Courses
Courses will include lectures, case discussions, current business issues, and team projects. Students will take two courses a semester (including summer and a five-day May-mester course). The 11 core courses of 3 hours each in the curriculum will include:
Core Courses (33 hrs)
ACCT 6100 Accounting for Managerial Decision Making (3 credit hours)
This course emphasizes the use of accounting information to enhance the decision-making skills of managers. Concepts include an overview of the management accounting function within the organization, cost management and cost accumulation systems, planning and control systems, use of historical data in forecasting costs, and the use of accounting information in management decision-making. In addition, students will learn to read, understand and analyze Financial Statements (including Consolidated Financial Statements). Case readings will enhance students' critical thinking, problem solving, communication skills, and awareness of unethical financial reporting cases.
FINA 6100 Finance (3 credit hours)
This course will apply tools, techniques and theories of finance to actual business and investment decisions with consideration to ethical issues. Students will apply tools and techniques to analyze a company's financial position relative to the industry, apply time value of money concepts to business cash flows, evaluate the acceptability of a short-term and long-term financial decision, and understand the relationship between capital structure, risk, and the cost of capital. A variety of pedagogical vehicles will be used including problem solving, case studies, lectures, and projects.
ECON 6100 Managerial Economics (3 credit hours)
Managerial Economics is the application of economic theory and methodology to managerial decision making problems within various organizational settings. The emphasis in this course will be on demand analysis and estimation, production and cost analysis under different market conditions, forecasting and decision-making under uncertainty. Students taking this course are expected to have had a good understanding of Principles of Microeconomics.
BUSA 6100 Decision Making under Uncertainty (3 credit hours)
Quantitative and statistical methods are examined as analytical tools for understanding and solving business problems, and for supporting business decision making. Extensive use of both applied business scenarios to illustrate concepts, and computer software for data analysis. The successful student will finish this course with an ability to effectively evaluate and act upon quantitative and statistical reports and data relating to applications in business. In addition, the successful student will have the tools to make decisions under uncertainty.
BUSA 6101 International Business and Global Logistics (3 credit hours)
The course is divided into two parts. The first part provides an intensive study of the changing economic, political, cultural and ethical environment in which organizations compete, both traditionally and digitally. The second part of the course provides an overview of the concepts and substance of trade, transportation, and logistics. This deals with management of physical, documentation, and information flows within supply chains, including purchasing, distribution, intermodal transportation, and regulations.
MGMT 6100 Communication and Leadership (3 credit hours)
This course is designed to enhance essential communication skills for managers. The course emphasizes interpersonal, organizational, and public communication processes in the context of leadership, persuasion, motivation and ethics.
MGMT 6101 Management of Change and Innovation (3 credit hours)
This course focuses on strategies for renewing organizations. Aspects of change, including repositioning, the impact of power and influence, operations, human elements and organizational behavior issues will be examined. The role of leadership in the process, including managing resistance to change, is emphasized. In this course, you will acquire frameworks and techniques that will allow you to create an ongoing capacity for change at the individual, work team, and organizational levels.
MGMT 6102 Operations and Supply Chain Management (3 credit hours)
The goals of this course are to develop the common principles of supply-chain management techniques and demonstrate how these ideas have transformed the operating processes of industries in the past decade. The techniques must find new ways to collaborate across organizational boundaries to create new value for the end-customer of the supply-chain. Asset productivity strategies are studied by investigating both inbound materials management/production processes and outbound physical distribution procedures. Case studies will demonstrate the importance of ethical approaches to supply chain innovation in areas such as real-time supply chain visibility, e-commerce, and collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment.
MGMT 6103 Field Problems in Logistics Systems (3 credit hours)
This course gives students a supervised opportunity to apply problem-solving skills from earlier courses to real world business problems in the logistics arena. Students will work together in small teams to define, research, analyze, and formulate solutions to actual problems from area logistics enterprises. Prerequisite: BUSA 6101 & MGMT 6102
MKTG 6100 Marketing Strategy (3 credit hours)
A high-level course focusing on the central strategic role that marketing plays in the success of a company. The case method will be used extensively and ethical implications in marketing decision will be explored.
MGMT 6104 Strategic Management (3 credit hours)
This is a capstone course designed to apply and integrate concepts and analytical tools that students have studied in MBA course work. This course adopts a general management perspective to analyze complex business situations, identify critical issues, and develop effective solutions. Consideration is given to ethical dimensions of strategic decision making. The emphasis throughout is on developing strategic thinking skills and understanding the fundamentals for achieving competitive advantage in a dynamic global environment. Prerequisites: This capstone seminar must be taken during the final semester of the MBA program.
Note: A research project (BUSA 6102) may be submitted in lieu of one of the core courses, with the exception of the Strategic Management course.
BUSA 6102 Research Project (3 credit hours)
A research project may be substituted in lieu of one of the core courses, with the exception of the Seminar and Strategic Management course. Permission of the MBA Director and the advising faculty is required.
Foundation Courses
For students who did not major in business, the Clayton State MBA program will offer foundation courses that will give the skills needed – in less than one semester. The foundation courses will be offered in a streamlined, self-paced format.
ACCT 5000 Foundations of Accounting (1 credit hour)
The Accounting Interactive® CD-ROM is a four- to six-hour interactive program on six steps of the accounting process and financial statements. It includes examples of three types of companies (a service company, a retailer, and a manufacturer). It's divided into sections that allows student to pick the topics for review. Some of the topics covered include: Transaction Types, Setting Up Accounts, Recording and Summarizing Transactions, Preparing Reports (Balance Sheets, Income Statements, Statement of Cash Flows), Analyzing Reports (Net Ratio, Quick Ratio, and Return on Investment, Return on Equity, Current Ratio, Activity Ratios). Students will be required to validate their understanding of the concepts/topics.
Prerequisite: Permission of the MBA Director
FINA 5000 Foundations of Finance (1 credit hour)
The Finance Interactive® CD-ROM is a six- to eight-hour interactive program on introduction to finance concepts and how to apply them to business problems. It includes examples on evaluating investment projects, preparing financial forecasts, and required rates of return. It's divided into sections that allows student to pick the topics for review. Some of the topics covered include: Time Value of Money (discounting, internal rates of return), Measuring Value and Risk, Sensitivity Analysis, Cost of Debt and Equity, and Interest Rate Parity. Students will be required to validate their understanding of the concepts/topics.
Prerequisite: Permission of the MBA Director.
STAT 5000 Foundations of Statistics (1 credit hour)
The Quantitative Skills Interactive® CD-ROM is a 16- to 20-hour interactive program on the overview of fundamental analytical techniques and how they apply in business. It includes examples on contribution margin, portfolio analysis, and sales volume mix. It's divided into sections that allows student to pick the topics for review. Some of the topics covered include: Measures of Central Tendency and Variation, Chi Square testing, Regression Analysis, Probability Distributions, and Sampling. Students will be required to validate their understanding of the concepts/topics.
Prerequisite: Permission of the MBA Director.
BUSA 5000 Foundations of Quantitative Methods (1 credit hour)
The Statistics Interactive® CD-ROM is a 10- to 12-hour interactive program on introduction to statistical concepts and how to apply them to business problems. It's divided into sections that allows student to pick the topics for review. Some of the topics covered include: Data Relations, Laws of Exponents, Linear, Nonlinear, and Multivariate Functions, Compound Interest, Break-Even Analysis, and Calculus. Students will be required to validate their understanding of the concepts/topics.
Prerequisite: Permission of the MBA Director.