Course Descriptions

FOISIE BUSINESS SCHOOL MBA CURRICULUM
All courses are 3 credits unless otherwise noted. 

ACC 500. ACCOUNTING AND FINANCE FUNDAMENTALS (1 CREDIT)

This course serves as a foundational introduction to financial accounting and financial analysis.  It is designed to help students master the technical skills needed in a graduate management curriculum and in business to analyze financial statements and disclosures for use in financial analysis.  Students will learn how to read and interpret the three most common financial statements: the income statement, balance sheet, and statement of cash flows. Students will also learn how to apply ratios that capture key elements of a firm’s performance. Students will also develop an understanding of certain essential concepts in mathematical financial analysis, including net present value (NPV), internal rate of return (IRR), payback, future value, and bond and options pricing.

ACC 502. FINANCIAL INTELLIGENCE AND STRATEGIC DECISION-MAKING (2 CREDITS)

This course builds on students’ knowledge of financial statements and takes a managerial accounting approach to present how firms plan and implement strategy. Accounting, economics, and psychology theories provide the framework for cost analysis, strategic decision-making, and planning under uncertainty. Management control systems will guide students to work with uncertainty. The course will emphasize cost behaviors, setting and meeting cost targets, assessing strategic initiatives, forecasting and budgeting, and the use of assumptions in the calculations of significant revenue and expense projections. Students will apply theories and best practices through simulations and case analyses. (Prerequisite: ACC 500)

ACC 505. PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT AND MANAGEMENT (1 credit)

This course strengthens students’ understanding of strategic finance/Financial Information & Management in order to monitor and revise strategy. It takes a managerial accounting approach to enable managers to measure and manage firm financial and non-financial performance. Accounting, economics, and psychology theories provide the framework for understanding moral hazard, motivation, and aligning the interest of employees with the interest of the firm. The course will emphasize designing and applying management control systems tools such as the balanced scorecard and examine how choices of what to measure affect behaviors and outcomes. Students will apply theories and best practices through simulations and case analyses. (Prerequisites : ACC 500, ACC 502, FIN 503 & FIN 504)

BUS 500. BUSINESS LAW, ETHICS, & SOC. RESPONSIBILITY 

This course combines analysis of the structure, function and development of the law most important to the conduct of business with an examination of the ethical and social context in which managers make decisions. Emphasizing the social responsibility considerations of all business stakeholders, the course focuses on practical applications via extensive use of case studies. Students will gain a sound understanding of the basic areas of U.S. and international law including: intellectual property law; business formation and organization; international business law; securities regulation; cyber law and e-commerce; antitrust law; employment law and environmental law.

BUS 590. STRATEGY IN TECHNOLOGY-BASED ORGANIZATIONS

This course provides a summary overview of strategic management, with a focus on integrating the core curriculum to develop competitive advantage at the corporate and business unit level.  Topics include the role of the CEO in the organization, industry analysis, the use of core competence to drive business development and exit decisions, causes of organizational inertia that cause the loss of competitive advantage, the impact of technology on strategy, the links between strategy and organizational design, and the social responsibility of the firm.  The course also serves as the initial phase of BUS 517 (Graduate Qualifying Project) and is designed to be taken immediately preceding that class.  (Prerequisites: ACC 500, ACC 502, ACC 505, BUS 500, FIN 503, FIN 504, MIS 500, MKT 500, OBC 505, OBC 506 and OIE 501 or equivalent content, or instructor consent).

BUS 595. THE EDGE OF TECHNOLOGY IN STEM INDUSTRIES

The course explores the state of technology and important technology trends in key industries. Students will conduct in-depth investigation of key issues and decisions faced by technology-intensive organizations in various sectors including health care, medical devices, biotech, IT hardware and software, FinTech, manufacturing and defense. Deans of Arts & Sciences, Business and Engineering as well as high profile guest speakers from industry will be involved in teaching the course.

BUS 599. CAPSTONE PROJECT

This capstone course integrates management theory and practice, and incorporates a number of skills and tools acquired in the M.B.A. curriculum. The medium is a major team-based project in the form of a corporate venture or green field venture.  In addition to a written report, the project is formally presented to a panel of outside experts including serial entrepreneurs and investors.  (Prerequisites: ACC 500, ACC 502, ACC 505, BUS 500, BUS 590, FIN 503, FIN 504, MIS 500, MKT 500, OBC 505, OBC 506 and OIE 501 or equivalent content, or instructor consent).

ETR 593. TECHNOLOGY COMMERCIALIZATION: THEORY, STRATEGY AND PRACTICE

This course introduces students to both independent and corporate venture and value creation. The primary focus is the examination of sources of new technology, tools to evaluate new technologies, the process of intellectual property transfer, and the eventual positioning of the resultant products and services in the commercial market. Its purpose is to improve the probability of success of these efforts in both existing organizational models and early stage ventures. Specific cases studies of successful technology commercialization processes will be used to supplement the course material.

FIN 503. FINANCIAL DECISION-MAKING FOR VALUE CREATION

This course develops and enhances the student’s ability to implement and clearly communicate a firm’s financial decisions related to value creation.  The course covers capital structure optimization, cost of capital; capital allocation and investment strategies, enterprise risk, project and firm valuation, and international financial management. The course adopts a decision-maker’s perspective by emphasizing the relationships among a firm’s strategic objectives, financial accounting and financial statement data, economic events, responses by market participants and other impacted constituencies, and corporate finance theory.  The course also builds on these practical finance skills by incorporating team-based assignments, real-world simulations, and a variety of financial modeling tools.

FIN 504. FINANCIAL STATEMENT ANALYSIS AND VALUATION (2 credits)

This course develops expertise in financial decision-making by focusing on financial accounting information.  The course presents a comprehensive framework for financial statement analysis and valuation.  Through hands-on, practical application of various tools for financial analysis (e.g., ratio analysis & financial modeling using Excel and other resources) students will develop the expertise needed to use a firms’ financial statements to draw an understanding of its performance and to provide a basis for making reasonable valuation estimates. Students will learn to apply analytical techniques to develop forecasted financial statements and use the information to value a firm’s equity. The course will be very practical and will utilize team assignments, cases, simulations, and other applied exercises.  (Prerequisites: ACC 500, ACC 502, & FIN 503)

MIS 500. INNOVATING WITH INFORMATION SYSTEMS 

This course focuses on information technology and innovation. Topics covered are information technology and organizations, information technology and individuals (privacy, ethics, job security, job changes), information technology and information security, information technology within the organization (technology introduction and implementation), business process engineering and information technology between organizations (electronic data interchange and electronic commerce).This course provides the knowledge and skills to utilize existing and emerging information technology innovatively to create business opportunities.

MKT 500. MARKETING MANAGEMENT 

This course addresses consumer and industrial decision-making, with emphasis on the development of products and services that meet customer needs. Topics covered include management and the development of distinctive competence, segmentation and target marketing, market research, competitor analysis and marketing information systems, product management, promotion, price strategy, and channel management. Students will learn how the elements of marketing strategy are combined in a marketing plan, and the challenges associated with managing products and services over the life cycle, including strategy modification and market exit.

OBC 505. TEAMING AND ORGANIZING FOR INNOVATION

How do we navigate complex human systems in organizations? How do we foster innovation within organizations?  In this course, we explore the paradoxes, opportunities, and hidden systemic challenges that arise on teams and projects, and in working across networks and within innovative organizations. Students will learn to more deftly manage the inherent challenges and opportunities of cross-cultural and multi-disciplinary teams; work through or avoid dysfunctional team and organizational conflicts; wrestle with ambiguity and uncertainty; negotiate change by learning to work with networks of power and influence; and analyze the individual, group, organizational and contextual dynamics that enable and constrain productive and innovative work in organizations.

OBC 506. THE HEART OF LEADERSHIP: POWER, REFLECTION, AND INTERPERSONAL SKILLS

All of us hope to have positive, collaborative, and effective interactions with others — in our professional and personal lives. Yet often our interactions do not go as planned and it gets ugly: people behave irrationally and get emotional, communication stops, conflicts fester, and opportunities are left unrealized and obscured. This course develops skills for understanding and acting more powerfully, ethically, and mindfully in our interactions. These include analytic techniques for understanding emotional, biographical, and social-psychological reasons for our own and others behavior, and skills for paying attention to and managing the complex dynamics unfolding in interpersonal interactions. Students will learn to identify and reflect upon their own contributions to problematic interactions; design and execute better ways of interacting with others; and develop their own interpersonal strengths and collaborative capacities. (Prerequisite: OBC 505 or instructor consent)

OIE 501. DESIGNING OPERATIONS FOR COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

The operations function in an organization is focused on the transformation processes used to produce goods or provide services. Operations design is driven by strategic values, and innovative improvements can support sustained competitive advantage.  In this course, a variety of analytical and statistical techniques are introduced to develop a deep understanding of process behavior, and to use this analysis to inform process and operational designs. Topics such as process analysis and value stream mapping, postponement and global and local supply chain strategies, queuing models, and managing system constraints are covered using case studies and hands-on activities such as on-line simulations. Non-traditional operations systems are also explored. The skills required to model an operational system, to reduce variation and mitigate bottlenecks, to effectively present resource needs, and to adjust capacity and inventory service levels are practiced during the course.