Elective Courses
Recent Executive MBA students have selected from among the following sample electives:
Advanced Negotiations builds on the content and strategies presented in the core Negotiations course and expands students negotiating expertise. Specifically, the class highlights a number of traps experienced negotiators encounter and teaches students strategies to overcome these traps and maximize their success in complex negotiations. Traps such as negotiating the wrong issues, failing to effectively capitalize on power in the negotiation, getting pulled into issue by issue conversations, and incorrectly analyzing the context around the negotiation will be discussed.
Advertising Strategy examines approaches to developing, evaluating and managing advertising strategy. The course follows the structure of an advertising campaign, beginning with targeting and positioning, followed by media analysis and creative strategy implementation. The course concludes with a discussion of strategies for managing client-agency relations.
Analytical Decision Modeling on Spreadsheets focuses on structuring, analyzing and solving business decision problems on Excel spreadsheets. Problems involving optimal resource allocation and risk analysis are studied through applications in operations, finance and marketing. Some decision analysis, data analysis and forecasting is also covered. The course assumes working knowledge of Microsoft Excel.
Entrepreneurial Finance teaches prospective entrepreneurs the fundamentals of entrepreneurship with a focus on finance. Topics include pro forma development and review, business valuation models, cash flow analysis and raising capital.
Family Enterprises: Success and Continuity This course is intended for those from business-owning families, whether they work in the family business or not. Topics range from succession and family dynamics to continuity planning and strategic performance. The course is also appropriate for those who have family foundations, family investment companies and/or family office.
Game Theory studies strategic interaction and conflict resolution in competitive and cooperative environments. Principles of strategic reasoning and related mathematical formulas are taught through real-life examples and in-class games, giving students an edge in external business competition and in internal organization management.
Global Initiatives in Management is an experiential course that provides students an opportunity to study business in a specific region of the world. The GIM course includes classroom instruction on the culture, economy, and business environment of the region of study followed by an approximately 10 day research trip. This trip provides the students an opportunity to learn from in-country business and cultural experiences, such as site visits and meetings with leading business and government officials. The GIM learning experience culminates with group research projects that allow teams of students to explore in detail a particular research question connected with doing business in the region.
Innovation Strategy and Management will focus on innovation within business entities, from the typical technology and product innovation programs, to broader, process, marketing and other forms of innovation. The course will address innovation as a holistic strategic management imperative not limited to Research & Development or New Product Development. While the course will provide a theoretical foundation, the focus will be on real world issues, products and systems.
Intellectual Capital Management covers the specific agenda of using intellectual capital and or properties for building and sustaining competitive advantage. Intellectual assets like know-how, inventions, patents, explicit content, brands, trademarks (forms of intellectual property), contractual agreements etc. are often the largest proportion of a firm’s total wealth. In this course, we adopt a “lifecycle” approach to the management of an intellectual asset. Both mature markets and entrepreneurship contexts are reviewed.
International Finance studies international financial instruments, markets, and institutions. Topics include the nature of foreign exchange risk, the determination of exchange rates and interest rates, the management of foreign exchange risk with forwards and options, exchange rate forecasting, evaluation of international investments, currency speculation, the impact of monetary policy on exchange rates, and current developments in the international financial system.
Managing Price and Value Perceptions provides a integrated framework for studying pricing and customer value from both a theoretical and empirical perspective. The course provides students with a set of tools that can be immediately applied to practical pricing problems. Course concepts are illustrated through case analyses and exercises.
Marketing Channels deals with the problems of how to structure or design your distribution channels, as well as how to manage the channels you create (or those you already have in place). The course develops a framework for analysis and some useful tools to help guide your channel management processes, and includes lecture/discussion and case discussion modules. Topics covered include demand/segmentation analysis for distribution channel design; organization and functions of channel members; compensation of channel members; sources and uses of channel power; and channel conflict management.
Mergers and Acquisitions will provide technical knowledge but also to familiarize students with the different paradigms and perspectives of mergers and acquisitions. The course integrates the accounting, economic, financial, and legal aspects of mergers and acquisitions.
Real Estate Finance is an introduction to the most fundamental concepts, principles, analytical methods and tools useful for making investment and finance decisions regarding commercial real estate assets. Real estate investment will be studied using the tools and framework of modern corporate finance and investments, while focusing on the institutional features unique to the real estate industry. The course will consider investment in fully operational income properties, with a particular focus on how a property’s financing affects the risks and returns of its investors.
Securities Analysis combines economic analysis and institutional knowledge (i.e. accounting, taxes) to estimate the value of securities. Topics include valuation consequences of corporate earnings and analyst earnings forecasts, valuation of target and bidder corporations in corporate mergers, and bankruptcy.
Strategic Data Driven Marketing is designed to help marketers demonstrate the return on investment (ROI) of marketing and leverage data from marketing analytics to make better and more informed marketing decisions.
Strategic Issues in Commodity Industries introduces students to state-of-the-art models for the analysis of commodity markets. These include powerful frameworks for forecasting price trends, incorporating real options and herd behaviors in pricing models, and economic drivers of public policies and regulations.
Strategic Management in Non-Market Environments Due to the complexity of the nonmarket environment, there are few easy generalizations about business strategy as it pertains to specific issues, institutions and interests. However, basic principles and conceptual frameworks are presented that provide an integrated approach to dealing with current and future nonmarket issues. The concepts, skills, and analytical tools that you learn in the course rest upon a foundation of economic principles, political analysis, and, to a lesser extent, social psychology and law. They identify patterns of behavior and outcomes, ways of thinking about those patterns and outcomes, methods of analysis that facilitate understanding and prediction, and, ultimately, the shaping of strategies to improve business performance.
Supply Chain Management Our goal in this course is to understand how supply chain design and planning decisions impact the performance of the firm as well as the entire supply chain. The key will be to understand the link between supply chain structures and logistical capabilities in a firm or supply chain.
US Healthcare System: Principles & Management Challenges The U.S. healthcare sector is a complex, interrelated group of systems that generates many inefficiencies, but also offers opportunities for numerous new products and services. The successful leader and entrepreneur must understand the whole to succeed in his/her chosen field. To help answer these questions and others like them, this course explains how the U.S healthcare system is structured, how it functions and why.
Wall Street, Hedge Funds and Private Equity focuses on private equity and hedge funds, their influence on corporate decision-making and measures taken to counter threats and exploit opportunities represented by these investors. Competition and cooperation between investment banks, private equity and hedge funds will also be analyzed. The course uses six Kellogg cases to facilitate discussion regarding hedge fund investment and hedging strategies and the changing investment activities of private equity.
