Summer 2010

Course Descriptions

MBA Core Courses

MBA524 Managing Financial Resources: Raising and Investing Capital to Maximize Value

Emphasizes the tools and techniques necessary for sound financial decision making including the time value of money, risk and return, capital budgeting, working capital management, and acquisition of long-term capital.

MBA525 Marketing for Competitive Advantage: Leading Innovation and Managing Relationships

Emphasizes markets, innovation and opportunities, consumer characteristics affecting demand, marketing institutions, ethics and government business relations, product planning and pricing problems, distribution channels, promotion, and competitive strategy.

 

MBA651 Mastering Strategic Analysis and Decision Making: achieving competitive performance for the firm

This MBA Capstone course emphasizes managerial decision making that involves all aspects of a firm and crosses all functional lines, this course focuses on the integration and application of acquired knowledge for strategy development.

 

MBA Electives

MBA621 AG Business Consulting: How To Make Money For You and Your Client       

The central idea of this course is that consulting services, both internal and external to business organizations are useful, are in high demand, and are lucrative.  This course is intended for students who wish to understand and use consulting principles and practices for competitive advantage, whether as an “intrapreneur” or as a traditional consultant.  The course will introduce the taxonomy and nature of consulting, the provider models and business forms such as feasibility studies, proposals, contracts, reports, and billing practices.  It will include the strategic application of technology for improved productivity and performance.   It will help students to understand and apply methods of thinking, analysis, client relations, and reporting that are essential to effective consulting. 

 

 MGT640 AG Mastering Management Skills

Mastering Management Skills is designed to help students develop the “soft skills” that are essential for career advancement as well as success in their lives more broadly.  The pedagogy for the course is based on a system of self-assessment, learning, analysis, practice, application, and reflection.  To ensure relevance, each student is encouraged to focus on issues that are personally relevant for their particular career stage.  Managers work in myriad different contexts around the globe.  Depending on the interests of the class, we may find ourselves exploring how differences in national/regional cultures affect managerial practice as well as how organizational size, age, and status (publicly traded, privately held, nonprofit, governmental) tend to influence organization culture and thereby expectations about what it means to be an “effective” manager.   

 

MGT645 AG and BG Negotiation and Conflict

This course is designed to enhance the student’s techniques and decisions when negotiating. The course will expand on the principles of negotiation and integrate them with the fundamentals of dispute resolution as they apply to conflict within organizations, among groups, and between individuals. The conflict portion of the course will draw on the growing research of the past twenty-five years that has revealed new and better ways of resolving disputes in both formal and informal settings. Students will learn how to diffuse, resolve and prevent conflict, especially in the business environment. Fact gathering, situation analysis and mediation skills will be emphasized.

 

FIN620 DG Equity Investments

This course provides a survey of equity investments, starting from individual assets and progressing to portfolios and derivative securities.  Students will gain exposure to sources of investment research such as Reuters, Bloomberg, Thomson One Analytics, Compustat, Mergent, Value Line, and Hoovers.  Particular emphasis will be placed on the mastery of financial statement forecasting models, and their use in investments analysis. This course covers the valuation of stock from the perspective of potential investors, but the tools and techniques used are equally applicable to the analysis of competitors, and to analysis of the impact of alternative strategic opportunities on firm value, i.e. “what-ifs”.  Finally, the exposure to portfolio management topics gained through this course may be applicable to the management of either corporate or personal investment portfolios.

 

MKT690 DG Entrepreneurial Marketing

This course examines key marketing concepts, methods, and strategic issues relevant to innovation occurring within both mature corporate firms and new early stage firms.  Both for profit and not-for-profit firms are included.  Mature firms look to bring to market innovative products and/or services that allow them to maintain the interests of current customers as well as attract new customers.  Early stage firms are those looking to profitably disrupt the existing competitive structure with a new product and/or service offering.  And the threat to viability emanating from such startups is the reason why mature firms innovate!  This course examines the unique challenges facing intrapreneurs (those innovating from within a mature firm) as well as entrepreneurs.

 

MST Core Courses

TAX605 Sales and Exchanges
This course considers the tax consequences arising from dispositions of property using a detailed analysis of the treatment of capital gains, deferred payment sales, basis, amount realized, dispositions by gift of inheritance, nonrecognition exchanges, mortgages, and installment sales. Time is also devoted to the study of recapture provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.

TAX625 Partnership Income Tax Problems
This is an intensive analysis of income tax problems encountered in the organization, operation, reorganization, and dissolution of partnerships. It includes recognition of partnership status for tax purposes and problems created by the death or retirement of a partner, sale of a partnership interest, distribution of partnership assets, and determination of the amount and nature of a partner's share in partnership income or loss.

TAX675 Business Tax Planning
This course presents business problems to which students find solutions after independent or group research. Topics discussed include the formation of corporations with consideration given to securities, professional service corporations, dividends, stock redemption, and the purchase and sale of businesses. Actual and hypothetical fact patterns are used by students to plan and structure transactions. A student is given a set of facts that is used to conduct a business as a sole proprietorship, a partnership, or a corporation and then liquidate this entity. Prerequisites: TAX600, TAX605, TAX610

TAX640 Advanced Income Tax Problems

 

MPAc Core Courses

MPAc 515 Preparing for MPAc Success

This course is designed to provide entering MPAc students with the skills necessary to be successful in a graduate accounting program.  Emphasis is placed on the use and applicability of case analysis.  Students will garner an understanding of the use of the critical expectations of a graduate level program.

MPAc605 Corporate Governance in the 21st Century

Corporate governance of a large company is complex, involves many stakeholders, and often subject to laws and regulations of many jurisdictions. In 2002, the U.S. Congress passed Sarbanes-Oxley Act - a substantial change in laws governing the capital markets since 1934. This law plays a mitigating role between laws and ethics of corporate governance. The corporate governance issues are also impacted by globalization of business (e.g., International Financial Reporting Standards, IFRS and globalization of capital markets) and applications of information technology in the corporate reporting supply chain such as XBRL. The course addresses these topics and their roles in shaping compliance with corporate governance rules and regulations in the global economy.

MPAc625 Government and Not-for-Profit Accounting This course studies accounting problems and procedures pertaining to federal, state, and local governments as well as other funded entities (hospitals, universities, and non-profit organizations). Common financial and fund accounting principles, including those peculiar to funded activities will be compared. MPAc630 Accounting Theory To fully understand the process and products of financial accounting, one needs to understand the underlying concepts and choices that were made in arriving at currently accepted standards. The purpose of this course is to understand the role of accounting theory in setting accounting standards and to explore possible alternatives and the implications of those alternatives on policy and decision makers. In this course we will examine the nuances of the commonly used terms, along with the choices available to standard setters and the rationale for the existing accounting standards. Topics of discussion will include the development of accounting theory and international accounting theory. We will also look closely at the recognition of income, and the balance sheet accounts. The course will have a research component using FARS. MPAc635 Multinational Accounting In this course, students examine the external and internal reporting problems associated with multinational business entities. This course includes an overview of the institutional structures that have evolved in response to international accounting problems; a review of relevant literature in the field; and the development of analytical skills for addressing international accounting policy issues. MPAc640 Research and Communication This course introduces students to accounting, audit, tax and other financial databases used for professional research. Students will begin developing the skills necessary to conduct appropriate professional research and translate this research into an organized and effective piece of oral or written communication. This course also analyzes the unique characteristics of business communication. Students use their knowledge to create several pieces of standard written business correspondence using appropriate supporting technology. Oral communication is studied with an emphasis on planning and presentation in different business settings. MPAc645 Management Control Systems This course examines the establishment of control systems in the modern organization that consider organizational goals and objectives, strategy, policy, control, and systems. Students go beyond the accounting system into the realm of management decision making.