Business Administration

Are you a manager interested in increasing your effectiveness? A human resources professional? An individual looking to move into management? Now you can acquire an in-depth understanding of the basic concepts and theories of management, while exploring the manager's operational role in all types of organizations. Gain insight into the manager's responsibility in planning, organizing, leading, staffing and controlling within the workplace. Learn how the best managers manage for success!

For marketing managers, company generalists, entrepreneurs and non-marketing professionals, this course provides a strong understanding of fundamental marketing principles and practices. Students will learn the role and application of the "4 P's"-product, price, place and promotion-in developing a strategic marketing plan. In addition, students will gain experience with market segmentation, positioning, the product and service development process, financial budgeting and integrated marketing communications. By the end of the course, students will have experience creating an integrated, strategic marketing plan for a product or service in the marketplace and will have the skills and knowledge required to create plans for their own organizations.

Human resources management is vital to the financial health and productivity of all organizations. This important function provides the crucial link between management and employees in the public and private sector. In this course you will learn the fundamentals of human resources management. Begin by acquiring an in-depth understanding of the charter and mission of human resources in the industrial, service and public sectors. Then multiply your role and knowledge of the major elements of the personnel process including recruiting, interviewing, wage and labor issues, benefits, compensation, employment, regulations, documentation and termination, while gaining an insider's grasp of employee relations, work force diversity and human resources planning and research. Finally, you will address various theories regarding employee morale, organizational behavior and group dynamics. If you are interested in changing or advancing your career, this course will give you an overview of this growing field.

This course is for those individuals who are or will be asked to assume finance, cost, and budget responsibilities and for individuals who interface and work with accounting and finance departments. Content of the course includes selected aspects of finance from a non-financial specialist perspective. Specific topics include: financial analysis; planning, forecasting, and budgeting; cash flow, and strategic financing. This class will be interactive and will require the active involvement of the participants in finance related activities.

Virtually everything that we do in business involves working with people in person one on one, in groups, in writing, by phone or through a myriad of other electronic means. In today's highly competitive business world, it is more important than ever to recognize and study the significant role communication plays in our lives. As employees at all levels, how well we communicate in a large part determines how successful we will be on the job, and our level of personal job satisfaction. This course is for individuals at all levels in all types of businesses/organizations who desire to polish and/or develop additional communication skills in formal and informal settings. Through interactive discussions, role plays and activities the following areas are covered: verbal and nonverbal communication; defensive/supportive communication; assertiveness, submissiveness and aggressiveness; active listening; receiving and providing criticism; team building; delegation of responsibilities; empowerment; management and sales strategies; leadership; customer service; interviewing/recruiting; conflict resolution.

Heighten your awareness and understanding of workplace ethical issues and the importance of developing tools for making ethical and effective business decisions. Recent financial scandals and subsequent regulations highlight the need to foster ethical behavior and avoid the slippery slope of an unethical business environment. This online course provides a conceptual frameworks and toolkit with practical information to apply in the workplace. Participants learn when and where ethical issues are most likely to surface and how to maintain their integrity; gain an understanding of the impact of cultural and organizational pressures to conform; explore a variety of ethical decisions-making models; develop solutions and evaluate their course of action. Business experience and case studies create the basis for this highly interactive course.

Success in business can be greatly enhanced with an understanding of key entrepreneurial characteristics and competencies solutions. This interactive course provides executives and senior professionals with the knowledge succeeding in an entrepreneurial opportunity. Topics include: how creativity, opportunity and feasibility are best evaluated; business strategies for new businesses; developing a business plan; entrepreneurship in a large corporation; achieving success in a new business. Case studies allow executives and senior professionals who come from all over the world to gain an understanding of entrepreneurial concepts and develop skills in a real-world setting. Team projects create an experience in developing an entrepreneurial business. At the end of the course students will have the skills and confidence to evaluate starting a business.

Project management has been proven to be the most effective method of delivering products within cost, schedule, and resource constraints. Gain a working knowledge of the basics of project management that can be instantly applied to any project. This course will provide the skills to ensure your projects deliver on time and on budget. Learn to define and manage scope via the elicitation of requirements and the creation of a detailed work breakdown structure, create a defensible and realistic project schedule and budget, develop and manage the project team, identify and manage risks, and understand the project procurement processes.

This course provides a conceptual framework for approaching problem solving and decision-making situations with clarity and confidence. Participants build competence in making effective decisions based on the accurate assessment of the problem and preparing creative alternative solutions. Students learn how to use analysis, synthesis, and positive inquiry to approach individual and organizational problems, develop and evaluate objectives, and assess likely consequences. Using case studies and on-the-job situations encountered by the class, students explore successful models and proven methods that are readily transferable to their own situations.

Effective writing is a powerful tool in the business environment. Learn how to articulate your thoughts clearly, concisely and with a style that gets your writing read. Improve your skill at using this powerful instrument by learning to select and use appropriate formats, use the correct medium and adjust your writing style accordingly, as well as identify your objective and communicate it clearly. You'll also learn to spot, avoid and correct the most common writing pitfalls and gain valuable experience analyzing, writing and revising a complete spectrum of business documents. From a simple interoffice memo to a twenty-page business proposal, learn how to put good writing to work for you.

This course introduces sales and non-sales personnel to the selling process through practical and interactive discussions along with role-playing exercises designed to develop their confident implementation of these skills for a positive impact on the customer. Participants will learn and practice the necessary skills required to implement a proactive approach to selling that includes developing a customer-focused and solution based strategy in establishing strong relationships and long-term partnerships. Sales process, sales plans, and the challenges that may be encountered during the sales cycle will be discussed and tools for successfully going from planning to close are explored. Considerable class focus will be placed on effective questioning techniques, active listening and adaptive selling skills that will enhance the ability to effectively work with both external and internal customers.

Traditionally, the primary negotiation strategy utilized has been a competitive approach commonly referred to as "distributive bargaining." Recently a more cooperative approach has emerged fostering the term "win-win" negotiation. This approach centers on interests rather than issues and attempts to create value for each side. In an interest based negotiation, attention moves toward solution. Explore the theory and practice of negotiating and the methods of obtaining cooperative conflict resolution. Business managers and professionals will benefit by examining positional bargaining, cooperative approaches to impasses and collaborative styles of negotiation techniques.

This course will focus on performance management and performance leadership as distinctive and complementary systems of action. The course emphasizes the importance of interpersonal awareness as a competency, and provides opportunities to practice and heighten interpersonal awareness skills as a foundation for influencing and coaching others. The course also explores motivation and concentrates on individual needs and differences, enabling a manager/leader to effectively deploy the unique strengths and skills of individual organization members. It focuses on observation and communication skills and their relevance in building trusting relationships. It does not promote the idea of "changing" the nature of individuals, but rather aligning the behavior of the individual to the requirements of the job. It also aligns the job experience with the life and career goals of the individual.

Develop the basic tools and aptitudes you need to successfully complete your quantitative business coursework in this interactive learning experience. You will learn to trace transactions that reflect a company's business activities and interpret your analysis. This course covers theories of accounting methods, typical financial statements, and how financial statements are used as decision-making tools. You will learn to recognize accounting implications, financial statement data, and the rationale behind important accounting concepts.

Learn to apply and effectively use statistical concepts and computation in a business environment. Determine the need for descriptive or inferential statistics in a given situation. Study probability methods from a practical and applied perspective. The emphasis in this course is on data analysis and interpretation of the results, not on computation and implementation of formulas. The course assumes only basic knowledge of algebra; calculus is not required. Learn how to efficiently collect the data needed to answer statistical questions properly, and how to address the question in a rational way once the data are collected.

For students preparing for an MBA who find their calculus skills rusty, this course offers a quick refresher, covering the basic theory of differential and integral calculus and applications of calculus in solving problems in business. The course includes differentiation and integration of simple functions, techniques of differentiation and integration, applications in economics, finance, and business modeling, and functions of several variables.