Full-time MBA

Programme structure

You will study eight required modules, four elective modules of your choice, and have the option to undertake either a strategic consulting project, internship or dissertation. Typically each module will consist of approximately 30 hours preparation and pre-reading, 30 hours of academic delivery and 40 hours writing the assignment(s). 

Required modules

Your Full-time MBA study programme will feature eight required modules, which are designed to provide you with a solid foundation in management, business, and leadership. We have integrated social and environmental sustainability across required modules, allowing you to address this complex, multidimensional subject from different angles depending on the discipline in which it is contextualised. In addition, you'll also have the option to study a non-credit foreign language module. 

Elective modules

Whether you’re interested in strategy, entrepreneurship, marketing, leadership, digital transformation or international business, we offer a range of elective modules to suit your needs. You will customise your MBA by choosing four elective modules to support you in achieving your aims. Please note that availability of modules and delivery modes of modules may vary.

 

To develop your global citizenship and broaden your horizons, one of your four electives will be a required overseas module at one of our partner institutions. These modules are all bespoke and designed specifically for WBS students, covering areas such as sustainability and digital innovation.

Capstone module

You will have the choice to undertake either a strategic consulting project, an internship or traditional dissertation.

 

The strategic consulting project focuses on practice and is based in an employment setting, working as part of a group. This is your opportunity to consolidate everything you have learnt and apply it to a real business. Academically, it tests your ability to apply your learning to real management issues. Professionally, it may well open the door to your next career move.

 

Alternatively, you can undertake an internship of between six and twelve weeks, in the UK or overseas. Your internship will allow you to take on a manager’s mindset, critically evaluating the practices you see during your time in business, identifying general management perspectives and reflecting on activities that are key to success.

 

If you choose to undertake the dissertation option, although more academic with a focus on theory, it is still highly relevant in the world of business. It will demonstrate that you can assimilate your learning, take multiple perspectives on a business issue and explore your subject thoroughly.

Financial Management

Build an intuitive understanding of how everyday financial decisions work and learn the fundamental tools to make them.

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Innovation and Strategic Entrepreneurship

This module will introduce you to the main conceptual frameworks that have shaped research and practice on innovation and strategic entrepreneurship.

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LeadershipPlus

The LeadershipPlus module offers the opportunity to learn through experience, feedback and reflection about what you personally stand for as a leader.

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Corporate Reporting and Decision Making

Become a skilled user of financial information, using your knowledge to make the most efficient and successful financial decisions.

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Marketing

Gain a broad introduction to the marketing concept and the role of marketing in the modern organisation.

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Operations Management

Learn the basic principles of operations management, applying them to a range of organisations (public and private) before taking this logic and employing it in your own complex and unique work situation.

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Organisational Behaviour

Examine some of the key concepts and problems associated with the management of behaviour in organisations.

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Strategic Thinking

This module will expose you to the theory and practice of strategy analysis and strategy development. This will first cover traditional approaches to strategy, and then be enhanced by an in-depth analysis of the strategy process.

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Please note that availability of modules and delivery modes of modules may vary.

Finance & Accounting

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Management & Leadership

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ESG

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Digital

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Marketing

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Entrepreneurship

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Strategy

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Global Business

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International electives

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As a Full-time MBA participant, you'll have the opportunity to deliver real positive impact through your Capstone module. You have three options to choose from to complete this module; a strategic consulting project, an internship or a traditional dissertation. If you choose to take the Entrepreneurship or Social and Environmental Sustainability specialism, your Capstone module will focus in on your specialist area.
 

Strategic consulting project

The strategic consulting project will see you working for a real organisation, alongside a small team of your peers, for 10 to 12 weeks over the summer period. The project will provide you with hands-on experience of consulting on a specific business challenge in an industrial, commercial or public sector organisation. Although you will be working as a team on the same client project, you will each answer a distinct research question for your individual consulting report, enabling you to put everything you have learnt into practice while offering the chance to network and showcase your individual talent. 10% of your assessment will be based on group work and 90% based on your report. You will choose your own group to work with and we will support you in sourcing your project.

Internship

If you're looking to add a work placement to your MBA, then you have the option to undertake an internship of between six and twelve weeks, in the UK or overseas. Your internship will allow you to take on a manager’s mindset, critically evaluating the practices you see during your time in business, identifying general management perspectives and reflecting on activities that are key to success. Assessment will take the form of a short mid-term report and a learning journal, followed by a longer reflective piece.

The Employer Relations team will advertise any employers internship opportunities from our key partners throughout the year and you can also apply directly through company websites too. The Careers Coaches will be on hand to support you with your applications.

Dissertation

Alternatively, you can opt to undertake a dissertation. Although more academic with a focus on theory, it is still highly relevant in the world of business. It will demonstrate that you can assimilate your learning, take multiple perspectives on a business issue and explore your subject thoroughly. We will support you in sourcing your project.

Organisations

Organisations we have previously partnered with for consultancy projects include:

  • Barclays
  • CGI
  • EY
  • Finastra
  • GE Healthcare 
  • Holland & Barrett 
  • JLR
  • Microsoft
  • SAP 
  • Sony
  • Tangle Teezer 
  • Telefonica
  • West Midlands Growth Company
  • UHCW
  • Unipart 
  • Williams F1 
  • Ziglu

Previous participants have explored:

  • Driving improved operational performance in a high growth dynamic and high-tech environment for Williams Advance Engineering
  • Business Strategies for Digital Solutions for GE Healthcare
  • Evaluating Tangle Teezer’s and competing brands’ marketing strategies in India
  • EY: What insights and IP can be informed by big data?
  • The potential and feasibility of digital first products/services business modules in the automotive industry for JLR
  • Business plan for a Multi-omics facility with University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire
  • Analysing the use of AI and machine learning to provide a more efficient way of management clients' portfolios with 1fs Wealth
  • Sustainable building consulting - industrial sector expansion strategy with MITIE Group PLC
  • Securing the future of Space: Cybersecurity with CGI.

Through a series of experiential workshops, lectures, seminars and case studies, the LeadershipPlus required module enables you to reflect on what you personally stand for while preparing you to lead, manage and influence other people successfully in today’s complex, cross-border, multicultural environment.

Workshops
Workshops will flow from introspection about self, to consideration of the leadership stereotype, moving through to a team leadership perspective focusing on the importance of dialogue. You’ll then focus on being a responsible leader, considering ethics and emotion regulation, before digging into leadership of large-scale change in organisations and the role of the collective.

Workshop themes will include:

  • Myself as a Leader
  • The Image of a Leader
  • Effective Collaborations through Conversations
  • Responsible Leadership
  • Organisational Change

Client project
As part of this experience, you will have the opportunity to apply and develop your leadership skills within a live business context. As part of a group you will undertake a client project with a corporate, SME or not-for-profit organisation, investigating a current business issue and presenting practical recommendations to the problem posed.

 

Who will I learn from on LeadershipPlus?
Alongside a strong foundation in academic theory, taught by our expert academics, we’ve teamed up with performance psychologists, Mindflick, who are known for their work with Olympic champions and FTSE 100 leaders, to facilitate a range of environments and tools that will enable you to apply theories and concepts to actual leadership scenarios. You’ll gain contemporary leadership insights with a multi-faceted approach that moves beyond theoretical knowledge to real-world application.

The module complements, and is supported by, the experiences offered by the CareersPlus team throughout your MBA. You’ll draw upon information gained from your Spotlight psychometric profile, development centre assessment, coaching conversations, and career-oriented workshops to inform your personal development as a leader.

Your LeadershipPlus experience is a personal change journey that underpins the rest of your MBA, ensuring you continue to develop confidence and the ability to achieve your career ambitions whilst driving positive change as a leader.

Want to know more? Read our blog, An Introduction to LeadershipPlus, or discover our participants' views on their LeadershipPlus experience.

Alongside the MBA’s core backbone of building all-round business acumen, you can choose to focus your MBA within entrepreneurship or social and environmental sustainability by studying two of your elective modules and Capstone module within this area. You will gain a letter of acknowledgement from the Dean of Warwick Business School to confirm your success in one of these specialised study areas. 

Entrepreneurship Specialism

The entrepreneurship specialism will enable you to make calculated decisions between seizing opportunities and managing risk. Whether you want to set up your own business or develop your entrepreneurial mindset within a large corporate or an owner managed business, we will equip you with the innovative skills to find creative solutions to day-to-day problems. 

We offer many additional opportunities to support both our students’ and alumni entrepreneurial journeys, such as:

  • Monthly entrepreneurship clinics
  • Access to incubator and pre-accelerator programmes
  • A network of more than 3,400 entrepreneurs, student entrepreneurs and investors
  • Informative networking events
  • Mentoring programme.

Social and Environmental Sustainability Specialism

We're ranked 11th in the world in the Corporate Knights Better World MBA ranking, which lists the world's most sustainable Full-time MBA programmes.

This specialism will enable you to support an organisation to achieve social and environmental goals as well as financial ones. Whatever sector you're looking work in, from corporates and new ventures to non-profits and the public sector, the modules provide the skills you need to manage sustainably, whether you are a general manager, maintain another functional specialism or take a sustainability-specific role.

By choosing the Social and Environmental Sustainability Specialism you will:

  • Have a toolset for supporting a sustainability function, or equally for participating in the organisation’s transition towards sustainability
  • Advance your skills in creating social and environmental impact across diverse contexts through sustainable innovation and systems transformation
  • Understand in particular the carbon and energy transition engendered by the climate change challenge, and how to position an organisation within that transition.

Extend your studies abroad

You will have the opportunity to participate in the selective process to study overseas through our Partnership in International Management (PIM) membership and additional partner schools for a period of between two to four months after completing the Full-time MBA. PIM is a network of more than 60 business schools established over 45 years ago in order to promote MBA exchange between European and North American schools. Since then, it has become a global network of business schools that collaborate closely to further business education.   

We usually offer between 20 and 30 places per year with specific schools within the PIM network with whom we have an agreement.    

Some of our Full-time MBA participants from the 2022-23 cohort attended exchanges at the following schools: School of Management, Fudan University, China; Kenan Flagler Business School, Carolina, USA; Melbourne Business School, Melbourne, Australia; UBS Sauder School of Business, Vancouver, Canada; Ross School of Business, Michigan, USA; Kelley School of Business, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA; Schulich School of Business, Toronto, Canada; Gozieuta Business School, Emory University, Atlanta, USA; SDA Bocconi, Milan, Italy; ESADE Business School, Barcelona, Spain; Aalto University School of Business, Espoo, Finland.

If your application is successful, the exchange will typically take place from the September after completing your Full-time MBA. 

If you are successful in gaining a place at a partner business school, the modules taken at the exchange business school will not count towards credit for your Warwick MBA but you will receive a form of transcript from the host school. 

No tuition fees are payable for exchanges, but successful candidates should be aware that they must pay travel, accommodation, any visa processing costs, an administrative fee and other personal costs incurred during their visit. 

How we teach

We take a creative approach which blends experiential learning, business simulation software and role play on different modules during the course. This allows you to apply your learning to real-life scenarios, try out new leadership techniques and generate creative responses to challenges. By building your leadership and management skills you can increase your confidence and prepare for any scenario. 

Syndicate group work is an essential part of the Full-time MBA, allowing you to perfect your presentation and negotiation skills. You will be part of the same group for the entirety of your required modules and will become part of different groups as you undertake your electives. Learning with and from your peers is one of the most enriching aspects of our MBA, not only do you develop your knowledge in various subjects, but it also exposes you to people from different nationalities and cultures, building your global business experience and professional network. 

Throughout 12 intensive months, our careers team will guide you through your leadership development that is integrated into your timetable. You’ll participate in workshops such as How to Unleash the Potential of LinkedIn to Maximise your Career Opportunities, High Impact CVs and Cover Letters, Learn to Love Networking, Leading Diverse Teams, and Interview with Impact, and have access to unlimited one-to-one coaching, all of which enhance and develop your professional skills in a challenging and supportive environment.

Learning facilities 

At WBS we have a dedicated MBA study space which includes a lecture theatre, seminar rooms, individual and group work areas as well as a lounge with refreshment facilities which are available during term-time.  

Spread over five floors, the Library houses 1.2 million printed volumes and 13 kilometres of archives. Every year they add around 1.1 km of stock. Over 30,000 electronic journals are currently received and more than 56,000 electronic books. The Library houses various workspaces enabling group and private study. 

Where modules have a core text book, you will have access to it online via your VitalSource digital bookshelf, providing you with immediate access. 

Whilst studying for your MBA, we make it easy for you to network with other students through our bespoke online learning environment, my.wbs.