MBA Courses

The University of Northern Iowa's MBA courses cover a wide range of subjects to equip you with the skills and knowledge essential in today’s rapidly changing business environment. MBA students complete 10 graduate level courses. As a final challenge, the team based Business Capstone Experience integrates the knowledge and skills gained from these MBA classes.

• Cross Functional Operations

  Most business organizations all over the world are involved in manufacturing and/or service operations. Today's environment is characterized by rapid advancement of technology, integration of activities within and across firms, global economy, a multicultural workforce and the necessity to compete on multiple dimensions. The purpose of this course is to increase your understanding of operations management principles and to provide you with the skills needed to succeed in such environments. You will learn to use decision support technologies in the operations management context. You will enhance your analytical and quantitative skills for designing and managing such operations.

• Financial Management and Markets

  The goal of maximizing shareholder wealth is the financial manager's most important consideration when analyzing the various investment options available to his or her firm. As a manager you are charged with carefully investing time and money in projects designed to increase the value of your firm. The purpose of this course is to provide to you the tools, concepts, theories, and analysis techniques of managerial finance so that you can successfully determine which projects might best meet the financial goals of the organization. You will be expected to apply concepts from managerial finance to analyze financial problems and case applications and then tender decisions that maximize shareholder wealth.

• Management Information Systems Concepts

  Rapid changes in information systems technology have had significant impact on how business is conducted. These changes pose a challenge to you, as a manager, as you must now grapple with how to best use the technology to maintain and increase the competitiveness of your organization. This course will help you to understand the impact of IT on industries and markets and the relationship between your business' strategy and its IT strategy. You will focus on the operational, strategic, and management issues associated with designing, evaluating, and implementing information systems technology.

• Managerial Accounting

  This course is intended to provide students with the basics of financial accounting and an examination of how managers can use financial data to make better decisions to control costs and improve motivation and productivity. Students will gain an understanding of cost information relative to product costs and prices, the use of budgets in the management process, and approaches to performance analysis using financial data.

• Managerial Economics

  The business environment today is dynamic, global, and highly competitive. As a manager, you must help your business position itself and make strategy adjustments relative to changes within the economic environment. However, without the ability to analyze this environment, you risk making decisions that are not in the best interest of your firm. Through this course, you will gain knowledge concerning the quantitative tools and theories used to analyze economic issues for managerial decisions. You will analyze the economic behavior of individuals and firms, explore how their interactions in markets affect managerial decisions, and learn more about economic data sources that can be tapped to help you in your analysis of today's economic environment.

• Marketing Management

  The focus of this course is on the activities of managers who make decisions that guide the marketing of goods and services. Students will have the opportunity to develop and analyze marketing plans and use problem-solving skills through class discussions, exercises, case analysis, and group assignments.

• Research and Analysis for Management Decisions

  With the advent of computers and the decreasing cost of data storage, organizations have an abundance of data that can be used to make more effective decisions. However, data in its raw form does not help decision-makers; data must be analyzed. This course allows you to gain expertise on the statistical tools critical for converting raw data into useful information that allows for sound managerial decisions.

• Strategic Management of Human Resources

  Effective leaders and employees must have a good understanding of what goes on in and around the organization. This course provides a foundation for understanding the complex environment of contemporary organizations and insights into how to effectively manage employees, which will help you build the managerial skills necessary for today's global manager.

• Strategic Planning and Organizational Analysis

  The goal of strategic management is to formulate and implement value-creating strategies that permit companies (i.e. middle and senior management) to obtain and, if possible, sustain competitive advantages. This course will help you learn how business decisions are assessed, selected, implemented, and evaluated, given the business’ competitive, social and global environment.

• Business Capstone Experience

  The Business Capstone Experience is designed to measure how well you can integrate and use the knowledge and skills gain from your MBA courses. The capstone experience is based on a management simulation in which teams of students compete against each other for business success within an industry. This is your opportunity to practice using your newly acquired skills and bring them to a new level. You must analyze the economic conditions of the simulated environment, insure smooth production, understand your products relative to your customers, use accounting data to evaluate results and make decisions, finance your operations, determine research and development targets, market your products, manage your employees and your team, and respond to your competition. As a member of a team, you will implement a business strategy, make operational adjustments to that strategy to gain a competitive advantage within the industry, and then analyze the result of that strategy after several "years" of simulated business operations.

• Electives

  In addition to your MBA core courses, you will also take one of the elective topics course. We may change the elective course from time to time and previously, we have delivered the following MBA elective courses:

  • Communication for Rising Leaders
    Framework for understanding leadership communication in the business setting and development of personal communication skills necessary for aspiring leaders.
  
  
  • The Art of Negotiation
    Development of skills for negotiation and dispute resolution, skills that enhance managerial competence.
  
  
  • Managerial Problem Solving
    Tanagers must solve problems on a daily basis; therefore, effective problem solving will allow you to be a more effective manager. To improve your problem solving skills requires that you first, develop and improve your critical thinking skills; second, learn to identify, define, and analyze complex organizational problems; and third, develop additional skills in diagnosis, design, decision making, negotiation, and other problem solving tasks. This course will help you to develop and improve these skills in several ways. Concepts pertinent to managerial problem solving are taught, so you will have the conceptual resources you need to be more reflective about your thinking and problem solving. You will learn a variety of methods used for solving managerial problems. Finally, you will hone your new skills through practice using many real world cases as in-class discussion topics and assignments.
  
  
  • Organizational Analysis for Managers
    Tools that allow managers to accurately interpret organizational situations so they can take the right course of action.
  
  
  • Strategies for Globally Competitive Supply Chains
    Management of operations has increased in complexity as firms have specialized in their core competencies and have integrated operations with other firms to ultimately provide a product or service to a customer. All the activities involved in delivering a product or service from material acquisition through to the customer must be effectively managed including: sourcing materials and parts, manufacturing and assembly, warehousing and inventory tracking, order entry and order management, distribution across all channels, delivery to the customer, and the information systems necessary to monitor all of these activities. Thus, effective supply chain management requires tremendous levels of interaction, both within the firm and across firms. This course will provide to you the new approaches firms are using to better manage the process that acquires, transforms, and moves materials and services. As a manager, you should expect to use this knowledge to improve those same operations in your firm!

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