Electives

This course focuses on business modeling and analysis to enhance organizational effectiveness and strategic and managerial decision making in diverse industries. Students learn tools to manage complex business problems and mitigate risk. Students will model current business processes, systems, and strategies; depicting trends and effects, prescribing the best path for optimum results and effective decision making.

This course will cover the fundamentals of contract management, exploring all phases of managing a contract successfully from formation through completion of performance including change management, communications, contract types, terms and conditions, risks, defaults, terminations, claims, and more.

In this course, students will examine how data analysis technologies can be used to improve decision-making. We will study the fundamental principles and techniques of data mining, with real-world examples and cases to place data-mining techniques in context, to develop data-analytic thinking, and to illustrate that proper application is as much an art as it is a science.

Explore all of the elements required to develop a successful franchise system. At the conclusion of the course students will be able to identify the critical components that make up a franchise system, anticipate challenges in franchising a business and create a plan to take any business from a single point of distribution to a successful franchise system.

Human resource management processes are designed to ensure human talent is used effectively and efficiently to meet organizational goals. Explore labor markets, training and development, compensation, employee relations and more.

This course aims to develop an understanding of the role corporate governance has on strategic risk management. Learn how the development of a firm’s internal policies, procedures and controls can minimize or eliminate undesirable areas of risk. Gain a solid understanding of current business risk issues in board structure and management, increasing cyber security risk, long term financial performance and ethical decision making.

Learn how the development of a firm’s internal policies, procedures and controls can minimize or eliminate undesirable areas of risk. Learn ways to enhance existing compliance programs. Gain a solid understanding of the main legal issues as well as risk management industry best practices. Prerequisite: MBA 615A.

This course is designed to provide students with a foundation in derivative analysis. The course examines derivative valuations, strategies, and their applications in managing investments and financial risk. Students will learn about the theoretical underpinnings and the practical applications of derivatives (stock options) in a simulated trading account, trading options using a simulated, professional trading platform. Proprietary analytics will be used to forecast price standard deviations. Prerequisite: MBA 675 Investing or MBA 674 Investing Practicum

This course explores the global business environment and the leadership qualities needed to be successful in today’s expanding markets. This course provides a forum for the development of strategies, skills and techniques that promote successful leadership within organizations having a global strategic base where cross-cultural, social, political and economic environments differ.

This course will focus on the globalization of the marketplace and events currently taking place in the global financial markets. Basic essentials of international financial management will be explored from a macroeconomic framework, including flow of funds, balance of payments and financial markets; currency, credit and stock markets, and the variables that influence them. Prerequisite: MBA 604

This course will focus on the globalization of the marketplace and events currently taking place in the global financial markets, explored from a microeconomic framework, including the managerial aspects of exchange rate risk, foreign investment and capital budgeting, country risk and capital structure decisions. Prerequisite: MBA 606 and 621

This course investigates the options available when creating a new venture including organization and structures available to the prospective new business owner.

This course focuses on how organizations leverage data science to support high-impact managerial decision-making by effectively framing business problems, defining data strategies, and translating analytical insights into action. Students learn to identify when data science is appropriate, articulate data- driven questions, assess feasibility and business value, and synthesize insights from.

Building on data science concepts, this course examines how supervised and unsupervised machine learning methods are applied as decision-support tools in business contexts. Students gain hands-on experience implementing models while focusing on model selection, evaluation, business relevance, and deployment considerations, rather than purely technical optimization.

Applications include forecasting, customer behavior analysis, risk modeling, and operational improvement, with strong emphasis on translating model outputs into actionable business decisions. The course highlights practical constraints such as data availability, bias, interpretability, and organizational adoption, ensuring students can responsibly apply machine learning within real business environments. 

This course teaches basic concepts of Economics and the impact on business; focusing on supply and demand and resource allocation. It explores basic forms of economies, how wealth is generated in society, government intervention, and fiscal and monetary policy. Course material is drawn from current events and how they relate to economic principles.

This course will examine the fundamentals of the law that most affect business environments. Selected topics may include contracts, business organization, the Constitution, regulatory environment, the legislative process, the court system, and ethics, as well as other current topics of interest. Knowledge of the law will enable students to identify areas of risk, plan solutions and make business decisions designed to avoid and mitigate the risk.

This course will look at the nature of resource re-use and renewability by looking at examples and practices of various industries and initiatives.

This course examines the essential elements of a binding contract, the importance of individual provisions and the purpose for their existence. Students will review and analyze common agreements found in the work place, discovering provisions necessary in the execution of any agreement.

This course presents an overview of the dynamics of the global marketplace and international sources of economic change. Topics include globalization; the role of technology; and the mandate of emerging markets. Comparative economic development, control and democratic regimes, and international competition and cooperation are investigated. Students will apply their knowledge to foreign market analysis and business planning, analyzing the multiple internal and external factors that must be addressed for economic success of the global expertise.

This course analyzes communications in formal and informal business settings, focusing on written formats, formal presentations and verbal and nonverbal modes. Conflict resolution strategies, team environments and leadership perspectives will be explored.

The focus will be on developing the broad intellectual foundations of leadership. The course will survey the landscape of leadership thinking today and the successful leadership attitudes, behaviors, and communication styles that may be adopted or developed to achieve success.

This course enhances the student's ability to function in a project leadership role, focusing on the Project Management lifecycle and best practices as outlined by the Project Management Institute (PMI), current industry focus on risk principles, and hands on experience with SW Tools. Differences in traditional Project Management and Agile Project Management are explored.

In this course, students will examine the realities and opportunities of international business in China today. With the rise of China as an economic super-power, businesses must understand China’s 1.4 billion customers in order to survive and thrive as a global enterprise in today’s global marketplace. This course centers on a ten-day study tour in China that provides out-of-the classroom experiential learning opportunities that are supplemented by face-to-face and online readings and assignments.

This course examines the identification of opportunity and investment decisions, valuation techniques and their role in entrepreneurial decision making, the life cycle of enterprises and the need for capital, and the changing focus of late stage entrepreneurial firms. Students will be able to evaluate entrepreneurial business opportunities, understand sound financing decisions that are reinforced by quantitative and analytical skills, and learn how firms are financed throughout their life cycles.

This course provides a comprehensive overview of professional selling in today's highly competitive business environment. Students will learn how to conduct proper discovery, build value and have executive- level conversations with prospects that build value for their solution. The course combines study of key sales principles with active practice of the sales techniques learned.

This course builds on what was learned in MBA 652 and focuses on more advanced strategies employed in industries with longer sales cycles, higher budgets, complex deals and that are dependent on effective networking that is typical of executive to executive decision making. Students will learn how to position themselves as key account or national account sales people within their organization. They will actively work to build their networks and enhance their online presence during class. Adding the Prerequisite MBA 652 with a "C" minimum grade. Concurrent enrollment allowed.

This course is an overview of the business of real estate in which students develop expertise in one or more functions of the real estate development process including market planning, site selection, financing, design, procurement of entitlements, community relations, construction, and marketing.

This course examines the current entrepreneurial environment. Students learn to identify and evaluate various business opportunities, create a business plan, and examine financing options, including setting the right implementation and exit strategies and discovering the secrets that separate successful entrepreneurs from the struggling ones.

This course will examine the process for maintaining sustainability in the business community by applying objective corporate, social and environmental measures. Explore how sustainable companies attract capital, earn the best returns, and help preserve earth’s depleted resources.

This course explores the essential elements of negotiation; equips students with the necessary tools to negotiate successfully; enhances their negotiating skills through frequent role plays, reflection, and feedback; and challenges the student to continually improve their professional negotiations.

Marketing media and channel use is changing rapidly. This course looks at the underlying theory and practice of new media tools to reach and develop relationships with customers.

This course gives students practical hands-on investment experience using a variety of software tools to analyze trends and execute transactions.

This course examines company stocks using fundamental and technical approaches developed by industry leaders; e.g., Benjamin Graham, Warren Buffet, and William O'Neil. Students will examine equities through the review of financial statements, stock charts, and spreadsheets that calculate valuation in real time. The course furthers stock analysis by exploring business decisions that drive success or failure, and the effect and the consequence of leadership on a company's stock price. Basic investment portfolio theories, financial derivatives (options), and trading platforms for individuals will be explored.

This course introduces the basic principles of project management, including analysis, planning and monitoring, and development of knowledge areas as defined by the Project Management Institute. Students will be introduced to software technology tools for use in projects applications.

This course introduces the principles of business process modeling, design, analysis and re-engineering, to transform an organizational process that improves performance and achieves specific goals. Current business models and software tools used to bring organizational change will be introduced.

The process of effective marketing will be examined from a practical perspective. The focus of this course will be on how companies market; from branding to expenditure to ROI (return on investment) evaluation. The ethical implications of the marketers will be scrutinized, to insure students are aware of the pitfalls inherent in marketing functions.

This course explores new product development, emphasizing the stage-gate process, examining product ideation, market research, team management, project management, marketing, financial modeling and metrics.