Austin Curriculum
Fall - Semester 1
11 credit hours
In-residence 1: Managing in the 21st Century - A full-time, one-week, in-residence course designed to engage students in orientation and team building activities. Small study groups are established, individual expertise is shared, computer and math skills are enhanced and specific course assignments are initiated.
Leading with Integrity - This course is intended to help managers and leaders better understand and diagnose behavior in organizations and apply this information in an ethical manner to influence positive change in individuals, teams, or organizations.
Evidence Based Decision Making - Statistical techniques and their applicability to business decision making. Topical coverage includes multiple regression, analysis of variance, factor analysis, discriminate analysis, cluster analysis, and multidimensional scaling.
Microeconomic Theory and Business Decisions - A seminar designed to cover aspects of micro-theory that are relevant for decision making within the firm. Emphasis is placed on the decision-making process. Numerous problems, cases, and examples are used to illustrate the theory.
Negotiations - Power and Influence - Enhances individual effectiveness in the workplace and marketplace through the development of negotiating skills and advanced understanding of negotiation and persuasion. Emphasis is on practical application of theory through a variety of skill-building exercises. Topics include distributive and integrative bargaining tactics, team and multiparty negotiations, leverage, framing, and cognitive biases.
Spring - Semester 2
11 credit hours
Aligning IT Business Enterprises - The business literature abounds with examples of information technology (IT) project failures. Most often, cush failures are due to poor alignment between firms' business and IT strategies. This course examines the causes of such failures and provides a framework of best practices to insure firms' ability to maximize the value achieved from IT investments.
In Residence 2: International Business and the Public Policy - This one week in-residence experience exposes students to issues related to international business and public policy. Audiences with government officials and corporate leaders provide the participant with a global perspective on public policy and international trade issues and how they affect firm strategies. Participants focus on how these issues affect business operation in general and their organization specifically. Emphasis is on the reality of how international business is carried out and the reality of how international trade policy is developed and implemented versus textbook approaches.
Legal Aspects of Business - This course provides a comprehensive overview of legal issues currently at the forefront and of the increasingly complex body of laws challenging business managers. Students will be able to recognize legal issues and manage legal risks in business decision making. The course will also acquaint students with the essential processes by which law is created and changed. Students will be challenged to increase their ethical sensitivity by exposing them to business related legal problems that have ethical issues.
Contemporary Business Issues (Special Topics) - The course examines current issues in the world of business. This series of seminars will address many aspects of business including e-commerce, entrepreneurial finance, business forecasting, etc...
Financial Accounting - This course exposes students to accounting from the perspective of managers, investors, and creditors. Reading and interpreting financial statements is primary focus. Course topics include the limitations of financial statements, use of financial statements in the determination of company value.
Financial Decision Making - A study of how firms create value for stockholders, through long-term financial decisions, principally asset acquisition/divestiture decisions and debt/equity funding decisions. Specific topics include economic profit and cash flow, the time value of money, risk and return, options, agency, efficient markets, capital budgeting decision criteria, capital structure theory, and dividend policy.
Summer - Semester 3
6 credit hours
Employment Law - Application of law to managerial decisions and the relationship between legal and business strategy examining the role of the courts; litigation and alternative dispute resolutions; fundamentals of contract, tort, and criminal law; government regulation of business; legal forms of business organizations; ethical considerations in business; international business transactions.
Managing for Value Creation - In this course, students will learn to construct simulation models for use in evaluating uncertain project outcomes; utilize the method of comparables and discounted cash flow to estimate the intrinsic worth of a firm; evaluate the real option components of risky investment projects; evaluate firm performance in terms of shareholder value created; analyze the shareholder wealth consequences of corporate restructuring activities including mergers, leveraged buyouts, leveraged recapitalizations and initial public offerings, and discuss the ethical implications of corporate restructuring activities.
Human Resources Management - Participants learn to manage people to gain competitive advantage through issues in human resource management. A basic understanding of human resources functions is developed that enhances the ability of participants to work effectively with others and enhances their ability to understand how human resources is a fully integrated system linked to organizational performance.
Private Equity Investing - The central focus of the course is to gain an understanding of the financing of entrepreneurial ventures, including ways investors identify and commit the necessary resources to create and finance ventures. To accomplish these objectives the course addresses specific skills, concepts, and know-how relevant for attracting private equity financing to an entrepreneurial venture.
Fall - Semester 4
9 credit hours
Seminar in Marketing Strategy - Role of marketing decision making is achieving corporate objectives; planning and implementing the marketing program; product research and development, distribution problems, promotional strategies, and pricing analysis. Attention will be given to the new marketing application of quantitative methods and the behavioral sciences.
Manufacturing and Service Operations - Examines various tools, techniques, and concepts that are linked with successful operations practices in today's firms. Manufacturing resource planning, just-in-time concepts, and synchronous manufacturing philosophies for the firm are emphasized. In addition, the critical role of quality assurance for firms in both manufacturing and service industries is evaluated. Experiential and computer-based simulation exercises are employed to sharpen students' abilities to identify and solve problems.
Managerial Accounting - This course studies the flow of an organization while focusing on measurement of decision-making and performance. Topics include budgeting, variance analysis, direct costing, profit centers, investment centers, transfer pricing, and ethics. Participants learn to effectively use accounting information in their decision-making process.
Spring - Semester 5
11 credit hours
Analysis of National and Global Business Conditions - A seminar to analyze national and global economic issues. Topics covered include differences in the standard of living across countries; relative rates of economic growth across countries; effects of the new economy and the telecommunications revolution; effects of exchange rate changes on macroeconomic performance; fundamental causes of currency crises; implications of globalization for the effectiveness of macroeconomics stabilization policies; relative merits of fixed versus flexible exchange rates; and the links between international trade and economic growth.
Global & Strategic Management - The course examines the critical factors of strategic management, both economic and behavioral, that drive a company's performance. The content focuses on bringing together various business disciplines to help students develop an integrated understanding of strategy formulation, implementation and control.
Negotiations: Maximizing Multi-Party Outcomes - This course enhances individual effectiveness in the workplace and marketplace through the development of negotiating skills and advanced understanding of negotiation when there are more than two parties. Emphasis is on practical application of theory through a variety of skill-building exercises. Topics include distributive and integrative bargaining tactics, leverage, framing, and cognitive biases - within a multiparty setting, and team negotiations.
Leading Organizational Change for High Performance - This course is intended to help managers and leaders better understand and diagnose behavior in organization. They can apply this information in an ethical manner to influence positive organizational change.
