Business for Everyone
FALL TERM: 16 CREDITS
The Integrated Core Experience (ICE) provides an enterprise-wide view of business. In addition to course content, integrative projects and case studies help students understand real-world business problems and their solutions. Course content includes:
Global Strategy and Systems
Strategic Cost Management
Financial Accounting
Marketing and Quantitative Analysis
Organizational Behavior and Communication
Financial Management
Seeking Authenticity and Thinking as a Leader
ICE Broken Down
Professors team-teach and collaborate with each other and students in a rigorous yet informal seminar atmosphere. Course material is presented in a cross-functional manner to provide students with a working knowledge of how different subject areas relate to one another.
In addition to individual exercises, students work in small groups to solve actual business problems while presenting and defending their solutions. The objective is to mirror the classroom experience with real-world business settings. ICE prepares students to “hit the ground running” and gives them the confidence to succeed in a professional environment.
Course Descriptions
Global Strategy and Systems (3 credits) provides an overview of global business from both a strategic process perspective and the organization as a system. It introduces a broad conceptual framework involving strategic and critical thinking, business planning, and general management functions. It provides a foundation for the other core modules that develop more specific concepts and techniques.
Strategic Cost Management (1 credit) covers the use of cost data in strategic planning and control to facilitate the development and implementation of business strategies. Restricted to M.S. in Commerce students.
Financial Accounting (2 credits) incorporates the perspectives of accounting, corporate finance, and economics to help students understand financial statements and the judgments and incentives underlying accounting choices. The course will use an integrated, cross-disciplinary view of financial reporting and will include major accounting topic including assets, liabilities, equity, off-balance-sheet financing, measurement issues, valuation, and the analysis.
Marketing and Quantitative Analysis (3 credits) introduces the marketing management processes that can be applied to various global markets. Topics include understanding market metrics, consumer market dynamics, consumer behavior and social/cultural trends, organizational buying behaviors, market segmentation, global branding, management of goods and services in diverse markets, and marketing decision systems.
Organizational Behavior & Communications (2 credits) examines human behavior both within the organization and within the global business environment. It discusses personal effectiveness and interpersonal skills in a global climate. Topics include cross-cultural differences, global and virtual teams, leadership, conflict resolution, decision making, creating high-performance teams.
Financial Management (3 credits) covers basic corporate finance including cost of capital, capital budgeting, valuation of stock and bonds, working capital management, and international finance.
Seeking Authenticity and Thinking as a Leader (2 credits) aids students in leveraging their non-business academic background, and provides guidance on integrating across the functional areas in the masters program. Leaders tend to think in a particular way. This active-learning course will focus on developing more careful thinking and problem solving approaches. Students will be positioned to formulate a personal brand toward a career best-suited for them.