The 22-month Corporate Residency MBA Pathway is designed for highly motivated, socially conscious individuals who want to pivot from their previous career or are interested in blending their undergraduate degree with a set of universally recognized business skills. Regardless of pivoting or blending, our program’s highly customizable curriculum ensures that our graduates are equipped to tackle society's complex business problems and make a meaningful impact.
Student Experience
The pathway provides a well-rounded and engaging environment for students. From networking events with MBA faculty to engaging in social activities organized by the MBA student society, students have ample opportunities to connect and grow. Opportunities to compete at the MBA Games against other top-ranked schools in Canada adds a competitive edge, while inner cohort case competitions foster teamwork and critical thinking skills. The pathway aims to provide a multifaceted student experience that combines networking opportunities, social engagements, academic challenges that ensure a holistic and enriching journey for MBA students at Dalhousie.
Pathway at a Glance
Before You Start: Recognizing that 60–70% of our students come from non-business undergraduate degrees, we offer a set of pre-program courses. Completing these self-paced courses will prepare you to get the most from your MBA by ensuring you have an established set of base-level quantitative business skills.
Year 1 Summer: Following the first week of Career and Personal Development in the second week of June, the balance of the summer is spent completing four core courses. These provide students with a new appreciation for the world of business and give them the fundamental competencies essential for success in today’s business world. As well, students benefit from personal and professional effectiveness sessions designed to help prepare them for their corporate residencies.
Quantitative Decision Making
This course will introduce students to some basic quantitative techniques used to solve business problems. The course is designed to provide an understanding of techniques that are based on statistical concepts and decision analysis. Topics include descriptive statistics, statistical sampling, statistical inference, regression modelling, linear programming, risk analysis, and decision-making with probabilities. In addition, students will learn and practice how to use Microsoft Excel to employ these techniques. Group case studies and class discussions prepare students to be real problem-solvers.
Business Microeconomics
Domestic and international markets, government policy, and central bank decisions present opportunities, challenges, and threats to the operating and competitive decisions of business owners, managers, and investors. The main objective of this course is to provide a concise treatment of the fundamentals of economics, as the study of how economic agents allocate scarce resources to satisfy their unlimited wants in a modern market economy such as Canada.
Marketing Management
Marketing Management goes beyond an Introductory marketing course and focuses on the fundamental marketing strategy concepts and frameworks. Current and relevant strategic issues in marketing will be covered. In many instances, students are asked to assume the role of a marketing manager, critically examine marketing scenarios, and suggest appropriate marketing strategies. Marketing Management provides the student with an introduction to the practical application of marketing theory and practice. Topics covered include, but are not limited to, identifying target markets, building customer relationships, building strong brands, and designing and building communication and promotion strategies.
Accounting for Managers
This course introduces the principles and practices used to process and communicate financial information about an organization to various stakeholders. To be a competent manager, you must have some degree of accounting literacy and a critical appreciation of the subject. A portion of this course examines the challenges of financial accounting and is focused on understanding and interpreting financial statements. The course also explores the use of accounting information to help managers with internal decision-making. This is a user-oriented course that emphasizes hands-on exploration, analysis, and evaluation of accounting concepts. We will use Microsoft Excel, cases, and real financial statements during this class.
Year 1 Fall: The Fall of year one consists of two more core courses and five foundation courses which allow students to develop a strong understanding of key organizational concepts regardless of industry sector. The term is immersed with a competitive, immersive, team-based integrative weekend session that challenges students to fully integrate all learning to date. Specifically, students build on their skills surrounding sales, negotiation, and teamwork. Faculty members and Employer Partners work together on these sessions to ensure the highest level of learning and job preparation.
Financial Management
This course is designed to provide students with a broad overview of the analysis, techniques, and knowledge needed to perform the central tasks and make the main decisions required of a corporate financial manager. The core topics covered are Capital Analysis (what something is worth), Capital Budgeting (what investments to make), Capital Structure (how to raise the money for investment), Working Capital Management (management of day-to-day cash flows), and Financial Risk Management (managing uncertainty). To support and supplement the discussion of these central themes, the course will also cover Corporate Governance, Triple Bottom Line, Structure of Financial Markets, Financial Statement Analysis, Fixed Income Mathematics, Monte Carlo Simulation, and International Finance.
Management Information Systems
In today's environment, it is essential that business managers and executives understand the basic concepts of contemporary information systems (IS), how they are managed as well as their potential effects on organizations. To this end, this course is designed to provide MBA students with a fundamental understanding of key IT issues with the belief that these individuals will be the primary decision-makers in major IT initiatives and investments. Therefore, it is necessary to provide future managers with the basic knowledge required for effective IT-related decision-making.
Environment, Society & Governance
Businesses are deeply intertwined with social, environmental, and governance (ESG) concerns. The E in ESG, environmental criteria, include the energy your company takes in and the waste it discharges, the resources it needs, and the consequences (e.g., carbon emissions and climate change). S, social criteria, addresses the relationships a business has with people and local communities (e.g., labour relations, diversity and inclusion). G, governance, is the internal systems of practices, controls, and procedures a business adopts to govern itself, make effective decisions, comply with the law, and meet the needs of external stakeholders. ESG thinking involves being clear about the company’s purpose and taking into consideration the needs of all the company’s stakeholders — shareholders, customers, employees, directors, business partners, competitors, governments, members of the press, local communities, and the public.
EDIAD Lenses at the Workplace
This course serves as an introduction to the topics of equity, diversity, inclusion, accessibility, and decolonization in the workplace. Organizations are made up of people and with that comes processes, systems, and interactions that are subject to human perceptual biases, social power, and intergroup processes. We will work to recognize and unpack our own perceptual biases as well as learn how organizations can create systems to reduce discrimination and inequities. Organizations that tackle hard issues to establish fairness, justice, and the well-being of employees will be rewarded with a diverse and empowered workforce.
Introduction to Innovation and Entrepreneurship
This course explores the fundamentals of entrepreneurship and innovation and their relationship. Entrepreneurship involves recognizing, crafting, and exploiting opportunities, leading to the creation of new ventures. Innovation, on the other hand, involves managing uncertainty to a point where opportunities can be assessed. Students will be exposed to the issues, problems, and challenges with the integration of innovation management into the entrepreneurial process.
People, Teams, and Organizations
This course offers an exploration of the theory and practice involved in working with people in organizations, from both formal and informal leadership perspectives. The emphasis is on understanding individual (micro) and organizational (macro) factors and the processes through which they influence behaviour, with a view to improving managerial effectiveness. Students have the opportunity to develop and apply this understanding through experiential exercises and case studies situated in real organizations.
Social Innovation Lab
This course places management in its broadest context and helps students from diverse disciplines explore the complex social, economic, ecological, political, and technological forces shaping 21st century leadership in the public, private, and non-profit sectors. The course is characterized by a strong emphasis on teamwork and effective problem-solving in interprofessional environments. The major focus of the course is the SIL group project. Interdisciplinary teams of 4–6 students will spend the semester working on live projects hosted by organizations from across Nova Scotia.
Corporate residency: Year one continues in January with an 8-month paid corporate residencies—extended work terms with leading employers—refining the concepts and skills acquired in the classroom and putting them into practice in a corporate setting. Year One ends with an intensive debriefing of the corporate residencies to harvest the important learnings and celebrate student successes.
Year 2 Fall/Winter: In addition to completing the final four core courses, our curriculum allows students to customize their degree by completing 9–15 credit hours of specialized electives that best suit their personal and professional goals. Designed to take your knowledge to the next level, the Dalhousie MBA program currently offers electives in six specialized areas. Students may choose electives from any of the specialized areas or combine MBA electives with graduate offerings from programs within and outside the Faculty of Management. The official completion of the MBA occurs at the June convocation.
International Business
This course provides a survey treatment of international businesses that will benefit all MBA students and build a foundation for those proposing future study in this area. For students not going on in the field, it provides the tools needed to manage the interdependence between domestic and international markets.
Operations Management
All managers should be familiar with the key concepts and techniques related to the production function of an organization regardless of their areas of responsibility. Operations Management can broadly be defined as the design, operations, and improvement of the systems that create and deliver the firm’s primary products and services. It is therefore a discipline that is critical to the sustainability of all organizations focusing on managerial issues of the operations. The course covers the key concepts and the latest developments in the field.
Strategic Management
This course focuses on the formulation and implementation of strategy. Specific topics include: the management of strategy and organization structure, leadership, organizational culture, and large-scale organizational change. Students are exposed to a wide variety of organizations through case discussions, a case assignment, and a final case examination. In addition, students will have the opportunity to conduct a detailed study of a partner organization through the Make a Difference (MAD) group project.
Management Skills Development
Focused primarily on skill set development, this course provides students with an introduction to the practical application of theory in managing people for success, all within the context of the external and organizational forces that impact management. We will address specific organizational behaviour and general management knowledge requirements for today’s managers and focus on enhancing students' capacity for creative application of that knowledge to achieve success. In particular, the course builds qualitative managerial skills and the ability to reason from both qualitative and quantitative information as a means of integrating knowledge with other MBA courses.
Want to take your MBA experience international? The Corporate Residency Pathway provides students the opportunity to complete their first semester of second year abroad at the Toulouse Business School (TBS) in the south of France or Copenhagen Business School (CBS). Applications for this opportunity take place during the first year of the program.
Professional Development Modules
Threaded through the program, the four Professional Development modules dive into the “human” side of business, focusing on developing skills that separate the good from the great. Through in-class workshops, personal reflections, industry engagement, peer-to-peer discussions, and individual coaching we provide students with the opportunity to become tomorrow’s business leaders.
Corporate Residency
Your career begins just a few short months into the program. By the time you enter your corporate residency, you will have been coached and prepared for this deep immersion into the business world. Over eight months you will accomplish and learn more than is possible in any traditional four-month co-op because a Dalhousie corporate residency isn’t just another summer job, it’s a glimpse into your career.
As one employer aptly said, “In four months you are considered a co-op student. In eight months, we treat you like an employee with all the responsibility that goes with it.”
Our students secure their eight-month paid residencies with employers in the private, not-for-profit, and public service sectors. Most are located in Ontario and Atlantic Canada; however, CRMBA students have completed their residencies in locations across Canada and beyond. In addition to the opportunities generated by Management Career Services employer partners, students have the option to pursue self-developed and entrepreneurial corporate residencies.
Common sectors for the corporate residency include
Financial Services / Banking
Management Consulting
Marketing
Healthcare and Public Sector
Entrepreneurship / Innovation
More
You’ll come back to the classroom for your second year with solid business experience, ready to leverage what you’ve learned during your residency.
Management Career Services (MCS) works closely with the Corporate Residency Pathway to integrate career development into the curriculum. Our team works with you one-on-one to hone your interview and job search skills and connect you with employer partners across Canada for your corporate residency and beyond.
MCS services include:
Résumé and cover letter feedback
Interview preparation
Job search strategy development
Support and coaching throughout the eight-month corporate residency
Corporate tours
Employer information sessions and on-campus recruiting
Networking events
Explore the MCS site and discover the many ways you can benefit from the Management Career Services staff and resources.
I cannot stress enough the importance of the Management Career Services team here at Dalhousie. The personalized coaching provided to me helped me maximize my confidence and develop my resilience when it came to interviewing for positions. Ultimately, they helped me secure multiple offers following graduation.
Barry Liu, Financial Analyst, Nova Scotia Power, Dal MBA 2022
