International Management Major

This course is designed to provide students with a basic knowledge of financial accounting concepts, procedures, analysis, and internal reports as an essential part of the decision-making process. The focus is on the three basic steps of the accounting process: recording, classifying, and summarizing financial transactions. Emphasis is placed on the general accounting activities leading up to the preparation of financial statements.

The course introduces the global business system in the context of the economic, political, social and technological environments, relating business to society as a whole. Topics covered include the international scope, function, and organization of firms, and other fundamental concepts of multinational business. The course also addresses functional areas such as the value chain, production, marketing, human resources, and accounting.

This course is an introduction to the tools and concepts used in the marketing process for consumer and industrial products as well as for services. The focus is on the basic marketing concepts (product, place, price, promotion) as they relate to the field of global marketing. Emphasis is placed on the increasingly important role of interdisciplinary tools to analyze economic, cultural and structural differences across international markets. Specific consideration is given to the development of integrated marketing programs for a complex, global environment.

This entry-level course in economics covers the fundamentals of macroeconomics and, together with ECN 101, it provides the necessary prerequisites for any other upper-level course in economics. This course introduces students to the study of economics as a field of knowledge within the social sciences. In the first part, focus will be on the definition, the explanation, and the significance of national income, business fluctuations, the price level, and aggregate employment. In the second part, special attention is devoted to the functioning of a payment system based on currency and bank money. Finally, students will discuss the instruments and the functioning of public policy aimed to stabilize prices and maintain high levels of output and employment within the current macroeconomic context. Current economic news will be regularly scrutinized.

This is an entry-level course in economics, covering fundamentals of microeconomics and aimed at students who choose it as an elective or plan to continue their studies in economics. This course helps students develop basic analytical skills in economics and microeconomics. It provides students with a basic understanding of the market system in advanced capitalist economies. It examines the logic of constrained choice with a focus on the economic behavior of individuals and organizations. After a theoretical analysis of the determinants and the interaction of supply and demand under competitive conditions, alternative market structures will be investigated, including monopolistic and oligopolistic forms. The course examines the conditions under which markets allocate resources efficiently and identifies causes of market failure and the appropriate government response. The introduction to the role of government includes its taxing and expenditure activities as well as regulatory policies.

Managerial Finance is an introductory course in corporate finance that teaches students the basic theoretical and practical foundations in financial decision-making. In particular, students will learn about concepts and tools needed for valuing investment projects. Topics covered include the time value of money, valuation of corporate investment projects, the risk/return relationship, capital budgeting, the cost of capital, developing appropriate selection criteria, and short- and long-term financial management. Throughout the course, real-world examples are used to link theory with practice. (This course was previously BUS 326. Students may not earn credit for both BUS 226 and BUS 326.)

This course introduces students to the most common qualitative and quantitative techniques for conducting market research with an emphasis on their application.  The definition of market research problems, the set-up of research plans, and the subsequent data collection and analysis are illustrated and applied by means of real world projects. Students are required to implement, in groups, the skills covered in class, and to prepare a final research report to discuss and present in class.

In the first part of this course students learn concepts in inferential statistics, its main principles and algorithms. They learn how to apply sampling distributions in the case of business random variables, how to state and test business hypotheses about population mean or proportion differences, how to calculate ANOVA table components, and how to deploy estimation methods to provide information needed to solve real business problems. In the second part of the course, students learn advanced model building methods, algorithms needed to make and test dynamic multiple regression models and time series (ARMA) models. In addition to teaching and learning methods based on the textbook, problem-based learning (PBL) and interactive engagement (IE) are used. Many internet data bases, EXCEL add-ins and EViews are used to enhance IE based learning. Selected SPSS or STATA examples are also provided.

Strategic management is the study of firms and the political, economic, social and technological environments that affect their organization and strategic decisions. This course considers the external market environment in which firms operate, and provides theoretical foundations, focusing on economic and strategic theories of the firm and introducing key concepts of organizational theory. Practically, the course looks at the creation of competitive advantage of a firm in the global arena. The readings and class discussions include both theoretical concepts and practical case studies. (Junior status recommended)

This course introduces the cutting-edge computing methods for the analysis of business and marketing big data which help in inferring and validating patterns, structures and relationships in data, as a tool to support decisions at all levels of management. Students learn key descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive data mining methods with both supervised and non-supervised machine learning algorithms, which produce information for non-structured and semi structured decision making. While the course introduces a systems approach to business data processing, emphasis will be given to empirical applications using modern software tools such as Data Mining in Solver-Analytics More specifically, students will become familiar with and demonstrate proficiency in applications such as Cluster Analysis, Market Basket Analysis. Logistic Regression, Naïve Bayes Classification, Entropy Calculation, Classification Trees. Engagement-based learning is provided by using real world cases as well as computer based hands-on for real data analysis. Ultimately, working in teams, students will make the month long projects in applying Data Mining analytical techniques on the real world business problems, and will make suggestions for improvement which will be backed by the new information, gained from DM. Projects are presented in groups. Research papers, which are based on the projects, are individual.

This course studies the internal environment of firms and organizations, namely how to organize and manage people in order to implement strategic plans effectively. Topics include: organizational structures and change, human resources, leadership, group dynamics and teamwork, motivation, and multicultural management. Special attention will be given to the study of leadership, which plays a critical role in increasingly complex and multicultural organizations. The readings and class discussions include both theoretical concepts, case studies and practical exercises.(This writing-intensive course counts towards the Academic Writing requirement.) (Junior status recommended)

Why do individuals sometimes make seemingly irrational decisions? Do consumers always make choices that maximize their utility? By introducing students to some basic but intriguing components of behavioral economics and cognitive psychology, this course seeks to answer these questions and numerous others. 

Discovering the drivers of irrational decision making is a relatively new field of study that integrates insight from psychology, sociology and neuroscience into traditional analysis of behavior and choice. Findings from behavioral economics have found application across a wide range of disciplines, including marketing and management. The analytical approach in this field breaks from the long-standing mainstream economics tradition of treating subjects as rational agents, effectively making use of available information to make rational decisions with the goal of maximizing personal utility. Analysis in the context of behavioral economics alters this approach by integrating biases, heuristic reasoning and social norms into models of human behavior with the scope of increasing explanatory and predictive power of theory.

This course focuses on the basic concepts of value and risk, and explores the principles that guide strategic investment decisions. Major emphasis is placed on the notion of net present value, the evaluation and pricing of bonds and stocks, and the definition and measurement of risk. The concepts of portfolio risk and expected return, as well as the role of portfolio diversification are carefully investigated. Students are then introduced to market efficiency, portfolio theory and the relationship between risk and return in the context of alternative theories, mainly the capital asset pricing model and the arbitrage pricing theory. (Recommended: ECN 225, ECN 256; Strongly Recommended: MAT 200)

This course focuses on the financing decisions of firms. After an introduction to the questions related to the definition of debt policy and the capital structure of the firm, the course investigates the problems related to the issue of securities and dividend policy, as well as the impact of corporate taxes and the costs associated to bankruptcy, financial distress and conflicts of interest. The second part of the course studies the fundamentals of option pricing theory and the valuation of options - with applications to warrants and convertible bonds - and provides an introduction to the use of derivatives for hedging financial risk.

The analysis of contemporary challenges calls for a theoretically informed and multi-disciplinary approach. This course introduces students to the key concepts related to allocating tangible and intangible resources under conditions of scarcity, and producing public or commercial goods and services. In doing so, the course draws on political, managerial, game-theoretical and economic frameworks and encourages students to apply them to a broad range of cases. The objectives include enabling students to understand and analyze policy-making, the functioning of markets and their social and political implications, as well as the management of public and private institutions. Specific topics covered include (but are not limited to) modes of decision-making, rational behavior, supply and demand, competitive dynamics, welfare, externalities and public goods, consumer choice, and basic monetary and fiscal policy. While special emphasis will be placed on the analysis of political and managerial challenges, the course is relevant to students of other disciplines.

This course is intended as a capstone for the International Management, International Marketing Management and Finance majors and should come after students have studied all basic aspects of management. Students will be challenged to think critically, strategically, creatively, collaboratively, and compassionately with the goal of working on a field project together with a company/institution.