MSM Course Descriptions

Accounting I
3 credit hours

This course addresses the accounting process used to measure and report economic events to outside stakeholders. It focuses on fundamental concepts, required financial statements and key relationships. The course emphasizes the role of accounting in contracts and in decision making by investors, creditors and regulators.

Accounting II
3 credit hours

This course focuses on using accounting information for control and decision making within a firm. It discusses budget preparation, cost-volume-profit analysis, variable costing, contribution margins, relevant costing, performance evaluation of business units, transfer pricing and responsibility accounting for the planning, decision making and management control inside an organization.

Finance Principles
3 credit hours

This course provides an in-depth and quantitative examination of the principles of financial decision making. Students learn the concept of value maximization, mathematics of finance, valuation of financial securities, capital investment evaluation, the estimation of required rates of return and the theory of capital structure.

Economic Analysis
3 credit hours

This course provides a coordination of economic theory and managerial practice. Topics covered include: consumer demand, production functions, cost behavior, output determination and pricing within various market structures.

Corporate Finance
3 credit hours

This course provides a sound conceptual framework within which a wide variety of corporate financial policy decisions can be evaluated. The course builds upon and extends the topics addressed in Finance Principles. Topics covered include corporate governance, financial statement analysis, security valuation, capital structure theory, dividend policy, security issuance and advanced capital budgeting techniques.

Principles of Management
3 credit hours

The goal of this course is to study the management process, which includes planning, organizing, staffing, directing and controlling. The related topics of executive leadership, organizational behavior and management theory will be covered. By applying theories of human behavior, this course will help students solve day-to-day problems of organizational administration and become more effective managers.

Statistics in Business
3 credit hours

The aim of this course is to introduce students to the basic statistical techniques widely used in business to improve decision making. Topics include descriptive statistics, probability distributions, estimation and hypothesis testing and regression analysis. Applications of statistical techniques to a variety of business disciplines are covered, including marketing, finance and operations.

FALL SEMESTER ELECTIVE: Boardroom Insights: A Senior Executive Speaker Series
1 credit hours

In this course, corporate leaders and senior executives reflect on critical issues, concerns and experiences, sharing their insights in a mix of lecture and discussion sessions designed to stimulate ideas and provide an opportunity for dialog. Topics will vary from speaker to speaker, ranging across the spectrum of business to expose students to the opportunities and challenges inherent in today’s global business environment. Speakers will select ideas they feel are relevant and valuable to students’ development as they prepare for a professional career.

International Management
3 credit hours

Often, international business is conducted with and through people from various cultural backgrounds. Cultural differences, if not understood and bridged, can be significant barriers to the implementation and success of a business venture. This course focuses on the management of the multinational corporation (MNC). The objective of this course is to provide students with a basic understanding of how to conduct business across cultures and borders. Examples of specific topics include: managerial challenges and opportunities faced by MNCs; knowledge and conceptual frameworks necessary to understand and manage MNCs; the political, economic and legal environments in which MNCs operate; the effect of national cultures on international management; the strategy and organization of MNCs including entry strategies, strategic alliances and joint ventures as well as organization structures and issues of control and coordination; topics related to individual behavior within MNCs, such as motivation and leadership in a global context, and international business careers.

Process Analytics
1.5 credit hours

Processes describe the flow of materials and information both inside a business and between businesses. Such processes occur in both for-profit and non-profit organizations, in both service and manufacturing organizations, and in virtually all functional areas and industries. The aim of this course is to familiarize students with the problems and issues within business processes, and to provide students with language, concepts, insights and tools to make such processes more efficient and effective.

Strategic Decision Making
1.5 credit hours

The scope and role of strategic management encompasses a general management perspective that involves internal and external analysis, complex decision making and implementation of these decisions. The course has four goals: (1) to develop an awareness of the strategic decisions that organizations must make and the factors on which they depend; (2) to provide a conceptual framework for identifying, evaluating and formulating strategies; (3) to integrate material learned in the basic functional courses; (4) to convey an understanding of the formal and informal processes involved in formulating and implementing strategies.

SPRING SEMESTER ELECTIVE: Ten Years Hence Lecture Series
1 credit hour

This course will explore issues, ideas and trends likely to affect business and society over the next decade. The series of lectures will feature a wide range of experts on economic demography, biotechnology, religious fundamentalism, oil and peace, futurism and work, natural resources and more.

Management Speaking
1.5 credit hours

This course will provide students with an opportunity to improve spoken communication skills in a variety of settings from informal meetings to large, formal presentations. Speaking experiences include business briefings, informative talks, persuasive speeches and television news interviews. Students will receive instructor feedback as well as peer review on every aspect of oral communication, including delivery, nonverbal behavior, content, organization and visual support. Small sections promote personal student-professor contact and provide time for individual coaching.

Management Writing
1.5 credit hours

Because the most important ideas in business end up in writing, and because writing can frequently become a career sifter, this course will focus on the written word as a principal means of implementing business strategy and solving managerial problems. This course will focus on the basics of written expression in a business context, including the communication process, critical thinking, audience analysis, message development, correspondence and document design.

Marketing Principles
3 credit hours

This course is designed to provide students with a systematic approach for making marketing decisions and to give students practice in the analysis, design, implementation and control of marketing strategies. It is an operationally oriented course in which the application of marketing concepts, principles, strategies and methods is emphasized.

Foundations of Ethical Business Conduct
3 credit hours

The course objective is to explore the ethical dimensions in the study and practice of business. Students will study and apply the major normative ethical theories to business situations. The course will help students to understand the relevance of stakeholders to business decisions and improve the skills of moral reasoning and ethical decision making. Students will analyze and discuss case situations presenting ethical dilemmas. Throughout these exercises, analytical and communication (oral and written) skills will be sharpened. This course is intended to encourage ethical behavior and professionalism in all activities.

Quantitative Business Analysis
2 credit hours

Decision making in business is increasingly based on the analysis of quantitative data. This course will cover techniques commonly used in all business disciplines. In particular, students will review basic mathematics and use spreadsheets to structure and solve business problems using techniques such as what-if scenarios and optimization. The course will provide a foundation for other courses in the program as well as a set of skills widely used in the business world.

Bridge: Your Background And Its Unique Value to Business
1 credit hour

The knowledge, skills and abilities gained by students throughout their undergraduate training have great potential value within the profession of management. The objective of this course is to help students identify how they may best leverage their undergraduate training to produce unique value for business. This is accomplished by way of a series of guided exercises requiring students to discern specifically the ways in which their undergraduate experiences have affected the way they seek, evaluate and process information, how they present themselves and are perceived by others in new and unfamiliar settings, and how they tend to analyze situations and solve problems. Students will be encouraged to draw on the experiences of alumni who have similar undergraduate training, and who have achieved success in the business world. By way of these explorations, students will discern the value-creating potential of the habits of mind and behavior they have developed as a result of their own, personal educational and life experiences.

FALL AND SPRING SEMESTER INTERTERM: Corporate Case Competition
1 credit hour each semester

Interterm classes provide learning opportunities that are not easily available in the standard course format. Some workshop-style classes focus on specific capabilities that students can add to their business “tool kits.” Others, such as the deep-dive corporate cases, give students hands-on opportunities to apply, test, and extend what they have learned in previous courses. All of the courses develop skills and perspectives that will be beneficial in summer internships and full-time jobs. All courses require a high degree of student participation and involvement.