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Master of Business Administration - Working Professionals

If you plan to continue working while pursuing your master's degree, the part-time M.B.A. for working professionals has been designed to meet your needs. This highly innovative program will challenge you to recognize and respond to the challenge of change that is characteristic of today's fast-paced business environment. Your enrollment experience will afford you the opportunity to examine various decision-making models, explore the importance of customer value, and focus upon continuous personal and professional improvement.

Program Features:

For an outline of this program, please see the Curriculum Guide.

Barry Barnes, Ph.D. - Professor; Ph.D., Kansas, 1996. Strategic Planning, Delivering Superior Customer Value and Organizational Behavior.

Curriculum Guide  top

Curriculum - M.B.A. Working Professionals

Each of the following is required (43 total credits):

Capstone (Select One):

For a description of these courses, including prerequisite requirements, see the Course Descriptions - M.B.A. Working Professionals page.

Course Descriptions  top

Working Professionals M.B.A.

Full-Time professionals are available to discuss course content in greater detail with you. Simply contact your Admissions Manager at 800.672.7223 Ext. 5168 or use the Contact Us link.

MGT 5012     21st Century Management Practices  (3 cr.)

Students will gain an understanding of leading state-of-the-art business theories and will be able to apply them to real-world situations. They will learn to understand and challenge the ideas of 20th century management thinkers, and to practice developing and challenging their own theoretical and applied models and paradigms.

ISM 5014     Information Technology Applications in Management Decisions  (3 cr.)

Information and communication technologies are essential tools in today¿s global business environment. They are also important to the development of innovative business models. This course explores the use of these technologies both to build innovative systems to gain competitive advantage and also to optimize operations for competitive advantage, particularly through the use of enterprise systems. The implementation and use of these systems to build strategic partnerships and customer relationships are also discussed.

MGT 5015     Legal, Ethical, and Social Values of Business  (3 cr.)

Students will gain an understanding of the meaning and importance of the law, ethics, personal morality, and corporate social responsibility. They will exhibit moral, ethical, and socially responsible behavior, and will be able to analyze business decisions from a legal, ethical, and social responsibility perspective.

MKT 5017     Delivering Superior Customer Value  (3 cr.)

Students will learn to apply the customer-value paradigm in creating a market-driven culture that designs and delivers optimum long-term value to customers. They will examine strategies for optimizing and communicating customer value, measuring customer orientation, and building customer relationships; and will learn (using case analysis and exercises) how to blend the delivery of service and product quality with pricing strategies to maximize value.

MGT 5020     Managing Organizational Behavior  (3 cr.)

Students will gain a working knowledge of how to manage personal, interpersonal, and group processes by having the interpersonal skills to assume responsibility for leading and promoting teamwork among diverse stakeholders. Students will learn to manage individual and group behaviors in improving organizational productivity and performance. Through experiential learning, students will learn to integrate home, work, and educational observations and experiences and to convert them into proactive practical applications for growth and renewal.

HRM 5030     Managing Human Resources  (3 cr.)

Students will gain a working knowledge of planning, organizing, and managing human resource systems; and will gain hands-on abilities to design, direct, and assess human resource systems in enhancing relationships with internal and external customers, leading to organizational effectiveness.

QNT 5040     Business Modeling  (3 cr.)

This course covers the techniques of problem solving, optimization and business modeling using the concepts of statistics and management science in a spreadsheet environment. The course focuses on that practical application of quantitative analytical techniques. Prerequisites: (QNTP 5002 or BUSS 4610 or QNT 4610) and (FINP 5008 or FINC 3010 or FIN 3010).

ECN 5050     Economic Thinking  (3 cr.)

Students will learn how to use economic thinking in making managerial decisions and motivating others to make decisions that increase the value of organizations. Prerequisites: ECNP 5003 and QNT 5040.

ACT 5060     Accounting for Decision Makers  (3 cr.)

Students will learn to reconsider accounting information for managerial decision making, and will then take this information and transform it into financial guidelines for deciding among capital ventures, product and service offerings, funding options, and budgets. Prerequisite: ACTP 5001 or equivalent, FINP 5008, and QNT 5040.

MKT 5070     Managerial Marketing  (3 cr.)

Students will gain a working knowledge of marketing management by learning to think strategically and to develop marketing plans aligning marketing initiatives with market opportunities. Students will be able to implement the functional strategies and marketing plans to optimize customer and organizational value. Prerequisite: MKTP 5005 or equivalent.

FIN 5080     Applying Managerial Finance  (3 cr.)

Students will gain a working knowledge of managerial finance by learning to develop a systematic approach to financial analysis; to apply techniques for planning, forecasting, and managing; as well as to evaluate and recommend improvements in the organization's financial performance. Prerequisites: FINP 5008 Business Finance or equivalent, QNT 5040 and ECN 5050.

MGT 5090     Entrepreneurial and Strategic Thinking  (3 cr.)

Students will gain a well-developed understanding of business enterprises and the entrepreneurial and strategic thinking that drives them in a dynamic, competitive regional, national, and global economy. Students will learn to apply entrepreneurial and strategic management practices (e.g., using case analysis) to organizations of varying sizes. Prerequisite: HRM 5030, QNT 5040, MKT 5070 and FINP 5008 or equivalent.

OPS 5095     Service Operations Management  (3 cr.)

This course focuses on services management in general and service operations in particular. It explores the elements that unite services, that differentiate service processes from non-service processes and that differentiate various types of services from each other. Customers generally participate in the service process, often with direct and uncensored interactions with employees and facilities. The resulting variations in demand present a challenge to the operations manager to use effectively the perishable service capacity. This results because production and consumption occur simultaneously and thus the inability to inventory services. The course covers strategic and tactical issues associated with designing and managing service operations. It provides tools to help assess operations, redesign processes, and establish systems to ensure an excellent customer experience. Student operations service learning experience is reinforced with case studies. Prerequisites: MGT 5020 & QNTP 5002 or equivalent & QNT 5040 & ECN 5050 & (FINP 5008 or FINC 3010 or FIN 3010).

MGT 5100     Masters Project  (4 cr.)

The development and preparation of an independent research project. Prerequisites: Full matriculation, completion of all required courses, and a 3.0 GPA. This class is pass/fail and does not calculate into the student's GPA.

MGT 5101     Master's Thesis  (4 cr.)

The development and preparation of an independent research thesis. Prerequisites: Full matriculation, completion of all required courses, and a 3.0 GPA. This class is pass/fail and does not calculate into the students GPA.

MGT 5102     Value Integration Capstone  (4 cr.)

Students will develop the leadership skills to assume individual responsibility for effectively creating and producing appropriate regional, national, or global organizational outcomes; and skills in reflective thinking and critical analysis (e.g., using action research methods and tools) to convert organizational core competencies into organizational performance consistent with an organization's vision. Prerequisites: Full matriculation, completion of 39 credit hours in the appropriate degree program and a 3.0 GPA. This class is pass/fail and does not calculate into the student's GPA. This course is not financial aid eligible when taken by itself.

Prerequisite Course Descriptions  top

ACTP 5001     Introductory Accounting  (3 cr.)

An accelerated introductory course stressing the essential elements of accounting skills that will be used in the master's degree program. Managerial uses of accounting data and preparation of financial statements will be covered in this course. Course satisfies program prerequisite of financial accounting for master's degree programs.

QNTP 5002     Introductory Statistics  (3 cr.)

This course satisfies the prerequisite of statistics for master's degree programs. The concepts of statistical notation, probability are covered as well as the principles of estimation using the central limit theorem.

ECNP 5003     Introductory Economics  (3 cr.)

This course is designed to acquaint the student with economic issues of the day (e.g., inflation and recession as they affect family and national income). Students will recognize relationships among prices, wages, profits, and supply and demand as they influence daily lives. Course satisfies program prerequisite of economics for master's degree programs.

MKTP 5005     Introductory Marketing  (3 cr.)

This is a survey of the essentials of marketing. Covers the nature of marketing and its environment, selecting target markets, marketing research, customer behavior, and forecasting sales. Emphasis on marketing strategy planning. Course satisfies the program prerequisite of marketing for master's degree programs.

FINP 5008     Business Finance  (3 cr.)

A survey of the essentials of finance and its environment. Financial management as it applies to organizations, ratio analysis, leverage, working capital management, capital budgeting, capital structure, and other concepts as they apply to business organizations. Course satisfies program prerequisite of finance for master's degree programs.