Courses
Course Descriptions for BSBA and A&S/Business Dual-Major Programs
Course descriptions are provided by area of study and by core courses.
CBA Orientation
CBA Orientation (BUS 0001) does not fall into either category. It
is a one-credit course required for freshmen in the BSBA program. BUS 0001 is designed to acclimate students
to the University in general and the BSBA program in particular.
Skills and abilities needed for the successful completion of the
BSBA degree are explored. Topics include University structure and
function, study skills, communication skills, self-assessment, team
building, career planning, and word-processing and spreadsheet skills.
Scheduled for: Fall Term
Courses by Area of Study
- Accounting
- Business Economics
- Business Environment
- Finance
- Human-Resources Management
- Management Information Systems
- Marketing
- Organizational Behavior
- Quantitative Methods/Operations Management
- Strategic Management
Core Courses
Accounting
BUSACC 0030: Financial Accounting: 3 credits
Helps students become informed users of firms' external financial reports. The basic structure and contents of such reports and the process by which they are prepared will be studied. Discussion topics will include what items are included in the reports, how such items are measured, and how various economic events affect them. An understanding of what can be inferred from the reports about past performance, present position, and future prospects of the firm will be developed. (Prerequisite: ECON 0100 or 0110)
Scheduled for: Fall Term | Spring Term | Summer Term
BUSACC 0040: Managerial Accounting: 3 credits
Introduces students to the basic terminology and concepts of cost accounting, and provides an introductory coverage of product costing, cost allocation, budgetary control, responsibility accounting, and the use of cost information in resource allocation and other managerial decisions. Textbook material and real-world examples are used to engage students in extensive problem-solving. (Prerequisite: BUSACC 0030)
Scheduled for: Fall Term | Spring Term | Summer Term
BUSACC 1204: Intermediate Financial Reporting 1: 3 credits
Covers the conceptual framework of financial accounting and its influence on Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), with special emphasis on the valuation of assets and measurement of income. Requirements include reading the original pronouncements on GAAP, making oral presentations, and writing short position papers on various accounting issues of current interest. Required for all accounting majors. (Prerequisite: BUSACC 0040)
Scheduled for: Fall Term | Spring Term | Summer Term
BUSACC 1205: Intermediate Financial Reporting 2: 3 credits
Topics covered include valuation of liabilities, owners' equity, cash-flow statements, and disclosure outside the primary financial statements. Like Intermediate Financial Reporting 1, this course also engages students as active participants in the learning process. Required for all accounting majors. (Prerequisite: BUSACC 1204)
Scheduled for: Fall Term | Spring Term | Summer Term
BUSACC 1210: Financial Statement Analysis: 3 credits
Financial Statement Analysis focuses on the evaluation of publicly traded company financial statements and related note disclosures as well as the correlation of this historic financial performance to the company's stock prices. This course will assist students' development of a systematic approach to analyzing reported financial data and understanding the underlying risks and possible inconsistencies among comparative companies. Requirements of the course include interim exams and written and oral presentations of analysis. (Prerequisite: BUSACC 1205)
Scheduled for: Fall Term | Spring Term
BUSACC 1216: Advanced Financial Accounting: 3 credits
Covers topics that are of particular interest to financial-report preparers and auditors. Special emphasis is placed on accounting for business combinations and consolidated financial reporting. Other topics include international accounting, accounting for partnerships, and accounting by fiduciaries. Required for all accounting majors. (Prerequisite: BUSACC 1205)
Scheduled for: Fall Term | Spring Term
BUSACC 1221: Strategic Cost Management: 3 credits
Topics covered include how product-cost measurement affects resource-allocation decisions; how to design modern cost systems; the strategic role of cost information and the relationship between process improvement and cost reduction; and performance measurement and organizational transformation for value creation. This course is required for all accounting majors. (Prerequisite: BUSACC 0040)
Scheduled for: Fall Term | Spring Term
BUSACC 1236: Accounting Information Systems: 3 credits
Deals with both the design and implementation of accounting-information systems and their ability to collect data on the activities of the organization, to accumulate and summarize it, and to make the information available to managers for analysis, decision making, and control. Special emphasis is placed on the problems inherent to this effort. This course is required for all accounting majors. (Prerequisite: BUSACC 0040)
Scheduled for: Fall Term | Spring Term
BUSACC 1238: Auditing: 3 credits
Introduces the auditing process and profession. Main topics include the nature and purpose of auditing, auditing standards, professional conduct, auditor legal liability, and approaches in auditing financial statements. Emphasizes a risk-based approach to selecting appropriate auditing techniques. Examines the auditor's decision process relating to internal control assessment, audit sampling, and obtaining audit evidence about financial accounts. Also examines the extent of the auditor's responsibility to uncover fraud. This course is required for all accounting majors. (Prerequisite: BUSACC 1205; prerequisite or corequisite: BUSACC 1236)
Scheduled for: Fall Term | Spring Term
BUSACC 1241: Tax Accounting: 3 credits
Tax Accounting is an intensive introduction to federal income-tax concepts, statutes, and regulations, and their use in accounting and planning of business activities of corporations, partnerships, and individual proprietorships. Also covered are federal income-tax concepts for individuals, including their use in accounting and planning of personal activities and investments. This course is required for all accounting majors. (Prerequisite: BUSACC 1205)
Scheduled for: Fall Term | Spring Term
Economics
BUSECN 1010: Business Economics: 3 credits
Primarily an applied microeconomics analysis, although some applied macroeconomic analysis of relevance to the business firm may also be treated. Emphasizes the development of economic tools and concepts that can be used in the firm's management decision-making process. Builds upon the standard economic analysis of the firm that integrates a company's revenue, cost, output, and pricing decisions. Marginal and incremental reasoning is stressed as an important decision-making principle. (Prerequisite: MATH 0120, ECON 0100 and ECON 0110) Students who have already completed ECON 1100 Intermediate Microeconomics are exempt from BUSECN 1010 Business Economics.
Scheduled for: Fall Term | Spring Term | Summer Term
BUSECN 1508: Key Issues in International Economics for Managers: 3 credits
This course introduces the broad field of international economics with emphasis on developing a framework for effective management in today's global economy. Key issues and problems are explored in areas of international trade, international investment, and international payments as viewed from the perspective of managers of enterprises operating in a cross-border, international environment. The approach will be verbal, graphical, and nontechnical and will draw from actual data sets and late-breaking news items from such business-oriented publications as the Financial Times, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times. This course is required for students earning the International Business Certificate. (Prerequisites: ECON 0100 and ECON 0110)
Scheduled for: Fall Term
Environment of Business
BUSENV 0060: Managerial Ethics and Stakeholder Management: 3 credits
Examines the social, political, and legal interfaces between the business institution (especially the corporation) and the environment. Topics typically considered include ethical and value issues in business, the social responsibilities of business, business-government relations, and the management of stakeholder relationships and corporate social policy. (Prerequisite: one social science course.)
Scheduled for: Fall Term | Spring Term | Summer Term
BUSENV 1760: Business Law: 3 credits
Provides students with exposure to the extensive laws and regulations that affect almost all major aspects of business operations. Topics covered are chosen on the basis of their importance to contemporary business. (Prerequisite: BUSENV 0060.)
Scheduled for: Fall Term | Spring Term | Summer Term
Finance
BUSFIN 1030: Introduction to Finance: 3 credits
The core course in finance focuses on how companies make sound investment and financing decisions, much of which is also relevant for individual decision making. With regard to the investment decision, the time-value of money, security valuation, capital budgeting, and the tradeoff between risk and expected return are studied. With regard to the financing decision, the cost of capital, financial leverage, and capital structure policies are studied. (Prerequisite: BUSACC 0030, STAT 1100, and 60 credits)
Scheduled for: Fall Term | Spring Term | Summer Term
BUSFIN 1311: Corporate Finance: 3 credits
This course investigates the investment and financing decisions of firms from the perspective of the corporate manager. It provides a framework for understanding how a corporation's financing, investment, and dividend policies affect its value. It also provides the tools necessary for analyzing and making these decisions. Specific topics include capital budgeting, valuation, cost of capital determination, capital-structure decisions, and dividend policy. (Prerequisite: BUSFIN 1030)
Scheduled for: Fall Term | Spring Term
BUSFIN 1316: Advanced Corporate Finance: 3 credits
This course examines a variety of applied topics in corporate finance. Topics may include mergers and acquisitions, corporate restructuring, leasing, pensions, short-term financial management, and the use of derivatives in corporate finance. (Prerequisites: BUSFIN 1030 and BUSFIN 1311)
Scheduled for: Fall Term | Spring Term
BUSFIN 1321: Investment Management: 3 credits
The objective of this course is to provide an enhanced understanding of financial-market operations, portfolio selection, and capital-market equilibrium. It examines how securities markets operate and the implication of portfolio theory for portfolio selection. Models of capital-market equilibrium, the trade-off between risk and return, and how to evaluate portfolio performance are also discussed. (Prerequisite: BUSFIN 1030)
Scheduled for: Fall Term | Spring Term
BUSFIN 1326: Capital Market Efficiency: 3 credits
The Efficient Capital Markets Hypothesis is considered to be the fundamental intuition in finance and serves as the backbone of much of our understanding of financial theory, as well as investment and financing decision making. This course includes a discussion of why stock prices fluctuate, whether market prices reflect available information about the firm, and how abnormal returns are calculated. Topics such as the information contained in accounting earnings, insider trading, stock splits, and mergers, as well as the performance of mutual funds and other investment vehicles, will also be discussed. (Prerequisite: BUSFIN 1030)
Scheduled for: Fall Term | Spring Term
BUSFIN 1327: Futures and Options: 3 credits
This course introduces students to the growing area of derivatives. It describes the attributes of futures and options and the markets in which they are traded. The course develops techniques for valuation of futures and options and describes ways in which futures and options are used for risk management. (Prerequisite: BUSFIN 1030)
Scheduled for: Spring Term
BUSFIN 1328: Capital Markets: 3 credits
This course provides an in-depth analysis of stock and bond valuation. The analysis of bonds covers bond-pricing principles, the term structure of interest rates, and fixed-income portfolio management. The analysis of stocks focuses on earnings and dividend-based valuation models, and a discussion of "value investing" and indexing. (Prerequisite: BUSFIN 1030)
Scheduled for: Fall Term | Spring Term
BUSFIN 1331: Financial Institutions and Markets: 3 credits
This course is an analysis of the behavior of financial intermediaries in the capital market. It covers the performance of capital markets and examines the role of regulations of financial markets and the effects on decision making by individuals and firms. Sources of short-term and long-term financing are also analyzed. (Prerequisite: BUSFIN 1030)
Scheduled for: Fall Term | Summer Term
BUSFIN 1341: International Finance: 3 credits
This course applies the principles of finance to international issues in financial management. It deals in topics such as the valuation of foreign subsidiaries, estimating the cost of capital of foreign investments, investing in foreign multinational firms, the correlation of returns across international security markets, hedging foreign-exchange risk, and the use of foreign-securities markets. (Prerequisites: BUSFIN 1311 and BUSFIN 1321)
Scheduled for: Spring Term
Human-Resources Management
BUSHRM 1050: Human-Resources Management: 3 credits
Provides an introduction to the management of human resources at the organizational level. Human-resources management is viewed as an integral part of the basic management process and the orientation of the course is toward developing managerial skills useful in establishing organizational personnel policy. Specific topics include the role of human resources in the management process, human-resources planning and forecasting, job information systems, recruitment and selection, human-resources development, compensation, legal framework, and evaluation. (Prerequisite/corequisite BUSORG 1020, 60 credits)
Scheduled for: Fall Term | Spring Term | Summer Term
BUSHRM 1665: Negotiating in Business: 3 credits
Negotiating permeates human interactions. It affects the balance and distribution of resources among nations, organizations, families, and individuals. In business, outcomes of negotiations influence the bottom line. Students will understand the theory behind successful negotiations; recognize situations that call for negotiations; explore the use of alternative negotiating strategies and tactics; and be able to analyze and carry out a successful negotiation. (Prerequisite: BUSHRM 1050)
Scheduled for: Fall Term
BUSHRM 1675: Human-Resources Staffing: 3 credits
Provides an in-depth examination of the organizational-staffing process. Procedures for human-resource needs assessment such as personnel audits and forecasting are discussed. Recruitment strategies and recruitment sources are explored. The process of organizational choice by candidates may be covered. The emphasis is on understanding basic types of assessment tools and procedures for choosing new employees. Core concepts in measurement and validity are discussed. Issues relating to organizational entry and socialization may also be covered. (Prerequisite: BUSHRM 1050)
Scheduled for: Spring Term
BUSHRM 1680: Compensation and Performance Management: 3 credits
Examines the general structure of an organization and the rewards employees seek in exchange for the efforts and contributions they provide. Topics include rewards and motivating work environment; government and union influences; job-content analysis, description, and evaluation; determining competitive relationships, developing pay structures; measuring performance and paying for performance; employee benefits; administration of the compensation plan; executive, managerial, professional, and sales compensation. (Prerequisite: BUSHRM 1050)
Scheduled for: Fall Term
BUSHRM 1685: Employment and Labor Relations: 3 credits
Provides a close examination of the day-to-day labor-management relationship and processes. Considers contract negotiations, contract administration, discipline and grievance procedures, and third-party conflict resolution assistance such as mediation, fact-finding, and arbitration. Emphasis is placed on the structure, organization, and objectives of the parties. The similarities and differences between private- and public-sector bargaining are also considered. (Prerequisite: BUSHRM 1050)
Scheduled for: Spring Term
Management Information Systems
BUSMIS 1060: Introduction to Information Systems: 3 credits
Information technology (IT) is a key component and enabler of business transformation. Focuses on how business processes can be (re)designed and business decisions can be supported with emphasis on the IT perspective. Business cases involving IT-driven and IT-enabled decision situations and business transformations are used. (Prerequisite: 60 credits)
Scheduled for: Fall Term | Spring Term | Summer Term
BUSMIS 1600: Information Systems Design and Development: 3 credits
Reviews various conceptual and practical approaches to the design and development of computer-information systems in an organizational context. Included are business-systems planning, structured-systems analysis, iterative design, prototyping, and various information requirements, assessment processes, and techniques. Focus is on the comparative evaluation of these alternate approaches and on developing an understanding of the organizational situations in which each is most appropriate. (Prerequisite: BUSMIS 1060)
Scheduled for: Spring Term
BUSMIS 1605: Database Management: 3 credits
Topics covered include development of enterprise-wide data models using entity-relationship diagrams and semantic data models, logical design and implementation of relational databases, SQL, elements of data structures, and basic issues in the management of the corporate data resource. (Prerequisite: BUSMIS 1060)
Scheduled for: Fall Term
BUSMIS 1610: Telecommunications Management: 3 credits
Provides an understanding of data communications and networking requirements including telecommunications hardware and software. Emphasis is on the analysis and design of networking applications in business. The management of telecommunications networks, cost-benefit analysis, and the evaluation of connectivity options are also covered. (Prerequisite: BUSMIS 1060)
Scheduled for: Fall Term
BUSMIS 1625: Electronic Commerce: 3 credits
This course will cover: (1) electronic business, defined as the use of Internet and related communication technologies for organizational communication, coordination, and management of the firm; (2) electronic commerce, defined as the process of buying and selling goods and services electronically; and (3) societal implications of the new technologies. Students will be evaluated on the basis of class participation, assignments, quizzes, exams, and a business plan where students propose e-commerce solutions to tackle specific organizational or business problems and opportunities. (Prerequisite: BUSMIS 1060; Corequisite/Prerequisite: BUSMKT 1040)
Scheduled for: Spring Term
BUSMIS 1630: Project Management: 3 credits
Planning, organizing, staffing, and controlling projects requires traditional management skills as well as an appreciation of the tools, techniques, and practices unique to project management. This course starts with an overview of project management concepts, and then focuses on project planning, estimating, monitoring, and controlling. It also covers topics related to being an effective project leader and managing project teams. The project management institute (PMI), a professional organization for project managers has produced a guide to the project management body of knowledge, which documents the knowledge and practices needed by today’s project managers. This guide, along with current research and management trends related to project management, provide the framework for material covered in this class. (Prerequisite: BUSMIS 1060)
Marketing
BUSMKT 1040: Introduction to Marketing: 3 credits
Provides an understanding of the roles of marketing in the economy and the firm, and develops a rationale for a marketing perspective as a guide to organizational and individual actions. Topics covered are the marketing environment, strategic planning, market segmentation, product development, pricing, distribution, promotion, consumer decision making, control, and marketing management. (Prerequisite: 60 credits)
Scheduled for: Fall Term | Spring Term | Summer Term
BUSMKT 1411: Marketing Research: 3 credits
Emphasizes the development of methods of decision making for marketing management. Formal tools of decision making are stressed. The collection and analysis of marketing data is viewed in the context of a management information system. Provides a common analytical framework for later courses treating specialized aspects of marketing in depth. (Prerequisites: BUSMKT 1040, STAT 1100)
Scheduled for: Fall Term | Spring Term
BUSMKT 1422: Principles of Selling: 3 credits
Selling is universal. Everyone uses persuasive communication to “sell” products, services, ideas, opinions, or points of view. In this course, you will examine and practice the techniques and use the tools examined to develop and/or improve your sales skills. Focused on business-to-business sales, the concepts will apply to negotiating mutually beneficial agreements. From customer identification through gaining agreement and follow-up, learn to identify customer problems and develop solutions that appeal to customers and benefit your organization. (Prerequisite: BUSMKT 1040)
Scheduled for: Fall Term
BUSMKT 1425: Sales Force Management: 3 credits
Responsible for implementing the organization’s strategic goals and creating profit through sales, the sales manager must plan, organize, implement, monitor and evaluate the sales function. The manager must assure alignment of goal, strategy, task, action and reward in the sales function to create “mutual benefit” with the customer. The manager’s sales forecast drives the organization, while the sales tactics and strategies which the manager plans and oversees make those forecasts a reality. We will examine the sales management process and the evolving role of the manager. (Prerequisite: BUSMKT 1040, BUSMKT 1422)
Scheduled for: Fall Term | Spring Term
BUSMKT 1426: Advertising and Sales Promotion: 3 credits
Provides students with an understanding of advertising and the marketing process within which effective advertising and sales promotions are rooted. It is further designed to teach students to develop effective advertising and promotion plans. Emphasis will be placed on both theoretical and conceptual foundations and their applications to the fields of advertising and sales promotions. (Prerequisite: BUSMKT 1040)
Scheduled for: Fall Term | Spring Term | Summer Term
BUSMKT 1427: Public Relations Management: 3 credits
This course will examine how public relations (PR) fits into the strategic management of organizations and how it impacts firm performance. Students will develop a competence in applying principles to organizational opportunities and problems, with a focus on developing sound PR writing skills. (Prerequisite: BUSMKT 1040)
BUSMKT 1431: Product Development and Management: 3 credits
Addresses all stages of the product life cycle beginning with the various phases of new-product development, including creativity and new-product concept generation, concept testing and evaluation, pricing, demand forecasting, and new product marketing strategies. Also deals with special challenges related to marketing mature products/services, improving marketing implementation effectiveness, and marketing the intangible features of products. (Prerequisite: BUSMKT 1040)
Scheduled for: Spring Term
BUSMKT 1441: Consumer Behavior: 3 credits
Focuses on the study of individual consumers through the integration of a wide variety of social-science concepts and gaining familiarity with some of the more common techniques of consumer-research methodology. (Prerequisite: BUSMKT 1040)
Scheduled for: Spring Term
BUSMKT 1451: Retail Management: 3 credits
Emphasizes the strategic decisions for developing an enduring store image, and the marketing policies to produce customer satisfaction through service quality. Topics covered include store location, layout and atmosphere; logistics and information systems; merchandising; vendor relations; customer services; and topics related to non-store retailing. (Prerequisite: BUSMKT 1040)
Scheduled for: Fall Term | Spring Term
BUSMKT 1461: International Marketing: 3 credits
Examines the unique characteristics of global marketing and the strategic marketing decisions for effective competition in the global environment in view of the rapid integration of the global economy. (Prerequisite: BUSMKT 1040)
Scheduled for: Fall Term | Spring Term
BUSMKT 1481: Brand Management: 3 credits
Exposes students to a wide range of marketing problems and provides them with the analytic perspectives and strategic marketing decision tools for analyzing and solving those problems. (Prerequisite: BUSMKT 1040)
Scheduled for: Fall Term | Spring Term
BUSMKT 1485: Projects in Marketing: 3 credits
Connects undergraduate marketing students with prominent commercial and government clients to develop and implement specific marketing strategies. Students receive hands-on exposure to planning, strategy, research, advertising, public relations, event planning, and budgeting. Students demonstrate oral and written presentation skills via formal presentations to representatives from the client organizations.
Scheduled for: Fall Term | Spring Term
Organizational Behavior
BUSORG 1020: Organizational Behavior: 3 credits
Provides an overview of topics and concepts in the field of Organizational Behavior (OB). Emphasis is on developing a theoretical grasp of issues and problems and an understanding of practical implications of various theories of human behavior at work. Specific topics include leadership, motivation, teamwork, career issues, work roles, job enrichment, employee participation, and work and nonwork integration. (Prerequisite: PSY 0010 or 0015)
Scheduled for: Fall Term | Spring Term | Summer Term
BUSORG 1101: Fundamentals of Business Communication: 3 credits
Provides conceptual foundations and training in key communication skills essential for a business professional's effectiveness. Develops skills in oral presentation, interpersonal communication, and communication in teams as applied in business settings. (Prerequisite: 60 credits and BUSORG 1020)
Scheduled for: Fall Term | Spring Term | Summer Term
BUSORG 1650: Issues in Career Management: 3 credits
Focuses on the issue of careers in organizations or the sequences of jobs and occupations that a person will hold over his or her lifetime. Examines a variety of perspectives on career management. Focuses on the individual and organizational factors in career development by addressing issues such as career planning, job choice, work socialization, career stages, mentoring, and work and family concerns. (Prerequisite: BUSORG 1020)
Scheduled for: Spring Term
BUSORG 1655: Int'l Dimensions of Organizational Behavior: 3 credits
Provides an introduction to organizational behavior in a global context. Emphasis is on applying core organizational behavior concepts such as leadership, motivation, and group processes, as well as more contemporary topics such as cultural diversity and expatriation, to workers in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. Develops an understanding of culture and cross-cultural differences and an awareness of the key skills needed to interact effectively in cross-cultural settings. (Prerequisite: BUSORG 1020)
Scheduled for: Fall Term | Spring Term
BUSORG 1660: Women and Men at Work: 3 credits
Examines the similarities and differences in the work experiences of men and women within organizations. Also examines some of the individual and organizational consequences of gender and work. Topics include gender-role attitudes, occupational segregation, gender and leadership, sexual behavior within the workplace, career mobility, and workforce diversity. (Prerequisite: BUSORG 1020)
Scheduled for: Fall Term
Quantitative Methods/Operations Management
BUSQOM 0050: Quantitative Methods: 3 credits
Provides the foundations for two basic business disciplines: optimization and simulation. Various modeling concepts that have origins in and have found wide applications in functional areas such as finance, marketing, and operations will be studied in depth. The topics studied include linear programming; models of "go/no go" decisions and location decisions; "what if" analysis; decision analysis and multiple criteria decision-making models; and queuing models and statistical foundations to simulate business systems—input/output analysis. (Prerequisite: STAT 1100)
Scheduled for: Fall Term | Spring Term | Summer Term
BUSQOM 1070: Operations Management: 3 credits
Provides foundations for managing operations technology—manufacturing and service. The management of operations of the conversion process will be discussed. The field is centered on the fundamental problem of any manager—taking inputs (raw materials) and transforming them efficiently and effectively into products resulting in a satisfied customer. Topics include: bottleneck and capacity analysis, and capacity expansion issues; decoupling the workstations—buffers versus internal and external variability; economies of scale in material handling and distribution—EOQ, MRP; reorder point computations; distribution and logistics management; scheduling of products, workforce, and other resources; and GT, JIT, CIM, and FMS. (Prerequisite: BUSQOM 0050)
Scheduled for: Fall Term | Spring Term | Summer Term
BUSQOM 1730: Managing Global Supply Chains: 3 credits
Supply chain management explores the management of the flow of materials, information and funds through the network of suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, retailers and customers. Using the methodologies of optimization and simulation, where applicable, this course covers topics in distribution network design, inventory management, procurement and outsourcing, revenue management, and channel coordination. For marketing majors, this course counts as a marketing elective. (Prerequisite: BUSQOM 1070)
Strategic Management
BUSSPP 0020: Managing in Complex Environments: 3 credits
Introduces students to the challenge of managing in complex contemporary environments. The course is team-taught, reflective of the breadth of issues that underlies the business curriculum. A team-based and experientially focused emphasis is designed to promote student awareness of real-world business developments and develop practical skills as well as fundamental knowledge and abilities. The intellectual core of the course will emphasize a holistic and strategic inquiry of the driving forces of competitive markets, the importance of history, the complexity of resource allocation under uncertainty, and the need to develop firm-specific capabilities that are flexible and responsive to changing situations. Attention will also be paid to the construction of criteria for firm success that reflect the complex interactions of ethical, societal, legal, and economic demands. Considerable time will be devoted to the study and analysis of companies.
Scheduled for: Fall Term | Spring Term
BUSSPP 1080: Strategic Management: 3 credits
Focuses on corporate and divisional policy formulation and implementation. The knowledge and techniques learned in earlier courses will be applied in an integrated fashion to the process of strategic decision making and organizational change. Among the topics considered in the course will be the relationships of organizations to their environments, the hierarchy of organizational objectives, structured as well as informal approaches to strategic planning, the integration of business functions, organizational structure, and policy implementation and evaluation. A significant aspect of the course is devoted to assessing the competitive dynamics of firms. (Prerequisite: 90 earned credits and completion of nearly all of the CBA core courses)
Scheduled for: Fall Term | Spring Term | Summer Term
BUSSPP 1755: Board Governance and Management: 3 credits
This course captures the new era in enterprise governance, where the performance of an organization is shaped and ultimately determined by the characteristics and management practices of its Board of Directors. It uses the study of Boards of Directors in contemporary profit and nonprofit organizations, in conjunction with students’ experiences in leadership roles. Topics include the foundation of boards (selection of board members, board structure, information management, communication, and relations with senior management) and the function of boards (board evaluation, planning, management control, value creation, and stakeholder relations). In addition to various types of readings and weekly assignments, the course will include case studies and a group project.
Scheduled for: Spring Term