Managing In The Global Economy: An Integrative Concept For A Cross-Functional MBA Cornerstone Course

Abstract

This paper documents how faculty from different departments at Georgia State University’s Robinson College of Business developed, implemented and successfully delivered a cross-functional cornerstone core MBA course. The course provides an introduction to fundamental business concepts from a global managerial perspective and is based on an integrative framework that especially emphasizes the relationships, connections and dependencies among functional areas in different industry life-cycle situations. The course has to be taken by all entering MBA students and has been introduced in Fall 2004. Since its first semester of delivery it has received top evaluations from the students and is one of the most popular classes in the College. What was initially considered to be an “impossible thing”, turned out to be a huge success.