Sustainable Global Enterprise (SGE) Immersion
The SGE immersion provides both first and second year residential MBA students a unique opportunity to develop a practical understanding of sustainability issues in the context of business, as well as how to deploy strategic business decision-making in the context of sustainability as a driver of business growth and innovation. As climate change, social and environmental justice, and environmental degradation threaten the foundations of economies around the world, sustainability literacy is fast becoming a critical must-have skill from the c-suite to the factory floor.
Career Paths
The SGE immersion focuses on the development of the skills research has shown are the most important for managerial career success — critical thinking, problem-solving, collaboration, and creativity — by focusing on understanding and addressing the social and environmental business problems affecting all industries and functions.
Curriculum Details
The immersion includes a combination of experiential courses rooted in strategic management that are designed to help students develop and practice key leadership skills — Learn, Engage, Articulate, and Develop (LEAD) — in order to prepare them to influence others to achieve organizational success. Students put their coursework into action by working in multidisciplinary teams with graduate students from across Cornell on a client-facing project consisting of a strategic sustainability-related issue facing a real organization.
A sample of coursework includes:
Strategies for Sustainability
- Students develop an understanding of the role the private sector can play in addressing key sustainability issues that impact competitiveness and profitability.
- Features a combination of cases, readings, lectures, and videos to engage students in discussions to master new frameworks and tools that help make sense of the complexity of sustainability and its role in business strategy.
- Students study industry best practices and gain a thorough understanding of how firms develop programs that fit their capabilities, resources, and cultures.
Sustainable Global Enterprise Practicum Projects
- Students work with real companies on projects that address strategic sustainability issues.
- Enables students to combine concepts and frameworks learned in marketing, economics, finance, operations, data analytics, and other courses and apply them in an integrated way that mirrors how managers solve real-world complex and ambiguous problems in the marketplace.
- Involves working with graduate students in other programs from across Cornell to help refine teamwork and collaboration skills.
- Students leverage Cornell networks to develop subject matter expertise on cutting-edge business issues.
Sustainable Global Enterprise in Practice
- Leverages a combination of readings, activities, simulations, and other interactive mechanisms that help students gain insight into how to identify and define complex business issues, rigorously collect and analyze data related to sustainability and business, and develop and recommend strategies and solutions for companies to address sustainability challenges.
- Features practitioners who share knowledge and experience for influencing others to use sustainability as a catalyst for business growth and innovation.