Course Descriptions - MBA

MBA 522 Leadership and Management for the Common Good (3 SH)
Complexity, globalization, and competing demands characterize the realities of leading and managing organizations in today’s environment. The focus of the course is on developing systemic wisdom and long-term perspective. The course combines times for self-reflection, conversation, questioning, and integration of various leadership and management theories to identify approaches to leading people, systems, and organizations in ways that bring restoration, that offer hope, and that work toward promoting the common good.

MBA 523 Human Capital Development (3 SH)
Developing human capital means creating and nurturing organizational environments in which human beings can develop and apply new ideas, competencies, skills, attitudes, and behaviors.  This course will enhance your knowledge and understanding of the value created by an engaged workforce. The course will focus on supporting employees developing skills and abilities in an intrinsically engaging environment. In addition we will study ways individuals and organizations benefit from well-managed conflict while limiting destructive conflicts that sap organizational creativity and energy.

MBA 541 Global Sustainability (3 SH)
The global economic system produces goods and services on a massive scale. Consumers benefit from access to necessities as well as increased comfort, convenience, and choice. Producers benefit from opportunities to innovate and invest, while also providing employment and generating returns to investors. The question many are asking, however, is simple: can the current system be sustained in the long run? To be sustainable, businesses and nonprofit organizations must find ways to generate value and minimize waste while simultaneously satisfying human needs and protecting ecological systems. This course examines the global economic system from a triple-bottom line perspective – planet, people, and profit. It utilizes systems thinking and explores seven forms of capital: financial, manufactured, natural, human, social, cultural, and spiritual.

MBA 564 Organizational Behavior (3 SH)
Utilizing an experiential case study method, this course surveys the evolution of theory, practice, and research in the areas of organizational behavior. Learning topics include motivation theory, group dynamics, leadership, decision-making, conflict transformation, change theory, organization structure, emotional intelligence and communication. This course affirms a systemic perspective and approach to organizational behavior and affirms the concepts implicit in the concept of Leadership for the Common Good.

MBA 585 Financial and Managerial Accounting (3 SH)
Managers and executives carry fiduciary responsibility for their organizations; it is therefore imperative that they know how to read financial statements, analyze financial health, assess financial risks, and communicate this knowledge effectively to others. The course emphasizes the role of the manager relating to finance and accounting through the analysis of quantitative information largely at the conceptual level. Topics include financial governance, understanding and reading financial statements, financial statement analysis, cost behavior, break-even analysis, budgeting, balanced scorecard, working capital management, and the use of short-term cash planning. The overall aim is to improve organizational decision-making based on financial, social, and ecological metrics.

MBA 615 Narrative Leadership (3 SH)
Effective leaders communicate to inspire talent to excel, to partner with investors and communities, to engage with customers and clients, and to grow their impact in the world as part of a global community. These communications are understood and acted upon based on the perceived context of the communication.  Effective leaders are attentive to the ways that they shape the narratives that form the context for this communication. This course helps leaders to shape their own story and the organizational stories to cultivate an authentic, trustworthy, and compelling narrative whether oral or written, in person or embedded within social media, in small groups and with large audiences.

MBA 623 Financial Management (3 SH)
This course examines the quantitative tools managers use in decision making.  Topics include an in-depth analysis of value chains, including supply chain and distribution channels, activity-based management, analysis of external funds needed, in-depth analysis of time value of money, and capital budgeting.

MBA 647 Strategic Marketing Management (3 SH)
This course focuses on the tasks of creating and communicating value and gaining loyal customers for an organization in today’s dynamic global marketplace. Topics include marketing strategy and planning, marketing research, the impact of technology on strategic marketing decisions, consumer behavior, ethics in marketing, social media and its role in marketing, internet marketing, customer relationship management, database marketing, and marketing evaluation. Leadership for the Common Good concepts are also offered as a backdrop for an ethical marketing framework.

MBA 663 Managerial Economics (3 SH)
This course applies insights from economic theory to the functions of managerial planning and decision making within a market-oriented business context. Specific content includes an overview of the market system, consumer demand theory, cost analysis, profit analysis, pricing strategies, the economics of technical change and innovation, the architecture of the firm, employee incentives, international economic impacts, and government regulation. Leadership for the Common Good concepts are also offered as competing methods of improving the traditional market system.

MBA 670 Strategic Leadership in a Multicultural World (3 SH)
Historically the field of strategy has focused on strategies as mechanisms for winning and thus causing others to lose.  Instead, we are learning that strategic partnerships and creation of manufacturing/service processes that develop human capabilities and use material resources wisely are needed to position the organization for sustained success in the marketplace. This course will help leaders develop approaches that strategically position their organizations to achieve this success.  Theoretically this course will be grounded in Michael Porter’s recent work on creating shared value.

MBA 671 Data Analytics for Decision Making (3 SH)
The quality of decision making in organizations is greatly influenced by the quality of data gathered and by information derived from that data. This course focuses on the use of tools and processes to enhance corporate decision making strategies. Topics include research design, survey development, defining data and information requirements, how and where data is stored, informatics and business intelligence, critical thinking, and transforming data into meaningful information.

MBA 680 Sustainable Organizations and Global Citizenship (3 SH)
This course integrates the three pillars of the Collaborative MBA Program; management, leadership and stewardship for organizational effectiveness, and serving the common good. The keystone of the course is an 8-day international residency designed to engage students as reflective practitioners and invite them to develop an openness to new ways of experiencing and thinking about the world through interactions and learning in a different country. One core value of the Collaborative MBA is global citizenship, recognizing that organizations are interdependent and mutually accountable to local, national, and global communities; this suggests that a global perspective is important for today’s business and organizational leaders. This course is designed as a capstone course, even though it is scheduled midway through the program; it prompts students to test and apply what they have learned in their first year, then the experience becomes an ongoing case study for all subsequent work in the program.