Two-Year MBA Course Highlights

2 Credits

This course addresses the accounting process used to measure and report economic events to outside stakeholders. The course 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.

2 Credits

Financial managers face three primary types of decisions: (1) what investment opportunities to undertake; (2) how to fund those investments; and (3) when and how to return cash to the firm’s owners. This course will focus primarily on the first of these three decisions, developing strategies and techniques for determining whether a particular investment opportunity will create value for the firm. It also briefly explores alternative sources of financing and capital structure choice.

2 Credits

MBA Core – 1st Year MBA Only

The aim of this course if to start a process of development through which students are better able to handle decisions problems in the area of business. Topics include probability distributions, estimation and hypothesis testing, quality control and regression analysis. Applications of statistical techniques to issues in marketing, investment analysis and manufacturing are discussed. Cases involving application in these areas will be analyzed using statistical software.

2 Credits

MBA Core – 1st Year MBA Only

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. This course will help students to understand the relevance of stakeholders to business decisions and improve the skills of moral reasoning and ethical decision-making. Another objective is to 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.

1 Credit

The MBA Professional Development course is required for all first year students, and will cover topics including, but not limited to, networking, interview preparation, workshops, boot camps, and career conferences.

2 Credits

This course continues the study of financial accounting. It discusses accounting for additional business transactions such as long-term financing with debt and equity, investments, leases, and income taxes. As in ACCT 60100, the course emphasizes the role of accounting in contracts and in decision-making by investors, creditors, and regulators.

2 Credits

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.

2 Credits

MBA Core – 1st Year MBA Only

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.

2 Credits

MBA Core – 2nd Year MBA Only

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. A strategy consultation project, a key component of the course, provides an opportunity for students to work with local businesses and apply tools and skills developed in this course as well as other core courses.

2 Credits

Business and government leaders are increasingly recognizing the importance of involving the whole organization in making strategic decisions in order to compete globally. Because an organization usually commits the bulk of its human and financial assets to operations, operations is an important function in meeting global competition. Successful firms have demonstrated that operations can be an effective competitive weapon and, in conjunction with well-conceived marketing and financial plans, these firms have made major penetrations into markets worldwide. This course is designed to address key operations and logistical issues in manufacturing as well as service organizations. Students will understand the role of operations managers in the overall business strategy of the firm and be able to identify and evaluate the key factors in the design of effective operating systems for the production of products or services. The course also covers a range of tools appropriate for the analysis of operating systems and offers an opportunity to discuss and compare various approaches to operations management in an international context.

This course introduces a framework to understand the way materials and information flow within and between businesses. This course also introduces tools and concepts that can be used to make the flow of information and materials more efficient and effective. Firms today compete on multiple dimensions – they must align their processes to whatever competitive choices they make. Managers must be familiar with the many issues and concepts within this area as all functional areas follow processes of some sort and the best companies will continually improve these processes efficiencies or effectiveness in order to win (and retain) customers. Because the course deals with the management of “processes,” it applies to both for-profit and non-profit organizations, to both service and manufacturing organizations, and to virtually any functional area or industry. The aim of this course is to (1) familiarize students with the problems and issues within processes, and (2) provide students with language, concepts, insights and tools to solve these issues in order to gain competitive advantage through more efficient and effective processes.

2 Credits

MBA Core – 1st Year MBA Only

It is difficult to picture an upper-level manager who has not mastered the skills of managing people. Executives must be efficient leaders, motivators and team managers. Furthermore, research suggests that these “soft” skills are critical determinants of promotions to the upper echelon of managerial positions. Organizational behavior is about developing these skills. Through lecture, case analysis and class discussion, we develop a deep appreciation for the things that distinguish effective from ineffective managers. Special attention will be paid to the topics of selection, motivation, leadership and managing teams. The overall objective of the course is to apply theories of human behavior to solve day-to-day problems of organizational administration, help students become more aware of their own managerial styles and ultimately become more effective managers.

2 Credits

Great business problem solvers are few and far between. Normal business training emphasizes competence in individual functions, rather than how to integrate problem-solving information from multiple disciplines. Not surprisingly, it is easy to find subject matter experts in finance, accounting, supply chain, human resources; far harder to find people who can think critically across business functions. However, tough business problems are simply not that well behaved. They naturally defy such disciplinary boundaries. Problems may then be misdiagnosed and then the solutions may be, at best, incomplete, and at worst, just plain wrong. In fact, rigorous problem solving is an underrated leadership skill. Our contention is that you will rarely run into a problem directly. But rather, you will run into symptoms, from which you will need to determine the root cause of the problem. What is critical in the problem-solving process is to diagnose the underlying problems from the symptoms so that we can start down the path of solving the problem. Through this series of lessons and case examples, we will introduce you to a problem-solving process that is data-driven and deductive. It integrates across other business disciplines such as marketing, accounting, finance and operations. And it is iterative, with each step getting closer to a solution that will ultimately be good enough. Becoming a good problem solver requires developing two equally important skills:- first, the mindset? how you ask questions when confronted by a problem or an opportunity;- and second, the rigor of the problem-solving process and facility with its tools and frameworks. The problem-solving process has three parts- first, discovering solutions from the symptoms of the problems;- second, determining when to move from analysis to action, This second step involves making trade-offs and determining when? good enough? is actually both? good and enough- and three, driving implementation of the solution through the organization. You get no credit as a problem solver for an elegant solution if the organization cannot execute it. The course introduces problem-solving concepts and processes and then practices them on business examples. If at the end of our time together, you begin to ask questions better that you did at the beginning, we shall consider it a success.