Master of Business Administration with Honors

Highlighted Knowledge

Digital and Social Media Marketing

Provides the theoretical knowledge and practical insights for integrating social media and digital marketing into the traditional marketing mix, understanding and engaging social media consumers, and monitoring and measuring the results of these efforts. Students will learn how to manage digital and social media, be able to understand the psychology of online consumers, the impact of digital and social media on traditional marketing strategy, review the digital and social media marketing process, critically evaluate the various social media platforms and online content, and successfully measure the impact of digital marketing efforts. Specific topics to be discussed include: Search Engine Marketing, Google AdWords, Google Analytics and Facebook Insights.

Managing Internationally

This course explores the important managerial issues arising from a firm’s expansion into the international arena and examines the analytical frameworks and management techniques that are essential for an international manager. Topics covered include strategies and organizational structures for managing a multinational corporation and management of various functional areas (such as production, marketing, finance and human resources) in an international setting. Considerable attention is paid to how and why organizational communication and practices vary from one culture to another, as well as why certain values and cultural contexts might make particular management styles more successful than others.

Managing Brands

This course provides students with the knowledge and skills required to design a strategic brand management plan. Emphasis is placed on building, measuring, and managing brand equity. Some topics covered in the course include developing a brand strategy, designing and implementing brand marketing programs, measuring and interpreting brand performance, and growing and sustaining brand equity.

Marketing

Principal objectives are to discuss the role of marketing in an organization, to describe the processes of buyer behavior and the impact of these processes on marketing decisions, to develop an understanding of approaches used to segment markets and factors influencing the selection of target markets, and to develop an understanding of elements of the marketing mix (product, price, communications, channels) and factors affecting decisions in these areas, and to integrate these concepts into an effective marketing strategy.

Managing People

Addresses topics, challenges and processes associated with business-related people issues. The principal objectives are to increase understanding of human and group behavior in organizations; to learn how to effectively motivate and lead individuals and groups; to increase effectiveness in managing oneself and others in team settings; and to increase understanding of human resource policies and practices that help create and sustain competitive advantage through people. Course topics include individual differences, motivation, groups, leadership, strategic HR, employment law, staffing, compensation, performance management, and training and development.

Managerial Economics

Covers principles of microeconomic analysis and methodology used in managerial decision-making. The focus is on the role of markets in determining business and individual opportunities to create value, the behavior of individual markets reacting to supply and demand forces, and the consequences of alternative market structures for business strategy. Course content includes demand, cost and production analysis, supply and demand analysis, price and non-price competition, market structure, the basic elements of game theory, and the economics of information.

Statistics

Covers basic statistical tools for understanding data in organizations. The principal objectives of the course are to learn data gathering and data analysis techniques and to learn how to apply statistical tools to help understand common problems in organizations. Course content includes data gathering and problem analysis tools, probability distributions and features of distributions (means, standard deviations, Normal distribution, and Binomial distribution), stratification analysis, Pareto analysis, correlation, confidence intervals, simple hypothesis testing, linear regression, and analysis of variance.

Strategic Business

Course topics include how to perform strategic analyses of competitive contexts external to the firm, how to leverage firm specific resources and capabilities for competitive advantage, how to exploit specific strategic perspectives such as game theory and real options, and to learn how to make more effective strategic decisions within the firm. Topics include: industry analysis, firm level strategy, resources and capabilities, intangible resources, firm structure, industry evolution, game theory, real options, managerial discretion, and multinational strategy.

Business Analytics

This course will provide an overview of the field of business analytics, the concepts and processes with which data is sourced, prepared, and managed as a strategic business asset. Analytics techniques involving data modeling, querying, and the exploration of data for discovering trends and patterns will be discussed and applied.

Business Law and Ethics

This course has two purposes: 1) to provide a foundation for understanding the relation between law and business and 2) to address ethical decision-making and the management of ethics in the workplace. Topics include classifications of law, legal processes, emerging legal issues, alternative dispute resolution, recognition of ethical issues, ethical analysis frameworks, and the management of ethical responsibilities in a global business environment.

Finance

Provides an overview of the challenges associated with the financial management of firms. The focus is on the practices followed by managers in raising and investing capital so as to maximize value. Topics include cash planning, working capital management, operating and financial risks, valuation of real and financial assets, and the cost of capital.

Accounting

Covers the creation and application of financial accounting information and financial statements for decision making by corporate stakeholders, and to the use of internal accounting information for decision making by firm management.

Operations and Supply Chain Management

Covers a wide set of topics to develop both strategic and analytical skills in supply chain management. The course will provide a conceptual framework and a set of analytical tools to analyze, coordinate, and improve organizational processes. Objectives of the course include an introduction to the strategic and operating issues and decisions involved in managing the operational and supply chain processes within and across firms; an understanding of the concept of supply chain coordination by managing information and inventory; and to develop a basic understanding of purchasing, supplier relationship management, and outsourcing. Topics include process and cycle time analysis, lean/JIT production system, six sigma, inventory management, managing information flows in supply chains, and purchasing and supply management.

Capstone Course

The capstone course emphasizes leadership, analysis and decision-making in a practical business environment, where students will demonstrate synthesis and mastery of the concepts explored in previous courses. The course is designed around four discrete blocks in which students will focus their learning through a combination of in-depth study and reflection, with each block ending with a data-driven case study intended to measure individual understanding and application of the ideas addressed in that particular block. Ultimately, the goal of this course is to posture the student to provide practical leadership and sound decisions in a dynamic and complex business environment, achieving what the ancient Greeks termed “phronesis”—practical wisdom that weaves together judgment, intellect and experience to drive better decision-making in leaders.