The MBA International program invites highly motivated postgraduate students to participate in the i-MBA Summer School “Building Sustainable Business”, which will be conducted June 10 – 18, 2017 in Athens, Greece. The i-MBA Summer School -which will be hosted at the Ionic Center in Plaka, the heart of the city’s historical and cultural center- is an intense nine days program designed for University graduates and postgraduate students with an adequate work experience.

The Summer School will delve into challenges of highest interest and importance for participants irrespective of their study area or professional/functional focus. The program is equivalent to 3 ECTS (50-70 hours of interaction and individual or team work) and follows a carefully crafted curriculum that involves lectures, executive talks, and company and cultural visits structured around the blocks of Economic Context, Sustainability as a Concept, Sustainability through Technology, Sustainability through Culture and Leadership, and Innovation for Sustainability.

More specifically, the academic program starts with an overview of the emerging economic landscape, with a focus on the region of Southeast Europe. Economic impacts of the Greek crises from an international perspective will be discussed and lessons from business sustaining their competitiveness through the crisis will be exposed.

The second day will be devoted to concretizing the concept of sustainability. It involves understanding what the new playing field, set by climate agreements and increasingly informed and demanding customers and citizens, imply for companies and how they need to strategize for leading rather than adopting to this new reality. Emphasis is then placed on sustaining performance through sustainability, thus placing the concept directly into the operational reality of businesses. Reporting standards driving action and performance, and the central concept of circularity -doing truly good, not just less bad- are at the center of this block in the program.

Day three delves into how the most recent trends in technology -Big Data and Internet-of-Everything in particular- are becoming essential tools to serve decision-making with the most accurate and timely information and knowledge. Use of digital media in marketing and communication is also a critical area analyzed in this third block of the summer school. While democratizing the dialogue with the public, social media also have a dark side of disinformation that can hamper or skew objective decisions and actions.

The fourth block focuses on how culture and leadership need to be developed in order to support and drive the necessary restructuring propelled by sustainable business models and processes. The challenge is to lead systemically, beyond the limits of individual organizations, so that stakeholders -including customers, suppliers, public bodies and citizens- become active parts in the transformation. The Summer School taking place in the cradle of western civilization, leadership insights from ancient Greek philosophy will also be exposed and debated.

The last module consists of applying an innovation framework to selected parts of a business and to investigate how, through innovation, companies can take organized steps towards building sustainable competitive advantage.

From attending the Summer School, participants will accelerate the process of becoming more enlightened and thus more effective managers and leaders in this strategic restructuring that concerns companies and organizations irrespective of sector of activity, size, geographical location, and market reach –local, regional or global.

At the same time, they will have the opportunity to visit some of the most impressive archaeological sites (Acropolis, Acropolis museum, Cape Sounion, Temple of Poseidon, archaelogical site of Aphaia in Aegina) and enjoy a wonderful summer experience in Athens, one of the most exciting cities of the Mediterranean!

For more information, stay tuned!