21st Century Finance

Students begin their journeys as scholar-practitioners in this doctoral management gateway course. Students will learn what it means to earn a doctorate and a Walden PhD degree. No organization can succeed without being led and managed. Students will graduate with a unique perspective on organizational success. They will develop a personal navigational tool, the skills development and an assessment plan (SDAP) to identify their goals, assess the skills they will need to develop, and begin to consider the importance of managing their time as they deepen their journey into the program. Through this course, students will then be prepared for the journey that will take them from absorbing knowledge to becoming creators of knowledge. During this orientation course, students will grapple with some of the biggest questions facing the management profession. While engaging in these and other questions regarding the future of management, students will be introduced to the full spectrum of Walden resources and become familiarized with Walden's academic support systems. Designed to make them better critical thinkers and scholarly writers, these resources include the Writing Center, the Walden Library, the Academic Skills Center, and the Center for Research Quality. Students also focus on beginning their development of critical reading, writing, and questioning, and reflective skills, all of which are needed to succeed as scholar-practitioners.

All responsible leaders consider the fiscal implications of the decisions they make on a daily basis, such as those involving growth, sustainability, and employee issues. In this course, students are provided with a survey of fundamental concepts in financial decision making. Students examine core principles, such as the time value of money, decision making under conditions of uncertainty, valuation, risk management, mergers and acquisitions, and capital budgeting. They also explore the legal, ethical, and global dimensions of financial economic decision-making theories and practices. Students will also consider the impact and limitations of financial markets in society, and how risk and return for firms is mediated and moderated by agency effects, information asymmetries, and both rational and irrational aspects of market behavior.Topics that students are encouraged to explore include risk management, financial decision making, uncertainty valuations, mergers and acquisitions, global ethical decision making, managing growth and sustainability, legal and ethical decision making in finance, managing economic growth and sustainability, and time value of money and the capital structure puzzle. As scholars, students will need to work independently to develop their understanding about the various topics the class has selected for the discussions.

Financial ethics is a crucial topic for today's corporate financial leaders and managers. The financial benefits of ethical compliance and corporate social responsibility globally are considered in this course. Students will discuss and analyze the role of ethics compliance reporting as well as antitrust reporting in a corporate environment. Students will also debate the ramifications of controlling compliance risks, how ethical behavior adds value to organizations financially, how organization structures impact financial ethics, and corporate social responsibility. Alternative operationalization and measurement approaches for the corporate social responsibility and corporate financial performance concepts that have been deployed in empirical literature are also discussed. 

Financial managers need specific understanding about organizational structures and how to deal with startups, benefit corporations, nonprofits, and other organizational structures. Students will also discuss the financial issues in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and investor financing. In both M&A and investor financing, tangible and intangible assets need consideration. Financial managers also need to consider economic sustainability, profitability, and managing the effects of innovation. There are also other financial realities that are becoming more relevant that financial leaders and managers need to consider, such as alternative currencies and how that will impact investments, research and development, and an organization's relationship with the conventional banking system. How will alternative currencies change the way startups manage their finances? These are some of the important questions students will explore and around which they will develop theoretical hypotheses.