Executive MBA Course Descriptions
First Semester
BUAD 701: Accounting - Reporting and Analysis (2.5 Credits): This course introduces the basic concepts of financial accounting necessary to generate financial statements and reports. It examines strategies used to master the economic subtleties of business, and provides the managerial skills needed to analyze and interpret financial statements for internal and external use.
BUAD 703: Statistics for Business (2.5 Credits): This course focuses on data analysis and how managers use data to make better business decisions. We will examine the role and application of statistics in the analysis of business problems including estimation, statistical measures, hypothesis testing, analysis of variance, and regression models.
BUAD 707: Marketing Management (2.5 Credits): This course focuses on the problems of building an integrated marketing program in light of external forces, such as the consumer, the trade, the competition and the regulatory environment. Specific emphasis is placed on the marketing concept, the marketing mix, market definition and dynamics, segmentation and positioning, and product/market evolution.
BUAD 709: Leadership in an Uncertain Era: Understanding Organizational Behavior and Processes (2.5 Credits): This course is designed to improve your effectiveness as a manager by deepening your understanding of how organizations work. To succeed in the business world, you must (a) analyze organizational events and processes and (b) design and implement actions to increase organizational effectiveness. These critical leadership skills are even more important today, as organizations enter a period of enormous upheaval and change. The course begins with an intensive two-day leadership forum that focuses on heightening your awareness of leadership challenges and enhancing your ability to address them. As the semester continues, we build upon that seminal experience by exploring how the structure, power relations, and culture of organizations shape and constrain the behavior of individuals within them. The course culminates in a project in which you apply both conceptual tools and leadership skills to events in your current organization.
Second Semester
BUAD 702: Accounting for Decision Making and Control (2.5 Credits): This course continues the accounting series with cost accounting, activities analysis, profit planning and budgetary systems, cost allocations, transfer pricing, and performance evaluation.
BUAD 704: Quantitative Models for Business (1.5 Credits): This course is designed to introduce students to basic modeling, analysis and simulation techniques. Emphasis will be placed on problem identification and formulation, sensitivity analysis and model construction. Spreadsheet tools will be used to solve business problems across various business functional areas.
BUAD 706: Managerial Economics and Public Policy (2.5 Credits): This introductory applied economics class examines the basic concepts and applications of demand and supply analysis. The course also explores topics of production and pricing in both domestic and international markets. Furthering the understanding of different market structures, this course focuses on the causes and consequences of market failures, the application of game theory to corporate decision-making, and the impact of technological change, international competition and government regulation.
BUAD 710: Communications for Executives (1.5 Credits): This course is designed specifically for the communication needs of executives. Building on skills and knowledge essential for successful communication, the course will focus on the value of effective managerial communication, provide an understanding of strategic organizational communication, and enhance speaking, writing, and other communication abilities.
Third Semester
BUAD 705: Global Environment of Business (2.5 Credits): This course focuses on how domestic and international product and financial markets operate. Students will develop expertise in applying models to generate qualitative forecasts of economic growth, interest rates, exchange rates and inflation. Through the analysis of case studies, the students will develop an understanding of policy decisions at the Federal Reserve and the effect that these policies have in the money and exchange rate markets.
BUAD 713: Marketing Strategy (2.5 Credits): This course focuses on the formulation of marketing strategy, including balancing market opportunities and threats with available resources and alternative responses, as well as analysis of markets, product and pricing strategies.
BUAD 714: Financial Management (2.5 Credits): This course is structured on the concepts and tools of valuation. It covers financial and project analysis, financial forecasting, risk and return, cost of capital, mergers and acquisitions, and valuation.
BUAD 715: Operations and Supply Chain Management (2.5 Credits): To achieve competitive advantage, managers must understand how to design and control products and services, as well as the systems for their delivery. To reach that understanding, this course focuses on issues of planning and control of complex products and services, managing quality and continuous improvement, and control of the supply chain.
Fourth Semester
BUAD 716: Leading Change in Organizations (2.5 Credits): Building on the concepts from Leadership in an Uncertain Era, this course examines the leader's role in diagnosing, anticipating, planning, implementing, and evaluating change within organizations. Case studies and group projects focus on organizational analysis, barriers to change, overcoming resistance to change, change intervention strategies and methods, and change evaluation.
BUAD 717: Corporate Financial Policy (2.5 Credits): Building on the topics in Financial Management, Corporate Financial Policy covers advanced topics in financial markets and financial strategy, including debt and equity management policy, financing, derivatives and risk management, and international finance.
BUAD 719: Business Policy (1.5 Credits): This course is the study of the management of organizations with special focus on the roles and tasks of individual managers. The course deals with analyzing external and internal environmental forces; formulating organizational objectives; understanding the often conflicting needs and expectations of customers, employees, investors and other stakeholders; defining and appraising alternative courses of action; formulating and executing action plans; and establishing systems for monitoring and measuring results.
BUAD 722: Ethical Accountability (1.0 Credits): In a world of increased global trade and commerce, this course focuses on understanding and managing the differing standards for everything from earnings to ethics. The course serves to help us better understand values, our accountabilities, and the impact of our decisions and actions in the workplace. To reach this understanding, issues of business ethics, business strategy and emerging technologies, and managing conflicting interests in a global economy will be discussed.
BUAD 721: Managing Information Systems (2.5 Credits): The course focuses upon strategic influence of information technology (IT) within organizations. Designed primarily for non-IT executives, the course will prepare for understanding of technological vocabulary, emerging technologies and how they enhance core business functions, and demonstrating the business value of IT investment. Practice based exercises will augment the learning experience through modeling IT choices and information utilization.
Fifth Semester
BUAD 720: Global Strategy Management (3.0 Credits): An examination of the distinctive management issues that arise when firms are either contemplating or already doing business across national boundaries. This course requires the integration and application of knowledge and skills learned in earlier courses and also introduces the critical business skills of understanding and managing strategic issues in international settings.
Advanced Business Electives I, II, III (2.0 Credits Each): Current class’s electives include Small Business, Issues in International Economics and Finance, and Negotiations Strategy.
