Curriculum

This course focuses on the functions and responsibilities of top executives in managing the entire enterprise rather than any specific functional area (marketing, finance, accounting, etc.). It provides integrative conceptual tools and frameworks for making coherent strategic decisions across different business functions. The primary purpose is to enable students to develop and implement effective business and corporate strategies that build on various internal and external sources of competitive advantage. Students will develop practical skills through the application of various analytical tools and techniques to case studies drawn from firms competing in a wide range of industries.

This course covers topics in data acquisition, probability, and statistical analysis that form an essential foundation for the important area of business analytics. The material covered will prove useful in other courses in the program, particularly for courses in accounting, decision modeling, economics, finance, and marketing.

This course provides analytical concepts and tools that are essential for the support of management decision-making. The power of modern spreadsheet programs for organizing and analyzing data is emphasized throughout. Specific topics include:

1. Big data, information complexity and organization;
2. Sampling;
3. Descriptive statistics and basic probability;
4. Random variables, covariance and correlation;
5. Statistical inference;
6. Simple and multiple regression analysis.

This course revolves around three themes. Whether we like it or not, as individuals and managers we evolve within various markets, and are subject to their rules. But how do world events shape our markets, decisions, and outcome predictions? This is the question we will address in our first theme, “Understanding Markets”.

These markets are themselves part of the economy as a whole – Canadian and global. This economy goes through booms and busts over time – the business cycle – and these fluctuations have an important impact on prices, national output, and unemployment, and indeed affect our daily lives. In our second theme, “Understanding the Economy”, we will learn the tools necessary to understand business cycles and governments’ policy responses; and to form educated opinions about what we read on the subject in the news.

But beyond understanding markets and the economy, today’s managers face a myriad of economic issues when formulating strategies. Should we enter this market? Should we exit that one? What price should we charge? How much should we produce? Should we try and “deter” entry by a rival, or should we “accommodate”? The right answers to these questions depend on the market environment in which we are evolving. For example, in some markets – monopolistic markets – our ability to affect outcomes is strong. How can we use this market power to our advantage? Other markets are characterized by the fact that our actions affect, and are affected by, rivals’ actions; and require a whole new set of tools – game theoretic tools. How can we use game theory to analyze these situations? These and other fundamental questions are addressed in our third theme, “Decision-Making in Market Environments”.

This course provides students with a framework with which to analyze individual and corporate investment and financing decisions. We will introduce the concepts of time and risk, which are the foundation for all financial decisions. We will then apply these concepts to the valuation of individual securities, such as stocks and bonds, and to capital investments undertaken by corporations. Through this framework, we will gain an understanding of financial markets and the process by which companies make their investment decisions.

This course is designed to introduce you to the fundamentals of financial accounting in order to facilitate success in a management role. The course is not intended to make you a professional accountant!

The accounting system in any organization is used for two broad purposes. In your day-to-day work environment, you will come in frequent contact with the management accounting systems which are oriented towards internal management functions; these accounting systems are designed to facilitate planning, control and decision within an organization. In this course, we will concentrate on the financial accounting system which records information with a view to producing periodic financial statements. The primary purpose of these statements is to provide information to those outside the organization such as investors, creditors, government bodies and shareholders.

You will come away from this course with an appreciation of accounting basics, how financial statements are constructed and how to interpret them. You will also develop an awareness of some of the more judgmental areas of accounting to better equip you to use the financial information provided in financial statements. Finally, you will gain an understanding of current accounting and reporting issues, illustrated with recent seismic events in corporate financial reporting and the current financial reporting of global companies.

Every opportunity will be taken to incorporate current business events into the learning process and students are expected to read the business media daily.

This course covers the foundations of effective leadership with an emphasis upon improving your leadership competencies while also enhancing your integrity as a future leader. The course will enhance your self-awareness regarding your own leadership style and ethical decision-making, encouraging you to be reflective and developing your ability to adopt alternative viewpoints. We will also cover essential leadership theories and practices with the goal of building your repertoire of effective leader behaviors. We will cover this material across several contexts including leading purpose-driven organizations, leading inclusively, and leading positive organizational transformations.

This course provides a graduate-level overview of organizational behavior from the perspective of the practicing manager. Organizational behavior is the social science that attempts to describe, explain, and predict behavior in an organizational context. From the manager’s perspective, effectively managing organizational behavior involves developing one’s personal skills, interpersonal skills, group skills, and organizational/strategic skills. Accordingly, this course covers important topics at each of these levels including managerial decision-making, communication, “difficult” people and stress, motivation, performance management, recruiting and retaining talent, leading effective teams, and fostering high-performance organizational cultures. Ultimately, this course is about developing managers who can align people with the business goals, thereby developing capable, healthy, and motivated employees while simultaneously building a successful business.

This course pursues a balanced perspective on organizational behavior, such that the goal is to develop your knowledge base and your skills for managing employees effectively. Pursuing managerial action without a solid understanding of organizational behavior often leads to the application of “common sense” or faddish ideas, which can create employee demotivation, confusion, poor decisions, and sub-optimal business outcomes as a result. On the other hand, a solid understanding of organizational behavior is useless if you cannot actually translate that knowledge into action. In short, effective leaders must understand organizational behavior (knowing) and be able to execute the skills that stem from their knowledge (doing). This course emphasizes both. This emphasis upon developing your ‘knowing’ and ‘doing’ will be apparent throughout the course, as illustrated at the beginning of each chapter you read, during our class discussions, and through the experiential learning activities.

This is an introductory course in the principles of marketing. It is designed to provide you with an understanding and appreciation of the role of a marketing professional. We will approach our discussions from the roles of entrepreneurs to marketing managers in both business-to-business and business-to-consumer organizations across a range of industries. Topics include utilizing data, market research and customer information systems for customer insight, developing and managing new product/services, branding and customer loyalty, go-to-market channel/distribution decisions, integrated marketing communication decisions, and pricing policy decisions. Throughout the course, students will also explore how the rapid emergence of technology (especially automation, machine learning, and artificial intelligence), big data, marketing analytics, and social media is shaping the evolution of the marketing function and what organizations need to do to win in the marketplace.

Upon successful completion of this course, the student should be able to:

1. Understand the key steps in the marketing strategy development process and the best practices associated with these steps;
2. Develop marketing mix strategies covering all execution elements;
3. Analyze the differences in the application of marketing across a range of concepts, products, services, and industries (e.g., consumer products vs. industrial equipment);
4. Understand how organizations are managing the digital transformation by utilizing the marketing & sales stack, platform media (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, etc.), research, information systems, collaboration networks, and data to uncover customer insights and to guide both marketing strategy and execution decisions;
5. Be current on best practices and applied research in the marketing field; and
6. Participate in the development of a marketing plan for a product or service.

Our objectives in the Operations Management course are:

1. To gain a general management perspective on the role of operations in an organization;
2. To understand the trade-offs involved in operational decisions;
3. To develop skills in problem solving and decision making in situations marked by complexity and uncertainty; and
4. To appreciate the managerial issues surrounding existing and new technologies in operations.

We will work towards these goals by undertaking practical appraisals of actual managerial situations described in detailed business cases. You will be asked to take the roles of practicing managers and apply a systems approach to balancing the conflicting demands of people, technology and economics. While technical and institutional information are a part of this course, your intent should be to develop a degree of competence appropriate for the manager rather than the engineer.

Through this course you will develop a foundation for understanding effective messages from design to delivery. The content is not difficult conceptually, but mastery of communication skills can only be achieved through practice and feedback. Success will therefore depend on active participation in exercises and discussions as well as preparation beforehand.

In this course, you will practice your oral communication skills, receive feedback from peers and instructors, and develop a plan for ongoing improvement. Because the teaching methodology is not exclusively lecture-based, you will be required to engage with the material before, during and after class. The in-class exercises are designed to provide you with ample opportunities to apply and practice what you are learning. While the course focuses on oral communication and public speaking, most of the concepts apply equally to written communication.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Understand the importance of effective communication as a key differentiator in the careers of successful business professionals;
2. Understand how to effectively plan your communications through the effective application of a communication strategy;
3. Understand how to effectively select and organize the content of your communications, including those that are data-heavy;
4. Understand and effectively apply the principles of persuasion to the day-to-day activities of your career (recommendations, advocacy, influence);
5. Become a confident presenter who can clearly and concisely communicate your ideas to diverse audiences;
6. Become aware of your own communication strengths and weaknesses and develop a personalized plan for continuous improvement.

The individual project course is an important component of your MBA education and an important milestone in earning your degree. The course provides you with the opportunity to apply the concepts that you have or will learn in the program to either create a new opportunity or to help solve an existing issue. The course also provides you with an opportunity to customize your MBA experience. You can choose between a New Venture Project and a Management Consulting Project.

Management Consulting Project

The Management Consulting Project (“MCP”) will require you to identify a managerial problem or opportunity within an organization and devise a plan to solve the problem or exploit the opportunity.

The MCP selection criteria include:

• The Project must be a real, substantive business problem, issue or opportunity within a defined organization. The Project must recommend a course of action for consideration and implementation by the organization.
• The Project must demonstrate an understanding of the topic’s relevance within the Organization’s overall context (internal and external) and strategy.

New Venture Project

The New Ventures Project (“NVP”) will require you to prepare a comprehensive business plan for a new business venture.

The NVP selection criteria include:

• The Project must be a real and substantive business opportunity.
• Acceptable Projects include: a new business, a new venture within an existing business or a new product.

Both the MCP and NVP Project must:

• Offer the potential to add value to or create value for an organization;
• Include the clear application of appropriate concepts learned in different MBA courses; and
• Budget your time on the assumption that the Project will require a minimum of 150 hours of original work.