Curriculum Overview

This course focuses on understanding the interplay of group, inter-group, and organizational factors on the performance of multifunctional teams in technology-based organizations. The course integrates theory and research on multifunctional teams with the skills necessary for effectively managing them. Topics covered include managing decision-making and conflict in multifunctional teams, managing the team’s boundary and inter-group relations, organizational designs that support working cross-functionally, and measuring and rewarding team performance. Cases are used to illustrate the problems of working cross-functionally. Individuals are given feedback on their team management skills.

This course introduces managers to the essence of business economics — the theories, concepts and ideas that form the economist’s tool kit encompassing both the microeconomic and macroeconomic environments. Microeconomic topics include demand and supply, elasticity, consumer choice, production, cost, profit maximization, market structure, and game theory while the Macroeconomic topics will be GDP, inflation, unemployment, aggregate demand, aggregate supply, fiscal and monetary policies. In addition the basic concepts in international trade and finance will be discussed.

This course focuses on the methodology involved in developing and writing an effective marketing plan. It covers how to obtain the information that is needed and how to write a rigorous marketing plan for a product or service. The course details the steps needed to perform a market opportunity analysis (MOA), and explores how to develop market-based strategies and tactics to capitalize on the identified opportunities.

This course presents concepts regarding the collection, processing and reporting of financial information in a technology-based business. Managerial accounting and cost accounting, and their uses and limitations, will be discussed. Use of financial statements, budgets, and cost estimates in management decision-making will be emphasized. The impact of the risk and uncertainty associated with financial decisions will be illustrated via case studies.

Financial manager’s functions; liquidity vs. profitability; financial planning; capital budgeting; management of long-term funds, money, and capital markets;, debt and equity; management of assets, cash, and accounts receivable; and inventory and fixed assets.

This course discusses the technology strategy process and develops skills, methodologies, and critical thinking in order to achieve technological competitive advantage. Subjects covered include technology life-cycles, type and characteristics of RD&E project portfolio selection, and an overview of successful development strategies. Case studies will be used to build competence and confidence in the concepts.

This course focuses on the major elements of the strategic management model, including mission, external and global environment, company profile, strategic analysis and choice, long- and short-term objectives; action plans/tactics, policies, restructuring, reengineering, strategic control, and continuous process improvement (CPI). Student teams analyze and formulate strategies for companies they select.

This course covers the general area of management of operations, both manufacturing and non-manufacturing. The focus of the course is on productivity and total quality management. Topics include quality control and quality management, systems of inventory control, work and materials scheduling, and process management.

This course focuses on corporate venturing and entrepreneurship. Business and financial issues associated with starting and buying an entrepreneurial, high-technology business are addressed. Subjects covered include a discussion of previous corporate ventures, critical success factors, and an international perspective on corporate venturing. Lessons learned from new technology start-ups will be discussed, along with an evaluation of the decision processes used by venture capitalists. The final project is the development of a venture plan for the student’s company. Over half of the business plans receive funding. Startup funding on previous projects has ranged from $50,000 to $1,000,000,000.

This course deals with the theory and methods associated with design thinking, a problem-solving protocol that spurs innovation and solves complex problems. Design thinking involves a unique form of inquiry which goes well beyond product and service design. Students will develop an appreciation for design and develop skills for studying design systems. These concepts and methods have wide applicability as they can be used to design organizations of people, information structures, compensation systems as well as the entire consumer experience. Applying these approaches can often create entirely new systems that are more useful and usable. The logic of this approach can sometimes solve "wicked problems" which have defied previous solutions.

The field of Big Data is emerging as one of the transformative business processes of recent times. It utilizes classic techniques from business intelligence & analysis (BI&A), along with a new tools and processes to deal with the volume, velocity, and variety associate with big data. As they enter the workforce, a significant percentage of BIA students will be directly involved with big data as technologists, managers, or users. This course will build on their understanding of the basic concepts of BI&A to provide them with the background to succeed in the evolving data-centric world, not only from the point of view of the technologies required, but also in terms of management, governance, and organization. Students taking the course will be expected to have some background in areas such as multivariate statistics, data mining, data management, and programming.

Executives make decisions every day in the face of uncertainty. The objective of this course is to help students understand how decisions are made, why they are often less than optimal, and how decision-making can be improved. This course will contrast how managers do make decisions with how they should make decisions, by thinking about how “rational” decision makers should act, by conducting in-class exercises and examining empirical evidence of how individuals do act (often erroneously) in managerial situations. The course will include statistical tools for decision-making, as well as treatment of the psychological factors involved in making decisions.

Innovative organizations are led by people who relentlessly nurture creative collaborations. These leaders stimulate imagination, teach others how to turn imagination into creativity, and build group structures and processes to enable people to turn creative ideas into innovations that drive business results. This course builds individual awareness of creativity and collaboration skills while increasing the student’s capacity for both. It teaches the science behind techniques, tools, interpersonal skills, leadership skills, organizational strategies, and environmental designs that increase group effectiveness. The overall goal is to strengthen the student’s ability to lead others to address meaningful problems and possibilities wherever they may be found.

This course serves as a second semester sequence in corporate finance. Among the topics covered are: leverage on the balance sheet and weighted average cost of capital; bankruptcy, turnarounds, and recapitalizations; international currency hedging; stock options; private equity valuation; mergers and acquisitions; and the issuance of public and private securities.

This is a comprehensive course in global business and markets providing a broad, multidisciplinary understanding of global business. The theoretical context for engaging in international trade is established, with attention to the current economic and political environment. Then the business level rationale and techniques for initiating trade, as well as the functional area decisions that must be made, are discussed. Topics include: cultural differences; international trade; regional economic integration; international monetary system; entry strategies; strategic alliances; exporting and importing; global production and logistics; global marketing. Post-Cold War political and economic changes have opened up previously closed borders and have reduced barriers to trade. Concurrently, technological developments in communication, information and transportation technologies have enabled faster and better channels for doing business. This change to an outward looking orientation has resulted in an era of increased globalization. The impact of increasing international trade has provided access to new markets, greater interdependence and foreign competition on domestic turf. More firms, large and small, have become adept at selling across borders. Understanding the fundamentals of international trade prepares managers to grasp more aspects of a firm’s business initiatives. Many of the issues that a business encounters in the global context present difficult choices from and economic and profit point of view and also from a human and cultural point of view. The resolution of these issues rarely has a single right answer. The course material will evoke several of these ill-structured problems so students will have a chance to grapple with the complexities the problems present.

This is the capstone course for the program. It is designed to integrate the knowledge developed in the other courses via a business simulation in which teams of students compete in running their companies in a complex simulated environment. The course includes lectures and workshops that demonstrate theory and techniques of cross-functional decision-making in the management of technology. Individuals and teams will be observed and assessment feedback will be given.