MBA in Business Development

The Durham MBA is designed to help you transform into a world-class business leader. By choosing to study an MBA at Durham you will have the opportunity to develop your strategic, analytical and critical thinking by applying theoretical concepts to global business situations, as well as enhance your capabilities for leading and managing people.

Personalize your pathway

Our MBA program includes a combination of core modules and specialist pathways, giving you the opportunity to develop your knowledge, skills, and capabilities and specialize in specific areas that are most suited to your own professional needs.

Entrepreneurship Pathway

The Entrepreneurship pathway is designed to provide you with the knowledge, skills, and capability of management and corporate entrepreneurship, including the ability to create your own new business venture. You will also have the opportunity to attend master classes run by industry experts, as well as receive one to one mentoring from experts in the industry.

Consultancy Pathway

This pathway will enable you to build your consultancy capability by critically examining the complexities of managing projects in a business context including planning, monitoring, quality control, and closure. You will explore the intricacies of leadership, culture, change, and motivation of project teams. You will also have the opportunity to work within a company where you can put your knowledge and theory into practice.

Technology Pathway

As the role of technology continues to increase in importance to the world of business, this pathway will enhance your in-depth knowledge of business-analytics techniques and give you a critical insight into technology innovation. On this pathway, you will increase your range of skills to interpret results and the relevance of them for your company. You will also develop the ability to choose appropriate techniques to apply to challenges and fully understand the role of technology as a game-changer in terms of creating new products or markets.

Program Structure

You will study the following core modules

• Accounting and Finance
• Economics for Global Business
• Leading and Managing People
• Marketing
• Operations and Technology
• Strategic Management
• The Boardroom Exercise
• Sustainability, Ethics, and Change
• Strategic Business Project
• International Business in Context.

Pathway-specific modules:

• Management Consultancy
• Project Management

OR

• Entrepreneurship Management and Corporate Entrepreneurship
• New Venture Creation

OR

• Technology Innovation
• Business Analytics.

International Business in Context

As part of your MBA program, you will visit an international business overseas. In addition to attending language classes throughout the year, you will visit leading international companies where you will test and examine academic business approaches in global companies and gain an appreciation of the complex nature of the different dimensions of business. This will help you to appreciate the challenges of global business and also give you the opportunity to apply your new language skills into practice.

Strategic Business Project

Throughout your study, you will source, research and then produce a detailed report on a business project you have undertaken at an organization of your choice. This consultancy exercise will give you the opportunity to analyze and evaluate tangible business issues and apply the knowledge you have acquired in the classroom.

The Boardroom Exercise

Each pathway also benefits from Boardroom activity, which is one of the most challenging but rewarding aspects of our MBA. The module is a real-life simulation of a boardroom and will give you the opportunity to apply the concepts and theories learned during the core modules to a real board-level management team in an international organization. This will allow you to enhance your analytical, critical thinking and strategic management skills and will also give you the opportunity to network with a number of different business professionals to develop key business relationships.

Business Development or Internship

When you study via the 15-month route, you then have the choice to either explore a new industry/role or accelerate your career through an internship or concentrate on business development for setting up your own business.