To receive the Wharton Business and Law Certificate, participants must successfully complete a summer session plus a total of three courses within the fall and spring semesters. Courses are of specific interest to attorneys and will provide a rigorous preparation in professional business disciplines. Final course selection will be confirmed by June.
Summer Session
Introduction to Strategic Management
For leaders to be effective, they must understand the environment in which they are called to lead. In order to align their self-development with the company's mission and strategy, they must understand the key drivers of the company's competitive advantage. Given the rapidly-changing business environment, leaders must learn to reframe conventional views on developing strategy and achieving competitive advantage. This session takes an in-depth look at required changes and explores some new views on competitive advantage and strategy formation.
The Relationship between Finance and Strategy
This session focuses on the bottom-line implications of marketing, operating and financial strategies, and the request process of financial planning. It seeks to create a bridge between the worlds of finance and companies' other functions with the goal of enhancing shareholder value. Participants will learn how financial information can be used to assess the potential future profitability and risk of various strategies in a range of businesses.
Financial Measure of Business Performance
Participants will examine how companies create shareholder value and why traditional measures, such as earnings per share and cash flow, fail to measure value. Specifically, participants will learn how to:
- Explicitly measure a company's key value drives, such as return on investment and revenue growth
- Prove why existing performance measures, such as earnings per share and cash flow, fail to measure value
- Link financial measures directly to corporate strategy
Using Financial Information Intelligently
This session establishes the framework for evaluating financial performance by defining the components — profitability, liquidity, solvency, leverage and efficiency. It will also provide an introduction to the three key financial statements (income statement, balance sheet and statement of cash flows).
Participants will learn how to use financial information to assess the potential profitability and risk of various strategies in a range of businesses, how the business is managed, and what questions financial statements cannot answer. In the process, participants will become acquainted with the main financial rations that managers and outside analysts use to measure a company's financial condition and compare it with other companies.
Competitive Strategy
This session focuses on the competitive strategy of the company, examining issues central to a company's long and short-term competitive position. The course develops a set of analytical frameworks that enable participants to explain performance differences among companies and that provide a structure for strategic decisions to enhance companies' future competitive positions.
Global Strategic Management
This session deals with the strategic and organizational management of multinational corporations (MNCs), focusing on the creation of competitive advantage in a global context.
Fall Session
Corporate Finance
This course provides participants with an understanding of current corporate finance theory and practice, with a focus on what determines a company's value and how managers can maximize value. Emphasis is on developing the analytical skills needed for financial decision making and for understanding financial transactions (e.g., acquisitions and mergers). Topics include discounted cash flow analysis, the relationship between risk and return, cost of capital, capital budgeting (valuing business assets), corporate valuation, and capital structure (the choice between equity and debt financing). An important goal of the course is to enhance attorneys' ability to provide value-added contributions in the corporate setting and in other settings where value is at play (e.g., assessing an investment proposal or the purchase/sale of a business). Participants will develop a solid understanding of how businesses work financially and what are the drivers of value for shareholders and other investors.
Global Strategic Management
The decisions and central issues affecting the international expansion and sustainability of a company are neither obvious nor determined by the technological or economic forces generally associated with globalization. This course will explain the unexpected way in which international competition unfolds over time and across countries. By examining detailed case studies, participants will gain a deeper understanding of the decisions that multinational companies face when conducting business across borders.
Specifically, Global Strategic Management will explore the:
- Emergence of new multinationals
- Models for organizing and managing a multinational network of subsidiaries, including how to coordinate and to transfer knowledge across borders
- Issues associated with managing human and social capital in the enterprise
- Persistence of cross-national differences and the effect of these differences on corporate strategies, structures, and performance
- Sequence and modes of international expansion
Spring Session
Potential sessions are listed below. Final curriculum to be determined.
Responsible Business Practices
Responsible Business Practices considers the ethical responsibilities of managers and corporations and others who play significant roles within business enterprises. It examines difficult ethical conflicts and dilemmas that arise in a business context and provide plausible frameworks for dealing with those conflicts. It is also designed to reveal common patterns of success and failure in managing ethics. Its objective is to help participants anticipate issues they will confront in their business careers and to develop skills to think more clearly how such issues can and should be resolved.
Private Equity in Emerging Markets
Participants will learn how to identify and manage special issues when investing or partnering with companies located in rapidly growing economies. They will also become familiar with methods of due diligence and valuation, as well as liquidity and investment terms. Additionally, this course will address the structuring of funds, compensation, and the calculation of returns and will provide a review of past performance.
This course also provides an overview of the private equity industry, a discussion of the main players, the structure of private equity funds, the performance of private equity funds, and an outlook for the future of the industry Discussion will also cover the specifics of venture capital, one of several private equity options besides buy-outs, mezzanines, and distress.
This course is designed for individuals with a serious interest in building a career in private investment activity in countries with transitional or developing economies, either as part of a corporate development effort, or through venture capital or buyout fund activity. The course will also be of interest to those who expect to engage in entrepreneurial activity and who seek an understanding of the fundamental dynamics of venture funding as a way of building a company, or considerations for buying a company.
