A background in the basics of business is often a key to making the most of a graduate business or management program. In this foundational course, students can build their business acumen in major functional areas that are essential to business success including business leadership and management, business ethics, the legal environment of business, accounting, finance, economics, quantitative methods and statistics, information systems management, global business, marketing, and strategic management.

Today's companies are challenged to constantly do more with less. Effective managers know how to deploy scarce financial resources in ways to achieve optimal returns on these resources. Students will discover the latest financial tools and analytic methods to strengthen the capital investment decision-making process. Students will use critical thinking skills to apply and, at times, challenge traditional financial theory, while balancing various stakeholder interests in the financial decision-making process. Students will examine a range of contemporary issues and techniques relevant to sound and ethical financial decision making.

Being an effective leader is essential in business and demands that an individual has a strong set of competencies including the ability to understand one's self, motivate others, understand organizational culture, and manage ambiguity. In this course, students begin their personal and professional transformation by closely examining their current strengths and weaknesses, values, decision-making processes, and approaches to dealing with difficult problems. Students also explore leadership in turbulent times by examining how effective leaders think as well as how various management styles impact situations and relationships within an organization.

Students in this course are introduced to the knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques needed to successfully manage projects throughout the life of a project, known as the project life cycle. By learning about the project management Knowledge Areas and Process Groups as well as the distinguishing characteristics of each, students gain an appreciation for how these two dimensions of project management interact in initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling, and closing a project.

One of the most critical challenges in maintaining and improving organizational performance is identifying core strengths and weaknesses within the organization and across the more general value creation landscape. The focus of this course is on the challenges and opportunities for managers to create value and to increase organizational performance through the effective deployment of systems thinking and change management skills. Students in the course explore systems thinking as a process whereby problems are viewed as individual components within a larger system and explore how various operational and systems thinking frameworks can be utilized to optimize organizational performance in both industrial and service settings.

Program Admission Considerations: A bachelor's degree or higher.

General Admission Requirements: Completed online application and transcripts. Please note that the materials you are required to submit may vary depending on the academic program to which you apply. More information for international applicants.