Learn Business the Same Way You’ll Lead It.

ACC Corporate Financial Reporting (2.25 credits)

This course provides a systematic framework for using financial statements in business analyses. It considers a comprehensive set of tools to analyze the information contained in financial statements and demonstrates how to use the information to evaluate financial performance. It addresses questions such as: (1) how do operating and financial decisions contribute to a firm's return, (2) why does firm performance differ between competitors, (3) has the firm distorted the accounting numbers and how will this influence reported performance, and (4) how does the financial performance today predict future events, such as credit default.

BA High Stakes Leadership: Building Resilience Through Relationships (2.25 credits)

This course has been designed to help developing leaders effectively navigate the challenges of significant organizational disruptions that have become increasingly prevalent in today’s fast-moving, constantly evolving business environment. Participants in this course will explore the stakeholder theory of management and discover how and why an understanding of various stakeholder perspectives can inform and dramatically improve a leader’s response to events that threaten an organization’s survival. Unique to this course, participants will have the opportunity to interact with several c-level executives from some of the world’s most recognized and respected brands who have guided their enterprises through major disruptions and have lessons to share from their experiences. Also unique to this course, participants will learn from experience as they role-play members of different stakeholder groups during four simulated press conference events that have been designed to help learners build on the extensive crisis leadership foundation they will develop throughout the course. Ultimately, this course is about the understanding and development of individual and organizational resilience—the ability to anticipate potential threats, to cope effectively with adverse events when they occur, and to adapt to changing conditions to ensure a viable path forward for the organization.

BCOM Communicating in a Virtual World  (2.25 credits)

Virtual communication is a fact of business today: Team members are scattered across countries. Presentations are delivered via web conferencing. What does this mean for effective communication? This course goes beyond the basics of good business communication to help students become effective communicators and build strong relationships, even if they don't have the advantage of proximate space. Topics will include best practices for email writing and teleconferencing, and understanding different communication technologies.

BE Competitive Tactics and Policy (2.25 credits)

This course focuses on two main questions: How do firms develop and maintain profits in the face of competition, and how do governments use antitrust and competition laws to set limits on the degree to which firms exercise market power? This course applies analytical tools of economics and basic game theory to understand the effects of firm tactics and strategies on the firm's customers and rivals, and their likely reactions, and to see how policies designed to promote competition affect the feasibility of various actions firms might want to take. Antitrust laws have spread globally: this course compares the U.S. approach to antitrust policy with that of other countries, and draws implications for business. The dimensions of competitive strategy covered include horizontal mergers, cooperative pricing, product differentiation, strategies to deter entry, predatory practices, strategic commitment, vertical relationships with suppliers and distributors, and vertical restraints. 

BE Healthcare Markets & Public Policies (1.5 credit hours) 

This course provides an overview of the economics and business of healthcare. The main focus will be on the financing and delivery of health services in the United States. The analysis of each part of the health care system will include a consideration of basic economic issues, key public policies and current market developments. Particular attention will be paid to health care reform and its implications for consumers, employers, insurers and providers.

ES Introduction to Entrepreneurship (2.25 credits)

Targeted toward graduate students of business as well as those in engineering and scientific disciplines, this elective course is designed to provide students with an introductory overview of the world of venturing - that is, to give students a broad sense of the business fundamentals needed to plan, launch and grow a new startup business. Taught by a veteran entrepreneur, this course employs a mix of class discussions, readings, lectures, group exercises, homework assignments and guest speakers to expose students to key models, concepts and terminology that together will provide both business students and technologists/scientists with a conceptual framework to better understand the entrepreneurial world, how it works, and how to navigate it and succeed in it.

FIN Investment Funds (three mini-courses at 1 hour each)

This series of courses will be linked to a newly formed PTMBA Investment Fund, which will involve deep due diligence with the intent of financing worldwide enterprises and  post-investment support.

FIN Valuation (2.25 credits)

This course focuses on corporate asset management, in particular, on valuation. Topics include capital budgeting methods, estimating incremental cash flows, estimating cost of capital, valuation of projects, valuation of companies in takeovers, valuation of leveraged buyouts, valuation of private companies and valuation of strategic options. The course also covers working capital management.

FIN  Venture Capital (2.25 credit hours)

Venture Capital Finance --- This course covers venture capital market structure and institutional arrangements and the application of financial theory and methods in a venture capital finance setting. It presents and applies the fundamentals of venture capital finance, employing "live" case studies to focus on financing startup and early stage, technology-based firms.

MKT Advertising Management (2.25 credits)

This course covers the management of a firm's advertising effort (with some coverage of related topics like direct marketing, public relations, and sales promotions). It covers the institutions, theoretical principles, and managerial decisions relevant to advertising management, and is designed for managers in marketing positions and in advertising agency account management.

MKT Digital Marketing (2.25 credit hours)

The digital revolution of the last twenty years has changed the nature of business in a very fundamental sense. The business function that's been perhaps affected the most by the digital revolution is marketing. The three big areas of marketing where the impact of digitization has been the highest are (a) new ways of interacting with the customer, leading to new business models (b) the change in the "balance of power" between the consumer and the marketer and (c) the emergence of data-driven marketing, including the use of algorithmic methods. The objective of this course is to bring students "up to speed" with respect to "applications" ((a) and (b) above) and (c) in order to enable them to "hit the ground running." Broadly speaking, the first half of the vocabulary and economics underlying digital marketing, the emergence of new marketing and business models and the role of technologies such as mobile and social media. The second of the course will expose students to "big data" and machine learning methods that are the driving issues of digital marketing.

MKT Go to Market Analysis   (2.25 credits)

This course focuses on managing the marketing research process which provides information as an input to marketing decision-making. This requires an understanding of the components of the marketing research process, how to utilize it effectively to obtain relevant information, and how to integrate such information into the marketing decision-making process. We will discuss both the "production" and "consumption" of information for marketing decisions. This course is about Data: how to gather it and how to make sense of it.  The course would be somewhere between appropriate and crucial for anyone planning a career in a marketing-related or information-intensive field.

MO Bargaining and Influence Skills (2.25 credits)

Negotiation Strategy in a Global Economy - An MBA without a developed understanding of the social psychology and economics of effective negotiations cannot be an effective leader. In virtually all business decisions, the resources you want to invest and what you expect to receive in return are open to explicit and implicit negotiations. The course introduces a real-world toolkit for a strategic approach from pre-negotiation planning to post-negotiation evaluation. It focuses on joint value creation, profit maximization, and conflict management. Importantly, this course provides a challenging and developmental environment. Intensive simulations with peer review and rapid-feedback, personal journals and coaching are deployed to make you more comfortable and successful as a negotiator. This course is designed to help you develop strategic flexibility in negotiating across a variety of contexts, whether cultural, professional, or personal.

MO Leading Diverse Teams (1 credit hour mini course)

Organizations reap competitive advantages when they fully engage and utilize the talents of people from different backgrounds and with different perspectives. Studies show that leveraging those differences can ignite learning, innovation, problem solving and critical thinking. However, leaders must have requisite knowledge and skills to transform diverse potential into excellent performance. In this course, we explore factors at every level (e.g., C-suite, policy, management, teams and individuals) that impede or enable inclusive, high performing organizations. Gain insights and skills that strengthen your capacity to lead yourself and others to achieve mission critical goals.

MO The Science of Success: Who Succeeds, Who Doesn’t and Why (2.25 credits)

This course is designed to help you achieve the success that you desire throughout your life. Specifically, the course provides you with conceptual frameworks and skills that will help you get better and more meaningful results at work, achieve your career goals, and craft a fulfilling life overall - regardless of the particular jobs or professions you choose. Based on decades of research about the beliefs and behaviors that predict success, this class gives you an opportunity to creatively consider multiple visions of a life well lived and design your way toward a happy, healthy, and productive life.

STRAT DEI Analytics (.5 credits)

Greater sensitivity to societal inequality, combined with an increasingly diverse workforce, has led many managers to ask if their business practices create disparities in opportunity and/or outcomes for employees, customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders. Yet, many managers lack the analytical skills to answer such questions. This course addresses that need, covering analytical frameworks for identifying “differential treatment” and “disparate impact” and applying those frameworks to real-world data from various contexts (e.g., Airbnb, Glassdoor, the NFL). By the end of the course, students will be able to (a) analyze inequity in organizations, markets, and industries; (b) infer plausible determinants of such inequities; and (c) design interventions to reduce documented inequities.

TO Applied Business Analytics and Decisions (2.25 credits)

Objective: Strategic and tactical decision problems that firms face became too complex to solve by naive intuition and heuristics. Increasingly, making business decisions requires "intelligent" and "data oriented" decisions, aided by decision support tools and analytics. The ability to make such decisions and use available tools is critical for both managers and firms. In recent years, the toolbox of business analytics has grown. These tools provide the ability to make decisions supported by data and models. This course prepares students to model and manage business decisions with data analytics and decision models. Specifically, the course aims to achieve the following goals: A. To develop the ability to identify key drivers in business decisions and develop analytical models for prediction and prescription. B. To learn a variety of tools and techniques for a range of tactical, operational, and strategic business decision problems that apply in a broad range of problems. C. To develop the ability to communicate the results and findings of analytical solutions to different. Specifically, the course will cover descriptive analytics (e.g., data visualization, query, data slicing), predictive analytics (e.g., forecasting, classification, simulation), and prescriptive analytics (e.g., optimization). Examples include decision problems in supply chain and logistics, retail revenue management, finance, and risk management.

TO Decision Support with Spreadsheets (2.25 credits)

Spreadsheets have advanced to the point of providing powerful, general-purpose functionality and are among the most widely used decision-support tools in business today. This course deals with decision support using spreadsheets, including: what if analysis; financial, statistical and time/date functions; graphical presentation of data; organizing, sorting, querying and extracting information from spreadsheet and external databases and the World Wide Web; cross-tabulation of data; data tables; creation and management of scenarios; use of a solver to find optimal solutions to problems; the design to macros to support spreadsheet applications; and data maps. An expert level of spreadsheet use is achieved. Windows-based spreadsheet software (such as Excel) is used.