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Curriculum reform. Next September, Mannheim Business School will introduce a new graduate management program. Under the theme “as unique as you are,” the one-year, English-language program offers several options. Students can elect to complete the program in Mannheim, include a three-month stay at a North American or Asian partner institution (including, for example, Chinese European International Business School and Thunderbird School of Global Management in Arizona), or complete two terms at top European business schools. In addition to the geographic options, electives help students structure a personalized program based on their career goals. The program’s capstone is a three-month team project at a global company.
Report Card on Innovation. A new study from the Center for Business Innovation and Creativity in the College of Business at Kennesaw State University assesses the state of innovation in U.S. companies. Separating companies into the “innovation driven” and the “innovation shy,” based on their stated goals, the study found that there is a significant gap in investment in innovation between the two types of companies. The top three obstacles to corporate innovation: fear of risk taking, resistance to change, and lack of time. Innovation-related initiatives tend to originate within a company's marketing, information technology, or sales departments, the study found, but half of senior executives say their companies don't provide much support or reward for innovative ideas. More than half of those interviewed believe that recent business school graduates lag in their ability to be innovative. (A 2006 survey from the Center suggested that business schools are not doing an effective job of teaching students about innovation, finding that less than 30 percent of graduate business schools had even a basic two-hour module in the field of innovation; less than 10 percent had a full-time course.)
Competitions update. Columbia Business School won first prize in the University of Maryland's first Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) Competition, held October 11–12 at the university’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. The event challenged student teams to create and deliver M&A pitches to a panel of executives from Credit Suisse, Lehman Brothers, and other Wall Street firms. Students from the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business took second prize and students from the Simon Graduate School of Business at the University of Rochester won third prize. Meanwhile, another team of students from the Simon School won the 6th annual national Entrepreneurship & Innovation competition, held at Babson College in mid-October. The winning entry was a business plan for a national chain of specialized autism education centers.
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