What a difference one letter makes

...McGill University claims to be the first to develop an integrated approach to an MBA curriculum. "Our MBA students look at a whole business from start to finish," says Ron Duerksen, director of marketing and communications for the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University. "The idea is to show the linkages between disciplines and how they work together to create value. It's quite unique. No other school has an integrated MBA curriculum like this one."

An EMBA program is an entirely different entity, Mr. deCarufel notes. There, the focus is more on general management skills, such as strategy, leadership and international business. "Courses tend to be more managerial and less 'quantitative' or technical in nature."

The programs are also fairly inflexible in their re-quirements, although he says there has been some movement toward offering elective options. In Kellogg's case, EMBA students have a choice of two international elective options with partner schools in Hong Kong, Europe, Israel and Miami, as well as four at the Kellogg campus in Chicago.

At the University of Northern British Columbia in Prince George, the EMBA program has some distinct elements, largely because it is located in close proximity to a large cohort of owner/operators in the resource sector.

"We get a lot of people who have their own businesses," notes Raymond A. K. Cox, MBA director, School of Business for UNBC. "We also attract a substantial number from the northern regions of the province, including First Nations students."

Mr. Cox confirms that as with many typical EMBA programs, there are no electives. "The only thing we do have that might depart from a standard curriculum is that we take into account northern business issues.

We are unique in that we are located in a region with lots of infrastructure challenges including pipelines, railroads, electricity and remote services, so the projects we undertake typically have to do with economic development."

McGill offers Canada's only bilingual Executive MBA program. To that end it has partnered with HEC-Montreal to encourage bilingual interaction.

"You can submit materials in your language of choice. However, if you speak French you have to understand English and vice versa," Mr. Duerksen explains...

Read full article: Financial Post, September 27, 2011