Business Administration (MBA)

This course provides a systematic analysis of the strategic and human functions of a business enterprise. The responsibilities of manager for anticipating changes in the business environment, for cautiously adapting goals and policies to environmental opportunities, constraints and adverse pressures, and the search for new combinations of activities that will have favorable results for the organization and the economy will be examined.

This course investigates the process that organizations use to identify the needs of their customers and to create the products and services that meet these needs within the resource constraints and strategic objectives of the organization. The course examines market research, target market selection, market segmentation, position, and branding. It covers all the elements of the marketing mix, showing how they are being transformed by the Internet and the global economy.

This course reviews major topics in microeconomics in combination with recent mathematical developments examined as aids to the decision maker in the solution of problems faced by both public and private enterprise. It introduces the student to an analysis of demand, supply cost, prices and market structure from the point of view of the firm and the industry operating in a mixed enterprise system. The principles of intelligent economic planning involving the determination of the most economical combination of productive inputs and outputs are examined in detail.

This course studies accounting as it pertains to the needs of management; principally planning, controlling and decision making. Topics covered include: financial statement analysis; funds flow; cost terms, concepts, classifications, and behavior patterns; cost-volume-profit relationships; job order, process and standard costing; flexible budgets, profit planning, non-routine decision-making; pricing; and capital budgeting.

This course analyzes the internal financial problems of a business enterprise. Topics include capital budgeting; evaluation of capital projects using discounted cash flow (internal rate of return and present value) and non-time-adjusted methods under conditions of certainty and uncertainty; capital structure theory and management; determining the cost of capital; the effect of leverage and dividend policy on cost of capital and firm policy; working capital management; liquidity structure of assets and liabilities; management of cash, marketable securities, receivables and inventories; financing, investment banking and the issue of long-term debt, preferred stock, common stock, convertible securities, and warrants; short and intermediate debt and lease financing, and short and long-term financial forecasting.

This course is an introduction to the international business environment and how it affects multi-national corporations. Topics include investigation of marketing techniques and programs as developed and implemented on an international scale; evaluation of international marketing strategies, special goals and decision-making processes that are part of marketing internationally; examination of policies and strategies of international finance, analyzing those problems confronting multi-nationals; balance of payments, foreign exchange market and risk, cash flow operations, and evaluations of international economic problems and policies.

This course covers the elements of statistics and management science. It deals with the principle methods that business researchers use to analyze and understand data-central tendency, variation, probability, hypothesis testing and forecasting. It also deals with management science models and techniques for optimization, network design for project management, queuing, managing risk and uncertainty. The emphasis is on providing students with the practical skills and techniques that can be applied to improve the effectiveness of managerial decision making.

This course shall enable the student to learn and understand the importance of operations management, both for service and production processes. The student will gain an appreciation of the scorecard of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for the business to build sustainable competitive advantages. Lectures include discussion of strategy, process, supply chain design and planning and controlling the supply chain. Emphasis is placed on current trends in operations – especially quality, technology and inventory management.

Topics include executive decision making in dealing with formal employee-employer relationships; human resources development; line and staff relationships; job description and analysis; recruitment training and performance appraisal; collective bargaining process; labor-management relations; and wage and salary policies and administration.

This course defines the information management needs of an organization in the knowledge economy. It also looks at information technology – both hardware and software – from the perspective of the manager and the customer and the key role that digitization and the Internet play in developing and implementing any successful business strategy. Special topics include: computer security, privacy, enterprise systems, e-commerce, and supply chain management.

This course examines the process of entrepreneurship from the conception of a new idea through the steps of research and market testing to the crafting of a complete business plan. It focuses on the many ways that entrepreneurs create value and the central role of new venture creation in a free market economy. In this capstone course for the MBA program, students are asked to apply their knowledge. The capstone course for the MBA asks students to apply their knowledge of each business area to putting together and presenting, in the most persuasive but honest manner, an integrated plan for a new venture. For those students who prefer to relate the course to their current workplace, they have the option of preparing an in-depth study of a proposed solution to an existing problem.