Master of Business Administration

Leadership MBA Course Descriptions

1st year – Autumn quarter:
 

B BUS 501 Leadership, Team Process and Decision-Making: A Workshop (4)
Examines factors associated with leader and team effectiveness using high and low element exercises and lecture/discussion. Introduces management analysis and decision‐making using the case study method. Three-day off-campus retreat followed by two Saturdays on campus. Credit/no credit only.

B BUS 502 Quantitative Methods and Business Statistics (6)
Reviews descriptive statistics, exploratory data, and probability distributions. Examines the theory and methods of statistical inference, emphasizing those applications most useful in modeling business problems. Topics include sampling theory, estimation, hypothesis testing, linear regression, analysis of variance, and several advanced applications of the general linear model.

B BUS 512 Strategy (4)
Focuses on major top management decisions, emphasizing how competitive advantage is created and maintained through planning and strategy. Using readings and cases, demonstrates importance in diverse industries of external environments (customers, competitors, science and technology, laws), organizational phenomena (structure, processes, decision making), and an international perspective.
 

1st year – Winter Quarter:
 

B BUS 503 Financial and Managerial Accounting (6)
Explores how accounting information is generated and used in planning, decision-making, performance evaluation, and reporting processes. Examines current problems relating to revenue and expense recognition, and valuation of assets and liabilities. Other topics include: product and service costing, activity-based costing, variance analysis and performance evaluation.

B BUS 504 Economics for Business Leaders (4)
Considers some of the most important economic aspects of a business enterprise including demand and cost analysis, pricing strategy (including auctions), and the economics of information. Highlights the usefulness of game theory.
 

1st year ‐ Spring quarter:
 

B BUS 505 Financial Management ( 6)
Provides an introduction to investment and financing decisions and the models used to make those decisions. Topics include: time value of money, capital budgeting, portfolio theory and diversification, bankruptcy, risk and return, capital structure, and dividend policy.

B BUS 506 Marketing Management (4)
Facilitates the development of a customer orientation, and explores the use of the marketing mix of product, price, place, and promotion to create, communicate, and deliver value to targeted customer segments. Explains how marketing strategy is developed, implemented, and controlled in high technology marketplaces.


2nd year ‐ Autumn Quarter:
 

B BUS 531 Leadership and Managerial Effectiveness (4)
Focuses on leadership and managerial effectiveness. Builds upon students' knowledge of factors that influence leadership behavior and the critical personal and interpersonal skills associated with leadership. At a one‐day, overnight retreat, students engage in an organizational simulation and receive and discuss feedback from faculty and mentors.

B BUS 532 Marketing Research (6)
Focuses on the major methodologies of marketing research. Deals with the entire research process, from problem definition, research design, questionnaire construction, and sample selection, to data collection and analysis. Introduces various standard and state‐of‐the‐art data analysis techniques and software packages.

B BUS 508 Business Law and Ethics (4)
Provides an understanding of the impact of legal considerations on managerial decision-making. Topics include anti-trust law, intellectual property law, consumer protection and investor protection.


2nd year – Winter quarter:
 

B BUS 509 Operations and Project Management (6)
Addresses key operations issues in small, medium, and large scale, service and manufacturing organizations. Uses a blend of theory, cases, analytical techniques, business examples, videos, and class discussions. Introduces Project Management (PM) as a complementary tool that helps managers in managing medium to large, complex projects.

B BUS 524 Creativity & Innovation (4)
Provides senior management perspective and analytical frameworks for managing creativity and innovation to achieve strategic goals and objectives. Topics include the language of innovation, use of lateral thinking and group collaboration techniques to create breakthrough new ideas, and building innovation eco-systems through integration of strategy, process, organization, and technologies.

2nd year – Spring Quarter:
 

B BUS 510 Organizational Theory & Knowledge Management (4)
Explores intangible assets and ‘meso’ issues that underpin organizational effectiveness. Topics include organizational phenomena (culture, structures, routines, capabilities, life cycles), intellectual capital and knowledge management (creating, maintaining and diffusing knowledge). Projects require application of best practices to personally relevant situations.

B BUS 507 Global Business (4)
Synthesizes and extends perspective on global business environment. Demonstrates how choices related to organization and strategy (such as outsourcing and diversification) require an understanding of trade theory and policy, differences in national cultures, and international institutions.


Summer Quarter Electives:
 

B BUS 521 Enterprise IT Management (4)
Focuses on critical issues for aligning information technology resources with the enterprise. Demonstrates the role of company mission and objectives on decisions regarding project approval and implementation. Topics include: project due diligence; technology process management; technology agility; enterprise system implementation, legal and ethical aspects, and contemporary issues.

B BUS 541 Advanced Corporate Finance (4)

Reviews basic financial concepts and introduces more advanced financial tools. Uses case analysis to confront the complexities of real‐world financial situations. Students work to identify relevant issues necessary to address the financial problems raised in cases. Prerequisite: B BUS 505.

B BUS 542 Customer Satisfaction Models (4)
Examines the role of customer satisfaction in a market economy; how information on customer satisfaction can be used to understand the economy, to help investment decisions, and to improve business management. Theoretical objectives include broadening the pre‐purchase and post-purchase decision‐making focus into the consumption and post‐consumption areas.

B BUS 543 Investment Management and Practice (4)
Examines various types of investment securities and derivatives, the mechanics of security markets, the relationship between risk and return, and the distinction between fundamental and technical analysis.

B BUS 544 Negotiations (4)
Examines the theory and processes of negotiation. Includes a broad spectrum of negotiation problems. Credit/no credit only.

B BUS 590 Special Topics for MBA Study (4)
Topics of interest Business faculty and students. Offered when allowed by faculty availability and sufficient student interest.

B BUS 600 Independent Study or Research (1‐5)
Independent study or research on business topics conducted under the direction of one or more instructors.

B BUS 601 MBA Internship (4)
Provides a circumscribed practical experience at an organization under the supervision of a faculty member. Credit /no credit only.