The Global Management programme will be restructured

The Aalto University School of Business is a member of the Global Alliance in Management Education (CEMS), a community of the world’s leading business schools, large corporations, and NGOs. The community comprises 34 member universities and around 70 international companies or NGOs.

Aalto University offers students two ways of enrolling in the CEMS MIM programme: The two-year MSc in Global Management programme, which automatically integrates the CEMS MIM curriculum. And the add-on CEMS MIM opportunity, which is available for students already enrolled or with an existing study right to any Aalto University Master’s programme.

The firstly mentioned integrated Global Management (+CEMS) programme will be restructured from autumn 2022 onwards. At the same time, three new programmes will be available for the master's programme at the School of Business: People Management and Organizational Development and Strategic Management in a Changing World at the Department of Management Studies, as well as Business Analytics at the Department of Information and Service Management. The first applications for the above-mentioned programmes can be made in the turn of the year 2021–2022.

‘By reforming the Global Management programme and developing the master's programme offer, we aim to better meet the needs of society. Our aim is also to further increase our societal impact and interaction with business life,’ says Timo Korkeamäki, Dean of the School of Business.

Courses on strategy, business analytics, and political economics

With the reform of the Global Management programme, the specialisation areas will be abandoned, and the content of the programme for the first year will largely be the same for all.

‘In the autumn of the first year, students will be offered customised, topical courses such as strategy, business analytics, and political economics. In the spring of the first year, the students will produce a 20-credit master’s thesis. Producing the thesis is supported by a course format with regular meetings and sub-goals. The management of our university has granted us the permission to pilot such a thesis in the Global Management programme, which I am incredibly pleased about,’ says Rita Järventie-Thesleff, Academic Director of the Aalto CEMS Programme.

In addition, students are offered a 'My development journey' course to support students in their systematic development of self-knowledge. The course provides the students tools for identifying their own strengths, clarifying their area of interest and goals, as well as practical tips for coping and nurturing their enthusiasm. 

Like earlier, the second year of the renewed Global Management programme consists of CEMS MIM (Master's in International Management) studies. During the CEMS MIM year, one semester is studied in Aalto and another semester in one of the other 34 schools of the CEMS Alliance.

The aim is to enhance working skills

The changes made to the programme aim to ensure that students will continue to have excellent skills to work in a fast-paced, complex, and increasingly globalised business environment. The 20-credit master's thesis, together with the tailored course offering develop students' strategic, analytical, and business capabilities to achieve this goal.

‘The thesis, as well as the learning objectives of the 15-credit business project in the spring of the second year, complement each other: the thesis is more theoretical in nature, whereas the business project is empirical and the work is done at the corporate interface,’ explains Rita Järventie-Thesleff.

The programme is aimed at students who are interested in and eager to focus on global business challenges as experts and decision-makers, either in Finland or abroad.