MBA Electives

ACCT 70120 Corporate Financial Reporting
2 credit hours
This course is a continuation of ACCT60000/ACCT60120. Topics examined include income taxes, leases, pensions and other post retirement benefits, the equity method, consolidations, foreign currency, and segment disclosures.

ACCT 70140 Accounting for Mergers and Acquisitions
3 credit hours
The course provides coverage of various advanced topics in accounting and financial reporting for combined entities including mergers, acquisitions, noncontrolling interests, control premiums, intra-entity transfers, and international subsidiaries. The course will help students to become familiar with the financial procedures and information flows that accompany mergers and acquisitions. Approximately 1/3 of the course will be devoted to tax strategies and implications of alternative structures for business combinations. The course is designed to help students develop their research, communication, and critical thinking skills within the context of financial reporting and taxation for mergers and acquisitions.

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.

ACCT 70600 Taxes and Business Strategy
3 credit hours
Tax rules are pervasive in their effect on the investment and financing decisions of business. Managers must understand how changes in tax rules influence the behavior of their customers, their employees, their suppliers and their competitors to avoid operating at a competitive disadvantage. This, in turn, has consequences for how current tax rules affect taxpayers’ economic balance sheets. This course uses an economics-based approach to consider how tax and non-tax factors affect business activities. The framework developed is highly integrative: investment strategies and financing policies within firms are linked through taxes. The first part of the course develops the fundamental concepts that represent the building blocks of the framework. The second part applies the framework to specific decision settings such as compensation planning, choice of organizational form, mergers and acquisitions and multi-jurisdictional tax planning.

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
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 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 70420 Capital Allocation

New course description in progress.

FIN 70430 Financing the Corporation
2 credit hours
This course introduces the theory and practice of how firms meet their financing needs. We evaluate optimal levels of debt versus equity, determine key economic and strategic drivers for choosing types and sources of debt and equity funding, both short-term and long-term, for more mature corporations and newer, privately held firms. Skills acquired from this course can be applied in many real-world business settings, such as Treasury roles for mature firms, as an entrepreneur, consultant, credit analyst, structuring deals for investment banking, and financing by venture capital and private equity firms.

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 70470 Strategic Finance and Valuation
2 credit hours
This course provides a framework for the evaluation of strategic financial decisions. Topics include determining the financial drivers of company performance, economic (shareholder) value added, and the impact of strategic decisions such as pricing, expansion, and working capital changes. Using several case studies, the course will also cover topics such as leveraged buyouts, security issuance, spin offs, and private equity sales.

FIN 70500 Multinational Financial Management
2 credit hours
Fulfills International Requirement. Multinational corporations are the instruments for the globalization that is fundamentally changing the economic and political structure of our world. This course focuses on the corporate decision-maker, his or her analysis of the multinational environment, anticipation of the firm’s financial interaction with that environment and the use of decision models to select among resource allocation alternatives. Topics include exchange exposure and hedging, multinational acquisitions, capital budgeting and global financing.

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 (AIM)
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).

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 70700 Real Estate Fundamentals
2 credit hours
An introduction to the principles and practices of real estate. Topics to be covered shall include land use patterns and regulation, real estate finance, valuation, real estate law, brokerage and transfers, urban economics, and real estate development.

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 70980 Private Equity
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.

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.

FIN 76040 Seed Investor Practicum
2 credit hours
The purpose of the Seed Investor Practicum course is to engage students in a combination of a classroom lecture setting that outlines present seed stage philosophies and constructs together with a complete review of a seed investment opportunity. The class will be divided into two tracks. The first will be classroom lecture and case study based and will walk the students through an investment opportunity (classroom case study phase). A second parallel phase of the course will involve dividing students into small teams that will be aligned with either sophisticated angel investor groups or venture capitalists to work on a current project those groups are investigating (clinic phase).The classroom phase will introduce to the students an investment opportunity and walk the students through all of the processes in that investment consideration, including complete due diligence, competitive analysis, discussions with the company executive team, development of the term sheet, negotiations with the company on the terms of the investment and final close of the transaction.In the clinic phase, small teams of students will work with host investors (VCs or Angel Groups) on one of their ongoing company reviews, investments opportunities, due diligence requirements or other tasks that are presently being conducted by the group.

ITAO 70200 Advanced Statistical Inference
2 credit hours
In Advanced Statistical Inference students learn a variety of statistical methods that go beyond basic statistics. In particular, the course will deal with making inferences about one or more population quantities from sample data in the context of multiple groups and/or multiple variables. Principles of sound statistical reasoning and the theoretical underpinnings of statistical inference are integrated throughout the course. 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, multivariate analysis of variance, discriminate analysis, among others. For each method, the course will emphasize knowing (a) when it should be implemented, (b) how to implement it, (c) its limitations, and (d) how to interpret its results.

ITAO 70210 Predictive Analytics
2 credit hours
This course will cover several techniques needed to capitalize on the unprecedented availability of information and to meet the growing demand for better and faster decision support from such information. This course material will provide an understanding of various methods used to extract knowledge from data, such as data mining, as well as with important tools to improve managerial decision-making. Cases from finance, management, marketing, and operations will be used as illustrations.

ITAO 70220 Data Exploration and Visualization
2 credit hours
Mastery of tools and techniques for accessing, processing, and visualizing large quantities of data is an increasingly essential skill for business professionals. The course will cover database concepts, structured query languages, data cleaning and transformation processes, core concepts for visual analysis of complex data, and developing effective and useful visualizations. The emphasis is on a hands-on introduction to tools typical of those currently used in businesses, as well as tools for compelling exploratory data analyses.

ITAO 70230 Spreadsheet 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.

ITAO 70330 Ethics of Data Analytics

New course description in progress.

ITAO 70420 Sports Analytics
2 credit hours
Many industries are being created and transformed by using the techniques of business analytics. With the goal of studying these techniques in some depth, this course focuses on one such industry: sports. This industry has clearly benefited from the application of a wide variety of analytics techniques, and has the advantage of being widely and closely followed, with large amounts of easily-accessible real-world data. Topics for study in this course include how to evaluate players, rate teams, schedule leagues, and enhance coaching strategies. Assignments involve the hands-on use of a variety of techniques and tools, which are useful in most industries. Techniques and tools include data manipulation, probability, statistics, optimization, spreadsheets, and a powerful statistics package. A basic knowledge of Excel, statistics, and sports (in particular, baseball, basketball, and football) is assumed. (You do not have to be a sports fanatic.)

ITAO 70610 Data Analytics with Excel VBA
2 credit hours
Excel is a powerful platform that is commonly used to collect data from disparate sources, transform that data into a useful state, perform analysis and report results. The Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) language is fully integrated into Excel, and can automate many of these processes, reducing both the tedium of manual processing, and the errors that can thus be introduced. This course will start from simple macro recording, cover basic coding concepts, integrate many useful Excel objects, and leverage this all to produce powerful analytic solutions.

ITAO 70740 Privacy And Security
2 credit hours
In today’s digital age, people and organizations produce and deal with unprecedented amounts of data.Thus, issues concerning information privacy and security have taken on critical importance. Information privacy and security are fundamentally about data protection. Information privacy refers to decisions around what information should be protected, from whom, why, and issues related to the ownership of information; whereas information security refers to the tactics and technologies to ensure data protection.In this course, we will address questions such as: How should organizations manage privacy and security issues? What are the various privacy and security threats that organizations and individuals face? What are the current advancements in privacy and security technologies and government regulations? We will learn about economics of privacy, biases and heuristics in privacy decisions, privacy ethics, social engineering, and public policy and regulations. Also, we will gain an understanding of security threats and gain insight into managerial best practices for managing information security. This course will involve a number of assignments along with interactive in-class exercises aimed at enhancing your privacy and security decisions.

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.

ITAO 70920 International Operations
2 credit hours
Fulfills International Requirement. 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 70930 Lean Six Sigma
2 credit hours
At the most fundamental level, no organization can enjoy sustainable success unless it does one thing: meet or exceed its customers’ needs and expectations. Lean Six Sigma is a disciplined, customer-centric, data-driven approach that provides tools to understand your customer, to measure how well you are satisfying your customers’ needs, and to determine how you can satisfy these needs better, faster, and more cost effectively. This course will provide a deep dive into the Lean Six Sigma DMAIC methodology through a blended learning approach consisting of online learning, classroom lecture/discussion, online simulations, and a real-world project. Through the successful completion of this course (including the online materials/tests, the final project, and the final certification exam), you will earn your Lean Six Sigma Greenbelt certification.

ITAO 70950 Supply Chain Analytics
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.

MGTO 60715 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.

MGTO 70100 Problem Solving
2 credit hours

This course will introduce students to opportunities to integrate the lessons learned from accounting, finance, marketing, operations, strategy, and organizational behavior in order to solve business problems. Frameworks to assist in framing threats/opportunities, problem diagnosis, solution development, and recommendation implementation will also be discussed.

Students will practice using these integrative frameworks to facilitate problem-solving in at least 7 business cases from identification of problem, to recommendation, to implementation plan. Each of the cases chosen emphasizes different aspects of problem solving and integration including: microeconomics, game theory, finance, market estimation and competitor assessment, customer segmentation and economics, product pricing, positioning and branding, and operations.

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 70300 Judgement
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.

MGTO 70305 Business on the Frontlines
6 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.

MGTO 70500 Innovation in Healthcare Transformation
2 credit hours

While the political and media attention has been on the Affordable Care Act, the health care industry is the midst of a historical shift from volume based fee-for-service care to a value based system that aligns financial incentives with the Triple Aim of Health Care: Improving the patient experience of care (including quality and satisfaction); Improving the health of populations; and reducing the per capita cost of health care. This has created a wide range of significant new and exciting opportunities for disruptive innovations, from medical technology to creative business plans for alternate methodologies of care incentives.

This course will include presentations from experts that include the CEOs of health systems, multispecialty groups, and other major health care organizations; the presidents of companies involved in incubators and innovation technologies; leading health care attorneys from the private and federal sectors; insurance executives involved in new products; angel investors, and physicians including neurosurgeons and the associate dean of the medical school.

Through the use of discussions and readings with these experts, the students will be able to understand the regulatory, legal, and insurance guidelines that they can create and innovate within, while discovering new opportunities in health care investment, and be involved in the creation of new business models to achieve the Triple Aim.

Their projects at the end of the class will be evaluated by experienced investors that will include venture capitalists and angel investors.

MGTO 70510 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 70505 Strategic Foresight
2 credit hours
In a world of accelerating change, anticipation and resilience are critical components of strategic decision making. They can be the difference between capitalizing on change and getting left behind. The Strategic Foresight course gives students first hand experience with methods for sensing weak signals of emergent change, processes for imagining implications of change, and frameworks for creating strategic resilience in an uncertain future. Upon completion of the course, students will have a working knowledge of proven foresight processes for asking and answering ambiguous strategic questions, enabling them to better lead their organizations amid turbulent change.

MGTO 70510 Innovation and Design
2 credit hours
“Innovation and Design”: 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 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 70530 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.

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
Social innovation is defined as “a novel solution to a social problem that is more effective, efficient, sustainable, or just than current solutions.” This course will ground students in the theory and practice of social innovation while also developing skills through field work with South Bend partners on issues related to economic insecurity. The in-class portion of the course will utilize cases, guest speakers, articles, self-assessments, and discussion. For the field work portion, teams of students will (1) examine and strengthen processes within an organization that affect its ability to engage in social innovation and (2) assist in building organizations’ capacities to leverage relationships with other entities, particularly businesses, to generate and implement innovative solutions to problems related to economic insecurity. Students will be taught to approach their work through the lens of appreciative inquiry, which is an approach to organizational development that emphasizes discovery of and capitalization upon the strengths of an organization or organizational ecosystem.

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).

MGTO 70560 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.

MGTO 70600 Strategic 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.

MGTO 70615 Advanced Speaking for Business
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.

MGTO 70625 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.

MGTO 70635 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.

MGTO 70640 Strategic Communication
2 credit hours
Students will develop written and oral communication deliverables that align communication strategy with business objectives.

MGTO 70705 United Nations Global Impact
2 credit hours
In today’s interconnected global economy, there is a growing realization that we must restore public trust in business. Integrating environmental, social and governance issues into corporate management is the overriding purpose of the United Nations Global Compact and its ten principles. This is the heart of the corporate sustainability movement and an effective way to restore trust in business.Take one look at the smog that hangs over the former Olympic host city Beijing and it becomes abundantly clear?globalization and economic expansion come at a price. Resource depletion, worker exploitation, pollution and corruption?this is the dark underbelly of globalization that has raised alarm bells around the world. Thankfully, more and more individuals and organizations are waking up to the social, environmental and ethical costs of a global marketplace and are making a sound business case for a new era of moral capitalism. Leading the way in this regard is the United Nations with its groundbreaking Global Compact initiative. Launched in 2000, the Global Compact now has more than 10,000 participants?including 7,000 businesses in 140 countries around the world?making it the world’s largest voluntary corporate social responsibility project. OBJECTIVES1. To introduce the student to the United National Global Compact and why its focus on human rights, labor rights, environmental issues and corruption is so attractive to the many stakeholders of business.2. To develop the ability to think clearly about how one integrates environmental, social and governance issues into corporate management.3. To develop a sensitivity to the moral and ethical values that enable companies to restore public trust in business.4. To understand how a number of companies are implementing the principles of the Global Compact by examining case studies.5. To examine and understand the changing role of business in society.

MGTO 70715 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?

MGTO 70740 Gender Equity in Business
1 credit hour
In this course we will consider barriers to the advancement of women at the individual, interpersonal, organizational and societal levels and the indispensable role of men in the advancement of gender equity. We will help women and men to better understand each other so as to work more comfortably and productively together with a higher level of mutual respect and appreciation. Finally, we will address how best to approach particular issues such as sexual harassment, male/female mentorship and socializing in the wake of the #MeToo movement, the gender pay gap, and the detrimental impact on women’s careers of family obligations continuing to fall disproportionately on them.The course will be conducted in a seminar format involving the lively and mutually enlightening discussion of readings and one another’s perspectives, experiences and insights. We will also engage and learn from outside speakers.

MARK 603900 Exploring Frontiers Marketing Thought
3 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.

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
Market information is critical for firms. Without it, organizations operate blindly and the likelihood of misinformed and erroneous decisions is greatly increased. Accordingly, the goal of the course is to inform participants how to engage in market research. Specifically, students will learn a) to critically evaluate what information is necessary to make more informed decisions, b) the various approaches organizations use to obtain the information, and c) the most commonly used techniques necessary to analyze the data. In the process, course participants will have the opportunity to manage and conduct a research project for a client of their choosing.

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 70350 Customer Valuation and Management
2 credit hours
The overarching principles of this course are: 1) estimating customer lifetime value (CLV) and managing customers based on their CLV, 2) deciding on which customers to acquire and how to acquire them, 3) clarifying the importance of customer retention and developing ideas to increase retention, 4) expanding the existing customer relationships and increasing the share of wallet through cross-selling and up-selling, and 5) linking CLV to organizational-level concepts such as firm valuation. The course requirements and format include lectures, case analyses, simulations, student-led discussions and short papers.

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 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 70600 Social Media Strategy
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.

MBGR 60210 10 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.

Venture Capital/Start-up Immersion

New course description in progress.