MBA Program Course Descriptions
Business Courses (BA)
500 Business Fundamentals I (3 credits) This course integrates some of the practical tools and strategies of business operations into a cohesive foundational bridge for the MBA program. The goal is to introduce a broad range of interdisciplinary skills, knowledge, and abilities that will prepare students for the rigor of graduate study. It is only required for conditionally admitted students. Prerequisites: Matriculated MBA students only.
502 Business Fundamentals II (3 credits) This course provides students with an introduction to a variety of analytical tools and techniques that can be applied within a real-world business setting. It provides a foundation for the analytical skills necessary for an MBA degree and prepares students for the rigor of graduate coursework. It is only required for conditionally admitted students. Prerequisites: BA 500
530 Global Issues of Social Responsibility and Law (3 credits) This course is an extensive examination of the major ethical issues and challenges facing today’s global manager. With an overview of international trade law and an examination of the basic principles of business ethics, the student evaluates the legal and social responsibility issues that are encountered in the international marketplace. Specifically, the course includes the areas of contracts, intellectual property rights, product liability, employment issues, environmental concerns and unfair/predatory business practices. Prerequisite: Matriculated graduate business program students only.
540 Multinational Marketing (3 credits) This course examines the role of marketers in creating, communicating and delivering value to their customers. Students acquire an understanding of the needs of different customers (both domestic and foreign) and address global issues involving product positioning, development, pricing, distribution and promotion. Sessions in the computer lab familiarize students with how organizations record and report information pertaining to their marketing efforts. Prerequisite: Matriculated graduate business program students only.
560 Managing in the Global Workforce (3 credits) This course provides concepts, tools and techniques that are needed to effectively manage a global workforce. The major focus for the course is the roles and activities of the human resources department in managing a global workforce. A secondary focus is the roles and activities of individual managers. Prerequisites: Matriculated MBA students only.
580 Shareholder Value Management (3 credits) This course is designed to help the student understand the role of managerial accounting in creating value for the organization. It shows how the internally generated accounting information is used as a basis for managerial decision making. Topics covered include the balanced scorecard, activity-based costing system, performance evaluation and cost-volume-profit analysis. The course also emphasizes how management planning and control can have behavioral (social) and ethical implications on the organization and the individuals involved. Prerequisite: Matriculated graduate business program students only.
583 Business Internship (3 credits; may be repeated) This course offers students practical training and substantive working experience in the business community. Candidates prepare a learning contract with an Arcadia MBA adviser and an official contact from the host organization to determine learning goals, assignment responsibilities, and means of evaluation. Paid and unpaid internships qualify for course credit. Students are expected to make an oral presentation demonstrating competence in the personal learning outcomes identified for the internship. The minimum hours required for a 3-credit internship is 15 hours per week (total of 105 hours) within the accelerated seven-week MBA course format. Internships of longer duration also may be approved. Prerequisite: BA 500 Business Fundamentals I and BA 502 Business Fundamentals II
600 Leadership for Effective Organizations (3 credits) This course studies the role that leadership plays in organizational success, with a focus on the importance of emotional intelligence in inspiring and motivating others. It explores the neuroscience research on the role of emotions in leadership behavior and examines different organizational structures and frameworks with a focus on how leadership adapts to be successful in different organizations. There is a significant focus on individual leadership where students identify their own leadership aspirations, behaviors and styles. Prerequisite: Matriculated graduate business program students only.
602 Power and Politics (3 credits; Fall; Online only) This course focuses on how leaders are able to use power and politics in influencing others to complete work requirements within the global and domestic corporate environments. It focuses on the skills required to influence within the organizational ranks. It explores the power and politics of ongoing interactions and negotiations and the challenges faced by leaders within domestic and multinational corporations.
603 Contemporary Issues in Leadership (3 credits; Summer; Online only) This course is an extensive examination of contemporary thinking about effective leadership and the issues facing today’s global leader. The course includes both theoretical and evidence-based understanding of the relational nature of leadership, use of individual strengths, “positive” leadership, seeing and understanding organizational systems, effective virtual and face-to-face teams, successfully leading across cultures, and the creation of desired futures.
604 Global Organizational Development— The Evolving Challenge (3 credits; Spring; Online only) This course, through the application of practical readings and applications, is designed to demonstrate how modern organizations use systems and processes thinking to successfully implement change. The course studies organizational development challenges in the domestic and international context and examines managing approach strategies for establishing a competitive position in an international market. Students assess, evaluate and analyze organizational culture, structure and dynamics to better adapt and appraise change management strategy to implement and prescribe structure in the global environment.
610 Entrepreneurship and Innovation (3 credits; summer; Online only) This course is intended to help participants create the entrepreneurial mindset. Analyzing and synthesizing change as a catalyst to innovate is of critical importance to the entrepreneurial mindset. Once an idea has been identified, it then needs to be evaluated for feasibility in a market, especially as global markets are explored through various media. Analyzing and identifying requirements to create an environment to sustain development of a qualified idea is the next step. Finally, a methodology for integrating quantified and qualified information into a business plan is explored. Entrepreneurial endeavors are framed from two perspectives: as standalone, outside ventures and as conceived and built within an existing organization.
612 E-Commerce (3 credits; Fall; Online only) This course explores the key elements in marketing on the Internet, including branding, creating competitive advantage, planning a Web site, online research, customer relationship management, advertising, social media, and integration of online and traditional marketing strategies in a global marketplace
620 Managerial Economics (3 credits) This course introduces the economics of the firm, including price theory, consumer behavior, concepts of elasticity, equilibrium under different market conditions, demand and supply factors of production, introduction to welfare economics and its effects on modern organizations, game theory for decision-making, forecasting technique analysis, production and cost analysis, pricing decisions, economics of capital budgeting, simulation in managerial decision making and applied agency theory in organizations. Prerequisite: Matriculated MBA students only.
640 Operations and Technology (3 credits) The course provides students with knowledge and application of business technologies in support of operational management areas such as planning and execution. Learners are exposed to key technologies such as ERP (SAP) and latest tools/techniques for achieving increased process integration, flexibility, agility. The course utilizes management case studies along with hands-on, team-oriented exercises to enable learners to improve operational effectiveness by using emerging technologies. Prerequisite: Matriculated MBA students only.
670 International Business Experience (A) (0 credits) Each course focuses on global organizational strategy, and students will participate in a travel experience. Viewing firsthand the environmental factors that influence business decision making provides students a context for the development of global strategies. Site visits to organizations permit students to learn about and discuss items related to organization strategy. Prerequisites: Matriculated MBA students and must have completed four courses within the program prior to travel. Prerequisites 670A: Students must be matriculated in the MBA with a Global Perspective program, in good academic standing and have completed four courses in the program.
International Business Experience (B) (2 credits) Prerequisites 670B: Students must be in good academic standing and have completed BA670A.
International Business Experience (D) (3 credits)
International Business Experience (E) (1 credit)
680 International Finance (3 credits) This course provides concepts, tools and techniques that are needed to effectively analyze financial crises and how they affect multinational companies. The major focus of the course is financial markets, international monetary systems and foreign exchange risk management. Prerequisite: Matriculated graduate business program students only.
681 Securities Analysis (3 credits; Spring; Online only) This course provides a comprehensive study of portfolio management techniques and a detailed comparison of security valuation techniques. It further analyzes the historical growth patterns and valuation models utilized in both domestic and global securities markets.
682 Mergers and Acquisitions (3 credits; Summer; Online only) This class studies the main issues of mergers and acquisitions (M&A). The course takes a general management perspective. The course discusses historical and theoretical developments, focusing on recent events and taking a strategic view of business combinations. Students explore the managerial aspects encountered during an acquisition process and develop the skills to successfully integrate the process.
683 Investment Banking (3 credits; Fall; Online only) This course examines the regulation of conduct of the corporate finance function of investment banks by looking at the structure of investment banking firms and their relationship with banks and financial holding companies. The course examines the role and regulations of investment bankers in private offerings, public offerings, international offerings and mergers, acquisitions and other restructurings and the impact of securities laws on the corporate finance function of investment banks and finance principles used by investment bankers in the corporate finance process. The course considers the role and regulation of investment bankers in the Euromarkets, Japan, emerging markets and China’s Security markets.
695 Global Strategic Management (4 credits) This capstone course is the final course in the MBA program. It focuses on the strategic management process. Students gain an understanding of strategies suitable for conducting business in developing and developed economies by integrating their international experiences and earlier coursework within the framework of theories and issues in strategic management. Prerequisites: Students must have completed all courses within the graduate business program including all international travel requirements.
International Peace and Conflict Resolution Courses (IP)
501 Introduction to Peace and Conflict Resolution (3 credits) This course provides a graduate-level introduction to the interdisciplinary field of peace and conflict studies, its relationship with other academic disciplines, and to careers in the field of conflict resolution. It draws upon a variety of disciplines, especially in the social sciences, to examine the interrelationship between personal, collective, national and global levels of violence and war and efforts to reduce it. Course objectives include familiarity with the causes, symptoms and dynamics of conflict, violence, and war (from interpersonal to global) and conflict resolution.
University for Peace Courses (UCEE)
1001 Entrepreneurship in the Social Sector The worlds of “working for the betterment of society” and “private enterprise” often are seen as incompatible. This course attempts to break down that perception in order for participants to see the social sector as a place of opportunity, both to “do good” but also to innovate and build a financially sustainable social enterprise, whether nonprofit, for-profit, or some combination of the two. The course suggests that the skills to get a socially beneficial idea off the ground, effectively manage and grow it, and make it financially sustainable require social entrepreneurs to bring business-like skills and discipline to the area of “doing good,” but these skills in fact cross the traditional boundaries between nonprofits and for-profits. This course exposes participants to a number of cases of social entrepreneurs who have converted their desire of building a better world into a reality. The course hopes to inspire participants with an entrepreneurial spirit, to help students gain an understanding of the challenges of the start-up process, to offer space and structure for participants to begin developing their own business plan for a socially beneficial venture, and to help students to think about the complexities of growing and managing it.
1002 Negotiation and Conflict Resolution This course is an introductory skill-building course in negotiation, conflict management and resolution. Participants learn to improve their own negotiation skills, helping them to act consciously and skillfully in tough situations. This introduction also helps participants to understand how negotiations fall apart and how conflict forms. The course explores the spectrum of third-party intervention methods, showing how these processes are implemented and institutionalized on the interpersonal level as well as in the international sphere. The course explores the difference between processes in which parties surrender their decision-making autonomy to a third-party and those in which they retain this power and the third-party must find ways to assist them to exercise it on their own. The course also looks at mediation, in which a third -party, lacking decision-imposing power, uses his negotiation expertise, his creativity and his relationship with the parties, in order to aid them in reaching agreement and transforming their relationship. By understanding the design and management methods of the mediation process, participants will be able to bring their improved negotiation skills to bear in assisting others to negotiate and resolve conflicts peacefully. Prerequisites: Students must be matriculated into a graduate business program. Students who are matriculated into the certificate program must have completed IP 501, IP 505/approved elective, and BA 530. Students who are matriculated into the MBA with a Global Business Diplomacy concentration must have program approval.
