Business Administration; Sustainable Social Impact, M.B.A.

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Program Overview

The Sustainable Social Impact Master in Business Administration (SSI-MBA) is an 12/18-month lockstep cohort program completed in three to four consecutive semesters (including summer sessions) to earn 30 credits to graduate. 

The Sustainable Social Impact MBA is designed for students passionate about achieving the quadruple bottom line in business: People, Planet, and Profit, guided by Purpose.

Open to business and non-business majors alike, this MBA program incorporates team projects and adaptable learning activities and culminates in a multidimensional capstone project designed to bridge your academic experience to your future career. Internships, service-learning, and study abroad opportunities are also available.

Students are guided by scholar-practitioners with practical experience as managers, consultants, and researchers across a wide array of innovative fields such as sustainability, global strategy, information technology, and social entrepreneurism.

More than 20 micro-credentials and e-badges may also be earned throughout the duration of the MBA program, providing graduates with additional valuable tools can add value, whether interviewing with future employers or demonstrating their expertise to potential future clients.

Students also have the option to choose between the following four specializations:

• Sustainability
• Nonprofit Management
• Management Consulting
• Diversity, Equity, and Belonging

Graduates of the Sustainable Social Impact MBA program will be capable of advancing people-centered approaches to improving the conditions of individuals and society through leadership and organizational development in the for-profit, nonprofit, and government sectors.

Students will prepare to advance their careers as leaders, managers, and entrepreneurs while exploring leadership and management through an interdisciplinary lens, including the following areas of focus:

• Accounting, finance, and data analytics
• Leadership and organizational behavior
• Economics and global business
• Human resources management
• Training, development, and knowledge management
• Organizational systems analysis
• Technology, information systems, communications, and marketing

Target Audience

Sustainable Social Impact MBA offers advanced professional studies in person centered, systems oriented, sustainability driven business strategies, operations, and research to equip socially conscious leaders for the changing world.  Students will focus on knowledge areas and skills to achieve the quadruple bottom line:  People, Purpose, Profit, and Planet.

We aspire to innovate on the traditional models of “business administration” to one of “business aspirational” program at the master’s level.

Career Outcomes

Following the completion of this degree program, graduates will possess the following skills necessary to be effective within this professional field.

1. Determine and align the core values of the organization or community, stakeholders to the humanistic principles including promotion of human dignity, wholeness, comprehensive knowledge, transcendence, common good, and stewardship-sustainability.
2. Recognize the process complexity involving meeting the interests of community, stakeholders and to negotiate a common set of goals the meets the needs and desire of stakeholder groups.
3. Assess how the core values of the organization is being practiced through the actions and behaviors of its leadership and staff.
4. Analyze internally and externally sourced information to develop innovative and responsive business strategies that aims to achieve positive financial, social, and environmental outcomes.
5. Develop collaborative business analysis and action plans with colleagues, subordinates, superiors, and other stakeholders using appropriate on-ground as well as on-line technologies.
6. Demonstrate transformational potential by seeking awareness of one’s own value system, leadership-managerial style supported by holistic knowledge, competencies, and skills.
7. Reflect on the intersectionality of power and privilege as the basis for development of the personal leadership philosophy
8. Create, lead, and participate in effective teams to achieve organizational goals amidst conflicting values and priorities
9. Maximize organizational outcomes and community outcomes through diversity, engagement, and creativity given the available people, process, and technology
10. Using information literacy skills, gather information from multiple sources, disciplines, and work activities, and evaluate the credibility and relevance of selected information
11. Apply relevant information using cross disciplinary perspectives to solve business problems and achieve business goals
12. Use professional experience, interpersonal competencies, and business tools to diagnose opportunities and problems, and propose and implement sustainable action plans

Distinctive Features

For our graduates to achieve such a range of essential qualities, the SSI-MBA incorporates distinctive approaches that, taken together, support the professional results today’s organizational careers demand.

Practitioner-Scholar Instructors: Courses are led by professionals with both practical organizational experience and an understanding of innovative management approaches.

Adaptable Learning Processes and Activities: Students pursue professional areas of interest within assigned learning activities to explore issues and challenges they face on the job. 

Your Workplace as Your Classroom: Each course helps students treat the workplace as a learning laboratory, and equips them to daily observe their organization and workplace operations for increased critical analysis and action on the job.  

Team Projects:  Team assignments are used strategically to enable students to critically explore the issues and challenges related to managing at a distance and across cultures, to develop core abilities to enable others to work in a telework environment, and to expand skills in leading virtual teams.

Multi-Dimensional Leader-Manager Development Model:  The SSI-MBA program uses its own contemporary management model so professionals expand their competencies across three critically-connected areas: Innovation Leadership, Collaborative Management, and Socially Responsive Entrepreneurship. This Leader-Manager Development Approach prepares professionals to increase their effectiveness in their current organizational roles even while they are in graduate school.

Capstone Project:  Each of the three components of the culminating capstone develops and demonstrates learning and knowledge in product forms with utility for a variety of the student’s professional goals and career advancement: (1) Global Management Perspective, (2) Organizational Case Study Analysis, and (3) Professional Skillset Portfolio and Career Plan.

Program Learning Outcomes

Outcome One: Ethics and Values as the Foundation of Effective and Sustainable Business Practices

1.1 Demonstrate and align the core values of the business leader and clientele/stakeholder to the humanistic principles including promotion of human dignity, wholeness, comprehensive knowledge, transcendence, common good, and stewardship-sustainability.

1.2 Analyze the process complexity involving meeting the interests of diverse stakeholders and to negotiate a common set of inclusive and equitable goals the meets the needs and desire of stakeholder groups.

1.3 Analyze how the core values of the organizational and community is being practiced through the actions and behaviors of its leadership and staff.

Program Outcome Two: Holistic and Transformational Interpersonal Competency

2.1. Analyze internally and externally sourced information to develop business strategies that aims to achieve positive financial, social, and environmental outcomes.

2.2. Develop collaborative business analysis and action plans with colleagues, subordinates, superiors, and other stakeholders using appropriate on-ground as well as on-line technologies.

2.3. Demonstrate short and long-term transformational potential by seeking awareness of one’s own value system, leadership-managerial style supported by holistic knowledge, competencies, and skills.

Program Outcome Three: Transformational Leadership

3.1 Reflect on the intersectionality of power and privilege as the basis for development of the personal leadership philosophy

3.2 Create, lead, and participate in effective teams to achieve organizational and community goals amidst conflicting values and priorities

3.3 Maximize organizational performance and community outcomes through diversity, engagement, and creativity given the available people, process, and technology

Program Outcome Four: Critical Thinking and Solution Making

4.1 Using information literacy skills, gather information from multiple sources, disciplines, and work activities, and evaluate the credibility and relevance of selected information

4.2. Apply relevant information using cross disciplinary perspectives to solve business problems and achieve business goals

4.3 Use professional experience, interpersonal competencies, and business tools to diagnose opportunities and problems, and propose and implement action plans

Degree Program Policies

Transfer Credit Policy: Up to 9 graduate semester credits may be transferred if they are (a) awarded by a regionally accredited university, (b) earned at the grade level of B or better and (c) evaluated by the Department Chair as equivalent to an MBA course for which a substitution is appropriate.

Program Requirements

Residential Requirements: There are no residential requirements, however students are required to attend scheduled synchronous “live” sessions via video conference platforms as part of the participation requirements for the SSI-MBA program courses, seminars, and meetings.

Course Requirements:  The 10 courses are taken in a prescribed sequence. All courses are 3 credits, except for the capstone course which taken 1 credit per semester and students must take a minimum of 3 credits of the capstone as part of the 30 total credits required to graduate.  Coursework must be evaluated as equivalent to B or better at the graduate level to earn credit. 

Course Participation: Satisfactory “class attendance” in online courses requires students to log into the University’s online course site multiple times during the week to participate in discussions and other learning activities. Course syllabi indicate their specific participation requirements.

Semester and Course sequence.  The prescribed sequence for Sustainable Social Impact Master in Business Administration with its four specializations is as follows.

Admission Requirements

A bachelor’s degree from a regionally accredited institution, a nationally accredited institution approved and documented by the Saybrook University or an appropriately certified foreign institution. 

A minimum cumulative grade point average (GPA) of 3.0 on a scale of 4.0.

Course completion of grade of “B” or better in the following undergraduate foundational courses:

1. Principles of Accounting (3 Credits)
2. Business Finance (3 Credits) or Quantitative Research Techniques and Statistics (3 Credits)

Students not meeting the admissions criteria for the undergraduate foundational courses may fulfill this requirement through one of three options listed under “Foundation Course Requirements”.

Failure to achieve a minimum GPA of 3.0 on a 4.0 scale within the first two semesters of attendance will result in dismissal.

A minimum score on a Saybrook University pre-approved English language proficiency test is required for all applicants whose native language is not English or who have not graduated from an institution at which English is the language of instruction as specified in the, Admission Policies, “International Applicants.”

The prospective student will include submission of the following by the prospective students:

• Saybrook University Application
• Transcripts from regionally accredited institutions attended and degree(s) conferred.
• 30 min interview by the Department Chair or faculty designee.
• Two (2) professional/academic reference in lieu of Letter of Reference:  Name, Title, Affiliation, e-mail address, and phone number.
• Personal Statement (1,500 words) based on a set of prompts, e.g. What is your background and motivation for graduate level study?

Provisional Acceptance

Applicants who have not met the identified standards of the minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0 reflected in undergraduate and graduate transcripts may be admitted provisionally. Applicants who are provisionally admitted must meet the identified standards noted in their letter of acceptance by the deadline.

Failure to achieve a minimum GPA of 3.0 on a 4.0 scale within the first two semesters of attendance will result in dismissal. Students admitted provisionally may appeal dismissal from Saybrook University as a result of a failure to meet the conditions identified in their acceptance letter. The appeal involves a letter to the Department Chair, which is reviewed by the Chair and College Dean and must be received within thirty (30) business days of formal notification of dismissal. Decisions of the appeals petition in such cases are final.

Foundation Course Requirements

Applicants are required to complete two foundation courses at the undergraduate level in cases where the student has not taken them before their application.

Foundation courses and their equivalent competency tests and self-paced courses offered by the University. Students may fulfill the foundation course requirements by showing successful completion of academically equivalent coursework, passing a competency exam with a score of 80% or better, or passing a self-paced course with a score of 80% or better. Students will be notified during the admission process whether one or more of these courses are needed based on prior coursework.

There are three options for students seeking admission into the MBA program to meet the Foundation Course Requirements:

Option #1:  Complete two foundation courses at the undergraduate level

See below for the list of foundation courses and their equivalent competency tests and self-paced courses offered by the University. Students may fulfill the foundation course requirements by showing successful completion of academically equivalent coursework, passing a competency exam with a score of 80% or better, or passing a self-paced course with a score of 80% or better. Students will be notified during the admission process whether one or more of these courses are needed based on prior coursework.

1. Principles of Accounting (3 Credits)
2. Business Finance (3 Credits) or Quantitative Research Techniques and Statistics (3 Credits)

Equivalent courses may be evaluated to determine fulfillment of admissions requirements by the Department Chair.

Option #2:  Preparatory Business Operations Seminar (P-BOS)

The P-BOS is a preparatory certificate designed to cover the key foundational business knowledge areas:

• Practical Accounting
• Business Finance
• Data Driven Decision Making

The P-BOS is a structured 100% on-line course over 6 weeks with combination of self-paced work as well as live webinars.  The cost of this course is paid by the student-the cost of this course is not covered by financial aid.  The student will need to pass a series of quizzes and a final multiple-choice test with a score of 80% or better in order to earn the e-badges and certificate.  The P-BOS is offered two to three times per year.

Option #3: Practical Knowledge Tests

You may take and pass two of the practical knowledge exams in the following topics:

• Accounting (Required)
• Business Finance or Quantitative Research Techniques and Statistics

Please consult the Department of Leadership and Management for more information about how to take the Practical Knowledge Test.