The Portable MBA

ROBERT F. BRUNER, DBA is Distinguished Professor of Business Administration and Executive Director of the Batten Institute at The Darden School. Cited by BusinessWeek as one of the "Masters of the MBA classroom," Dr. Bruner has received numerous awards of excellence in case-teaching and writing. The author of many published articles and case studies, his research focuses on capital structure management, the effects of various forms of corporate restructuring, and mergers and acquisitions. MARK R. EAKER, PhD is Professor of Business Administration at The Darden School. He is also a founding partner of Sire Management Corporation, an investment management firm in New York City. Prior to joining the Darden faculty, Dr. Eaker taught at Duke, SMU, the University of North Carolina, and the Institute Theseus, in France. R. EDWARD FREEMAN, PhD is Elis and Signe Olsson Professor of Business Administration and Director of the Olsson Center for Applied Ethics at The Darden School. He is the author of several well-known books on business ethics and strategic management. ROBERT E. SPEKMAN, PhD is Tayloe Murphy Professor of Business Administration at The Darden School. Dr. Spekman is an internationally recognized authority on business-to-business marketing and strategic alliances. He has edited seven books and authored or coauthored more than eighty articles and papers. ELIZABETH OLMSTED TEISBERG, PhD is Associate Professor of Business Administration at The Darden School. She is an economist with expertise in innovation, new product development, and strategy in the face of uncertainty. Much of her research and consulting work focuses on the value of innovation and analysis of strategic opportunities in the high-tech and healthcare industries. S. VENKATARAMAN is Samuel L. Slover Research Professor of Business Administration at The Darden School. He is also Director of Research of the Batten Institute. His teaching interests include entrepreneurship and competitive strategy and he has published widely on these topics in leading journals. He has served as consultant to Fortune 500 firms as well as entrepreneurial firms, and is on the advisory boards of several start-up companies and academic centers.

Preface. PART I: WHAT IS BUSINESS ABOUT? Chapter 1. What Is Business? Chapter 2. The Future. Chapter 3. Managing People. Chapter 4. Business Ethics. Chapter 5. Economics. PART II: THE FUNCTIONS OF BUSINESS. Chapter 6. Marketing Management: Leveraging Customer Value. Chapter 7. Operations Management: Implementing and Enabling Strategy. Chapter 8. Entrepreneurship: Creating Something New and Enduring with Very Limited Resources. Chapter 9. Accounting. Chapter 10. Finance. Chapter 11. Strategy: Defining and Developing Competitive Advantage. PART III: NEW HORIZONS. Chapter 12. Leading from the Middle: A New Leadership Paradigm. Chapter 13. Strategic Alliances. Chapter 14. International Business. Chapter 15. Some Final Thoughts. Chapter Notes. Index. About the Authors.