Course Descriptions
ACTG 612: FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING
This course is an introduction to accounting, the language of business. An understanding of how financial accounting information is prepared and reported is one of the fundamental building blocks of a business education. This course is designed to assist you in developing an understanding of financial accounting concepts and techniques so you can be an effective and informed user of financial statement information. In this course students will learn to apply accounting rules to reflect underlying economic transactions; understand how differences in measurement rules affect financial statements; understand how manager judgment influences financial statements, and analyze financial statements to make business decisions.
BE 625: BUSINESS LAW AND ETHICS
Effective leadership and ethics are two sides of the same coin, whether in business, politics, or your personal affairs. That's why we made this course the culmination of the required core. Regardless of your chosen specialization, you and all your classmates will come together once more in your last term to take this course.
ACTG 510: LAW FOR MANAGERS
Examines key legal subjects that govern business transactions and relationships that all business owners and managers, as well as private persons, engage in—some on an almost daily basis. Topics include contract law for purchasing, selling, financing, and insuring services, goods and real property, as well as company formation and governance and personal estate planning through wills and trusts. Through this course of study students gain practical knowledge and skills for more successfully managing companies, advising clients, and conducting their personal commercial affairs.
BE 607: BUSINESS LAW FOUNDATIONS
This course familiarizes students with the U.S. legal system, its procedures, and its basic substantive rules, as well as basic international law. It helps students understand more fully the legal issues they will encounter in business, as private individuals, and members of society.
FIN 612: FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCE
This MBA core course examines the basic principles of finance theory and applies the principles to important decisions facing a corporate manager. The focus of the course is on valuation and how various types of decisions potentially affect the value of a company. The course covers the fundamentals of evaluating investment opportunities, the relation between risk and required return, and the notion of market efficiency. The ways that markets ascertain value and allocate capital are compared to how a firm allocates capital to projects or initiatives. Key decisions faced by corporate managers that are covered include capital structure and mix, dividend policy, corporate cash management; cost of capital evaluation; project analysis and valuation; internal versus external financing; and evaluating and managing a business’s financial risks. By the end of the course, you should be able to value stocks and bonds using discounted cash flow techniques; identify the relevant incremental cash flows of an investment opportunity; estimate the required rate of return or cost of capital; and evaluate whether an investment opportunity adds value to a business.
FIN 613: MANAGERIAL ECONOMICS
The subject of this course addresses competition between businesses operating in typical U.S. product markets. This course has three objectives: (1) to solidify understanding of fundamental tools of economic analysis so that these tools can be used; (2) to develop the role of industry structure and the impact structure tends to have on competitive strategy and profitability; (3) to begin to build skills in competitive analysis, which entails formation of marketing, production, channel, investment, and pricing strategies based on the way competitive forces appear to work themselves out in the market. The concepts covered, which are relevant to managerial decision making, include demand and supply analysis; optimal decision making using marginal analysis; production theory; decision making under perfect competition, monopoly, and monopolistic competition; externalities and public goods; game theory; and moral hazard.
FIN 671: CORPORATE FINANCE AND VALUATION
Introduces students to fundamental issues that arise in corporate financial decision making and valuation of businesses. The primary goal of this course is to provide a basic understanding of corporate finance and the complexities of these decisions. The topics covered include cash flow budgeting, financing policy (encompassing both the financing mid and cash payout policy), business valuation, financial distress, and mergers and acquisitions. Students study the tenets of different valuation techniques, see how they are applied, and learn how to decide which method is appropriate for specific decisions. By the end of the term, students should be able to perform a net present value analysis of a proposed investment project or an acquisition; assess the appropriateness of a firm’s capital structure and dividend policies; and value a business.
FIN 685: ALTERNATIVE INVESTMENTS
MGMT 609: VENTURE STARTUP I AND II
Most students who enroll in these two courses participate in one or more of a number of national and international business plan competitions during Winter and Spring terms. Others use the course as a platform for launching a venture through traditional financing options. Prerequisite is successful completion of New Venture Planning, participation in the Graduate Venture Quest internal business plan competition, and Instructor's consent.
MGMT 609: STRATEGIC PLANNING PROJECT
Strategic Planning Project courses part of the experiential learning that characterizes the Oregon MBA. Student teams are paired up with Northwest companies pursuing opportunities for growth or facing obstacles to growth. Under the guidance of faculty advisors, team facilitators, and outside consultants, students apply classroom lessons and learn what can't be taught in the classroom as they research the company, analyze their findings, and present their conclusions to senior management. For more information visit the SPP web site.
MGMT 510: TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION
In this course we will focus on innovation as a strategic process. Students will explore the dynamics of technological innovation, technology strategy formulation, and strategy implementation. The course utilizes a combination of reading and case materials, class discussion, and student projects to provide students with knowledge and skills to assess, formulate, and implement technology strategy.
MGMT 612: MANAGING INDIVIDUALS AND ORGANIZATIONS
Course content is based upon behavioral science concepts and research findings directed toward the understanding of human behavior in various social contexts. Specific objectives of the course include developing an understanding of the design of organizations and their internal systems for achieving performance; the nature of team dynamics and group decision-making, and their influence on organizational performance; and individual cognitive and leadership styles and their impact on group and organizational processes.
MGMT 614: STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT
The purpose of this course is to explore the organization as a whole and its interactions with its environment. Students will gain an understanding of critical contingency issues the organization faces in the environment and how it must manage these contingencies through its structure and strategy to gain competitive advantages. The focus will be on diagnosing and assessing organization situations and to show how large and small firms can be more effective and efficient not only in today's world but in tomorrow's as well.
MGMT 623: NEGOTIATION
Covers negotiation theory, including distributive and integrative bargaining techniques, economic complements, game theory, and alternative dispute resolution. Extensive in-class negotiation simulations are part of the course.
MGMT 625: NEW VENTURE PLANNING
Teams of student entrepreneurs engage in customer discovery, business model development, market opportunity assessment, financial modeling, and launch planning for a new venture. Students will develop presentation materials to communicate the opportunity to customers and/or funding sources under the guidance of instructors and community based mentors.
MGMT 635: OPPORTUNITY RECOGNITION
Introduces the fundamentals of entrepreneurship, providing the tools necessary to successfully identify a true opportunity and to start and develop a new organization.
MGMT 645: NEW VENTURE SCALING
Covers the period between first launch via a minimum viable product or initial product release to self-sufficient operations or additional funding. Particular emphasis is placed on financial and operational challenges of scaling staff, activities, and sales and marketing efforts for rapid growth.
MKTG 612: MARKETING MANAGEMENT
This course introduces the concept of marketing, factors that influence marketing management, and the role of marketing in society and business. The class will address the benefits of market analysis, target customer identification, and development of marketing-mix strategies structured to deliver superior customer value and optimize organizational performance. The objective is to develop skills and knowledge in the areas of consumer behavior, market segmentation, targeting, positioning, product, services, price, place, promotion, and strategic marketing with a sustainable, ethical and socially responsible approach.
MKTG 660: MARKETING RESEARCH
Marketing research as a tool for decision-making. Planning research projects; design, measurement, experimental and non-experimental techniques, analysis and interpretation of data; reporting research results.
MKTG 665: MARKETING STRATEGY
Relationship between marketing and other functional areas of a business. Emphasis on case analysis as a means of acquiring both planning and operational skills.
OBA 544: BUSINESS DATABASE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS
Covers techniques for structuring and storing business data, focusing primarily on relational database theory with applied skills for business users, including data warehouses, reporting, and normalization.
OBA 566: PROJECT AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT MODELS
Frameworks and solutions for managing complex projects and operations; implementing optimal strategies for producing profitable new products and services in the competitive global business environment.
OBA 612: QUANTITATIVE METHODS FOR MANAGERS
This course aims to achieve a level of understanding of statistical inference that enables students to be intelligent consumers of statistical analyses, able to apply some of the more useful analytic techniques including the modeling of relationships among variables and an introduction to classification. Specifically we will cover statistical sampling, estimation, hypothesis testing, and regression (simple, multiple, and logistic).
OBA 613: OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
This course is designed to address the key operations management issues in manufacturing and service organizations that have strategic as well as tactical implications. Students learn to understand the role of operations management in the overall business strategy of the firm; the strategic and tactical linkages between operations function and other functional areas of the firm; and the application of operations management policies and techniques to manufacturing as well as service sector firms. In addition, the course aims to identify and evaluate comparative approaches to operations management in an international context, as well as a range of tools appropriate for analysis of operating systems of the firm.
SBUS 645: SPORTS PRODUCTS
Strategic and tactical issues associated with the design, manufacturing, costing, licensing, and merchandising of sports products.
