Dr. Candace TenBrink is an Associate Professor at UHD’s Marilyn Davies College of
Business. She has taught at UHD for 10 years, and the MBA courses she teaches include
the MBA Capstone and Strategic Management. Dr. TenBrink received her PhD in Management
from the C.T. Bauer College of Business at the University of Houston and her MBA from
the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. Her research focuses on
organizational change, corporate turnarounds, and malfeasance. In Dr. TenBrink’s spare
time, she loves to read books (an average of 200 a year) and as a lifelong learner,
she is currently pursuing an Ed.M. with a concentration in higher education leadership.
Interview with Dr. TenBrink and Marilyn Leider
Marilyn Leider: Dr. TenBrink, thanks so much for being here to talk about one of your specialties, the MBA Capstone. Why would you say the Capstone is important to the UHD MBA experience? What are the highlights? How does it add to the student’s MBA journey?
Dr. Candace TenBrink: Knowledge integration is a big opportunity in the Capstone because students get to go back through all of their classes and think about what they want to bring in. They are able to pull together knowledge and experiences from other courses and actually use it in real time. The strategy faculty are flexible and open-minded with project selection; we try to offer projects that are best suited for our learners.
The Capstone is important for knowledge integration, building research skills, and leveraging creativity. This is an important part of the MBA experience as it offers learners a broad landscape in which they contemplate how a firm and its industry interact with the broader global market.
Marilyn Leider: Applying theory—getting it out of your head and into the real world.
Dr. Candace TenBrink: Right. If someone gets a job at Apple or Tesla or Chevron, it's really good to be able to have that self-confidence which I think a lot of students get with these Capstone projects. This is because they usually work together in a group, and they're grappling with sort of esoteric ideas and bringing together knowledge from various courses, including their strategy course.
It’s like living through a project that would typically be done within a firm.
Marilyn Leider: Is the Capstone group project designed to be completed during the entire semester?
Dr. Candace TenBrink: It's the entire semester. And as faculty, we all do our best to have it be broad, enabling the students to apply knowledge from other classes.
Marilyn Leider: What kind of scenarios do students work through in the Capstone?
Dr. Candace TenBrink: They might be helping a firm that's underperforming, developing a make-or-buy strategy, planning for product expansion, or advising a CEO on market entry strategy.
Marilyn Leider: It could be a turnaround.
Dr. Candace TenBrink: Pick a firm and advise us on how you would merge. What firm would you merge with? And why? These are big business questions that arise in firms. This is the fun part of a Capstone. You can't entertain a merger without accounting. You can't have a turnaround without accounting. And another student might say, ‘Yeah, what about HR management?’ Human capital matters. Do we have the money to make sure we have the right human capital to make this happen?
Another student might want to bring supply chain into the analysis.
Marilyn Leider: What else do students bring to the Capstone, besides previous class experience?
Dr. Candace TenBrink: Students have brought things in from their experience in the program and their real lives. It is a summative process. And that's part of the value of the MBA. Hopefully, students bring in their lived and work experiences.
Marilyn Leider: For students who might feel like they've never worked on something like this before, or just are not quite sure how to prepare for a Capstone project itself—do you have any tips for a successful experience?
Dr. Candace TenBrink: You just come in as you are, but I think that the right mindset is ideal, and I would say these things:
- Number one, be flexible. Be willing to work with your peers in various ways, because some people are going to have different life experiences. Some students are going to be joining with hidden disabilities. Bringing an asset-based view is key. Having that ability to be flexible and resilient when working with others is very important.
- Second, faculty care. If you need help, ask us for help if you get lost, because it's just too big of a project, and it's too long of a project to [afford getting] lost. Always ask for help.
- Another thing I would mention is, don't over rely on AI right now. Students are relying heavily on AI, and I get it. It's easy, right? But with AI you're missing out on all the research. You're missing out on grappling with the ideation process that, I think, is important for learners to go through. And you're going to be predisposed by what you get back from AI, which means that you're losing the creativity that you may have brought to the table. AI truncates that ideation process.
Marilyn Leider: Is there anything else you’d like to add, as we begin to wrap things up?
Dr. Candace TenBrink: I suggest that students be creative, too. Capstone projects are messy and a bit gray; there is no right answer or way to engage with the process. If someone wants to take a risk, it is, I think, a great example of an opportunity to be creative and innovative in how you approach a real problem.
Marilyn Leider: Thank you so much for your time, Dr. TenBrink!