Master of Science in Management

Business Communications focuses on effective communication strategies for various stakeholders using oral and written formats for different purposes, including one-on-one communication and engagement with larger audiences.

Students will examine human resource management from a strategic perspective. They will analyze theories and practices in terms of organizational effectiveness when competing in a global business environment. They will investigate ongoing operational human resource issues, such as compensation, organizational development, benefits, recruitment, training, and leading employees to high performance. Current issues that challenge human resource practitioners will be explored, such as downsizing, implied contracts between employer and employee, managing knowledge workers, and the issues of the changing legal environment.

This course is the first in a series of two courses that provide a foundation for understanding key management principles in the Master of Science in Management program. Students will analyze and evaluate key management principles and learn how managers use resources to attain organizational goals through the functions of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. In this course, students concentrate on the management functions of planning and organizing. Planning involves defining goals for future performance and devising ways to attain these goals, whereas organizing involves assigning and grouping tasks and allocating resources. It is worthy to note that the second course is this series, GM 501: Management Theories and Practices II, will concentrate on the managerial functions of leading and controlling.

This course is the second of two that focus on key management principles. In this course, students concentrate on the management functions of leading and controlling. Leadership involves influencing and motivating employees to achieve organizational objectives, whereas controlling involves monitoring employee activities and performance that affect standards and performance. GM 501 offers specific learning activities to strengthen critical thinking and professional writing skills that students can apply to real-world problems in the workplace.

This course emphasizes the assessment and development of critical leadership theories and practices, and explores how each theoretical approach can be applied in real-world organizations and scenarios. The theories and practices studied will enhance students’ understanding of motivational theories and developing teams, both traditional and virtual based, and development of their hidden leadership potential.

This course builds upon the foundation set in GM 502: Leadership Theory and Practice I, by continuing to examine both classical and contemporary leadership theories and practices. Special emphasis will be placed on understanding transformational leadership, team leadership, leadership ethics, and leading in culturally diverse environments.

This course applies a systems approach to examining the design and execution of business strategies to achieve a competitive advantage. The organization is viewed as a total system that can be managed to achieve continuing high performance in today's dynamic and global marketplace. Strategies for managing enduring change are evaluated.

This course focuses on action research and the development of critical skills required not only for consultants, but also for any manager desiring to strengthen his or her interpersonal effectiveness as a successful change agent. An introduction to the consulting process, and the consulting skills associated with entry, contracting, meeting management, defining issues and gathering data, diagnosing problems, formulating solutions, and creating and implementing action plans will also be examined.

This serves as the capstone course to the Master of Science in Management program, which allows the student to integrate theories with practical application. This course utilizes the conceptual foundations and skills acquired in earlier courses as a basis for an in-depth examination of an organizational issue or problem of significance that is of special interest to the student. The student will collaborate with organizational stakeholders to identify a problem and design a research project.

This course provides an interdisciplinary perspec­tive on operations and quality management in health care, taking into account the disciplines of organizational behavior and health management research. Special attention is given to causal tools and approaches that are fundamental to total qual­ity management and continuous quality improve­ment.

This course provides students with an in-depth analysis of health care policy development in the United States of America. Students focus on health care policy formation and evaluation by investigating public policy and politics. Students consider a variety of elements that factor into health policy development such as economics, political science, management, communications, and public health.

This course provides an analysis and evaluation of the principles and concepts of marketing as they apply to health care organizations. The course covers essential elements of marketing as well as direct applications of marketing tools and strate­gies in the dynamic health care environment.

This course introduces students to recent trends in global health and current problems of health from an international perspective, and examines the influence of economic, population, and socio­political trends on health and living conditions in different countries. Students apply the basics of descriptive and analytical epidemiology to global health and key health indicators used in international epidemiology, and analyze the main transnational factors that influence the transfer of risks to health across the globe.

We depend upon the law as well as ethics and common sense to help us make good decisions about issues surrounding employment that are routinely decided in workplaces every day. These issues can have devastating financial and productivity consequences if mishandled by the employer. Yet it seems as if few employers or their managers are equipped to handle them well. Employment law helps to regulate the workplace environment by protecting employees from dis­crimination and harassment, and providing a safer, fairer workplace where the rules provide for certain rights and responsibilities for both employees and employers alike. Those who choose to work in the business arena must understand basic legal concepts, plus have working knowledge of regulatory and compliance issues in order to effectively manage a business. In this course, students will analyze and evaluate legal concepts and learn to identify potentially troublesome employment-related legal and ethical issues in order to avoid liability as well as to develop an understanding of how to manage employees to maximize productivity.

Students will examine human resources develop­ment management processes from a strategic human resources perspective. Students will ana­lyze theories and practices as they relate to human and organizational development. The course will cover the evolution of human resource development (HRD) and the relationship between HRD and human resource management (HRM). Students will look at major internal and external factors that affect employee behavior, define learn­ing and how learning can be maximized, look at needs assessments and their purpose, write training objectives for a specific program, describe broad approaches to training design and delivery, define the evaluation methods used in HRD and their purposes, discuss the process of orga­nizational socialization beginning with employee orientation, identify and describe basic workplace competencies, define coaching and its tie to performance management systems, explain the need for employee counseling processes and their importance to employee wellness programs, and discuss career, management, and leadership devel­opment and the "new employment" relationship. The course defines organizational development and how planned-change models create intervention strategies to improve organizational effectiveness; and how changing demographics is creating a new, diverse, global workforce and the challenges in managing these new workers.

This course examines how an organization can leverage their reward systems to sustain, motivate, and retain its desired workforce to help achieve business objectives. The course focuses on the complex variety of pay structures within an organization and the relationship of those pay structures to organizational performance. Students will be exposed to major reward issues in the context of current theory, research, and real-business practices.

This course provides a solid foundation in the fundamentals of attracting, hiring, and assessing talent. It takes a closer look at the "war for talent" in the competitive marketplace today, and provides the impetus for more proactive and timely recruitment practices, effective and legally conscious selection methods, and valid assessment techniques. This course highlights the importance of refining talent-acquisition strategies as organizations and HR practitioners seek to improve the pipeline of new hire and job promotion candidates. By the end of the course, students will be familiar with multiple recruitment, selection, and assessment models and will synthesize these approaches from a talent management perspective.

This course provides students with a foundation in the concepts and paradigms that shape information technology today. Students will distinguish between current competing ideologies to expand their technological knowledge and make informed business decisions. A focus will be placed on Internet technologies, hardware and software components, and networked environments, as well as ethical and social issues in information technology. Students will also be introduced to the Master of Science in Information Technology learning team model, which will be built upon throughout the program.

This is an introductory course for students entering the Master of Science in Information Technology program who do not have an undergraduate degree in information technology. Students will learn the foundational principles of information technology as the field relates to business and will examine the changing roles of various information technology specialties. The course also provides an introduction to the relationship of information technology courses to other parts of the Master of Science in Information Technology curriculum. Students will analyze case studies, engage in focused discussions on subjects relevant to information technology, and complete research and written assignments that address information technology support of various business scenarios.

This course provides an in-depth overview of system analysis and design methodologies. Students examine techniques to develop systems more efficiently using the system development life cycle (SDLC). Students use object-oriented approaches to develop information systems using the Unified Modeling Language (UML).

Businesses are faced with many challenges when managing their information technology. Since information technology is continually evolving, businesses that stick with their current IT systems may be left behind. In this course, students identify innovative solutions to business problems. Specific topics include the analysis of cost and efficiency benefits found in emerging technologies, the legal and regulatory implications of various IT infrastructure strategies, and the complex process enterprises face in integrating new technology with existing infrastructure.

This course introduces students to the nature and purpose of leadership in organizations. Students evaluate various leadership approaches and methodologies in terms of organizational effectiveness and efficiency in dynamic corporate environments. In addition, students investigate ethics and social responsibility, diversity, and team management. Students will apply emotional intelligence in self-awareness, personal development, and communication

The course conducts an examination of diagnostic models and methods used to help align an organization's strategies, structures, and processes to support each other and to fit appropriately into the environmental context. Emphasis is placed on total system change strategies and the integration of intervention methods for structural, human systems, cultural, and technological changes in order to enhance organizational design.

This course introduces students to the nature and purpose of coaching and mentoring in organizations.  Students will learn key principles, tools, and techniques to develop their skills as a coach and mentor. The course uses case analyses to provide students with opportunities to identify the effect of coaching and mentoring on organizational effectiveness. Through scenario analysis, students will apply coaching and mentoring approaches to learn how to effectively lead individuals and teams.

This course examines transformational leadership theory and includes an exploration of the four "I"s of transformational leadership-idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration. Students will evaluate the use of transformational leadership from the lens of follower development, cross-functional teams, and strategies for change, and apply that knowledge through recommendations to improve organizational effectiveness. Through self-analysis and the use of a Self-Directed Learning Plan, students will have the opportunity to develop their transformational leadership potential regardless of their career stage.

This course provides an analysis and evaluation of organizational development theories and practices as they relate to managing change in organizations. Students will analyze factors that affect change, the role of leadership in influencing and managing change, and change models currently being employed in organizations.

This course covers concepts and methods of applied research for problem solving and organizational intervention. The course focuses on the philosophy of a scholar-practitioner, issues in applied research, field research methods, problem formulation, research design, sampling theory, data collection methods, data analysis, and interpretation.

This course provides an overview of the field of organization development, while providing an opportunity for students to apply organiza¬tional development principles and best practices, emphasizing intervention theory, to current business problems. The organizational development strategies used in the field to address rapid changes and ethical challenges will also be examined.

The course conducts an examination of diagnostic models and methods used to help align an organization's strategies, structures, and processes to support each other and to fit appropriately into the environmental context. Emphasis is placed on total system change strategies and the integration of intervention methods for structural, human systems, cultural, and technological changes in order to enhance organizational design.

This course covers project management from a strategic perspective. The course emphasizes the life cycle project phases and processes advocated by the Project Management Institute (PMI) and defined in the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK). It stresses the planning, executing, and controlling phases of a project life cycle. The course also covers how these phases relate to the initiation and closing phases, and further examines the impact of various project management techniques on schedule, budget, and performance constraints.

This course provides an analysis and evaluation of the theories and practices for managing projects in effective organizations. The student will analyze and evaluate strategies, tools, software, and management approaches to effectively complete and evaluate the effectiveness of projects. Topics in this course include: setting project goals and objectives; preparing a project plan; conducting feasibility studies; measurement tools, including the most current and best software tools; strategies for effective human resource allocation; and approaches to gauging the worth of the project deliverables and the effectiveness of the project management process.

This course provides an analysis of the principles, tools, and techniques for controlling project cost and schedule. The student will use tools, software, and techniques to establish a project baseline and control cost and schedule. Topics in this course include preparing PERT/CPM networks, estimating time and resources, creating the project baseline, controlling the baseline, crashing the network, optimization and heuristics techniques for resource allocation, earned value management, and statistical control tools.

This course provides an integrated approach to risk, quality, and procurement. This course demonstrates how to incorporate quality throughout the project. The student explores use of contract types in managing risk and quality. Topics in this course cover all phases of contracting, including procurement planning, solicitation planning, solicitation, source selection, contract administration, and contract close-out. The student will then explore methods of analyzing make-or-buy decisions, as well as legal and ethical considerations in contracting and procurement. Students will construct an element of their Self-Directed Learning Plan from this course, as well as add materials from the course to their Presentation Portfolio.