M.D./M.B.A. Curriculum

The course focuses on the analysis and use of financial accounting information in the evaluation of corporate performance. The course initially demonstrates the accounting process and resulting generation of financial statements. Building on these core accounting concepts, the course emphasizes the understanding of financial statements prepared under U.S. and International Accounting Standards and the analysis of these financial statements including common size analysis, ratio analysis, the impact of taxes, and credit analysis. Completion of the course enhances the student’s ability to read, interpret, and analyze financial statements for making investment, credit, acquisition, and other evaluation decisions.

The course focuses on the use of accounting information in reporting managerial performance and making business decisions. The course covers the preparation and use of managerial accounting information for use in planning, budgeting, control, break-even analysis and pricing, including the impact of taxes. Completion of the course will enhance the student’s ability to understand managerial accounting reports and use this information in making business decisions.

Course is designed to provide the foundations in management information systems information systems required to understand and effectively use an enterprise wide information system. Topics include the role of the CIO, managing Information Technology (IT) as a strategic resource, business process reengineering, IT planning, IT governance and communication, the Internet, and eBusiness.

Managerial Economics is the application of economic theory to decisions made by firms and managers. This course approaches managerial economics from the point of view of a data driven manager or firm, seeking to apply economic theory to make business decisions. The course starts by teaching students how to use data on costs, sales, and pricing available at any firm to compute key metrics that needed to apply economic theory to business decision making. Students will learn data-driven methods to make key business decisions, such as how much to produce, what price to charge, and advanced pricing strategies such as up-charging and price discrimination. Students will learn how to make these decisions in both competitive and imperfectly competitive industries.

Basic financial valuation. Topics include the financial environment; the time value of money; capital market efficiency; basic security valuation; risk, return and asset pricing; cost of capital; and an introduction to capital budgeting.

A continuation of FIN641, with an emphasis on important issues faced by corporate financial managers responsible for financing and investment decisions.  Core topics include capital structure, payout policy, advanced capital budgeting, basic derivative and real option valuation, leasing, and investment banking. Specialized topics, such as behavioral finance, international finance, mergers and acquisitions, and risk management may also be introduced as the course progresses.

This course aims to familiarize the student with statistical theory, tools, and methods required for business systems analysis and improvement. Topics include descriptive methods, elementary probability, random variables and the distributions, hypothesis testing, confidence intervals, statistical modeling, and regression.

This course aims to familiarize the student with Management Science tools for business systems analysis and improvement. The coverage includes linear and integer programming models, project management, simulation, queuing, and decision analysis. Some widely used software are illustrated through examples and case studies derived from business applications.

The purpose of this course is to impart students the principles of design thinking.  Design thinking is an essential tool for understanding the customer, not just from a functional perspective but from an emotional one.  Students will learn how to create an empathy map and a prototype.  This is a hands-on learning experience that will challenge students to get out into the real world to talk to people and test their ideas.

This course will explore various digital global strategy issues faced by international companies and new ventures, aiming at improving MBA students’ ability to think and act digitally and internationally.  By focusing on the complex issues caused by digital globalization we seek to help our graduate students develop novel digital global strategies that would redefine how their companies pursue international expansion and manage geographically dispersed businesses in the digital age.  This course will also offer insights into new ways of organizing and managing global business through digital connectivity so as to sharpen speed, flexibility, orchestration, and efficiency for both interfirm and intrafirm activities in various countries.

Operations Management involves planning and coordination of all the activities – from acquisition of resources (outputs), through their transformation into products (outputs), and to their ultimate delivery to customers – in manufacturing, service, and non-profit organizations.  To plan and coordinate these complex inter-connected activities, businesses employ operations managers at every level from first-level supervisors to Chief Operations Officers.  Such managers face a wide variety of challenges in planning and executing operations strategies, and aligning them with the organization’s business goals.  Adopting a process-based view of the business organization, this course will present some of the decision problems facing operations managers – such as process planning and capacity planning – as they pursue this strategic fit.  Students will develop structured approaches to address these decision problems and then learn to apply these approaches in practical contexts through problem solving exercises, case studies, and simulations that emphasize experiential learning.

Leading with introspection is about understanding your leadership style and how you influence others.  Effective leadership requires understanding of personality traits and behaviors.  In this course, students will learn the skills necessary for leading followers, teams, and organizations.  The development of trust is an essential aspect of leadership and will be emphasized.  Understanding of negotiation in dependency situations and negotiation styles is featured.  The course will also cover recent developments in leadership theory and research, including authenticity, ethical, and servant leadership.  Applications of course concepts are encouraged through self-assessments and case studies.

This course will focus on two important operational levers that managers have in matching supply with demand – inventory and capacity – as they pursue this strategic fit.  Specifically, structured approaches to address decision problems that arise in the contexts of waiting lines and inventories will be developed, and then students will learn to apply these approaches in practical contexts through problem solving exercises, case studies, and simulations that emphasize experiential learning.

This elective course highlights how to manage and construct effective teams to achieve strategic goals. Team-based organizations have been created to enhance organizational performance. The benefits of effective team leadership are performance beyond expectations and enhancement of learning for employees. Topics covered include team decision-making, team leadership, diversity in teams, conflict resolution, and team creativity.

This capstone course focuses on the perspective and skills of the general manager. Its purpose is to provide practice in diagnosing and identifying realistic solutions to complex strategic and organizational problems. Course builds on previous coursework by providing an opportunity to integrate various functional areas by providing a total business perspective. Since the course focus is on pragmatic, action-oriented general management skills, the course is taught primarily through the case method and requires both written analyses and case presentations.

In this course, we will learn how a firm can create value for the customers and capture some of that value back in the form of profits. We will learn key principals (from psychology and innovation) that a firm can use to shape consumers' perceptions of value. In addition, the course will cover the tools necessary to attract and retain profitable customers. Given the fast pace of change in the current marketscape, the course will pay close attention to how the challenges of creating and capturing value shift as the consumers, competition, and the markets evolve. Students will use empirical data and critical thinking tools to first arrive at the correct diagnoses of the marketing problem and then devise sustainable and creative solutions. The course will take a broad approach. The goal is to develop classical and contemporary marketing know-how and analytical skills that an executive in the company needs to have regardless of his or her functional role.

Derivation of rule of law governing health providers, vicarious liability of administrative and medical personnel, informed consent, and other related problems are discussed.

The goal of this course is to develop an understanding of the basic elements of the health services industry in the United States. A systems approach will be used utilizing a historical perspective as a basis and moving on to current and potential future system dynamics. This course will allow the student to understand the health care system, including physician services, hospital and hospital systems, long-term care providers, mental health services, and pharmaceutical services. Health care labor markets will be examined. Various elements associated with the financing of health services will be analyzed as well including indemnity insurance, capitation, and the role of managed care, accountable care organizations, and consumer driven health care in theory and practice. The role of government and its impact on our health care system will be understood as well. Alternative health care systems looked at from a global perspective will be analyzed, and possible application to the U.S. health care system will be evaluated.

Population health is emerging as a field of study of health determinants, a concept of health, and a goal of achieving measurable improvements in the health of a defined population. In this course, students will gain an understanding of the determinants of population health, health outcomes of the population, and policies and interventions that link the determinants and outcomes while exploring the business case for health.

Development of public policy at the federal, state and local level. Policy process, models of policy analysis, policy development in several government service areas, and plans for policy change. Special emphasis on health policy formulation, implementation and the use of epidemiological tools in health policy analysis.

All societies must deal with the allocation of scarce resources. In our society, primary reliance is placed on markets and prices. Since most students are unfamiliar with the methods of decision-making from a manager’s perspective, we will discuss criteria to evaluate the allocation of resources and analyze the behavior of two of the principal actors – consumers and firms. A careful analysis of the choices made by individuals, organizations, and governments will demonstrate that sensible “choice architecture” can successfully nudge people toward better decisions without restricting their freedom of choice. The principles of economic and management decision-making will be presented in the context of health care systems and markets. We will use numerous real-world issues and case studies to demonstrate decision-making techniques, especially for health care organizations and consumers.