First Year Curriculum

These required courses in the first quarter and second quarter are designed to give students insight into the perspective of a senior manager and leader.

FINANCE 201 Managerial Finance

This course covers the foundations of finance with an emphasis on applications that are vital for corporate managers. We will discuss many of the major financial decisions made by corporate managers, both within the firm and in their interactions with investors. Essential in most of these decisions is the process of valuation, which will be an important emphasis of the course. Topics include criteria for making investment decisions, valuation of financial assets and liabilities, relationships between risk and return, capital structure choice, payout policy, the use and valuation of derivative securities (e.g., options and convertible securities), and risk management.

FINANCE 204 Managerial Finance—Accelerated

This course covers the foundations of finance with an emphasis on applications that are vital for corporate managers. We will discuss many of the major financial decisions made by corporate managers, both within the firm and in their interactions with investors. Essential in most of these decisions is the process of valuation, which will be an important emphasis of the course. Topics include criteria for making investment decisions, valuation of financial assets and liabilities, relationships between risk and return, capital structure choice, payout policy, the use and valuation of derivative securities (e.g., options and convertible securities), and risk management. This accelerated course is designed for those students who are relatively new to finance but who possess solid quantitative skills.

FINANCE 210 Managerial Finance—Advanced

This course is targeted to those students who are new to finance and for those with little quantitative background. This course covers the foundations of finance with an emphasis on applications that are vital for corporate managers. We will tackle most of the important financial decisions made by corporate managers, both within the firm and in their interactions with investors. Essential in most of these decisions is the process of valuation, which will be an important emphasis of the course. Topics include criteria for making investment decisions, valuation of financial assets and liabilities, relationships between risk and return, capital structure choice, payout policy, the use and valuation of derivative securities (e.g., options and convertible securities), and risk management. This advanced course is targeted to those with a strong background in finance and (at least) solid quantitative skills.

GSBGEN 202 Critical Analytical Thinking

Critical Analytical Thinking (CAT) will address issues that transcend any single discipline or function of management. In 14-16 person sections, you will analyze, write about, and debate fundamental issues, questions, and phenomena that arise in many forms in management. You will explore these critical issues broadly, as well as hone your analytic and persuasive skills. CAT will enhance your ability to identify critical questions when exploring a new business issue, to parse issues, to develop reasoned positions, and to make compelling arguments.

GSBGEN 203 The Global Context of Management

The economies of the world are ever more closely linked. Record levels of international trade and investment are achieved every year. Cross-border mergers and acquisitions are booming. The foreign exchange markets handle trillions of dollars of volume daily. Offshore provision of services has grown immensely. Host governments and non-governmental organizations operating internationally affect how companies do business far from their home bases and close to home. Few businesses today can avoid being connected to the world economy, and it is quite likely that the process of globalization will continue apace. To succeed as a leader in your career, you will need to be able to think systematically about the challenges brought about by globalization.

This course is designed to help you develop as a leader in this international environment. Our objectives are:

1. To develop an analytic framework that students can use to understand, systematically, why it is that countries are different or similar in ways that matter to managers of organizations.
2. To see how successful organizations leverage these differences and similarities to their advantage, sometimes becoming more "global" in reach and other times taking advantage of their more "local" advantages.
3. To develop the insights needed to successfully lead organizations in different contexts worldwide.

GSBGEN 208 Ethics and Management

With leadership comes responsibility. This course explores the numerous ethical duties faced by managers and organizations. It combines analytical frameworks with the latest findings on human behavior to inform a wide range of ethical decisions and strategies. Readings include case studies, insights from experimental psychology and economics, and excerpts from or about major works of moral philosophy. Through online and in-class exercises, discussions, and personal reflection, you will reveal and assess your ethical intuitions, compare them with more explicit modes of ethical thought, and learn how to use ethics in business settings. A diverse set of ethical viewpoints will be considered with an emphasis on not only their implications for ethical behavior but also on the social and cognitive pitfalls that undermine the ability of business leaders to fulfill their ethical duties.

OB 205 Managing Groups and Teams

This course introduces you to the structures and processes that affect group performance and highlights some of the common pitfalls associated with working in teams. Topics include team culture, fostering creativity and coordination, making group decisions, and dealing with a variety of personalities. You will participate in a number of group exercises to illustrate principles of teamwork and to give you practice not only diagnosing team problems but also taking action to improve total team performance.

OB 206 Organizational Behavior

Building on the discipline of social psychology, this course helps you cultivate mindsets and build skills to understand the ways in which organizations and their members affect one another. You will learn frameworks for diagnosing and resolving problems in organizational settings. The course relates theory and research to organizational problems by reviewing basic concepts such as individual motivation and behavior; decision making; interpersonal communication and influence; small group behavior; and dyadic, individual, and inter-group conflict and cooperation.

OB 209 Leadership Laboratory

In the Leadership Labs class we ask you to consider the question, "Why would someone follow YOU?" This is a course in which you consider what kind of leader you want to be, what kind of leader you are, and how to align your leadership behavior with you leadership goals. In this class you will have an opportunity to lead your squad and in doing so to discover your strengths and weaknesses as a leader. Your will receive feedback about your approach to leadership and you will have opportunity to try out new skills and tools.

There are four components to the Labs course: a) skills workshops, b) squad development meetings, c) project work meetings, and d) the executive challenge. The skills workshops occur both in the first two weeks of the quarter and near the end of the quarter. In the workshops, your section will meet as a whole with your leadership coach (in the beginning of the quarter) or a faculty member (end of the quarter) to discuss solutions to common managerial and leadership dilemmas. The early workshops will give you some basic frameworks and tools for leading your squad during Autumn quarter and the later workshops will focus on transferring these tools and skills to the business context. The squad development meetings will occur during weeks 3-9 of the quarter. During these weeks your squad will meet to work on basic leadership challenges (e.g. managing conflict, assessing a team?s progress). The squad development meetings include role-plays and group exercises designed to help you think more deeply about the dynamics in your workgroup and to allow you to practice and experiment with new ways of leading. Each session will be divided into two segments, and one squad member or your Fellow will be the leader for the segment. MBA1 squad members will rotate through the segment leader position. Your Fellow will also be present for these meetings in order to provide coaching to the leader and to the squad as whole. During weeks 3-9, you will also be required to meet with your squad once a week outside of class for project work meetings. In the project work meetings you will be working on your project for your Global class. For this class we require that you use a rotating leadership structure for those meetings so that you can further practice and learn about the effects of different approaches to leadership in the context of a real work project. Finally, the quarter culminates with the Executive Challenge in Week 10. The Executive Challenge will be an opportunity for you to further refine your leadership skills by engaging with alumni judges in role plays that test your ability to lead effectively. The alumni will provide you feedback and evaluate your performance.

STRAMGMT 207 Strategic Leadership

This course examines fundamental issues of general management and leadership within an organization. You will learn about setting an organization's strategic direction, aligning structure to implement strategy, and leading individuals within the firm. You will master concepts, frameworks, and tools to assess an industry and a firm's competitive environment, and to craft alternatives. You will study the interplay among formal structure, informal networks, and culture in shaping organizational performance. By integrating leadership theory, the lessons of practical application, and your own experience, you will develop skills and capabilities essential to leading others. And you'll gain a better understanding of your own leadership preferences, strengths, and weaknesses.