SSE MBA Executive Format

Welcome to SSE MBA Executive Format

This is an Executive MBA from Sweden, one of the most innovative countries in the world. A program for people with a passion for business development and an aim to lead in international organizations.

Challenge yourself with our 18-month long Executive MBA, delivered part-time, with sustainability integrated throughout the whole program! The program is given in English on three continents and you build a diverse and international network of business leaders to leverage for future opportunities and challenges. The program prepares you for your next step and to build, lead and develop organizations in the global arena. If you are motivated and ready to commit yourself – do it!

This is our MBA

When it comes to choosing an Executive MBA, there is a lot to be taken into consideration. The content of the program, its reputation, the potential network you'll gain, but also the location and setting of the school. Here we are proud to offer you Stockholm, a city in motion filled with opportunities, and a leading innovation and tech hub. "With the arsenal of skills that I have learned through the SSE MBA program, I now feel fully equipped for the types of challenges that arise in my new role in a way I wasn’t prior to undertaking the MBA. The theoretical learnings applied in real-time in live projects proved to be a great combination that both accelerated and crystallized my learnings and applications. I never expected to be doing what I am doing now, nor did I expect the SSE MBA to prove so valuable.” Jonathan Leishman, Australia Investment Manager at Leishman Trusts and Family Office, Director at Bridj Technology, Co-Founder at Barns Lane Farm

Sweden is the birthplace of well-established global companies like IKEA, Ericsson, Volvo, and H&M, with its capital being home to more recent global giants born from the digital revolution, such as Skype, Spotify, Mojang, and King. These companies didn’t reach greatness by mimicking giants from the past, but by being informal and fast, by imagining the future and turning the courage to be different into products that truly changed the world.

Our MBA will help you grow into broader responsibilities more efficiently, sharpen your analytical skills, increase your financial understanding and prepare you for the global business world. You will create new skillsets, gain stronger confidence and build valuable networks without putting your career on hold. But above all, you will grow and develop as a person and as a leader.

In the latest FT ranking of Executive MBA programs, we are now ranked as number 60 in the world! It shows that our alumni have had an average salary increase of 52 % after the program and we are at rank 26 for work experience, 38 for CSR and Sustainability, and with 40% women we are among the top 15 in the world for gender balance. Furthermore, our courses in Accounting and Finance are both at rank 8 among over 100 Executive MBA programs in the world, when ranked by alumni.

Program Description

The program consists of theme modules with a collection of courses connected to each theme. Through our many alternative elective courses, you also have the possibility to personalize your learning journey. Throughout the length of the program, you also follow a personalized Leadership program. Ten intensive campus weeks (full weeks Monday to Friday) are held over 18 months, with digital content and studies in between. Full attendance during campus weeks is mandatory. Below you find the different theme modules.

Learning Foundation

The goal of the Learning Foundation module is to create an effective learning environment and to put every participant in a position to make the most of their MBA program.

Financial Foundation

This module provides participants with efficient tools to evaluate business performance and the interactions of businesses and financial markets. You will get a solid understanding of financial reporting and how to use financial reports to analyze a company's profitability, financial position, and liquidity. You will learn how to employ managerial accounting methods and techniques to make better management decisions. You will study global asset markets and learn how stocks and bonds are priced the relation between risk and return, and the role of financial intermediaries. Building on that, you will examine how corporations are financed, and investigate the advantages of the main types of funding. The Financial Foundation Module includes the courses Understanding and Managing the Business – Financial reporting, Analysis and Control, and Business Finance.

The Business Context

Organizations are not isolated islands. They operate in a global society shaped by norms and assumptions. They are embedded in a context of laws, rules, regulations, standards, cultures, traditions, and ideologies. To develop an organization, managers need to understand, interpret, and handle relationships with customers, suppliers, employees, and competitors as well as a multitude of other local and international stakeholders. The Business Context Module includes the courses Business Law for the International Manager, Economics, and Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainable Business.

Value Creation

The ultimate reason for engaging in organized activities is to produce stakeholder value. In this module, we take a multi-disciplinary approach where we focus on five pillars to a firm's value creation: management, strategy, operations, marketing, and innovation. The management pillar emphasizes the overall management and organization of your business; the strategy pillar addresses the overall choice of what a business should be concerned with; the operations pillar focuses on how resources are transformed in an effective way; the marketing pillar addresses the relationship to the market, customers and users; while the innovation pillar puts the light on the continued need to develop the business offering. The focus of the Value Creation module is to equip the participants with the tools and methods for driving their businesses forward. The overarching question addressed in the module is how organizations are to align their internal resources with the demands from the external environment. This module includes the courses: Managing the Organization, Strategic Management, Operations Strategy, Marketing Strategy, and Business Innovation.

Elective courses

The elective courses of the program give you the opportunity to personalize your learning journey to your specific interests. The program has two elective periods. One at an SSE campus in Stockholm, Latvia, or Russia, and one at a partner school within the Global Network for Advanced Management (GNAM).

Leadership Challenges

Managers experience various challenges throughout their careers, such as driving change and implementing strategies in the organization, communicating with target audiences, and keeping on top of new methods for business data collection, analysis, and developing predictive models. In this module, you will learn and use different management strategies, processes, and tools which can help you manage these challenges. The Leadership Challenges module consists of shorter courses on subjects such as Change Management, Business Analytics, Strategy Implementation, Communication, and Crisis Management.

Leading Global Business

In this module, the focus lies on the global economy and the knowledge and skills needed for managing the business in the global arena. The module will take us out in the world during our field trips to Riga, Asia, and the U.S. The module covers topics from our general management foundation, but with an international perspective: International Economics, Management, Marketing and Finance, Global Operations and Supply Chains, Emerging Markets, Cross-Cultural Leadership, and fast-tracking your international career. As an integrated part of the program, this module consists of two to three international field trips. This means we bring the classroom into new environments and contexts to enhance your learning. For us, a fundamental part of this education is the value of perspectives. Visiting different regions and markets and applying theories and models in a variety of contexts is an essential part of learning. Our program weeks in other locations combine lectures and company visits, and we visit other business schools and/or universities.

LeadershipLive Program

The LeadershipLive program focuses on empowering you to realize your full potential personally, professionally, and as a global leader. It is designed to be a comprehensive cornerstone of your development, which has multiple touchpoints and runs throughout the entire 18 months of the SSE MBA. The goal is to support your development as a global leader able to reflect and create impactful change at the organizational, team, and individual levels.

Learning Philosophy

"They have a great variety of teaching styles, great teachers, lectures, and casework. The live projects we work with are based on real-life experiences where we for example used my company for one of them.”

Ane Nordahl Carlsen, SSE MBA class of 2018

Our learning philosophy follows the educational aim of the Stockholm School of Economics, which declares that a successful decision-maker will approach the world with curiosity and confidence and who, as the philosopher, Ingemar Hedenius said: “is free and alive in relation to the unknown". SSE has formulated its overarching educational aims through the acronym FREE, which summarizes the key outcomes expected for our students, whom by the end of the program will:

Have a Fact and science-based mindset

​"​​​​​We are fundamentally a scientific institution, and facts are the basis for all critical and analytical thinking. An SSE graduate will make decisions based on facts and have the ability to differentiate between types of knowledge. This ability becomes particularly important in a world of alternative facts, "fake news" and filter bubbles.​"

Be Reflective and self-aware

"​​​​​The future will require more reflection and self-knowledge. SSE-trained individuals will be able to contemplate what role they play in the world, understand the impact they have on others, evaluate their personal preferences, and be aware of how their choices are determined.​"

Be Empathetic and culturally literate

"​​We are convinced that an empathetic person becomes a better leader and decision-maker; thus we hope our students will be able to consider the perspective of others fully. Cultural literacy is also critical. To interact with someone from another background, expertise, or profession than one's own is a prerequisite for the future."

Be Entrepreneurial and responsible

"​​Students who graduated from SSE will have an entrepreneurial and creative approach to the world. They will strive to create change in a responsible manner. They should not accept the status quo but seek improvement for society and the world at large."

Our Learning Approach

The SSE MBA program employs a multifaceted learning approach, in which pedagogical tools vary depending on the subject area and type of challenge. The four educational aims (FREE) are supported by the pedagogical backbone of SSE: dedicated faculty, practice orientation, and problem-driven learning.

Theoretical

The SSE MBA Executive Format is an academic program based on research to improve your analytical capabilities. Our faculty consists of active researchers, all well recognized in their areas of expertise.

Practical and applicable - MBALive®

Our MBA focuses on making research-driven theoretical frameworks applicable to real managerial issues and solutions. The program brings hands-on action and real-world experiences to the classroom through cases, live projects, and the experiences of the participants. To get the most out of the process of using the models and implementing what you learn, we have developed a special pedagogy - MBALive®, which brings the real world to the program and the program to the real world.

The MBALive® pedagogy aims at developing an understanding of the complexity and dynamics of organizations. In this part of the program, you integrate and apply theoretical frameworks from the MBA courses to live management issues and cases in real companies. The MBALive® takes different forms, corresponding to the learning philosophy of the program. It encourages you to think, do, and reflect in different ways. You learn together with other participants, SSE faculty, and case sponsors, and develop feasible recommendations for action and real change. All modules and most courses, in the program, use the MBALive® pedagogy, so you do not have to wait until after graduation to bring your newly acquired knowledge and skills into the real world.

Reflective

Reflection is one of the central pedagogical tools employed in our program and aims at shaping a mental and social space where meaning can be created, and learning takes place. Thus, there will be ample time spent on reflective exercises.

Leadership-focused

You will be given many opportunities to develop your personal leadership style through our LeadershipLive program but also through skills training in areas such as cross-cultural management, communication, team effectiveness, collaboration, etc.

Learning Methodology

Faculty will introduce their courses and readings, as well as digital module material and exercises during off-campus periods. These preparations guarantee a high level of interaction during Campus weeks, which are filled with high-quality learning experiences such as case discussions, interactive lectures, group exercises, guest speakers, company visits, etc.

Stockholm School of Economics

The Stockholm School of Economics is an academic hub for ambitious students and researchers from all over the world. By working closely with corporate partners and society at large, SSE has been creating opportunities for its graduates for over 100 years.

A unique business school

We are one of Europe's leading business schools, with a unique business-community network. Our research is internationally recognized and many of our researchers are among the leading figures in their respective fields.

History

The Stockholm School of Economics opened its doors to its first students 110 years ago, in 1909.

Sweden needs a business school

The decades around the turn of the nineteenth century were years of rapid industrial expansion in Sweden, which in turn led to a need for trained managers and staff. Leading figures within the Swedish industry and commerce recognized that such individuals would require specialized education in business practices and theories. These industry leaders (K.A. Wallenberg, Olof A. Söderberg, and Joseph Nachmanson among others) rallied the businessmen and executives of Stockholm, and in 1906 they formed the Stockholm School of Economics Association, an organization with the sole purpose of making the dream of a Swedish business school a reality.

Three years later (in 1909), thanks to the support of the City of Stockholm, government funding and donations from private endowments, the Stockholm School of Economics opened its doors for the first time. Admitting 110 students, the initial curriculum ran for two years and covered economics, commerce, and a combination of political sciences and law.

Decades of growth

The Stockholm School of Economics started its journey at Brunkebergstorg in central Stockholm, situated in a commercial building known as Brunkebergs hotel. Leasing the entire third floor of the hotel, teaching continued at the premises for nearly two decades. In time, however, SSE outgrew these premises and commissioned Swedish architect Ivar Tengbom with designing the new facilities. In 1926, the School inaugurated these new quarters located at Sveavägen 65, the address of our main building to this day. Generous donations over the years have given SSE the opportunity to expand on Tengbom’s design, and the original construction is flanked by newer buildings, and several additional premises are located nearby.

The following decades were an exciting period of growth for SSE. In 1929, only a few years after the move to Sveavägen, the School founded its first research institute. Aptly named the Economic Research Institute, it was founded with the mission of conducting leading research within the fields of economics and commerce. Other institutes would soon follow, including IFL (Institutet för Företagsledning). Originally only partly affiliated with SSE, IFL provided education programs in business, management, and leadership. Following their success, IFL would ultimately become associated solely with the School.

Internationalization and innovation

Following the success on a national level, there was an ambition to establish SSE as a leading business school on a global scale. In 1991 the School joined CEMS, the Global Alliance in Management Education, a symbol of quality within the world of management education. Just a few years later, in 1999, SSE secured the EQUIS accreditation, further proving that all programs and research have demonstrated excellence at an international level.

2007 saw a significant change for universities across all of Europe following the Bologna Process agreement, a unified standard of quality and comparability across all of Europe. SSE’s program structure was replaced by the Bachelor and Master programs we are accustomed to today. One year following this shift, SSE expanded the program portfolio by taking over a retail-focused program from Detaljhögskolan I Norrtälje. Renamed the BSc Program in Retail Management, the program is entirely funded by the retail industry, making it unique in the Swedish academic landscape.

While greater internationalization was (and remains) a major focus for the School, so is innovation. The SSE Business Lab, a start-up incubator linking promising student and alumni start-ups with industry experts, was launched already in 2001. Supporting an idea from conception to implementation, the SSE Business Lab has helped launch a wide range of successful companies through the years.

The first century and beyond

A year of celebrating an accomplished past and a promising future, 2009 marked the 100th anniversary for SSE. With expectations set high, the following decade would continue to push the School toward new heights. In 2011, SSE engaged in a joint venture with Institute for Financial Research. The result was the Swedish House of Finance, a national research center with the goal to strengthen financial research in Sweden.

2015 was an incredibly eventful year for SSE and saw the launch of multiple exciting projects. MISUM (Mistra Center for Sustainable Markets), a cross-disciplinary research center focused on finding sustainable business solutions, was launched in order to educate and prepare students for managing some of our time's most pressing challenges. One of their ventures, the Global Challenges Track, represents the School’s effort to incorporate that sustainability mindset into the traditional curriculum.

Continuing this eventful year, it also brought the launch of the SSE Art Initiative. Reflecting the School’s belief that art can help us improve critical thinking and self-reflection, the SSE Art Initiative acknowledges art as a legitimate knowledge base, with the potential to make both SSE and society at large more knowledge-intensive.

These last few years have been equally lively, with some particularly exciting changes to the BSc Program in Retail Management. As of 2015, the program left its old campus in Norrtälje to join the main SSE Campus in Stockholm, finally unifying all the programs under one roof. Just three years later, the BSc Program in Retail Management took another exciting step, becoming the first program to be taught fully in English. Finally, SSE’s most recent achievement is the launch of a new research house, the House of Innovation. This interdisciplinary research and education environment focuses on innovation, entrepreneurship, and digitalization, and will strive to push the boundaries of modern research.

Mission and Vision

The activities of the Stockholm School of Economics rest upon a clear mission and vision.

Mission

Strengthen Sweden’s Competitiveness Through Research and Science-Based Education.

Vision

A World-Class International Business School Based in Sweden.

Educational Mission - FREE

SSE’s overarching educational aims take as their point of departure that a successful decision-maker of the future will approach the world with curiosity and confidence and who, as the philosopher, Ingemar Hedenius said: “is free and alive in relation to the unknown”. That decision-maker may well be outperformed cognitively by artificial intelligence, robots, or machines. But the core competence of humans is to be human, and SSE’s educational aims take this ad notam. A successful decision-maker in the future will maximize the potential of being human. Hence, SSE has formulated its overarching educational aims through the acronym FREE. It stands for:

• Fact and Science-based Mindset

We are fundamentally a scientific institution, and facts are the basis for all critical and analytical thinking. An SSE graduate will make decisions based on facts and have the ability to differentiate between types of knowledge. This ability becomes particularly important in a world of alternative facts, "fake news" and filter bubbles.

• Reflective and Self Aware

The future will require more reflection and self-knowledge. SSE-trained individuals will be able to contemplate what role they play in the world, understand the impact they have on others, evaluate their personal preferences, and be aware of how their choices are determined.

• Empathetic and Culturally Literate

Empathy and cultural sensitivity are so far, something that artificial intelligence cannot accomplish. We are convinced that an empathetic person becomes a better leader and decision-maker; thus we hope our students will be able to consider the perspective of others fully. Cultural literacy is also critical. To interact with someone from another background, expertise, or profession other than one's own is a prerequisite for the future.

• Entrepreneurial and Responsible

Students who graduated from SSE will have an entrepreneurial and creative approach to the world. They will strive to create change in a responsible manner. They should not accept the status quo but seek improvement for society and the world at large.

SSE accredited by EQUIS

Since 1999, SSE has been accredited by the European Quality Improvement System (EQUIS), which means that all activities – all programs and research – have demonstrated excellence at an international level.

EQUIS is an international system for quality assurance of higher education in business, aiming to raise the standard of management education worldwide. EQUIS is governed by the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD), which is an independent not-for-profit network organization open to companies as well as universities. The Stockholm School of Economics was one of the founders of EFMD.

An EQUIS accreditation applies to an entire school, not only individual programs. Around 100 different quality indicators are reviewed in the EQUIS accreditation process. One such indicator, which weighs heavily in accreditation decisions, is internationalization -- specifically, how far the school has advanced in the process of internationalization. Other important factors are an extensive collaboration with the business world, outstanding research activities, and being at the forefront within the areas of ethics, responsibility, and sustainability.

Because EQUIS accreditation is an internationally recognized and respected seal of quality, our objective is for the Stockholm School of Economics to become even more attractive to students, postdoctoral researchers, and faculty through this accreditation. Accreditation involves a business school's operations being periodically scrutinized in a systematic manner, so EQUIS is also a vital tool for the Stockholm School of Economics’ ongoing quality-control efforts.