Executive MBA
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The world of business is changing fast. DCU’s Executive MBA has evolved to meet these changes – giving you what it takes to lead and succeed. Developed by our award-winning Business School, our MBA gives you the edge in key areas like Leadership, Innovation, Strategy and Sustainability. Our Executive MBA has now been redesigned in close collaboration with Industry leaders to meet the demands of the future world of work. Our EMBA graduates are confident business leaders, with the skills and tools to achieve success in any context.
The DCU Executive MBA is a 2 year part time programme, delivered in a blended format with approximately two thirds of lectures taking place face to face at DCU. Lectures are held on Thursdays from 2pm to 9pm during each of the four 12 week semesters, with typically 3 additional Saturday sessions per semester.
The DCU Executive MBA Programme is AMBA accredited and is designed to be a professionally and personally transformative experience for participants.
Find out more: business.dcu.ie/course/executive-mba/
The DCU MBA classes was hugely stimulating with a great combination of academic principle and practical reality. Unlike so many other programmes, we were pushed to try out our newly learned skills in our working lives, which has truly been rewarding
Since its inception over 30 years ago, the DCU Executive MBA has evolved through repeated reviews of the curriculum – most recently in 2023 – to align the content of our programme with the ever-changing needs of executives. While the content and delivery of the programme has been continually updated, the philosophy that makes this programme unique has remained consistent over time.
Our MBA experience challenges both participants to achieve both personal and professional growth, and to build durable skills and mindsets that will sustain them in their personal and professional lives long after graduation.
| Enhanced self-awareness and personal agility – values, ethics and career in context of life goals and journey to date | |
| Professional Knowledge | How understanding of subjects such as economics, finance, technology, HR, data analytics, and accounting can be applied in an integrated way to solve complex workplace problems |
| Durable Skills | Interpersonal communication, teamwork, change management, negotiation, conflict management, building and maintaining positive relationships, networking |
| Mindsets | Leadership, strategic, sustainable, global, growth, digital, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, innovative, entrepreneurial |
Examples Of Core Modules
- Sustainability and Strategic Consultancy Project:
Complex challenges such as the global pandemic, climate change and geopolitical conflicts have left organisations operating in an uncharted world. The DCU EMBA enables participants to integrate sustainability as integral part of doing business.
The main objectives of this modules are as follows:
- Equip participants with an in-depth understanding and appreciation of managing sustainable businesses.
- Provide participants with deep insights into the expectations, opportunities and risks associated with sustainability initiatives.
- Explore various approaches to initiating, designing, evaluating and communicating sustainability strategies.
Strategic Consultancy Project
You will collaborate with a client organisation/your employer on a sustainability-focused strategic project
- Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Disruptive Technologies
Innovation is a key driver of commercial and social progress. However failure is more common than success in innovation projects and this module has been designed to help you lead successful innovation projects, either as entirely new ventures (entrepreneurship) or via corporate innovation programmes (intrapreneurship).
You will learn how to apply tools and frameworks like design thinking, disruptive innovation, open innovation, business model innovation, blue ocean strategy as well as the fundamentals of entrepreneurship. This module includes case studies, simulations, guest speakers, and site visits and will provide you with valuable insights about innovation and entrepreneurship.
- Personal and Ethical Leadership
This module runs over the full two years of the programme and guides students through an exploration of their personal values, character and skills, with an assessment of the implications for their career and non-work life. This results in demonstrable personal development of the student in terms of self-awareness, leadership and ethical behaviour. Module workshops support this journey as well as addressing important skills including team development, critical thinking, coaching, negotiation and presenting with impact.
- Strategy Formulation and Execution
The era of sustainable competitive advantage is over. Understanding of strategy needs to evolve from legacy ideas of plans and positions towards agility, capability and co-opetition. The first strategy MBA module will dedicate time to the neglected process of strategy formation. Grounded by a contemporary appreciation of the meaning of strategy and focused on generating and embedding strategy conversations topics covered include: decision making heuristics, open strategy, failure, and the purpose of purpose. Students of strategy will gain exposure to a range of tools and frameworks with immediate relevance and applicability to their own individual and organisational contexts.
- Analytics and Business Intelligence
This module is designed to give students an insight into the tools and techniques used in Business Analytics and Business Intelligence to enable organisations use data to make better decisions. Upon completion, students will understand the value of a Business Intelligence strategy for today’s organisations as well as the challenges that must be overcome to implement such a strategy. They will also be familiar with a range of analytic techniques and the pros and cons of each, as well as the key business analysis software options available to support strategy implementation.
View the current course structure
The DCU Executive MBA is a 2 year part time programme, delivered in a blended format with approximately two thirds of lectures taking place face to face at DCU. Lectures are held on Thursdays from 2pm to 9pm during each of the four 12 week semesters, with typically 3 additional Saturday sessions per semester.
Programme Attributes
- International Exposure
Participants will broaden their perspective on global organisations on a week long International Study Week, based at a University abroad and visiting local organisations.
In recent years, EMBA participants have attended lectures on leadership, global strategy, innovation and performance management in universities across Hong Kong, San Francisco, Silicon Valley and Boston. Participants had the opportunity to meet with start-ups, incubators, multi-national organisations, financial institutions focused on innovation, entrepreneurship and leadership.
- Applied Strategic Consultancy Project
MBA participants will conduct a strategic consultancy project and other applied real world industry projects. This enables you to integrate your knowledge, skills and values of the programme and deliver return on investment for your employers and clients.
- Small Class Sizes
We believe that an interactive and participative learning environment is best achieved in small classes enabling rigorous discussion which offers you an opportunity to draw on the rich experience of your peers.
- Academically Rigorous
You will learn from academic experts, who are leaders in their field, with many publishing in top international journals and presenting at international conferences.
Their teaching draws on their continuing research and insights gained from their work with organisations in Ireland and overseas. Our research emphasises both the creation and application of knowledge to improve management practice and teaching.
- Alumni Network
DCU has over 90,000 alumni worldwide, located in all corners of the globe, who are transforming lives and societies through cutting edge research and strategic evidence based leadership.
The EMBA alumni community is a well connected network participating on industry advisory boards, research projects, alumni events and providing mentorship to their peers.
Scholarships
Please click on the following link to view details on available scholarships for this programme.
Click here to view information from our graduates & programme news
Find out more here: business.dcu.ie/course/executive-mba/
The DCU MBA classes was hugely stimulating with a great combination of academic principle and practical reality. Unlike so many other programmes, we were pushed to try out our newly learned skills in our working lives, which has truly been rewarding
Career Impact
At DCU Business School, we believe that the MBA should be about much more than just acquiring some useful extra tools for the management toolkit. It should also be a transformative experience at the personal level. Our value proposition is that our MBA is an educational experience that is both professionally and personally transformative, aimed at developing business leaders with the ambition and enterprise to help create a better, more sustainable world and featuring leading edge thinking with tangible application.
Graduates of our programme talk about how they have grown in confidence, how their own self-awareness as leaders has deepened, and how their perspective on business management has been raised to a more strategic level.
Our graduates tell us that these ‘personal growth’ effects of the MBA become very apparent back in their workplaces, in terms of the issues to which they are invited to contribute, the roles they are asked to take on, and in how they are perceived as future leaders.
DCU Executive MBA alumni include:
Grace O’Shaughnessy, Managing Director of Java Republic
Moyagh Murdock, CEO of Insurance Ireland
Albert Manifold, CEO of CRH plc
Gillian Fanning, President of the Society of the Irish Motor Industry
Emma Hynes, CFO of Greencore
Katarina Antill, Founder and CEO of Bonafi
Requirements
For admission to the Executive MBA candidates must hold:
• A 2:1 Honours degree in a relevant discipline, or equivalent professional qualification
AND
• At least 3 years’ relevant managerial experience
• Applicants who have achieved a 2.2 Honours degree (and meet the experience requirement) may, based on the Programme Chair's recommendation, still be offered a place. This will depend on availability of places and on obtaining high grades in relevant modules on their undergraduate programme.
• Additionally, applicants who do not meet the academic requirements outlined above may be eligible for an offer of a place based on at least 7 years’ relevant managerial/organisational experience based on DCU's Recognition of Prior Learning Policy. The process for approving such an offer involves an application and an interview with the Programme Chair and approval by the School's Teaching & Learning Committee. The number of such places is limited in any given year so it is recommended that applicants considering this option apply early.
As part of the application process applicants may be called for interview.