One-Year MBA Electives

ACCT 70120 Corporate Financial Reporting
2 credit hours
This course is a continuation of ACCT 70110. Topics examined include owners? equity and stock compensation, pensions and other post retirement benefits, the equity method, derivatives, consolidations, securitization and variable interest entities, foreign currency, foreign subsidiaries and hedging, and segment disclosures.

ACCT 70150 Financial Instruments and Fair Value Reporting
2 credit hours
The objective of this course is for students to read, understand, and critically evaluate financial statement information related to financial instruments and other items measured at fair value. ACCT 70150 builds on ACCT 60120 by addressing additional topics related to passive stock investments, securitizations, derivatives, stock compensation, and asset impairments. Journal entries, financial statement presentation, and financial statement footnote disclosures are examined. In addition, the rationale underlying the reporting requirements and management incentives for manipulating those requirements are explored. The text is supplemented with articles in the popular or financial press and actual financial statements.

ACCT 70160 Sustainability: Accounting and Reporting
2 credit hours
The scope of sustainability includes the environment, labor, community and product. This course examines a wide range of issues in these areas including current practices of sustainability evaluation and reporting. The greatest focus will be on the environment. Topics in this area include regulations, voluntary disclosures in corporate annual reports or free-standing reports, accounting for emissions trading schemes and end-of-life product disposal and the role of attestation services.

ACCT 70200 Strategic Cost Management
2 credit hours
This course is concerned with the development and use of cost information to create, communicate, implement and control strategies. This course requires you to take theoretical constructs, and using the firm’s internal accounting system, apply them to actual, real-world managerial problems. Accordingly, this course is a problem-solving course, and as such requires you to gain familiarity with the topics by working on problems taken from practice. The topics covered include use of cost accounting in various internal decisions, transfer pricing, activity-based costing, customer profitability reporting, to name but a few. We will discuss both the benefits and limitations of accounting information in the context of various decisions and performance evaluation.  This course is not about technical journal entries, detailed calculation of process costing, alternative computational methods of variances etc. Many of these cost accounting topics are described at a conceptual level. The focus is on the use of cost information in the context of various decisions and understanding the incentives of the parties involved in the decision. The textbook, selected problems at the end of each chapter and cases form the basis of the class discussions. One does not need any cost accounting background to take this course. We will build from basics.

FIN 60720 Real Estate Development Process
2 credit hours
This is a first course in real estate development, designed to expose students to the practice of development from project inception to completion and subsequent real estate asset management. Course objectives include: 1) developing familiarity with institutional features of the real estate industry (legal and regulatory processes, real estate markets, financial markets, etc.); 2) exploring the practical problems of real estate development; and 3) exposing students to professionals from the development industry.

FIN 70230 Business Forecasting and Predictive Analytics
2 credit hours
Forecasts may be either subjective or objective. A subjective forecast can be prepared by reading extensively about a situation and the economy and then combining this information through some unspecified judgment process to come up with a forecast. The objective approach to forecasting involves developing a model, which is generally constructed by studying past relationships between the item to be forecast and the factors thought to affect it. This course concentrates on these objective methods of forecasting. Economic forecasting in general, and this course in particular, are designed to explain the nature of the real world; the intent is to integrate theory and application.

FIN 70330 Commercial Banking
2 credit hours
This course is designed to give an overview of commercial banking, particularly from the perspective of the commercial banker. After an overview of where commercial banks fit into the financial services industry and how they are regulated, we then take a look at their typical structures and gain some insight into understanding their financial statements and evaluating their performance. You’ll also learn about how banks fund themselves, including regulatory issues regarding their capital. We then spend significant time on a bank’s lending function, looking at various types of borrowers; loan structures; collateral arrangements; the lending decision process and documentation; and how a bank monitors its loan portfolio. Then, we’ll look at the products and services banks market, and how they market them, including international banking and the role banks play to meet their customers’ offshore needs. Finally, you’ll learn about relationship management: how banks prospect for customers and how they nurture and build existing client relationships. We look at large, multinational banks, as well as regional and local banks. Several bankers will be guest speakers to cover certain topics from their day-to-day perspective. By the end of the semester, you should have gained an insight into commercial banking and the integral role the banks play in the financial functioning of our economy and with their individual customers.

FIN 70400 Mergers and Acquisitions
2 credit hours
The objective of this course is to facilitate understanding of corporate merger and acquisition activity, restructurings, and corporate governance. This includes exploring the theory and evidence regarding these topics, the motives for these transactions, the sources of value-added, and managerial incentives to engage in or resist these activities. In this class, you will learn how to apply discounted cash flow and other techniques for valuation purposes. Case projects and valuation assignments will be used to apply financial theory and valuation techniques in real-world situations. Classroom discussion of current M&A related activities will be used to reinforce key concepts. The structure of the class is a combined lecture/class discussion format with a great deal of emphasis on active learning. We will rely heavily upon case studies of past events and news articles of current events to illustrate how financial theory can be applied in an actual business environment.

FIN 70410 Mergers and Acquisitions Practicum
2 credit hours
The objective of this course is to understand various aspects of the corporate acquisition market, including sources of acquisition synergies, valuation and pricing of acquisition targets, takeover defenses, the roles of management incentives and compensation, financing methods, the roles of insider and institutional shareholders, and regulations and taxes.

FIN 70430 Financing the Corporation
2 credit hours
This course will focus primarily on how corporations raise money in various ways to meet their funding needs, both short- and long-term. The first portion will look at domestic, U.S. dollar funding mechanisms and the second portion will cover funding in foreign currencies. The course will cover private and public debt markets, the Eurobond market and how multinationals use derivatives to manage their required international financing.

FIN 70440 Financial Policy
2 credit hours
This course provides a framework for the evaluation of corporate financial policy decisions. Topics covered include financial statement analysis, financial planning, working capital management, the dividend decision, leasing, options, warrants, convertibles, risk management, and international financial management. Emphasis is placed on practical applications and the use of financial methods in decision-making.

FIN 70450 Bond Issue Process
2 credit hours
This course will go through the same process major corporations use in issuing debt in the public markets, either U.S., European, or global. We will work with a major investment bank in the process and the class will interact directly or via conference phone on a weekly basis with the bank to execute the debt issuance. This will include developing the financing strategy, looking at various alternatives in the market, negotiating standard documentation, and executing a swap as part of the process. Most semesters, this will be a “mock” issue, but on occasion, the class will work on a real time financing to be undertaken by the University.

FIN 70460 Working Capital Management
2 credit hours
This course emphasizes the set of decisions and problems that financial and operating managers face in determining short-term financial policy, setting terms when structuring contracts and deals, and managing business processes of the company. Major topics include identifying working capital elements and their relationships to company operations, financial analysis, cash forecasting, banking relations, cash-flow systems, and short-term investment and borrowing strategies.

FIN 70490 Lessons from Turnaround Situations
2 credit hours
There are a number of relatively well-defined factors which can lead to the underperformance or failure of a business. This course explores the classic causes of business decline, but more importantly, identifies specific courses of action which can be taken to turn around a failing business. Emphasis is on both operational turnaround initiatives and cultural and “environmental” factors. The lessons learned are equally applicable to troubled asset situations and healthy businesses alike.

FIN 70520 Intro to Early Stage Funding
2 credit hours
This course examines methods that an entrepreneur would consider for financing an early stage venture. Topics include bootstrapping, microloans, bank debt, crowdfunding, angel investment, and venture capital funding. Students learn how to formulate a funding strategy for an early stage business, prepare financial projections, create a plan for use of funds, and gather appropriate and complete materials for due diligence by a lender or equity investor.

FIN 70610 Equity Valuation
2 credit hours
This course covers the theory and practice of security valuation. The emphasis is on equity analysis as it applies to the aggregate market, alternative industries, and individual companies. The central theme of the course is the pricing of equity securities using discounted cash flow methods. Students will apply these concepts to the valuation of a specific company, with the goal of becoming an expert on that firm.

FIN 70620 Options and Futures
2 credit hours
This course gives a rigorous overview of options and futures and their applications in both investments and corporate finance. Topics include fundamental pricing models (e.g., the binomial model, the Black-Scholes-Merton model, the cost of carry model), strategies (e.g., covered calls, protective puts, cash and carry trades, etc.), and risk management techniques. Case studies are an integral part of the course. In particular, students must analyze an options case study to gain experience analyzing data, pricing options, estimating volatility, and graphing option strategy profits.

FIN 70640 Applied Investment Management
6 credit hours
This course provides an opportunity for students to blend the theory of investments with the practical demands of hands-on investment management. Hands-on management of a real portfolio achieves the practical objectives. Periodically, guest speakers who are security analysts and/or portfolio managers are invited to share practical insights on the investment management process.

FIN 70650 Fixed Income Securities I
2 credit hours
The objectives of this course are to describe important fixed income securities and markets, and develop tools for valuing basic fixed income securities and managing interest rate risk. The course covers securities such as coupon bonds, forwards, floating rate notes, swaps and corporate bonds, and includes topics such as yields versus rates of return, the repo market, duration and convexity, hedging by immunization or matching, credit risk, valuation by no arbitrage (i.e., replication). This course can be continued in Fixed Income Securities II.

FIN 70660 Advanced Derivatives and Risk Management
2 credit hours
This course is intended to follow an introductory derivatives course. It uses basic concepts involving options and futures as a springboard for studying risk management and financial engineering. Risk management and financial engineering have a symbiotic relationship. For instance, a financial engineer (on the supply side) might design a product such as a credit default swap that can be used by a risk manager (on the demand side). Thus, these topics are related and can be studied jointly. The goal is to provide rigorous applied training that prepares students for employment with firms where derivatives are either of primary importance (e.g., banks, trading firms) or secondary importance (e.g., corporations having interest rate or foreign exchange rate exposure that requires hedging). Specific topics include swaps, interest rate forwards and options, advanced derivatives and strategies (e.g., credit derivatives, exotic options), financial risk management techniques (e.g., VAR) and applications, and organizational risk management.

FIN 70670 Investments
2 credit hours
This course follows the second MBA core finance course, which covers the traditional investment topics of portfolio theory, the Capital Asset Pricing Model, and market efficiency. This course builds on that background by focusing primarily on the major different types of investments such as stocks, bonds, and options. For each investment type, the course covers terminology, mechanics, pricing, uses, and risk analysis. In addition, it covers how secondary markets work to facilitate trading securities.

FIN 70690 Investment Principles
1 credit hour
This course is an introduction to investments and is intended to develop critical thinking and problem solving skills within the context of investments. The course covers portfolio theory, asset pricing, bonds, stocks, market efficiency, and basic derivatives. The course is meant to introduce one-year MBAs to investments and to prepare them for other second year investments courses such as Fixed Income, Equity Valuation, Trading and Markets, Options, Futures, and AIM.

FIN 70710 Real Estate Valuation and Income Property Investment
2 credit hours
Techniques of real estate valuation used by appraisers and other real estate professionals with emphasis on quantitative market-based methods; the use of and relationships between market comparable, direct capitalization, and discounted cash flow valuation methods; income property analysis including the effects of financial leverage and taxes; pro forma construction, analysis, and software tools; market analysis case studies are considered.

FIN 70950 Fixed Income Securities II
2 credit hours
This course is a continuation of Fixed Income Securities I. The objectives are to describe basic interest rate models and tools to valuing interest rate derivatives and mortgage backed securities. The course covers topics such as risk-neutral probabilities, dynamic trading strategies, interest rate modeling using calibration, hedging using models, and valuing corporate bonds using a structural model. It covers securities such as options on yields, callable bonds, swaptions, mortgage pools and pass-throughs, CMOs, caps, floors and collars.

FIN 70990 Behavioral Finance
2 credit hours
Behavioral finance is considered by many to be one of the most important emerging topics in finance. The purpose of this course is to provide an understanding of the behavioral biases that individuals exhibit and the effects of these biases on financial markets. Standard finance theory assumes that individuals such as investors or financial managers are rational expected utility maximizers. Behavioral finance argues that some financial phenomena can be better understood admitting that some investors are not fully rational and arbitrageurs have limits to how aggressively they could trade. A number of stock market anomalies will be presented and analyzed.

ITAO 70200 Advanced Statistical Inference
2 credit hours
In Advanced Statistical Inference students learn a variety of topics that go beyond basic statistics in order to make evidence based decisions when data consist of multiple variables and/or multiple groups. Specific topics include advanced regression techniques, simple and factorial analysis of variance and covariance, chi-square goodness of fit and tests of independence, inference for proportions, comparison of two means, and multivariate analysis of variance. The emphasis throughout the course will be on (a) gaining a conceptual understanding of the method, (b) how to apply the method to other examples and situations, (c) how to implement the method using SPSS and/or Excel, (d) implications for conclusions that can be drawn from observational and experimental research, and (e) how to interpret the results of the analysis in an effort to learn from data and help guide evidence based decisions.

ITAO 70430 Social Media Analytics
2 credit hours
While web-based social media are still relatively new phenomenon, they have grown in important for both individuals and for businesses. This course provides an introduction to use of social media analytics in support of business objectives. Topics covered include: Current social media landscape and business strategies; Social media analytics tools; and Social media governance approaches.

MGTO 70510 Innovation and Design
2 credit hours
We will explore how to do innovation, both at the individual level – how can we become more innovative – and organizationally – how can we make the organizations we lead more innovative. We will start with a very basic definition of innovation as, “new ideas that matter,” and then we will spend the semester developing a much richer and more nuanced understanding of what that means and how to do it well. We are going to learn about innovation as much by living it as by studying it. Innovation requires heightened abilities to notice, remember, unlearn, see, hear, recognize, and understand. Innovation involves curiosity, wonderment, inquisitiveness, synthesizing, linking, probing, exploring, experimentation and prototyping. It also involves risk taking. Nothing ventured, nothing gained applies to innovation too.

MGTO 70620 Negotiation
2 credit hours
The purpose of this course is to introduce the theory and processes of negotiation as it is practiced in a variety of settings. The course is designed to be relevant to the broad spectrum of negotiation problems that are faced by managers and professionals. Thus, the content is relevant to students interested in marketing, real estate, consulting, entrepreneurship, or mergers and acquisitions. In addition, the course will emphasize negotiations that occur in the daily life of the manager.

This course is designed to complement the technical and diagnostic skills learned in other courses at Notre Dame. A basic premise of the course is that while a manager needs analytic skills to discover optimal solutions to problems, a broad array of negotiation skills is needed to get these solutions accepted and implemented. The course will allow participants the opportunity to develop these skills experientially and to understand negotiation in useful analytical frameworks. Considerable emphasis will be placed on simulations, role playing, and cases.

MGTO 70310 International Management
2 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 MBA students with a basic understanding of how to conduct business across cultures and borders. Particular attention will be given to: specific 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, 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.

MGTO 70200 Organizational Consulting
2 credit hours
The primary intent of this course is to enhance the student’s capabilities in three key areas that are important for consultants. The first of these builds specifically on the core Problem Solving course, and it is the ability to successfully develop a solution to a difficult problem faced by a business organization. This course provides a “live client” on which students will practice their problem solving skills and a number of the deliverables specifically concern the problem solving process. The second area is the ability of consultants to facilitate solution implementation and this course extends the treatment of that topic beyond the problem solving course. In addition to the solution, students are expected to assist the client by offering advice on implementation. Finally, the third area is the ability to successfully execute a consulting engagement, from entry through exit. This includes preparation in advance of the engagement, the process of disciplined inquiry, the evolution of the problem statement, the effective communication of the business case, and the effective communication of the solution along with a “roadmap” for effective implementation.

MGTO 70520 Entrepreneurship
2 credit hours
The goals of this course are to give students a broad understanding of the field of entrepreneurship and an introduction to the critical tools necessary to create a successful new venture. This course is designed to simulate the “real-life” activities of entrepreneurs in the start-up stage of a new venture concept and to determine if a demand exists for their product or service. In the past, several of these concepts have gone on to become actual businesses. In addition, the course facilitates networking with entrepreneurs and other students who are considering becoming entrepreneurs.

MGTO 70540 Launching New Ventures
2 credit hours
This course is focuses upon launching a new venture. Topics to be examined include growth and cash management, sustaining the differentiated/competitive advantage of the venture, crisis management and new venture human resources issues. This course will use an action learning pedagogy Students will be expected to apply what they learn in real business situations.

MGTO 70550 Social Innovation
2 credit hours
Entrepreneurs and micro-enterprises can be found throughout the world. Understanding the role that entrepreneurial activity and micro-enterprises play in building economies is important to the understanding of international commerce. Issues such as cultural and governmental influences on entrepreneurship, micro-lending and strategic alliances are examined in this course. Upon the completion of this course students are prepared to serve as consultants to third-world micro-enterprises.

MGTO 70555 Venture Capital Fundamentals
2 credit hours
This course examines how firms and universities can commercialize new technology and ideas. Among other topics, the class considers the startup CEO (a/k/a “the management team”), the board of directors, proprietary rights (patents, copyrights, trademarks) and related transactions (licenses, etc.), the revenue model worth investing behind, venture (dilutive) funding, and non-dilutive funding (such as SBIRs).

ITAO 70250 Unstructured Data Analytics
2 credit hours
Approximately 80% of the world’s data is unstructured, that is data that does not conform to relational database principles. It is growing at fifteen times the rate of structured data. Unstructured data includes corporate e-mails, financial filings, customer feedback, blogs, online reviews, instant messages, tweets, pictures, videos, and graphs among others. Extraction of insights from unstructured data is increasingly viewed as a high-valued opportunity but is still a nascent area within many companies and other organizations. Analytic techniques are increasingly important for understanding what can be learned from unstructured data sets and demand is strong for unstructured data analytical skills.  This course introduces students to the process of performing high-valued analytics with unstructured and semi-structured data to support business decisions. Students will identify relevant data sources (big and small), learn how to use contemporary technologies such as the Hadoop ecosystem to store and process the data, implement advanced processing and analytical techniques, and develop predictive models. The course will introduce and use concepts in machine learning, natural language processing and information retrieval to solve real-world problems.

ITAO 70750 Strategic Business Technology
2 credit hours
This course exposes the students to how technology is being used to change the competitive landscape within industries and among corporations. By examining a set of cases, the students learn how some businesses have transformed their competitive environment through the use of technology. The students then will be required to research how a specific company has used technology to enhance its competitiveness and how an emerging technology can potentially be used to provide a strategic advantage. The final project in the class involves examining the potential impact of such technology on the business models within a specific industry.

ITAO 70910 Project Management
2 credit hours
No matter what career you go into, it will be helpful for you to have project management skills. Projects are the way a lot of business gets done, yet many people and organizations find themselves lacking project management skills. As such, it probably comes as no surprise that more projects fail than succeed. The purpose of this course is to provide you frameworks, concepts, and tools that you can use to successfully deliver business value through projects. Guided by the Project Management Institute’s (PMI) Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK), we will do a deep dive into project management concepts and definitions that will prepare you to deliver projects successfully and position you to earn your Project Management Professional (PMP) certification.   No project management class would be complete, however, without an underlying knowledge of popular and successful Agile project management methodologies such as Scrum and Kanban, so we will cover those frameworks and concepts as well.   Lastly, to round out your project management knowledge, we will cover what is often the most challenging part of delivering projects; Change Management or the people side of change.   The underlying goal of this class is to teach you how to deliver the right solution, the right way, delivered on time and on budget, which is used and embraced by your customers to deliver business value. Put another way, this class will help you to succeed as a project manager and not become another failed project statistic.

MGT 70710 Supply Chain Management
2 credit hours
Increasing customer expectations and global competitions continue to force companies to be more efficient in controlling the flow of materials throughout the supply chain. To achieve the goal, many ideas and methods have been developed and used by companies in Supply Chain Management (SCM) environments. The course is designed to (a) investigate the issues that most managers encounter in the contemporary SCM and (b) develop students’ analytical ability to solve practical problems in SCM, including inventory coordination, location, distribution planning, etc. The course is highly integrative and inter-disciplinary, requiring knowledge and ideas in Operations Management/Research, Logistics, Marketing and Statistics.

ITAO 70920 International Operations
2 credit hours
This course focuses on what it takes for a company to attain manufacturing excellence in a global economy. Common characteristics in the organization and management of world-class manufacturing companies are examined. This course emphasizes the formulation and implementation of global manufacturing strategy, which requires making a series of coordinated decisions regarding structural, infrastructure and inter-functional elements in manufacturing. Topics covered include manufacturing strategy, product design and development, JIT and MRP-II, global supply chain management, flexibility and time-based competition, workforce management, and organization for global operations and managing joint ventures.

ITAO 70230Spreadsheet Decision Modeling
2 credit hours
Managers today must increasingly make decisions on issues that are complex and have quantitative aspects. This course explores how spreadsheet-based tools can improve this type of decision making. All tools are studied in the context of real-world applications from several business functions: operations, finance, and accounting. Specific applications include logistics systems, process improvement, portfolio selection, financial planning, options pricing, and cash balance analysis. General principles that can enhance the choice and application of these tools will be discussed. Only a basic familiarity with spreadsheets is assumed.

MGT 70910 Business Model Innovation
2 credit hours
The objective of this advanced strategy class is to help students develop the ability to improve firm performance through strategic business model innovation. Although significant elements of this class will focus on strategy frameworks and theoretical tools for understanding business models, we will also work on developing leadership skills for advancing frame-breaking ideas in both dynamic and rigid organizations. Core theoretical models of bounded rationality and core rigidities will be examined to understand the structure of psychological and organizational resistance to fresh leadership and ideas. The fundamentals of “blue ocean” strategies will be examined deeply in addition to a range of cases in a wide variety of industries. The underlying theme to the course will be to help students develop a rigorous and continuous method of thinking outside-of-the-box to consider how sustainable competitive advantage can be achieved through market-making and dramatic strategic initiatives rather than just incremental strategy and just-better-than-the-competition execution.

MGT 76030 Business on the Frontlines
4 credit hours
Objectives of the course: 1) Increase the overall awareness of how business can be a force for good in society, particularly in war-torn areas; 2) Introduce basic concepts in developmental economics and peace through commerce; 3) Delve more deeply into the specific political, cultural, economic, and business challenges of a specific war-torn country; 4) Investigate, based on field visit, both the activities of local and/or international businesses in a war-torn region and the positive/negative impact of those business activities.

End products of the course: 1) Detailed case study of the positive/negative impact of the activities of local and international businesses in a war-torn region to be published; 2) Perhaps an increased commitment, and certainly a better understanding, on the part of students of the possible impact that business can have in the most difficult of circumstances.

MGT 70800 Introduction to Early Seed Stage Investing
2 credit hours
The course objective is to guide students through the entire process of sourcing, selecting, and initial approach to funding of an angel or seed stage investment. The instructor will take the class through various aspects of source identification, arriving at no more than two companies to consider investing in, determine whether a suitable investment can be made, arriving at the valuation for the investment, constructing the term sheet, assisting the company(s) with investment preparation and, finally, offering to lead the investment (with a nominal sum from the instructor) on one of the most popular and effective crowd funding platforms (likely ?Angel List Syndicates?).

MGT 70200 Judgment 
2 credit hours
Successfully making the transition from “solving the problem” to a leadership role in which one must “get the problem solved” is fraught with difficulty. Learning to solve the problem rests – in many ways – on one’s own work. It depends on mastering business disciplines such as accounting, finance, operations, strategy, marketing and putting into practice basic skills such as critical thinking, structuring the problem, asking questions, gathering data, conducting analyses, and testing the solutions for their credibility, pragmatism, and implementability. Yet to get the problem solved – to get to a reasonable solution in with reasonable efficiency and effectiveness – when one is not doing the work – requires an entirely different set of skills and approaches. These skills include commissioning a diverse team, fostering a vigorous process, and wrestling with the difficult questions in an environment of honesty and trust. Understanding how such difficult judgments impact not only the organization and its employees but also ripple further through society impacting communities and the environment is critical. Through a series of readings, participation in classroom discussions, working through case examples, and conversations with senior business leaders, this course seeks to foster an awareness of such skills and approaches to better prepare students for the day when they need to get the problem solved. The objective of the overall course is to examine what lies at the foundation of good judgment.

MBCM 60400 Management Speaking
2 credit hours
This course will provide you with an opportunity to improve your 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. You 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.

MBCM 60420 Management Writing
2 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.

MBCM 60510 Change Communication
2 credit hours
Leaders are challenged with creating and managing change at the individual, team, and organizational level. However, change can be difficult and is often resisted by stakeholders in the organization. How can strategic communication improve a leader’s ability to inspire and effectively manage change? In this course, we review various approaches to understanding organizations, theories of motivation, and models of change at the individual, team, and organizational level, and explore their application to communication strategy.

MBCM 70450 Corporate Communication
2 credit hours
Few issues can affect stock prices faster than a corporate crisis or a negative story in the news media. In the course of their careers, managers will confront a series of issues related to corporate communication, including reputation management, media relations, legislative and government affairs, employee communication and crisis management. Other issues will include investor relations, corporate philanthropy, identity, image and issue advertising. You will examine the intersection of three separate yet related groups: the public, the press and private enterprise. You will also focus on communication programs intended to improve and influence public opinion and public policy on behalf of companies, industries, organizations and causes.

MBCM 70520 Intercultural Communication
2 credit hours
Intercultural Communication, a two-credit graduate elective course, examines the concepts associated with culture and communication; analyzes intercultural communication case situations; and integrates conceptual understanding with “real life” intercultural experiences and observations. This course will be taught in a lecture-reading-discussion/in-class exercise format. Course Objectives: To cultivate an appreciation for the importance of intercultural communication in business and society;To develop an understanding of the intercultural communication process;To expand your skills in analyzing intercultural communication situations;To improve your self-awareness and communication behavior in intercultural settings;To examine the ethical issues related to intercultural communication.

MARK 60550 Consumer Behavior
2 credit hours
Managers wishing to serve customers’ needs can build effectively upon an understanding of the field of consumer behavior. This seminar offers an in-depth exposure to this interesting area. Prior work in consumer behavior is not required; the course will begin at an introductory level. Illustrative topics include the consumer marketplace, consumer motivation, consumer perception, consumer attitudes, consumer decision-making, cultural and social influences, advertising and salesperson influences, market segmentation and marketing and advertising regulation. The seminar will include the examination of a number of significant academic research studies as well as marketing applications.

MARK 70100 Marketing Research
2 credit hours
The main goal of the course is to explore how to create extraordinary business value through sustainability and social responsibility. The primary topics covered in the course related to sustainability and social responsibility are (a) the what – current and future trends; (b) the when – conditions under which business value can be created; (c) the how – understanding how to integrate into strategy, daily practices, and the entire value chain. This course does not go into the why due to time constraints and it is assumed that all attending are interested in the topic. Rather the course is focused on pragmatic aspects. Therefore by the end of the course, students will have a general understanding of how to apply sustainability and social responsibility in the business sector. Because seven weeks is too short to become experts in applying sustainability and social responsibility, the course is designed as the beginning of a learning journey that will hopefully extend long into their business careers. Thus, the methodology of the course is highly experiential and interactive. Also students will be left with resources for further learning to guide them.

MARK 70110 Competitive Growth Strategy
2 credit hours
In this course you will learn and apply an actionable framework for building growth strategy that applies to any organization: small, large, for-profit, non-profit. The core of the process is uncovering the broad landscape of growth opportunities and then zeroing in on deeply understanding the value sought by customers and breaking down that value (both known and unknown) into actionable parts. You’ll learn how to then build a growth strategy plan around a unique value proposition that leverages the firm’s key capabilities and corrects for existing points of non-value. Plans will also emphasize how to build a customer-centric perspective into the organization. Each student will be involved in a team growth strategy project, building a growth plan for either a for-profit or non-profit organization.

MARK 70120 Marketing Analytics
2 credit hours
The gap between marketing theory and marketing practice has narrowed considerably due to the availability of data and practical methods of analyzing and using that data. Students will learn how theoretical models are implemented to make practical decisions; this includes formal models as well as simple marketing metrics. Representative topics include marketing return on investment, customer lifetime value, other key performance indicators, and optimal marketing mix allocation decisions. This course is appropriate for individuals considering careers in brand management, product management, retail management, or consulting.

MARK 70150 Channeling Customer Experience
2 credit hours
Qualitative research methods are spreading rapidly among firms across industry boundaries, in recognition of the fact that marketers often have no systematic intuition about or affinity for the segments to which they cater. As managers are exhorted to “get closer” to the consumer, they must divine unarticulated needs and anticipate intersections of their own industry with others. This course is designed to help you distinguish the actual lived experience of consumers from the assumptions of the firm. That is, you will seek authentic consumer insight. Our emphasis is on the managerial implications of prolonged engagement with consumers. You will analyze and interpret the experiential and functional dimensions of product/service/brand essence. You will learn to conduct rapid appraisals using qualitative methods, and to supervise diagnostic research into marketing problems. The class will observe a seminar-workshop format, and depend for its energy upon discussion of ongoing field research projects that student teams will conduct in naturalistic settings. This course will be immediately useful to careers in consulting and entrepreneurship, technology, category and brand management, new product development, advertising and marketing research.

MARK 70300 Brand Strategy
2 credit hours
This course brings real world brand challenges, thinking, and tasks into the classroom. A blend of theory and practical business issues are achieved through case speakers and written analyses.

MARK 70501 Advertising Management
2 credit hours
Advertising Management provides an opportunity to learn the management process through which organizations, taking a collaborative approach to consumers, develop and present messages of value that engage targeted audiences and encourage attitudinal, emotional, and behavioral responses. In cases, we explore advertising decision-making in corporations that take a consumer-centered approach to marketing. This course is intended to serve students who anticipate careers as brand managers and as marketing managers.

MARK 70550 Culture, Consumption, and Marketing
2 credit hours
Contemporary marketing requires a holistic understanding of fantasy and behavior as they interact in marketplaces around the globe. This course will help you comprehend, stimulate, manage and resist desire as you unpack the forces that shape and reflect the culture(s) of consumption. You will grasp the market as a complex system of material and metaphysical interactions, and learn to manipulate these interactions in a prosocial, ethical manner. Tempering interdisciplinary perspectives with a symbolic cast and combining the techniques of systematic introspection with participant observation, you will examine the many ways that consumption ramifies throughout daily life. Marketer and consumer misbehavior will also be probed. Cultural, subcultural, generational, class, lifecourse and group influences on marketing and consumption will be investigated. Semiotic interpretation, cross-cultural analysis, scenario planning, trend projection and other frameworks are employed throughout the quarter. This course is especially useful if you want to comprehend the “human” aspects of marketing, especially as they influence the “technical”, and if you seek insight into the deep structure of your own motivations. Its most immediate relevance is to careers in consulting and entrepreneurship, category and brand management, new product development, advertising and multicultural marketing.

MARK 70450 New Products Development 
2 credit hours
2nd Year MBA Only. This course is designed to provide you with an awareness of the issues involved in new product development and with a basic understanding of the procedures and tools available for dealing with these issues. The course is intended to serve students who anticipate careers in product management/product planning or who expect to be involved in the development of new products (goods or services), with emphasis on the marketing inputs to the product development process.

MARK 70650 Services Marketing 
2 credit hours
No longer are goods considered separate from services. Rather, now services represent an integral part of the product. This interconnectedness is increasingly characterized as the service economy.

MARK 70600  Social Media
2 credit hours
Participation in the social media “egosystem” requires digital literacy, an authentic voice and a high level of trust. MBA students that complete this course will acquire a deeper understanding of what makes social media technology so persuasive and develop the human skills necessary to foster co-creative relationships with connected consumers. A thorough examination of marketing communication research and case studies from industry professionals will provide MBA students with a solid conceptual foundation for building successful brands and positive consumer experiences with the aid of social media.

MARK 70350 Customer Relationship Management
2 credit hours
In this course, students will examine how firms deal with specific elements that drive complexity in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and related initiatives. CRM requires cross-functional coordination and technologies that expand the traditional domain of the marketing function, change the role of the marketing manager and affect how the marketing manager interacts with other members of the organizations. Students will be encouraged to view CRM holistically by evaluating the impact of strategic, operational and analytical CRM initiatives on performance outcomes for both customers and firms. More specifically, students will focus on the impact of CRM, from the marketing manager’s perspective. The course requirements and format include lectures, case analyses, student-led discussions and short papers.

MARK 63900 Exploring the Frontiers of Marketing Thought
2 credit hours
These seminars are devoted to selected areas of marketing and related disciplines. Each participant is expected to explore the chosen topic(s) determined by the participants and the teaching staff.

MBET 60320 Marketing Ethics
2 credit hours
This course examines a range of ethical issues facing marketing managers. Traditional topics such as ethics in marketing research, selling, advertising and pricing are covered. Emerging ethical issues such as international marketing, competitive intelligence, social cause marketing and corporate policies are also examined. The class is taught using a seminar format, and the opportunity exists for students to examine ethical problems in marketing that are of personal interest.

MBET 60330 International Business Ethics
2 credit hours
International business raises enormous ethical challenges in terms of globalization, environment, development, corruption and cultural and religious diversity. This course focuses on these challenges in the context of corporate decision-making. Students are encouraged to enhance their sensitivity for differing, sometimes conflicting, values and to develop ethical reasoning abilities. Various methods are discussed to formulate and implement ethical corporate policies for international business.

MBET 60370 Ethics in Finance and Banking
2 credit hours
This course builds on the previous course “Conceptual Foundations of Business Ethics” and focuses on the ethics in financing and banking. It includes seven weekly sessions covering the following topic areas: Ethics and Economics, Trust in Corporate Decision Making, Ethics and IPO Pricing, Ethics in Corporate Finance, Ethics in Banking, and Ethics in Investment. The course pursues a strongly interdisciplinary approach. Faculty specializing in economics, financing, banking, and ethics will help the students to analyze thee topic areas and explore their ethical implications. These topics will lead the class in their area of expertise.

MBET 60410 Managing Virtue and Vices in the Workplace
2 credit hours
The aim of this course is to prepare future managers to promote ethical decision making in the workplace and to confront unethical behavior when it arises. Central concepts in ethics will be explored, including ethical theories of individual and interpersonal behavior, personal values and moral character, Organizational factors affecting ethical decision making, including reward systems, culture, and organization design and managerial strategies that deter organizational wrongdoing; managerial strategies that maximize moral behavior By taking this course, students will learn to examine their own character and values – and those of others – and to explore how they can apply management techniques to improve decision-making and increase performance in organizations.

MBET 70540 Ethical Leadership in the Sustainable Enterprise
2 credit hours
This course will explore how you can create extraordinary business value through ethical leadership. Previously, ethics has been typically viewed as the right thing to do; however, ethics can also be a strategy that helps business create a competitive advantage. Furthermore, ethics – specifically helping society and the environment – can be a way that you can live out your personal values while also doing good business. The course will be structured such that more than half of the time will be experiential including team-based learning, interviews of leaders in the field, and personal exercises. The primary topics explored in this course will be those related to (a) how human behavior (motivation, creativity, relationships) of key stakeholders is positively influenced when working for/with a sustainable enterprise and (b) how you can become a leader that uses sustainable enterprise strategies to create business value.

MBET 70610 Spirituality of Work
2 credit hours
This exploration of the spirituality of work will begin with a consideration of the theology of work, including an overview of the theological perspectives on work that have emerged over time in the Christian imagination, the factors that shaped these perspectives and the influence of the same on contemporary attitudes. The theological foundation will lead to a more detailed consideration of the spirituality of work. The discussion regarding a spirituality of work will include: (1) definitions of spirituality, Christian spirituality, and work; (2) the need for workers to form a spirituality of work; (3) the contours of a spirituality of work: (4) the relationship of a spirituality of work to corporate and personal prayer (with particular attention to its place in the Catholic sacramental and liturgical imagination). Finally, the various dimensions of a spirituality of work that are indicated above will be appropriated to contemporary workplace settings, with particular attention being given to the students’ chosen business fields. The questions to be considered include: How might an awareness of the spiritual dimension of work impact one’s role in the workplace, i.e., as an employee or employer, co-worker, manager, business partner or investor, corporate officer, etc.? What influence does the spirituality of work have on one’s work habits and presence in the workplace? What bearing does the spirituality of work have on the overall vision, policies and priorities of a business? What are potential areas of tension in the secular business world for a person whom is mindful of the spirituality of work?

MBET 70620 Ethics in Emerging Markets
2 credit hours
The economic and social importance of the emerging markets in the global economy is tremendous and still growing.  The business opportunities in the emerging markets are great; so are the obstacles and challenges.  In this course, we examine both the business challenges and the opportunities facing companies operating in the emerging markets.   We will devote special attention to sub-Saharan Africa, which a recent McKinsey Quarterly article projected as “the developing world’s next great success story.”  We will also give attention to emerging markets in Latin America, Asia and elsewhere.

The course will take a case- and discussion-based approach to ethical challenges and opportunities on the personal, organizational and societal levels of moral behavior. It is hoped that by the end of the course students will be better equipped to ethically navigate the difficulties and capitalize on the opportunities of doing business in emerging markets.  It also hoped that students will see how exercising business leadership in the global arena can represent a great opportunity to make a positive difference consistently with the values and beliefs that incline them to ask ever more of business and of themselves.

MBGR 60210 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. No examinations or graded assignments. Students must attend all lectures; no unexcused absences. Open to any Notre Dame undergraduate or graduate student.

MBGR 60220 Boardroom Insights: A Senior Executive Speaker Series
1 credit hour
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.

MBGR 60420 Entrepreneurial Insights
1 credit hour
Entrepreneurial Insights is an interdisciplinary course in which students are introduced to entrepreneurship through a series of weekly lectures offered by guests with in-depth experience across a broad spectrum of industries. Topics vary, but typically include: innovation, opportunity recognition and evaluation, product design and development, technology commercialization, capitalization and funding, legal issues, intellectual property, sales, marketing, social entrepreneurship, and economic development.

MBGR 60700 Spreadsheets for Business and Finance
1 credit hour
This class is hands-on, focusing on the following: 1) Using Excel to solve business and finance problems. 2) Organizing data for effective analysis and decision making. 3) Making data more interpretable and visible to others.

MBLW 70180 Sports Media and Management
2 credit hours
This course provides a historical, theoretical and practical look into the various facets of sports administration from a business perspective. To this end, readings, lectures and research assignments will: (1) give students a global overview of the sports business in general; (2) describe the cultural nuances that are specific to the business aspects of professional sports such as football, baseball, hockey, basketball, etc., as well as amateur sport organizations; (3) identify markets, target audiences, as well as methods employed to communicate to selected groups; and (4)examine in a comprehensive manner the economics of each sports business sub-sector.

MBLW 70600 Business Law for Managers
2 credit hours
Business Law for Managers provides the graduate student of business with a general overview of the legal system as that institution relates to the business community. The course’s primary focus is on the law of torts, contracts and sales, legal procedure(s), employment law, entity selection and related tax issues.