registration

MBA Plus is a two-day program for MBA degree holders. The program will be held October 8-9, 1996 at Clayton Hall, Newark, Delaware. In MBA Plus you will:

ADD a continuous learning component to your credentials.
SUBTRACT irrelevant jargon and theories so you can focus on real-world case studies.
MULTIPLY your insights into what makes a company successful.
DIVIDE those who are preparing for the future of business from those who are satisfied with the status quo.

MBA Plus will focus on the best practices in America's most successful corporations, and will feature:

Faculty will present sessions on: Mr. John A. Krol, President and Chief Executive Officer of the DuPont Company, will be the keynote speaker.

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Benefits

Participants

This program is designed for professionals who hold a graduate business degree, and who have significant responsibilities in marketing, finance, management, budgeting or strategic planning.

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Program Outline

October 8, 1996

8 am: Opening Session

Dr. Daniel Sullivan, Assistant Professor
Dr. Sullivan earned degrees in Business Adminstration, International Relations and Global Strategic Management. His research interests include concepts of corporate strategy and principles of corporate governance. Discussions of these and other topics have taken him around the world, teaching in locales such as Cambridge, Budapest, London, Paris and Prague. In the process, he has been awarded numerous teaching honors for Executive MBA, MBA and undergraduate business students.
The goal of this session is to spotlight leading strategic paradigms, noting their chief principles and practical characteristics. The implications of these paradigms on participants' own businesses are understood in terms of the past practices, present conditions and future contingencies of the business world. The discussion is grounded by profiling elements of each paradigm with real-world examples and estimating their effect on the performance of various companies.

9:45 am: Coffee Break

10 am: Total Quality Management (TQM)

Dr. Michael Pohlen, Associate Professor
Dr. Pohlen's current research focuses on the characteristics of successful decision support systems design, including systems for quality management. He has consulted with a number of companies, both locally and abroad, on issues relating to quality and productivity.
What secrets about managing for quality have the most-admired companies discovered that seem to have eluded the least-admired companies? The answer to the questions points in the direction of an orientation toward data and thorough process analysis at the expense, if necessary, of some of the quality hoopla that is working its way through American industry.

12 noon: Lunch and Keynote Speaker

Mr. John A. Krol
President and Chief Executive Officer
DuPont

1:30 pm: Leadership Session

Dr. John Sawyer, Associate Professor
Dr. Sawyer has worked with many large corporations and non-profit and government agencies analyzing management practices. His training and development work on leadership topics has ranged from first line supervision to top management teams. His past research on judgment processes, learning and creativity, has been published in top academic journals. His current research on teams decision processes and innovative team work training processes has attracted attention nationwide.
This session will focus on the relationships among values, vision, strategies, tactics and operations. A balance between transactional management and transformational leadership practices will be stressed. Leadership characteristics in some of the nation's most-admired companies will be explored.

3:30 pm Coffee Break

3:45 pm: Effective Business Application of the World Wide Web

Mr. Alex Brown, MBA
Mr. Brown is a member of the Marketing faculty. His teaching interests focus on marketing and the Internet. He consults on corporate web-site development, and administers an educational web-site.

Corporate uses of the World Wide Web will be demonstrated and discussed, and guidelines for effective use of the Web will be explained.
Talk Outline

5:15 pm: Adjourn

October 9, 1996

8 am: Business Ethics

Dr. Gary Weaver, Assistant Professor

 Dr. Gary Weaver holds Ph.D. degrees in both Business Administration and Philosophy. His scholarly activities focus on the individual, organizational and external influences which generate ethical problems for firms, and on the way those problems can be resolved. He has carried out funded research for organizations such as the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals, and some of his recent research has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal.
This session will provide an overview of key issues involved in meeting the ethical and societal expectations firms encounter. The session will focus on ethical successes and failures and the factors which contribute to them, from the standpoint of both individual employees and the organization as a whole.

10 am: Coffee Break

10:15 am: Business Use of Derivatives: Unwarranted Risk Taking vs. Responsible Risk Management

Dr. Donald Puglisi, Professor
Dr. Puglisi is the MBNA America Business Professor and Professor of Finance. Over the past 25 years, he has been actively involved in both the academic study of financial derivatives and the hands-on development of derivative-type financial products and the application of derivative-based solutions to real-world investment risk management situations.
Reported cases of financial debacles resulting from imprudent positions in financial derivatives have raised serious questions as to whether corporate treasurers and investment managers have a sound understanding of the risks inherent in these new financial products. Are financial derivatives so complex and potentially dangerous to a company's financial health that they have no role in business risk management? Or are the reported debacles simply isolated cases, with financial derivatives - when properly and prudently used - offering the prospect of being highly effective risk management tools? Whether a "derivative" is the "ten letter four-letter word" or a useful financial product for risk management will be explored and explained.

12:15 pm: Lunch

1 pm: Marketing Techniques

Dr. John Antil, Associate Professor
Dr. Antil is the Head of Marketing Faculty in the Department of Business Administration where he has been a member of the faculty for 12 years. He teaches Marketing Strategy at both the undergraduate and graduate levels and has received excellence in teaching awards from both Delaware and Penn State University. Dr. Antil also consults and provides executive education services to a variety of profit and not-for-profit organizations. He currently is conducting research in the area of the measurement and power of brand names and their role in the purchase decision process.
Using a set of most-admired, and less-admired, companies, the changing role of marketing will be discussed. Concentration will be on what marketing techniques are currently the most effective and what changes we can expect in the future.

3 pm: Coffee Break

3:15 pm: Strategy/Conclusions

Dr. Daniel Sullivan, Assistant Professor
MBA Plus concludes with a return to the point of departure - reconsidering the strategic paradigms discussed earlier in light of what leading companies have done, are doing, and seem intent upon doing. In this session, popular conceptions of strategic excellence are taken to task. The discussion will clarify how the lessons of MBA Plus apply to participants' career ambitions and company performance.

5 pm: Adjourn

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For Further Information

Contact the Executive Education Office at: Return
MBA Program table of contents
University of Delaware home page
Registration Form: MBA Plus
October 8-9, 1996
Clayton Hall, Newark
Please complete and return this form with your payment for $795 to
MBA PLUS PROGRAM
John M. Clayton Hall
University of Delaware, CED
Newark, DE 19716
You may fax your registration to (302) 831-1077 if you are paying by credit card.

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For further information contact:
Peggy Bottorff
(302) 831-2221
fax (302) 831-3329
Bottorff@udel.edu

CED # 1-01-04-01-105mc