Accounting
Students majoring in another business discipline may add a concentration in Accounting by completing an additional six credits of coursework in the area beyond Principles of Accounting (BUAD 203)
Required Course
accounting required courses
Financial Reporting and Analysis
BUAD 301 | 3 credits
This course focuses on the financial reporting environment: evaluating the quality of the reported information, analyzing reporting choices, and assessing the role of financial information in resource allocation decisions. Topics traditionally included in intermediate accounting are covered by analyzing key business transactions on the financial statements and measures of performance evaluations such as profitability, competitiveness, and leverage. This course is designed to be taken as either a one-semester course or as part of a two-semester sequence with BUAD 302 - Advanced Financial Reporting and Analysis.
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Electives (Choose One)
accounting elective courses
Advanced Financial Reporting and Analysis
BUAD 302 | 3 credits
This course focuses on an advanced study of topics in financial reporting that are traditionally considered in intermediate accounting. Reporting issues related to topics such as pensions, stock options, and deferred taxes are considered with reference to original source materials and accounting research.
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Strategic Cost Management
BUAD 303 | 3 credits
Applications of cost analysis to inventory valuation and income determination and planning and control of routine operations and non-routine decisions. This course emphasizes the relevance of cost concepts to modern decision tools. Substantial use of problems and cases.
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Not-for-Profit Accounting
BUAD 304 | 3 credits
This course focuses on accounting and financial management concepts unique to the nonprofit sector. Topics include: the preparation and use of not-for-profit financial statements, tax reporting, audit requirements, and managerial planning and control. Students will learn both how to create reports and how to analyze information from the perspective of nonprofit managers, board members, regulators, donors, and creditors.
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International Accounting (Advanced Accounting)
BUAD 401 | 3 credits
This course focuses on accounting related to international issues. Topics include: International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), accounting for derivatives and transactions denominated in foreign currencies, international audit issues, and international tax issues. Students will learn both the accounting for international transactions as well as hot to analyze and interpret financial information prepared using different accounting systems.
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Auditing and Internal Controls
BUAD 404 | 3 credits
Application of technology, modeling, statistics and other auditing procedures within the framework of generally accepted auditing standards. Reporting, ethics, international practices and case applications are emphasized.
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Federal Taxation
BUAD 405 | 3 credits
An analysis of the federal income tax laws. Development of conceptual awareness of federal income tax structure and tax planning, and gaining ability to determine solutions to problems confronting the individual and business taxpayer.
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Courses cannot double count for both a major and a concentration.
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Business Analytics
Students majoring in another business discipline may add a concentration in Business Analytics by completing an additional six credits of coursework in the area.
Electives (Choose Two)
business analytics elective courses
Big Data Analytics
BUAD 460 | 3 credits
This course is designed to equip students with the kinds of analytical skills used in the era of Big Data to reveal the hidden patterns in, and relationships among, data elements being created by internal transaction systems, social media and the Internet of Things. Students will use the open source programming language R for the development of Data Mining (and other statistically-based) analytical solutions.
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Developing Business Intelligence
BUAD 466 | 3 credits
The course focuses on the collection, representation and analysis of evidence in support of decision making and process improvement. The course will examine hard and soft measures, criteria for evaluation, and performance measurement.
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Predictive Analytics
BUAD 467 | 3 credits
This course focuses on solving business problems with data using predictive techniques, particularly in situations where the problem statement is ambiguous. The course covers five integral elements of analysis including: 1) general problem framing, 2) framing analytics problems, 3) managing, evaluating and cleaning data, 4) methodology selection and 5) model building/reporting. This approach enables students to experience a predictive business analytics problem from start to finish with a particular emphasis on providing, receiving and implementing feedback for improvement.
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Prescriptive Analytics
BUAD 468 | 3 credits
This course focuses on solving business problems using prescriptive techniques. The course covers optimization models, including linear programming, and simulation models, including Monte Carlo simulation. This course will focus on how prescriptive modeling techniques can be used to make decisions for different business applications.
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Courses cannot double for both a major and a concentration.
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Consulting
Students majoring in a business discipline may add a concentration in Consulting by completing an additional six credits of coursework in the area.
Electives (Choose Two)
consulting elective courses
Management Consulting
BUAD 431 | 3 credits
This course examines the management consulting process and prepares students for a role as either an internal or external consultant. The course is designed to provide a framework for understanding the art and science of providing management counsel to client organizations in the public and private sectors. The course follows the process of a typical consulting engagement in identifying key project requirements, feasibility and design alternatives.
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Change Management and Organizational Transformation
BUAD 437 | 3 credits
The course will focus on effective process design, change management, and transforming the organization through changes in process, people, and technology. Topics will include stakeholder analysis, goal/strategy alignment, generating buy-in, effectively informing processes, performance measurement and incentives.
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Developing Business Intelligence
BUAD 466 | 3 credits
The course focuses on the collection, representation and analysis of evidence in support of decision making and process involvement. The course will examine hard and soft measures, criteria for evaluation, and performance measurement.
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Project Management
BUAD 482 | 3 credits
This course will focus on the concepts and tools related to the management of projects within organizations. Students will examine all phases of project management including selection, planning, scheduling, control, and termination. Topics include writing project plans, developing work breakdown structures, project scheduling, resource management, earned value analysis, and project risk management.
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Courses cannot double count for both a major and a concentration.
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Finance
Students majoring in another business discipline may add a concentration in Finance by completing an additional six credits of coursework in the area beyond Financial Management (BUAD 323). Students are required to take either BUAD 327 or BUAD 329, but may take both to fulfill the concentration requirements.
Required Courses (Choose One or Both)
finance required courses
Investments
BUAD 327 | 3 credits
An introduction to portfolio management, fixed income, and derivative instruments.
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Corporate Valuation and Credit Analysis
BUAD 329 | 3 credits
This course focuses on corporate valuation and credit analysis. Students will learn common methodologies for valuing corporate entities used by professionals working in investments, private equity, venture capital and investment banking. The course will familiarize students with various data sources and software used in the financial industry.
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Electives (Choose One)
finance elective courses
Student Managed Investment Fund
BUAD 421 | 3 credits
The purpose of this course is to provide portfolio management and security analysis experience through the management of the Mason School Managed Investment Fund (SMIF). Students select companies from an S&P stock universe, do research on their business model and competitive environment, make forecasts of future financial performance and perform valuation analyses, write an investment report and present orally a recommendation to their colleagues and faculty for inclusion in a real endowment portfolio of common stocks. This course may be repeated one time.
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Applied Financial Concepts
BUAD 422 | 3 credits
The goal of this course is to expose the student to practices and developments within several specialized areas of the financial services sector through the case method of instruction. Key objectives are to develop the student's problem solving ability and oral and written communication skills through the quantitative and qualitative analysis of actual business situations. Active student participation in case discussion and analysis is required. This course is offered through the Distinguish program, and requires an application.
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Corporate Financial Strategy
BUAD 423 | 3 credits
Advanced topics in the theory and practice of financial decision-making. Cases and readings are used to examine the tools and techniques of financial strategy formulation and implementation under various environmental settings.
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Derivatives and Risk Management
BUAD 424 | 3 credits
An examination of the markets of derivative securities, valuation, trading strategies, and their applications in managing risk. The emphases are on financial engineering and the quantitative methods in the valuation of derivative securities.
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Advanced Investments
BUAD 427 | 3 credits
An examination of the advanced topics of equity and fixed-income investments.
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Behavioral Economics and Finance
BUAD 428 | 3 credits
A review of prominent psychological biases and heuristics affecting individual decision-making. Applications to economics, finance, public policy, and social science.
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Courses cannot double count for both a major and a concentration.
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Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Students majoring in a business discipline may add a concentration in Innovation & Entrepreneurship by completing BUAD 340 Introduction to Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and an additional six credit hours.
Required Course
innovation and entrepreneurship required courses
Introduction to Innovation and Entrepreneurship
BUAD 340 | 3 credits
This course exposes students to fundamental innovation and entrepreneurship concepts and will also provide an entry point into the Innovation & Entrepreneurship minor. Students will learn about the mindsets and tools associated with innovation and entrepreneurship and will be prepared to hit the ground running in subsequent, project-based Innovation & Entrepreneurship courses.
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Electives (Choose Two)
innovation and entrepreneurship elective courses
Entrepreneurial Ventures
BUAD 443 | 3 credits
Entrepreneurial Ventures focuses on the issues, decisions, and problems faced by entrepreneurial owners and innovators who wish to create and manage new or smaller enterprises, family businesses, technology based enterprises or franchises. Students will develop the knowledge and skill set relevant for the creation, operation and ultimate success of the venture based on enterprise.
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Customer Insights for Innovation
BUAD 451 | 3 credits
Many business opportunities and decisions depend on an understanding of customers' values, needs, aspirations and behaviors. These unique insights inform the development of products, services, and brands that are valued by customers and differentiated from competition. This course will be an immersive and experiential introduction to customer insights research, including fieldwork using a variety of qualitative research methods. In addition, these methods will be applied within the context of generating concepts for new products and services that address the insights identified.
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Sustainability Inspired Innovation and Design
BUAD 453 | 3 credits
Many companies are embracing sustainability as the inspiration and impetus for the next wave of product and service innovation. In this course, we will explore the reasons behind this growing interest in sustainability, what sustainability means to consumers, and the opportunities it presents to companies that want to "do well while doing good." This course will also emphasize the process and outcome of product and service innovation, from creative idea generation to concept evaluation. Specifically, students will gain significant hands-on experience with the tools and techniques of "Design Thinking" in a studio setting, with a focus on developing innovative ideas that promote the principles of sustainability.
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Creative Problem Solving
BUAD 457 | 3 credits
A study of the processes of creativity and innovation in complex problem-solving, informed by both business and inter-disciplinary approaches. Throughout the course, students engage in a mix of experiential, experimental, and reflective exercises designed to promote integrative and creative problem-solving, with an emphasis on the techniques, frameworks and mindsets that drive innovation in organizations.
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Financing Entrepreneurial Ventures
BUAD 492 | 3 credits
This course provides real world, on-the-ground learning about how entrepreneurial ventures are financed, with a particular focus on Venture Capital & Private Equity sources of funding. Topic areas include understanding what sources of capital are available to entrepreneurial ventures, deciding how much to raise and from what sources to raise, selecting potential investors and board members, preparing ventures for profitable exits, and learning how to "craft a deal" by creating term sheets, investment pitches, and incentive plans. This course is designed for individuals with an interest in entrepreneurship, private/venture capital, corporate finance and law.
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Courses cannot double count for both a major and a concentration.
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Management & Organization Leadership
Students majoring in a business discipline can add a management & organizational leadership concentration by completing six credits.
Electives (Choose Two)
management and organization leadership elective courses
Teams: Design, Selection, and Development
BUAD 435 | 3 credits
This course is designed to develop the knowledge and skills to enable students to improve the performance of most teams. Working in teams has become the norm in most organizations, yet most people have many misconceptions about what makes groups effective. Groups can be exhilarating or maddening. This course will cover work in a variety of teams including: project teams, self-directed teams, research teams, consulting teams, and multinational teams. Topics include: team design, principles of selection, team performance management and rewards, managing transnational teams, and team facilitation.
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Business & Society
BUAD 436 | 3 credits
This course explores the complex relationship between business and the wider social context in which it operates and the challenges leaders face in balancing their economic, ethical, legal, and citizenship responsibilities to their various stakeholders. In this era of 'globalization' corporations may be as large as nations in terms of economic and social impact. Topics include: corporate social responsibility, and citizenship, ecological and natural resource concerns, business-government relations, technological change, public relations, and corporate governance.
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Change Management and Organizational Transformation
BUAD 437 | 3 credits
The course will focus on effective process design, change management, and transforming the organization through changes in process, people, and technology. Topics will include stakeholder analysis, goal/strategy alignment, generating buy-in, effectively informing processes, performance measurement and incentives.
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Leadership
BUAD 438 | 3 credits
This field-based course is designed to develop the ability to work with and through others in order to make effective contributions as a member of an organization. The course emphasizes developing a leadership orientation, understanding critical leadership issues and developing appropriate leadership skills.
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The Psychology of Decision Making
BUAD 442 | 3 credits
An examination and analysis of the cognitive factors that aid or hinder choosing alternative courses of action. The major emphasis will be on psychological processes underlying choice and judgment. Applications to business decision and policy making will be considered. (Cross listed with PSYC 442).
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Courses cannot double count for both a major and a concentration.
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Marketing
Students majoring in another business discipline may add a concentration in Marketing by completing an additional six credits of coursework in the area beyond Principles of Marketing (BUAD 311).
Electives (Choose Two)
marketing elective courses
Consumer Behavior
BUAD 446 | 3 credits
The consumer-firm relationship is analyzed through the application of concepts drawn from contemporary behavioral science to concrete business cases and practices. Relevant concepts from the fields of cultural anthropology, sociology and psychology are applied to problems encountered in marketing to various consumer groups.
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Customer Experience Management
BUAD 447 | 3 credits
To be competitive in today's marketplace, service organizations must provide a quality experience for their customers. Customer experience management (CEM) is the process of strategically managing a customer's entire experience with a company. Specifically, this course identifies the key dimensions on which customer perceptions of service excellence are based, and describes strategies for offering superior customer service. Students will gain a better understanding of how customers evaluate service firms; they will also have a "tool kit" of ideas, measures and techniques to help improve service excellence.
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Marketing Strategy
BUAD 448 | 3 credits
Managerial techniques in planning and executing marketing programs. Emphasis on decision making related to marketing segmentation, product innovation and positioning, pricing and promotion. Extensive use of cases, readings and a management simulation.
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Global Marketing
BUAD 450 | 3 credits
This course includes theories of and justifications for free trade, a study of environments across international markets (including the economic environments, the cultural environments, the political/regulatory environments, and the physical/geographic environments) and the practice of marketing including global marketing management for large, small and medium sized firms. Topics include globalization, global strategies, international service marketing and marketing in the developing world.
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Customer Insights for Innovation
BUAD 451 | 3 credits
Many business opportunities and decisions depend on an understanding of customers' values, needs, aspirations and behaviors. These unique insights inform the development of products, services, and brands that are valued by customers and differentiated from competition. This course will be an immersive and experiential introduction to customer insights research, including fieldwork using a variety of qualitative research methods. In addition, these methods will be applied within the context of generating concepts for new products and services that address the insights identified.
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Marketing Research
BUAD 452 | 3 credits
Introduction to fundamentals of marketing research. Use of research information in marketing decision making. Topics include research design, interrogative techniques data collection methods, scaling, sampling and alternative methods of data analysis. Students design and execute their own research projects.
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Sustainability Inspired Innovation & Design
BUAD 453 | 3 credits
Many companies are embracing sustainability as the inspiration and impetus for the next wave of product and service innovation. In this course, we will explore the reasons behind this growing interest in sustainability, what sustainability means to consumers, and the opportunities it presents to companies that want to "do well while doing good." This course will also emphasize the process and outcome of product and service innovation, from creative idea generation to concept evaluation. Specifically, students will gain significant hands-on experience with the tools and techniques of "Design Thinking" in a studio setting, with a focus on developing innovative ideas that promote the principles of sustainability.
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Advertising & Digital Marketing
BUAD 456 | 3 credits
A study of how to use advertising and marketing communications, with special emphasis on digital media, to build and sustain relationships with consumers. Development of an integrated marketing communication campaign will emphasize the presentation of products to consumers through relevant media to include digital channels. Target market identification, situation analysis, promotional strategy and tactics, and evaluation within budgetary constraints will be stressed.
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Courses cannot double count for both a major and a concentration.
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Supply Chain Analytics
Students majoring in another business discipline may add a concentration in Supply Chain Analytics by completing an additional six credits of coursework in the area.
Electives (Choose Two)
supply chain analytics elective courses
Lean Six Sigma Toolkit
BUAD 461 | 3 credits
This course focuses on developing lean processes within a variety of operating environments. Tools and strategies leading to improved process management are included. The course also focuses on Six Sigma approaches to process quality and includes emphasis on tools and procedures for implementing Six Sigma strategies within organizations.
Note: This course combines the existing BUAD 459 and BUAD 461 courses into a single course. Students who took BUAD 459 under a previous catalog may not take the new 3 credit BUAD 461 version.
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Supply Chain Analytics
BUAD 463 | 3 credits
Mathematical optimization techniques and applied solutions for problems in logistics, distribution, facility location, transportation, and supply chain network.
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Supply Chain Management
BUAD 465 | 3 credits
Over the last five years, technology, specifically the WEB, has revolutionized the way firms do business with each other. The usual stumbling blocks of poor information availability: incompatible organizational structures and information systems, and the high cost of collaboration structures and information systems, and the high cost of collaboration are being "blown to bits" by tailored supply chain initiatives and web-centric software. This course will explore these initiatives and tools that firms are using to manage supply chains and B2B integration.
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Courses cannot double count for both a major and a concentration.
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Sustainability
Students majoring in a business discipline may add a concentration in sustainability by completing an additional six credits of coursework in the area.
Electives (Choose Two)
sustainability elective courses
Social Entrepreneurship
BUAD 441 | 3 credits
Social Entrepreneurs create innovative and sustainable solutions to critical social and environmental challenges, using strategies from business. This course integrates the concepts of social responsibility, sustainable business, nonprofit and for-profit management, and consulting practice by applying these frameworks to specific issues in domestic and international contexts.
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Sustainability Inspired Innovation and Design
BUAD 453 | 3 credits
Many companies are embracing sustainability as the inspiration and impetus for the next wave of product and service innovation. In this course, we will explore the reasons behind this growing interest in sustainability, what sustainability means to consumers, and the opportunities it presents to companies that want to "do well while doing good." This course will also emphasize the process and outcome of product and service innovation, from creative idea generation to concept evaluation. Specifically, students will gain significant hands-on experience with the tools and techniques of "Design Thinking" in a studio setting, with a focus on developing innovative ideas that promote the principles of sustainability.
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Sustainability/Green Supply Chain OR
BUAD 464 | 3 credits
This course focuses on the development of sustainable supply chains. Students will explore leading-edge initiatives by forward-thinking companies to (re)design and market products, source, manufacture, and eventually distribute them in an environmentally-, ecologically-, and socially-responsible way.
Note: Formerly BUAD 480.
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Sustainability & Chesapeake Bay
BUAD 492 | 3 credits
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Introduction to Environmental Science and Policy
ENSP 101 | 3 credits
This team-taught interdisciplinary course brings together perspectives and approaches to environmental problems from natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. Examines key environmental concepts by exploring case studies such as pollution and contamination disputes, ecosystem management in the Chesapeake Bay, and biodiversity.
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Courses cannot double count for both a major and a concentration.
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