First-Year Curriculum

General managers require a sophisticated understanding of what one can — and cannot — infer from data and how to use those inferences to make good decisions. Our courses in data analysis provide the analytical tools/techniques for using data to make appropriate inferences and good decisions. The base and accelerated levels cover such content as basic probability, sampling techniques, hypothesis testing, t-tests, linear regression, and simple machine learning / prediction models, while the advanced level analyzes real-world situations in which a significant competitive advantage can be obtained through large-scale data analysis.

Finance covers the foundations of finance with an emphasis on applications that are vital for corporate managers, including the major financial decisions made by corporate managers, providing the necessary concepts and tools to assess the value of a business or investment opportunity. Base and accelerated level topics include criteria for making investment decisions, valuation of financial assets and liabilities, relationships between risk and return, and capital structure choice. The advanced courses dig deeper into global financial topics and into more sophisticated analytical tools.

Business leaders must read, understand, and use corporate financial statements.This course will develop your understanding of how economic activities map into financial statement information and will enhance your ability to critically evaluate this information to better understand the firm’s financial performance, economic condition, and strategic position. All three levels (base, accelerated, and advanced) focus on users — rather than the preparers — of financial statements. The base-level and accelerated courses in this area are broad courses in how financial accounting information is produced and used. The advanced level course skips the more introductory materials and covers more advanced topics, including international accounting standards and other global financial reporting issues. This course is most appropriate for students with a stronger background in accounting.

The discipline of microeconomics is the foundation of much of what you study in business school and is a tool of analysis of specific market and non-market interactions. The base and accelerated courses cover microeconomic concepts relevant to management, including the economics of relationships, pricing decisions, perfect competition and the “invisible hand,” risk aversion and risk sharing, and moral hazard and adverse selection. The advanced applications options apply the frameworks to specific contexts, such as auctions, price discrimination, and business strategy.

Using examples motivated by a variety of business settings ranging from online advertising, health care, and finance to supply chain management and revenue and yield optimization, the core course in Optimization and Simulation Modeling (OSM) aims to familiarize students with the main steps in an analytical approach to business decision making. The goal of the course is to develop or advance students’ analytical skills and elucidate the role of prescriptive analytics and AI as an aid in managerial decision making. The topics are taught in an experiential fashion, with class time mainly devoted to short modeling exercises focusing on specific applications followed by a classroom discussion.

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 your leadership goals. You will have an opportunity to lead a squad and in doing so to discover your strengths and challenges as a leader. You will receive feedback about your approach to leadership and you will have the opportunity to try out new skills and tools. Students will be placed into five to six person squads, and the majority of class time will be spent in these squads. Your squad will meet to work on basic leadership challenges, including managing conflict and assessing a team’s progress. There will be the opportunity for feedback so you can achieve a deeper understanding of the impact of your behavior on others. The squads will do role-play cases and group exercises designed to help you think more deeply about the dynamics in your group and to allow you to practice and experiment with new ways of leading. The quarter culminates with the Executive Challenge, which engages alumni judges in role-plays that test your ability to lead effectively.

With leadership comes responsibility. This course explores the numerous ethical issues faced by managers and organizations and provides both analytical frameworks and the latest findings on human behavior to inform ethical decisions and strategies. The readings present challenging and controversial case studies, provide insights from experimental psychology and economics, and discuss relevant philosophical concepts and arguments. Through class exercises, rigorous discussion, and personal reflection, you will clarify your own ethical stance, think through ethical dilemmas, and practice articulating recommendations compellingly. You will also discover the diversity of ethical viewpoints and find out how to avoid the social and cognitive pitfalls that can make ethical leadership challenging.

Managing Groups and Teams introduces you to the key determinants of group performance and highlights some of the common pitfalls associated with working in teams. Topics include team composition and diversity, team creativity and decision making, team leadership and influence, intra-team and inter-team conflict, and team member coordination. You will participate in a number of exercises to illustrate principles of teamwork and to give you practice not only in diagnosing team problems but also in taking action to improve team performance.

Organizational Behavior serves as a practical guide to managing workplace behavior -— both yours and that of others. Drawing upon insights from social science research, we delve into key leadership challenges, from motivating employees and making sound decisions to navigating conflict. Our curriculum involves a blend of case studies, experiential exercises, in-class discussion, and real-world examples. Rather than provide prescriptive solutions, our aim is to equip you with the skills and understanding necessary to address emerging leadership challenges independently and with confidence.

Our marketing courses introduce you to the substantive and procedural aspects of marketing management. You’ll learn about analyzing the needs and wants of potential customers and about creating and delivering goods and services profitably.

Operations offers students a holistic perspective on the rapidly evolving and integrated world of operations, technology, and innovation. The course covers fundamental concepts and tools for excellent operations and examines how business models, operational processes, technology, and innovation come together in the real world.

These courses examine 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.

Business leaders must increasingly engage in strategy beyond markets, interacting with politicians, bureaucrats, voters, and others who help set the rules of the game. Their interventions, like passing a new piece of legislation or writing new regulatory standards, shape market competition and the opportunities available to firms. CEOs of many major companies report spending a majority of their time engaging with these non market issues even though managers rarely gain exposure to them earlier in their careers. This area will prepare you to strategically interact with these important constituents, organizations, and institutions outside of markets.

These courses allow students to explore more broadly and deeply a variety of business essentials, offering a wide variety of courses from subject areas including Accounting, Finance, HR Management, Managerial Economics, Organizational Behavior, and Political Economics.