FAQ - Course-Related Expenditures

In the following, we have put together some information for you that seeks to address the most frequent questions we receive.

Do I have to cover course-related expenditures to pass my Master’s in Business?

As far as we are aware, there are plenty of specializations that you can pick, which will not require you to pay any course-related expenditures.

Why are there course-related expenditures when studying Strategic Management?

Strategic Management as a field studies how managers, through their decision-making, can enhance their firms’ performances over that of their competitors. To aspiring practitioners – i.e. to the vast majority of our Master students – learning to master such decision-making is achieved best by exposing students to real-world case scenarios, which they can solve using a set of scientifically grounded tools. Developing real-world cases that lend themselves to such teaching is a time-intensive task requiring in-depth access to suitable corporations worldwide. Only few business schools worldwide have the capacity and resources to generate such high quality case-based teaching material. When they make their copy-righted material available to other business departments, they therefore charge readers a fee. It is this fee that falls to you as a course-related expenditure when you want to study with us. The Strategy Subject Area does not collect or receive any money from its students either directly or indirectly. Students pay the copyright owners directly when purchasing their material from them.

Isn’t it possible to teach without paying for copyrighted case material?

As developing case material is a time-intensive endeavor, those who have the capacity to engage in it do not make their materials available for free. As instructors, we thus cannot ask you to use copyrighted materials without ensuring that you have paid for it. We might render ourselves liable otherwise. Open source material of similar quality is unfortunately not available. Finally, we do not have the personal resources or corporate access as an institution to develop such resources ourselves.

Isn’t it possible to teach without using copyrighted case material?

Any subject can be taught in a variety of ways. The most effective and internationally accustomed way to teach strategy to advanced Master students, however, relies on the case-based method. We seek to deliver internationally competitive teaching to you – which is why we adhere to the case-based method in those of our classes in which we seek to expose you to the challenges of taking strategic decisions in real world contexts.

Does my grade depend on whether I cover course-related expenditures?

Naturally, your grade does not depend on whether you oblige with copyright regulations. Note, however, that we demand that you hold us free from liability claims by copyright owners of case-based materials when attending our classes. To that end, we check whether you have legitimately acquired your teaching materials by the end of the second session. If you have not, we will unfortunately have to un-enroll you from the class.