MBA – Program and Courses

Program Outcomes

  1. Strategy: Students will graduate with an ethically sound foundation from which to contribute and lead a 21st century enterprise.
  2. Entrepreneurship: Students will graduate with a spirit of, eye for, and understanding of the benefits of innovation and creativity and how to contribute, organize and help sustain business excellence into the future.
  3. Global: Students will graduate with an appreciation for and a working knowledge of the global marketplace and how to further contribute toward expanding the scope of an enterprise in today’s global marketplace.
  4. Management: Students will graduate with the ability to move immediately into a general management manager role with the requisite competencies to lead people, manage operations, analyze financial statements, prepare budgets, comply with the law, and properly advise executives on courses of action that will improve enterprise results.

Student Learning Goals

  1. Students will be able to discern the positive and negative effects of leaders’ actions and decisions on the business, its people, its multiple stakeholders, and the community at-large.
  2. Students will be practiced at considered business decisions against a filter of the Catholic faith, the Rule of St. Benedict, and a variety of other personal moral and ethical filters.
  3. Students will be able to think through and anticipate the interdependent financial, economic, market, cultural, consumer, and competitive variables of a complex business/marketplace strategy and achieve desired results.
  4. Students will be able to engage other professionals in a trusting, productively conflicting, accountable environment where individual differences are embraced and results are optimized.
  5. Students will be able to identify an unmet need and articulate a plan to meet and capitalize on meeting that need in a competitive environment.
  6. Students will be able to create and lead in an environment where innovation and creativity thrive.
  7. Students will be able to analyze and identify unmet needs within the global community on which their enterprise can capitalize for future expansion.
  8. Students will be able to identify and analyze key financial, cultural, and resource variables that can affect the success of a global venture.
  9. Students will be able to map and understand the complex competitive global marketplace, anticipating the external factors that will play into their enterprise’s strategy for the next three to five years.
  10. Students will be more comfortable in an unfamiliar culture and global business environment, ready to listen and learn from others before finalizing their business strategy.
  11. Students will be able to observe, analyze, understand, and make recommendations for specific and enterprise-wide process improvement.
  12. Students will be able to analyze actual expense and budget data to improve operations.
  13. Students will be able to make employment decisions including hiring and performance management, to improve firm performance.
  14. Students will be able to convince executives of strategic course changes and the expected results.

Courses for the Traditional MBA

Students are required to complete 33 credits of graduate course work in order to receive their MBA degree in business administration.

ACCT-5510 Accounting Information for Management

This course provides an analysis of accounting information and the control function within the firm. This course focuses on the role of the corporate controller of the firm. Specifically, decisions involving the management functions of determining and controlling relevant costs are examined and developed. This course introduces the role that budget and cost analysis play in effective operations management as well as product pricing. The course explores approaches to the development and management of planning and control functions, methods and systems for the firm. Prerequisite: Completion of undergraduate financial accounting course or Executive MBA status.

FINC-6590 Financial Management (Must complete ACCT-5510 before enrolling in FINC-6590)

The nature of strategic decisions related to the source and use of funds for capital expenditures are central to this course. Examination and analysis of risk in financial decision making, and the financial instruments that have evolved to manage capital will be studied. Attention is given to the process and role of capital budgeting and control of capital usage.

BUSI-6580 Marketing Strategy

This course takes an analytical approach to the study of marketing, focusing on the total environment in which marketing decisions are made. Emphasis is on managerial decisions, as well as the planning research and organization aspects of marketing activities. Students examine consumer and industrial products and services; profit, non-profit, public and private organizations; and the social and legal implications of marketing policies.

BUSI-5571 Business Law & Ethical Decision Making

The legal environment in which American business organizations operate is studied. Topics include rights and shareholders; director’s and officer’s liability; mergers, acquisitions, take over and securities regulation. Particular emphasis is given to legal issues on employment, including issues related to hiring, terminations, and discipline. Both federal and state laws will be considered. Personal ethics and issues surrounding ethical/legal dilemmas in business are explored.

BUSI-5520 Managerial Economics

This course explores the nature and role (including market forces) of decisions that determine profit-maximizing production and pricing. The course investigates pragmatic microeconomic and macroeconomic applications, including relevant costs, and the determinates of supply and demand and their role in decision-making. Prerequisite: Completion of undergraduate economics course.

BUSI-5551 Human Resource Management

This course deals with the study of the procedures required in hiring, employment testing, interview and selection process, job design, evaluation techniques, management-labor relations, wage and salary administration, and current employment regulations. Use of case analysis and class lectures will be emphasized.

BUSI-6552 Leadership

This course emphasizes the role and practice of leadership in the successful execution of an enterprise. Both poor and excellent examples of leadership will be studied. A priority is placed on each student developing his or her own leadership paradigm that aligns fully with his or her values and beliefs as integrity is critical to the role of leadership. Specific behavioral dynamics, accountability, trust building, and commitment will be examined as elements requiring the influence and intervention of leadership to optimize cooperation and results.

BUSI-5555 Business Practice & Corporate Social Responsibility

This course examines the exercise of leadership in modern organizations with a focus on ethical challenges facing corporate leaders in the rapidly changing business environment. Emphasis is placed on understanding the responsibilities corporations have toward various publics (stakeholders) and the implications of the Benedictine heritage for business practice.

BUSI-6540 Business Creation Practicum (Ideally should be taken in your last or second to last semester)

A new enterprise in order to be successful must be able to tell a unique story to the market and at the same time must be financially profitable and sustainable in time. The course approaches the difficult task of generating a new business, studying and applying the business model canvas methodology. During the course the methodology will be applied also to the creation of new products, with emphasis on customer’s value creation. Telling a unique story involves also alignment with personal stories; the course will extend the methodology attempting a coherent alignment between business, product and individual’s career.

BUSI-6559 Global Strategy/International Ventures (Capstone Course, must be taken in your last or second to last semester)

This course addresses business problems, opportunities, and processes relevant to a global market economy. International business practice and communication skills are integrated into each aspect of the course. Emphases include: current issues in management, economics, finance, marketing or production, and how these operate in different countries with widely varying thought processes and cultures.

BUSI-6900 Strategic Management (Capstone Course, must be taken in your last or second to last semester)

This course seeks to develop a management viewpoint that integrates creative thinking, strategic perspectives and administrative ability in a global context. The course helps students develop skills and perspectives necessary to comprehend and respond to a complex, whole system phenomena. Finally, this course introduces and develops the ideas and tools of strategy and strategic analysis. Integrative cases in modern business problems are explored, alternative courses of action are appraised and strategic decision-making ability is developed.