Below is a detailed overview of the Executive MBA schedule and course descriptions broken up by semester. To view the Fall 2011 class calendar click here.

Program Overview

Semester 1

Leadership

This course provides an introduction to the theory and practice of effective leadership from a variety of perspectives. Students will focus on the individual, team and organization, as each brings a view of the leader’s path and integrates into a whole leadership learning experience. Students will learn how leaders develop and articulate vision, analyze culture, and facilitate change and growth at multiple levels. In addition, students will an appreciation for their own leadership development goals, personal strengths, and areas for improvement.

Financial Accounting

The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the major accounting statements in external financial reporting and procedures that are designed to serve the information needs of business people, creditors, and investors. Students will become familiar with financial accounting terminology, with the principles of and procedures that are involved in the preparation of financial statements, and with the uses, misuses, advantages and limitations of financial accounting information. The course will also address contemporary financial reporting and regulatory issues (e.g. stock options, mergers and acquisitions, and Sarbanes Oxley).

"Personally, I've been pushed out of my comfort zone. I felt safe to extend myself here, safe to fail in a way I could never feel at work, and I was always able to get honest feedback from my fellow students."
Erica Kreer, EMBA '10
Gymboree, Director, Lease Administration and Real Estate Legal

Macroeconomic Analysis and Global Business Conditions

In this course, students will develop the analytic skills and perspective necessary to systematically analyze changes in domestic and international business conditions. This will be accomplished by introducing selected principles of macroeconomic theory through lectures, exercises, class discussions and case studies based on current events. In the process, students will gain an understanding of how economic theory can be used to assess the potential business impact of changes in the macro economy.

Organizational Development

Organizational Development (OD) is the conscious and thoughtful process of developing a business organization’s capabilities so that it can attain and sustain a high level of performance. In this course, students will learn about methods, models, and processes specifically related to diagnosing and planning for organizational change and effectiveness in today’s business world. In addition to traditional lectures and readings, this course will provide students with additional insights through case study discussions and industry guest speakers.

Seminar: Globalization

This seminar provides an overview of the globalization of business and its implications. Specifically, this course examines globalization from several different perspectives (political, technological, organizational, individual) and provides historical as well as forwarding-looking analysis of globalization. Through lectures, presentations, case studies, and panel discussions, this course strives to help students develop an understanding of the connections between globalization and their own professional activities and career development.

[This seminar continues during Semesters 2 and 3 of the program and includes an overseas Academic Global Immersion trip, typically at the end of Semester 2]

Semester 2

Ethics, Social Responsibility and Law

This course focuses upon social, legal and ethical norms that affect managerial strategies and practices. These aspects of the organization’s external environment often take the form of legal standards; therefore, we will consider the legal environment as it affects the operations of businesses and other organizations. The emphasis is upon legal risks and hazards - how to recognize such hazards, minimize the associated risks and respond in the event of legal conflict. Managers too often overlook or underestimate these pitfalls.

Microeconomic Analysis

The course includes an examination and application of those microeconomic tools essential to the management of organizations. During this course, students will gain an understanding for the key elements of microeconomic theory needed to support managerial decision making in areas such as capital investment, resource allocation, optimal pricing, value chain management and profitability management. This course also provides foundational knowledge for subsequent courses in Finance, Operations Management, and Information Systems.

Introduction to Marketing

This course is designed to introduce students to essential marketing concepts and theories. It is intended to enable students to develop a basic capability to apply marketing concepts and theoretical frameworks in the business environment and to define, analyze, and execute key marketing decisions. Through lectures, readings, discussions, in class exercises, and a project, this course will also help develop each student’s ability to create a marketing plan.

Data Analysis and Decision Modeling

Today’s leaders often need to integrate their business knowledge with hard data to understand patterns and trends, to gain insight and leverage from the vast quantities of data that is now available, and to create and analyze models to quantify the financial and operational implications of managerial choices. This course will provide insight into what it means to effectively "run the numbers." You will develop the ability to analyze data, to develop forecasts, to design and build effective spreadsheet models, and to use data and models appropriately to gain insights and guide decision making.

“I began to apply my EMBA learning at work, from day one. I work in biotech — my area is financial analysis — but manufacturing is a big driver of our business. From the first day the EMBA began to educate me about supply chain management, customer operations, distribution strategies — those areas applied immediately to my work at Genentech.”
Annabelle Salcedo, EMBA '10
Genentech, Inc., Associate Director, Controlling and Accounting

Seminar: Creativity, Collaboration, and Consulting

Organized around a final consulting project with a sponsor organization, this seminar is designed as a series of workshops and sessions that give students both theoretical frameworks as well as hands-on practice with many of the critical skills necessary to be successful in a project-based environment. Students develop cognitive and emotional skill as well as intuitive abilities to know how to maximize the performance of a project team. The capstone consulting project provides a living laboratory to apply these disciplines in a real business context.

[This seminar continues during Semesters 3 and 4 of the program and concludes with a final presentation of the deliverables for each team’s consulting project]

Semester 3

Managerial Accounting

This course is intended to illustrate several useful management accounting concepts and analytical techniques. We will compare management accounting to financial accounting, which is primarily the use of accounting data for internal management decisions and the use of operating budgets, balanced scorecards, and other key performance metrics for financial monitoring and controls.

Finance

The underlying logic of finance requires managers and executives to acquire a fundamental knowledge of the quantitative techniques applied in making informed and sophisticated financial decisions within the business world. This course is designed to develop the executives’ knowledge of the fundamental principles and concepts covered in finance. In addition, this course will analyze case studies and real world examples to acquire a working knowledge of finance with a strong emphasis on business applications.

Information Systems

This course is designed to promote a management-level understanding of the tactical and strategic significance of information systems (IS) and information technology (IT). It presents ideas and methods for understanding, analyzing, and communicating about the IT-reliant systems through which businesses operate and compete. Its topics include analyzing IT-reliant systems from a business viewpoint, processes through which IT-reliant systems evolve, IT as an engine for change, and competitive uses of IT.

Operations Management

In this course, students will learn to recognize and analyze a broad range of classical operations management problems/questions that arise in many different business settings. In addition, students will learn to conduct analysis in the context of real business scenarios, and to synthesize results from basic mathematical analyses and explain them in business terms, and will develop a broad vocabulary about today’s operations management problems and techniques, with an emphasis on service and delivery operations.

Seminar: Negotiations

Negotiation is the art and science of creating and securing an agreement between two or more interdependent parties. This seminar provides an introduction to the theory and processes of negotiation as practiced in a variety of business settings. It is designed to expose students to negotiation problems in both domestic and international settings. This is a highly interactive course built around hands-on experiences, presentations, discussion, and reflection.

Semester 4

Strategy

This course uses integrative and multi-disciplinary approaches to introduce and discuss cutting edge strategic management knowledge. Students will gain a familiarity with significant concepts, issues and perspectives to enable them to understand the strategic challenges facing organizations today. The course also aims to increase students’ knowledge about how to create competitive advantage, and to enable students to become a more effective contributor to the strategic process.

Advanced Marketing

This class builds on the foundation that is established in the “Introduction to Marketing” course. Through case studies, group discussions, and projects, students will gain an understanding of several important marketing topics, including business-to-business marketing, channels of distribution, the interface between marketing and sales, lead generation, and marketing through new media channels such as mobile and social.

Entrepreneurship

This course is designed to enable students to apply their creative and innovative talents while sharpening their analytical abilities. Students will integrate concepts from management, marketing, finance, and accounting while developing a comprehensive business plan. The business plan proposal that each team develops is an operating plan for a start-up company or a new venture within a larger corporation, and it will be presented to and reviewed by a panel of experienced venture capitalists during the final class meeting.

Business Law

This class will cover core concepts in business law for corporate management. The objective is to provide a basic understanding of important legal issues facing business decision-makers with respect to organizational relationships, operations, asset protection, and risk management. The goal is to recognize fundamental legal issues and their potential impact on business decisions. Topics include corporate structure and governance, employment law, intellectual property and effective legal risk management.

Seminar: Executive Development

Moving into a leadership role, even within the same company, presents enormous challenges. Future success as a leader will require students to adapt to increasingly complex roles, and will depend less on individual skills and content expertise and more on learning agility and the ability to influence and engage others in the pursuit of shared goals. This course is designed to provide students with foundational knowledge, useful insights, and practical guidance to master these leadership transitions more effectively.

Academic Global Immersion

The Academic Global Immersion trip is an ideal way for executives to gain real-world experience and insights into the political, legal, economic, and cultural dimensions of doing business overseas. This exploratory experience is led by globally renowned professors, and combines the rigorous face-to-face examination of a foreign business environment with the cultural enrichment of a stay abroad. 

Past trips have taken USF students to China, Finland, India, Chile, Turkey, Russia, Spain, and Dubai. The experience will enable you to:

- Meet executives in foreign companies and gain a first-hand perspective on their operations and business culture

- Be guided through the complexities of international business by an experienced professor

- Understand challenges that global business must face in order to find success overseas