Master of Business Administration (MBA) Course Description
Course Description
Introduces students to concepts, models and frameworks to help them become better acquainted with the organizations they work for, the teams they work in, the people they work with, and their own personal development. The course focuses on five main areas of study: developing as a manager, working well within groups, developing effective organizations, assessing the external environment in which organizations operate, and initiating change within organizations. Tying all of these elements together, the course devotes particular attention to the traits, skills and behaviors that are indicative of good leadership. It also explores how organizations and managers can be transformed for better alignment with the business demands of the future.
MBA 102 Financial Reporting and Control 4 units
Course Description
Introduces accounting and an examination of how it helps in decision-making. Financial accounting (information needs of stockholders, creditors, and analysts) and managerial accounting (information needs of managers) are stressed equally. Topics covered include: income statement and balance sheet format, purposes, and limitations, statement of cash flows, analysis of financial statements, cost behavior, use of relevant costs in decision-making, budgeting, and divisional performance measurement. Course includes lectures, exams, and a group project.
MBA 103 Data Analysis for Managerial Decision Making 4 units
Course Description
Managers deal with a large amount of information in quantitative form. Effective managers must understand the conditions under which quantitative techniques may be appropriately applied for decision-making. In this course, students develop skills in using the computer to examine and report data. Focus is on supporting decisions through: deriving meaning from particular data sets, use of statistical estimation, hypothesis testing, and regression/correlation analysis.
MBA 104 Marketing Management 4 units
Course Description
Builds an in-depth understanding of basic marketing concepts and applies those concepts to a variety of management situations, including non-profit and public sector settings. The course provides working knowledge of the tools of marketing (product policy, pricing, distribution, promotion, consumer behavior), and the ways in which these tools can be usefully employed. The course also builds practical skills in analyzing marketing problems and opportunities and in developing marketing programs.
MBA 105 Financial Management 4 units
Course Description
This course examines three sets of issues: saving and investing decisions by households, investment and financing decisions by corporations, role of securities markets and financial intermediaries in the economy. Decisions today affect the timing and uncertainty of future flows of income; both timing and risk determine the current value of those future flows. This course develops the tools required to analyze these decisions and their interaction within the financial system.
MBA 106 Economics and Management Decisions 4 units
Course Description
Presents many of the decision problems managers face and the economic analysis they need to guide these decisions. In the first half of the course, microeconomic tools are used to structure complicated decision problems about strategic subjects, such as production, pricing, and investment. Some of these decisions take place in uncertain environments, and the class addresses this uncertainty by making probabilistic forecasts and sequential decisions. Since most decisions depend on the structure of the industry in which a company operates, an additional goal is to distinguish different market structures and apply competitive strategies using game theory.
In the second half of the course, the focus shifts to the study of the national and global economic environments within which companies operate. The class identifies the drivers of fluctuations in key features of the economies, such as gross domestic product, inflation, interest rates, exchange rates. Students analyze and share economic developments in particular countries. Since governments play key roles in determining the fate of economies and companies, the final theme is the rationale for and efficacy of government policy tools.
MBA 107 Strategies for a Networked Economy 4 units
Course Description
This course is case-based and demonstrates the role of information technology in shaping business strategy and models. It provides an overview of the key technologies that are important in today's business environment and introduces organization and management concepts relating to the information technology functions. The course also illustrates the relationships between organizational performance and the ability to leverage knowledge assets.
MBA 108 Creating Value through Operations and Technology 4 units
Come Description
This course is case-oriented and is focused on topics of use to managers in any environment: process analysis, process improvement, and strategic operations decision-making. The course emphasizes the importance of effectiveness and efficiency and evaluates the potential trade-offs between them.
MBA 109 Competition, Innovation and Strategy 4 units
Course Description
This course is a capstone to the required curriculum. The course draws on findings from a number of academic disciplines, especially economics, organization theory, and sociology, to build a fundamental understanding of how and why some firms achieve and sustain superior performance. Successful strategy design and implementation require marketing, finance, and other areas. The course is designed to develop this integrative view of the fir and its environment, along with appropriate analytical skills. Global management is an important additional theme of the course: while many of the cases are US-based companies, students will be challenged to extend the conceptual framework to encompass global businesses and to apply any lessons learned to international contexts.
MBA 110 Current Topics in Law and Ethics 4 units
Course Description
This course will study the contemporary issues in selected areas of law and ethics. The students will be introduced to the pivotal areas of law, so that students begin to anticipate legal problems, and will also analyze how to avoid them, and realize how legal principles can be employed to add value in their chosen fields. The course provides an overview of a few disciplines that will encourage students to explore other legal topics relevant to their business interests. The course will also provide an analytic structure that enables students to identify ethical issues in business, analyze options and make appropriate choices.
MBA 111 Executive Presentations 4 units
Course Description
Since a presenter's delivery skills impact the audience's image of the presenter and the clarity of the message being communicated, under this course there will be a combination of lecture, discussion, and hands-on practice and simulation. This course is designed to help students exercise leadership through verbal communication. The course aims to provide students with the skills to deliver focused, polished, business-appropriate presentations and enhance students' interpersonal verbal communication skills in all business settings, from one-to-one verbal communication through formal presentations. The course also reviews issues facing more experienced presenters, from how to be more compelling and concise, to techniques for directing the audience and their responses.
MBA 112 Executive Written Communication 4 units
Course Description
This course is a combination of lecture, discussion, and hands-on practice and is designed to help students exercise leadership through writing and understand how strategies of written communication are an essential aspect of effective management, working relationships in the network era, and overall business strategy. Students will learn to master the formats and styles used most commonly in business communications and communicate key issues more quickly using the effective writing to accomplish a variety of leadership and business goals. This course will assess the students own and others' business writing.
MBA 113 Professional Portfolio Seminar 4 units
Course Description
The professional portfolio class is an opportunity for students to consolidate what they learned during the summer, develop a portfolio that they can present to potential employers and plan their strategy for a job search. The portfolio will include an industry analysis, networking opportunities, career plans and an explanation of experience that the students brings to potential employers. Students will have an opportunity to work directly with leaders who will provide the background for their planning and preparation process.
MBA 114 Career Lunch 4 units
Course Description
Through this course students will be taught how to become self-aware and market-ready, in preparation to enter the job market for internships and full-time employment. The course includes all the steps needed to market oneself effectively to hiring managers, and to build a strong industry network that will provide a foundation for further growth in a chosen career path. Students will develop a customized toolkit to help launch their career paths successfully.