Unique Curriculum

The Executive MBA for Families in Business curriculum is not merely advanced; much of what is taught in the program has never been taught in business schools. The curriculum has been shaped by the team at the Cox Family Enterprise Center, one of the oldest and largest family business centers in the world, from more than 20 years of research and work with family businesses.

The team understands the many ways that family businesses differ from their non-family competitors.

More important for students, the Cox Family Enterprise Center team members know that much of what is taught in business schools not only won’t work in a family business, but actually can produce negative results. In this EMBA, students learn where the differences exist and how to capitalize on them.

No other EMBA provides students with such a broad range of concepts and tools that can be applied immediately to their families and their family businesses.

World-Renowned Faculty

The Cox Family Enterprise Center incorporates a number of exclusive attributes into its Executive MBA for Families in Business. They begin with our faculty, whose teaching approach combines an unsurpassed level of academic research and knowledge with hands-on family business experience.

Led by Dr. Joseph Astrachan, one of the world’s leading authorities on family business, the teaching team includes an organizational development specialist, an international leader in business and military strategy, an expert in communication and conflict management, and a family business leadership scholar. Beyond academics, the Cox Family Enterprise Center team has more than 20 years of education, research and consulting experience with family businesses all over the world. Our team members have commerce in their DNA: their own family business roots extend into shipping, dredging, manufacturing, distribution, real estate and retail.

No other university in the world has a faculty in a single program, teaching side-by-side, whose members combine this level of academic capabilities and practical ability in family business.

Students Establish Our Class Schedule

Our program is unique in that the students – who are working professionals – help set the class schedule. They tell us that their greatest challenge is balance: running their businesses, their families, and their lives while attending class. Based on this input, we have created a unique schedule to meet this challenge. In general, the following information applies to all classes:

• Every other month, our class will meet for six days somewhere across the globe. We call these class meetings residencies.
• Typically, our 18-month program consists of one orientation following by eight residencies.
• Class members help decided where their residencies will be conducted.
• Class members can nominate their own family businesses to host of these residencies.
• The class uses the cohort format, meaning that students will have the same classmates in all of their classes throughout the 18-month program.
• Our 18-month program delivers a degree of knowledge that would take students many years to attain and a jump-start that lets them immediately apply what they learn to their families and their family businesses. Most of our students apply what they’ve learned even before they complete the program.