Business, MBA

Effective management practice is centered on attaining both long and short-term strategic goals and objectives. Strategic Management will help examine the strategy of organizations: it’s vision, mission and values and how it seeks to compete and remain relevant in a competitive market place. This course will help practicing mangers critically evaluate their organization’s strategic goals and objectives. Throughout the program you will be required to complete weekly assignments using the ideas from your reading and research to describe and analyze your organization. During the course, students will examine their organization’s strategic approach and predict possible problems and pitfalls that their organization might encounter during strategic implementation. Finally, managers will continue their program long reflection on Christian business ethics.

This course will provide an overview of how organizations work. Theory, research, and application will be utilized to provide students with a deeper understanding of organizational structure, culture, communication, and strategic planning processes. Students will engage in exercises and activities that will assist with the development of a mature, Christian perspective and analysis of their organization.

All organizations, both for-profit and non-profit, have customers, clients or members. Understanding and reaching more customers, clients or members is the focus of strategic marketing management. This course introduces managers to strategic marketing analysis, approaches to analyzing marketing capability, market segmentation, customer and competitor analysis. The course explains how marketing strategies are developed and how organizations determine their product, pricing, promotional and distribution strategies. The course also discusses the necessary elements to establish effective marketing evaluation and control systems. Finally, the course gives students the opportunity to critically reflect on contemporary marketing practices from a Christian ethical standpoint.

Leadership can be developed. This course will focus on the development of Christian leadership skills including authenticity, inspiration, motivation, and development of trust within an organization. This course will assist students in developing a solid understanding of the differences between leadership and management. Major theories and models of leadership will be reviewed through a series of case studies and activities. Prerequisite: BUSN510.

This course is an in-depth analysis of financial management issues faced by managers in both for profit and not-for-profit organizations and managers’ responsibility to exercise productive stewardship over financial and physical capital. It covers advanced topics in capital budgeting, working capital management, capital market instruments, lease financing, asset/liability management, financial forecasting and other related topics. Prerequisite: BUSN510.

To manage effectively requires an understanding of economics and the role of economics in business. As Christians, our role as business leaders is to understand the principles of economics and how we might help those less fortunate than ourselves. Economists argue as to the road to be taken to lessen the effects of poverty, arguing for or against capitalism, free market, socialism, communism and mixed economies, as well as many other economic forms. This course examines economic approaches to alleviating poverty throughout the world. Students are encouraged to think critically about the role of government, morals, ethics and freedom in economics for this course.

This course assists students with understanding the effective components of human resource use within their organizations from a Christian perspective. Specific topics include alignment of human resource systems with organizational strategy; evaluation of effective employee motivation programs; staffing systems, rewards and compensation; employee development and performance management systems.

This course will identify the ethical and legal issues involved in the management of specific problem areas in business including employment issues, environmental, product liability, marketing and digital information; and provide an understanding of the ethical views, social responsibility, and legal environments from a Christian perspective within which these issues arise in today’s economy. Emphasis is placed on analytical problem solving and ethical decision-making. Prerequisite: BUSN510

Businesses use project management to achieve unique or complex outcomes when faced with limited resources and under tight time constraints. This course will help students become familiar with and understand project management practices and skills, as well as recognize both how and why project management is distinct from strategic or operations management. Further, this course will focus on the factors necessary for successful project management including project management concepts, the project life-cycle, the project manager position requirements, needs identification, effective project teams, project organization, project communications, project planning, risk assessment and management, task and resource scheduling, controlling, cost performance, reporting, and optional project management software.

The study of International Business is a strategic decision today for any MBA student. There are few businesses and few individuals in the world that are not impacted by globalization. This 8-week course is designed to help give you the tools and foundational knowledge you need to be successful in navigating the complexities, challenges, and opportunities in the global marketplace.This course will provide practical insight into what you can do better in your job tomorrow, as well as the tools you need to adapt to the coming changes in the global village. Understanding IQ (Intelligence Quotient) and EQ (Emotional Quotient) are things you may have studied in the past, but in this course you will begin the process of developing your CQ (Cultural Quotient) or your ability to adapt and seek to understand those of different cultures. This skill is increasingly a differentiator in today’s marketplace. Prerequisite: BUSN510

This course focuses on the study of planning, management decision-making, and the relationships between accounting and management control. Assignments will involve the analysis of business transactions and related financial reporting issues. The course will cover among other things: introduction to accounting framework used in financial reporting; analysis of financial statements, impact of accounting methods on financial reports, and guarding against fraud. Finally, the course emphasizes how accounting is the one of the key means for management to exercise responsibility, ethical decision making, and communication. Prerequisite: BUSN510.

This course prepares students to apply statistics and probability concepts with ethical considerations to business decisions. Emphasis is placed on enabling students to understand business research and statistics that they will typically find in their professional careers. A second emphasis is preparing students to evaluate and use research-based information developed by other individuals. The focus of the course will be on selecting the correct statistic given a specific research situation, understanding what information a statistical test provides, and knowing how to interpret statistical significance. Prerequisite: BUSN510

In this capstone course, students will integrate knowledge and skills gained through their program of study as they develop an applied research project. Students will demonstrate the knowledge and skills gained by leading the design and implementation of an improvement effort in an organization of their choice. This capstone project is carried out over the period of one term with a team selected by the student and involves the implementation and application of management theory. Students are expected to complete a master’s level project demonstrating competency in management theory, the individual area of emphasis, as well as faith integration.