MS in Management Curriculum

This course introduces modern business and how businesses work. The course will begin with engaging in-person exercises to show how successful, socially responsible businesses can be led to improve the common good, and how different business functions, such as accounting, finance, marketing, and operations, interact and cooperate to enable the business to succeed. Asynchronous content will cover management and legal considerations using exercises within an immersive simulation plus essential Microsoft Excel skills that are commonly desired in new hires by businesses. Note: This course may also count as credits toward an undergraduate degree.

This course provides the fundamentals of accounting, finance, marketing, and the management of business operations and supply chain. It is designed to build a practical understanding of the terminology, frameworks, and tools that new hires in business settings are likely to encounter as part of their work. Students will engage in an immersive and engaging simulation that integrates these functional areas of business, to explore for themselves how business leaders must effectively navigate a complex balance of internal and external decisions to achieve success. Note: This course may also count as credits toward an undergraduate degree.

This course enhances students’ understanding of "how business works,” and the skills and capacities that are critically important to launching and developing their early career. Students will have an opportunity to develop their professional skills through participation in a series of guided workshops, skills practice sessions, and activities. This course also emphasizes professional conduct and interpersonal skills that are essential for personal and professional growth and maturity.

This course develops students’ awareness of and ability to meet expectations for oral and written communication between and among colleagues, clients, and customers. Students should leave the course capable of purposefully negotiating the terrain of professional communication. Students will engage in assigned readings and instructor perspectives with communal dialogue, through direct conversations, discussion boards and written exercises. Students will also practice professional communication skills directly with their peers and the instructor.

This course explores the fundamentals of ethical decision making in the business context. It covers the psychology of ethical decision making, including individual and situational factors influencing the decision process, as well as the ethical theories needed to understand the dimensions of an ethically complex situation. The class introduces a framework for analyzing ethical situations and developing a managerially defensible solution. It also explores various strategies for dealing with ethical challenges in the workplace and ways to effectively communicate one’s decisions.

This course prepares students to lead rapid, ongoing transformation as seen in customer-centric organizations. Topics may include navigating complex problem spaces to win today and tomorrow; developing personalized, end-to-end customer experiences; integrating diverse assets in modern business models; and managing as a change agent. Students will learn from business leaders and complete practical challenges.

This course helps students understand what it takes to identify and evaluate new opportunities, and to transform innovations into profitable businesses. In this course, students will begin developing key skills and knowledge necessary for applying the entrepreneurial process to all aspects of their life and career, whether they choose to become entrepreneurs or not.

This course provides students with the opportunity to explore leadership in an organizational context, positioning them for continued success and growth in their career. Students will gain a framework and skillset for developing their ability to make meaningful impact within dynamic and complicated organizations through insight into self-awareness, interpersonal and team dynamics, taking initiative, and having influence both with and without formal authority. Leadership is not exclusive to only those who currently manage direct reports. This course explores each individual’s opportunity to lead in a variety of settings and ways.

Today’s business leaders need to practice inclusion at many levels including individually, interpersonally, and within teams, organizations, and communities. This course explores topics such as bias, power, privilege, and harassment in organizations, intercultural competence, and global workforce and market demography. Emphasis is on using these frameworks and concepts for assessing and transforming workplaces (local and global) and communities to be intentionally diverse, inclusive, and equitable.

Businesses use teams to get work done at all levels of the organization. This course examines when teams are the right choice (and when they are not), how to be an effective team member and leader, and how to diagnose and solve common team problems.

Businesses rely on data and analytics to answer questions and extract meaningful insights that can be used to drive decision making. This course introduces students to the role of data within an organization. Students will learn how to use quantitative methods to analyze businesses problems. This course includes the data extraction, transformation and loading process, analysis of data, tools for presenting data, and interpretation of results to drive decision making.

This course provides students with foundational knowledge on essential emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, extended reality, internet of things, and robotics. Students will also develop competencies for leading in a digital world as they complete a project involving imagining and assessing a future application for a technology in a personally relevant context. Responsible and sustainable application will be emphasized throughout. Students are not required or expected to have a technical background; instead, they will examine emerging technology from a business standpoint.

This course advances students’ understanding of the nature of business, emphasizing the principled leadership and governance of firms. Emphasis is on the formulation of business-level strategy to help students gain a practical understanding of how the functions (finance, marketing, accounting, operations, human resources, etc.) are aligned with business-level strategies to support the mission, goals and objectives of a firm. A variety of industry contexts and firms will be used to illustrate the application of the analytical tools and frameworks covered in the course to any type of firm, including for-profits, non-profits and not-for-profits.

This course teaches students to integrate the concepts they have reviewed and learned throughout the Master of Science in Management program. With the guidance of a faculty member, students will assist a local organization to solve a current business problem or to assess a current opportunity. Teams of students will design, implement, and report on this project and will be evaluated by both the professor(s) and the clients for whom they conduct the project. Course material will include the presentation of qualitative and quantitative data, the uses of secondary data sources, the assessment of data collection quality, and the application of statistical analyses to provide managers with relevant information that improves the effectiveness of their decisions.