The William & Mary Online MBA

This course provides a context for business, historically, functionally, and cross-culturally. It addresses the nature of problems; modes of thinking and inquiry; approaches to problem identification, framing/re-framing, and problem-solving; and approaching problems from multiple, interdisciplinary perspectives.

This course introduces students to the roles that accounting systems play in various organizations and global markets. Accounting is frequently referred to as “the language of business”, emphasizing its prominent position in both business communications and decision-making. The reports derived from accounting systems are often the primary way that information within organizations – as well as from organizations to various stakeholders – is communicated. Such information provides essential input and serves as a fundamental basis for managerial and stakeholder decisions. At the conclusion of this course, students should understand the primary elements of this language so that they are able to communicate more effectively about important business matters.

Organizational behavior is a field of study that seeks to understand, explain, and improve human behavior. The structure of this course is designed to explore how Renaissance Managers can improve two aspects of human behavior. The first is job performance, or the degree to which employees can perform the behaviors necessary to help the organization reach its goals. The second is organizational commitment, which is the extent of an employee’s loyalty to the present organization rather than seeking employment elsewhere. This course will guide students through a model that seeks to explain both areas of organizational behavior.

The primary aim of this course is to supply the student with the analytical tools that are needed for success in business. The course covers various tools that are necessary to analyze and understand the implications of collected data, including statistical tools (hypothesis testing,correlation and covariance analysis, probably distributions, simple and multiple regression, forecasting), statistical decision-making, simulation, constrained optimization, and sensitivity emphasized throughout the course.

To achieve competitive advantage, managers must understand how to design and control products and services, as well as the systems for their delivery. To reach that understanding, this course focuses on issues of planning and control of complex products and services, as well as managing quality and continuous improvement and control of the supply chain.

This course explores the essential macro- and microeconomic theories and evidence about how markets work and the factors that hinder their execution in an applied, global framework. As part of the course, students will assess the effects of other countries’ differing monetary and fiscal policies in relation to the competitive conditions in various industries. They will also apply demand and cost analysis and industrial structure to frame and answer the questions of optimal pricing, resource allocation, global outsourcing, and competitive strategies.

This course teaches students about the concepts and tools of valuation, financial and project analysis, financial forecasting, risk and return, cost of capital and mergers and acquisitions.

This course will focus on developing the integrated marketing programs that address customer needs, competitive activity, channel and supplier behavior, macro environmental factors, and market evolution. Strong emphasis is placed on assessing the market and developing a responsive marketing mix that includes product policy, pricing, channels of distribution, integrated marketing communications, and support structure.

This course is designed to introduce students to the basic information technology and digital fluency. Emphasis will be placed on understanding how managers can participate in opportunities to select and successfully implement information technologies in order to promote business strategy. Interactive analytic tools will be used to solve business problems involving various functional areas.

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Leadership in the 21^st century extends beyond the traditional topics of culture, networking, change management, and diversity. In a society where technologies are constantly disrupting communication and teams are becoming increasingly global, managers must be able to cope with constant change, messaging and empathy, and the powerful leadership trends that are emerging.

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This course covers analysis for decision-making at industry, firm, and business levels, concentrating specifically on multi-business firms and global industries. Firm resources and competencies, business and environmental demands, and the sources of competitive advantage are also major points of focus throughout the course, which stresses the practical applications of theory.

The Revolutionary Leader Practicum is a supervised business workshop that allows each student to apply the functional and design skills they have learned to the “wicked problem" of their choice. As a final deliverable, students must provide a detailed description of the problem itself, the approach(es) taken to address it, overall results, lessons that were learned, and any next steps.