MBA-Level Courses

Teamwork is prominent in a variety of organizational, social, and professional settings. Yet, many misconceptions exist about teams that hinder their effectiveness. The course will cover the theory and processes of group and team behavior. A variety of behavioral topics will be covered (e.g. innovation, power & politics, social networks) with an emphasis on group contexts.

This course in microeconomics will provide the fundamentals in understanding the how scarce resources and allocated in a system of unlimited wants. We will be examining how firms and workers respond to incentives, how tools & statistics help us determine the most efficient use of resources, how firms profit maximize and how markets arrive at equilibrium.

Compared to traditional investments, such as public stock, public bonds, and cash, alternative investments represent the largest and fastest growing asset class in the world. Alternative Investments include venture capital, private equity, real estate, hedge funds, and distressed securities. This class was designed specifically for executive MBA's interested in (i) how to start their own business, (ii) how to buy an existing business, (iii) how to invest in real estate, and (iv) how to optimize your personal investment portfolio. In addition this class is highly suitable for those students who have significant interaction with alternative asset managers. The class is divided into seminar-like sessions discussion (i) organization and strategy of the alternative investments industry, (ii) valuation, capital structure and term sheets, (iii) new venture financing, and (iv) deal structuring. The course is in a case/discussion format and is highly interactive. Four guest speakers will join us during the semester.

Introduces the framework of a value-based health care delivery system, organized around four key components: (1) what is a value-based framework for a delivery system, (2) the need for integrated care delivery at the practice unit, (3) creating system for outcome measurement and monitoring, and (4) the role of payers in encouraging value-based healthcare delivery.

This course is designed to introduce you to some theoretical frameworks that will help you understand how consumers act, think and feel. You should be able to apply these frameworks to everyday marketing problems ranging from determining consumer needs to ensuring consumer satisfaction. Consumer behavior is an interdisciplinary field and as such, the theories in this course are based on psychology, sociology, economics and marketing.

This course will apply some of the basic concepts and techniques learned in an introductory management accounting course to the unique setting of healthcare. In this course, we will revisit topics related to resource planning, understanding cost behavior and cost drives, costing of services (including the application of time-driven activity-based costing), and the assessment of performance relative to a budget. The case-based course will provide a deeper dive into these topics using examples from healthcare organizations (e.g., hospitals, clinics, and/or healthcare service providers). The aim of the course is to prepare students working in the healthcare industry to apply modern costing concepts and techniques in their workplace.

The goal of the course is to familiarize students with the digital media landscape as it relates to marketing strategy. As digital marketing tactics become more common among organizations, digital strategy will become integrated into the broader marketing strategy.

This course introduces students to the economics of online markets in general and digital products in particular. Topics covered include network economics, pricing strategies, segmentation and versioning for digital products, impact of bundling services. Students are introduced to both analytical models as well as empirical analysis using real world data from the entertainment industry. The course will include advanced topics include concepts of standards competition, lock-in strategies, etc. We will take a practice oriented approach where theory and case studies will be combined with a number of industry speakers.

The objective and goal of this course is to broaden your awareness of the impact of global economic, financial, geopolitical, and demographic trends on business. The class provides conceptual frameworks and tools for analysis critical to conducting business in the international environment. Implications for human as well as economic development are discussed. The class will enable students to think globally and strategically; develop diverse perspectives on global business, the macroeconomy, and the future; read and analyze macroeconomic data releases; and understand the increasing global connections that impact business and finance. Also, the class will explore the evolution of macroeconomic policy and events as it pertains to recent events, including COVID-19 and its substantial global macroeconomic impacts (such as massive record-sized government deficits).

Using the health care value chain as an organizing framework, the module is organized around four key modules: (1) designing health care delivery systems, (2) capacity planning and decision making under uncertainty, (3) process failure, learning and quality improvement, and (4) new business models and innovations in health care

Gain an understanding of tomorrow's competitive landscape in health care characterized by regulatory uncertainty, confounded consumers, and the ever-shifting balance of power amongst payers, providers and pharma/devices. All these demand that our health care leaders be clear in their organization's strategy and simultaneously excel at leading organizational change

Research suggests that a leader's capacity and productivity depend on three competencies: IQ, Business/Technical Expertise, and something known as "Emotional Intelligence," or EQ for short. The more highly placed in an individual's organization, the more critical Emotional Intelligence becomes. Studies show that 85 percent of star performers' effectiveness is linked to their high degree of Emotional Intelligence. Daunting challenges confront leaders today: a pandemic, social injustice, globalization of the economy, rapid changes in technology, shifting business models, and accelerating pace of business - all at an ever-increasing rate of change. Whether a company proves agile enough to survive and thrive depends on the degree to which its leaders can manage their emotions in the face of escalating change. Emotionally competent leaders think clearly under pressure, make strategic decisions, and adapt to shifting business climates with flexibility and focus. A leader exercising these capacities profoundly impacts others, mitigating reactivity, building trusting relationships, and focusing on what matters - delivering business results. The objective of the course is to assess your EQ and use that assessment along with multiple methods provided in class to help you improve your EQ and increase your growth as a leader.

This course is designed to help students develop fundamental data analysis skills needed to make informed marketing decisions. In this course, you will learn the scientific approach to marketing with hands-on use of databases, analytics and computing systems to aid marketing decisions. While quantitative methods will be employed throughout the course, the goal is not to produce experts in statistics; rather, you will gain the competency to interact with and manage analytics and research teams to provide insights for marketing decisions.

We live in a noisy world - the average person encounters 6,000-10,000 ads in a single day and our attention spans have perfected the art of tuning out. Becoming a compelling storyteller is your best chance to break through. The Content Marketing course is useful for anyone that needs to present to a stakeholder: brand to consumers, consultant to client or entrepreneur to investors. We will examine key social and digital platforms and how each monetizes. To dig into creating content, we explore sticky ideas, storytelling through screenplays and brand archetype. We will meet synchronously for lectures and breakouts and asynchronously for longer group work and assignments.

Advanced topics and tools for analysis of decision problems, focusing on modeling the real-world complications. We address the issues of: too many alternatives (leading us to resource pricing, linear programming using optimization techniques); aversion to risk (utility); multiple, conflicting objectives (multi-attribute decision making and value-focused thinking); and too many, complex outcomes (Monte Carlo simulation). The primary course objective is to improve managerial effectiveness through clearer thinking about complex decision issues, and through the application of powerful analytical tools to a wide variety of common management problems.

The course is designed as a workshop in which law students and business students work together to structure and negotiate varying aspects of a private equity deal, from the initial term sheet stages, through execution of the purchase agreement, to completion of the financing and closing. Private equity deals that are economically justified sometimes fail in the transaction negotiation and documentation phase. This course will seek to provide students with the tools necessary to understand and resolve difficult issues and complete successful transactions.

This course is designed to endow you with an entrepreneurial perspective, enhance your ability to use functional knowledge in an applied setting, and familiarize you with the skills and resources necessary for starting a new venture. By the end of the class you will be able to: (1) Identify trends and opportunities in the marketplace; (2) Formulate new venture ideas; (3) Analyze your market and validate your customer base; (4) Present a competitive analysis of a specific industry; (5) Create a revenue model, forecast costs and demand, and assess potential profitability; (6) Understand how financing, venture capital and valuation work; (7) Utilize a business model canvas; (8) Put together and present a business plan and pitch; (9) Analyze ventures, both inside and outside of corporations.

This course will study the financial markets, and the financial intermediaries that make the markets operate. Attention will be given to both the short-term money markets, the source of temporary financing, and the long-term capital markets (bonds and stocks) as a source of more permanent financing. Among the institutions examined will be securities brokers and dealers, commercial and investment banks, and investment companies and investment partnerships. A natural extension of the study of institutions is a discussion of the role of central banks and their conduct of monetary policy. Emphasis will be placed upon financial innovation and the efficiency of financial markets will be questioned, while acknowledging the extensive regulatory structure that exists.

This course will help students translate organizational objectives into action through the design of effective performance measurement techniques, performance-based compensation schemes, and other management control mechanisms. There will be a focus on avoiding typical pitfalls that undermine the effectiveness of these design choices. In this course, students will learn: (1) The challenges of motivating employees; (2) Best practices in compensation design and performance measurement that help to align employees' decisions with organizational goals; (3) Typical pitfalls of compensation schemes and ways to avoid them; (4) Societal aspects of organizational pay practices.

A key source of value is through the use of strategic partnering agreements, innovative distribution design, and understanding how customers want to buy. This course is about how to leverage value through the firm's distributor, supplier, and retailer networks to make products and services available at the right place and time. Topics include but are not limited to the following: how to manage multiple online and offline channels, how to structure and manage business partnerships for maximum returns, how to select and incentivize partners and how to design and redesign routes to market. We will also discuss conflict management, channels in emerging economies, and other generalizable frameworks applicable to a wide variety of B2B issues. Ideal for individuals targeting opportunities in consulting and strategy, organizational customer sales and procurement, marketing management, entrepreneurship and business development.

This course is designed for both specialists and generalists; namely, those who are pursuing a career in sales and business development, as well as those who will use sales skills in their careers. The course exposes students to the contemporary challenges faced in the selling process. The settings of the cases and exercises used in the course are quite diverse in terms of the sizes of the organizations involved and the types of markets that they serve. Therefore, the course is relevant to students whose interests are in general management, consulting, finance, and entrepreneurship as well as those who expect to work directly in sales and business development. The course centers on three themes: Personal selling, Sales management, and Selling into the channel of distribution. The objective of this course is to develop and enhance the skill set that students will need to pursue careers that involve selling and business development. By the end of this course, you will have acquired the skills that will allow you to enhance your firms' revenue, either personally or through a sales force. The course is chiefly concerned with sales management effectiveness, but also considers "personal selling" (a favored academic term), or person-to-person buyer-seller interactions. The first portion of the course examines personal selling from the standpoint of what makes a "good" salesperson - the skills, characteristics, and key behaviors important in professional selling, and in a more general sense the basis of persuasiveness and effective rhetoric in a commercial setting.

This course provides students with an understanding of the role of Strategic Marketing Communications in the overall marketing program and its contribution to several aspects of marketing including segmentation, targeting and positioning, product and brand strategy. In doing so, this course examines strategic resource development and allocation decisions across the various marketing communications elements impacting the overall marketing budget. Format: Lectures and discussion, case analyses, specialized assignments, guest speakers, agency tour.

This course is also about using social capital to implement organizational change. The protagonist in this course takes and active role in managing networks to get things done. The key challenge is how to work with other people to make change happen. You create value through coordinating your personal contacts to diverse groups in an organization, coordinating employees within and between functional groups, and coordinating activities across organizations. This course is an introduction to using social network theory and analysis to effect this coordination and create value.

The human desire to divine the future is as old as the hills: Records from 4,000-year-old Sumerian bullae (clay balls) indicate that farmers used futures contracts to hedge crop production. In turn, this gave profit-minded traders a reason to develop forecasts for price and production. Today, forecasting permeates all corners of the modern business world, as Amazon.com stocks inventory to future demand, fintech firms predict whether prospective borrowers will default on a loan, and hospitals generate real-time estimates of when patients will be discharged for capacity planning purposes. The aim of this course is to introduce students to the methods behind predictive analytics. The lectures will be interactive in nature and you will be required to work on in-class examples on your laptop. We will illustrate course concepts using the open-source statistical language R. R and the general programming language Python are the industry standards for data science, which you can use to acquire street cred with the tech crowd. Prior exposure to R is not required.

Supply chain management (SCM) is a core business activity for manufacturing and service firms. Recent events, starting with the U.S.-China trade war and followed by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic have brought supply chain issues to the forefront. After this course, you will be able to: (1) Develop a right supply chain for your product or service; (2) Design a robust supply chain under operating uncertainty (tariffs, exchange rates, trade policy) and "black swan" shocks (e.g. pandemics); (3) Understand the value created by a supply chain and develop value-based pricing; (4) Reduce inefficiencies in your supply chain through an improved network design, better facility location, and inventory decisions; (5) Quantify carbon footprint of a supply chain; (6) Gather supply-chain intelligence from various data sources.