Online Master of Arts in Business Communication Curriculum

This course will provide students with the tools to think and write strategically. Students will gain competency in a number of areas including: identifying challenges and communicating to different workplace audiences; developing content for daily, routine and specific workplace requirements; focusing on strategic, outcomes-based writing; and cultivating interpersonal relationships for successful communication. These skills are particularly important for those in or aspiring to managerial/senior staff roles.

This course will provide students with advanced knowledge of crisis management, including theory, techniques and applications. Students will gain competency in a number of areas including: changing opinion and behavior, crisis management principles, strategies, tactics and communication methods. Students will work in teams to develop the knowledge and skills to manage the messages surrounding crisis-related issues found in organizations.

This course can provide you with the tools to develop purposeful presentations with targeted messages relating to audience needs. You can gain competency in a number of areas including: messaging, writing for the visual media, using current visual presentation tools, delivering an impactful presentation and taking advantage of social media channels. Learn to develop the knowledge and skills to influence and inspire internal and external constituencies, a key part of communication practitioners’ jobs, especially those in managerial/senior staff roles.

Understanding the importance of visuals and using different ways to communicate effectively with visuals are integral parts of any advanced communication and journalism curriculum. The goal of the course is to provide you with the practical knowledge and critical skills necessary to effectively use visuals as an important and inevitable component in the communication process. The course will cover visual communication theories, perception of psychology, design and layout principles, typography, imagery in mass media and visuals in interactive media.

This course can provide you with the knowledge to understand and apply ethical guidelines and current laws and regulations relative to workplace communication, as well as the legal limits impacting professional communications. This knowledge is particularly important for those in or aspiring to managerial/senior staff roles.

This course can provide you with the knowledge and skills to use various research methods and analysis techniques to provide critical information for, and assist with, business decisions. It will cover developing research tools, gathering and verifying information, analyzing, and reporting results. These skills are particularly important for those in or aspiring to managerial/senior staff roles.

The culture of work, like society, is multicultural. More than ever, today’s organizational leaders, including CEOs, managers and supervisors, must understand how to use diversity and cultural communication principles and strategies to effectively manage a culturally diverse workforce. This course can help organizational leaders understand how gender, ethnic, religious, and other differences affect the workplace, and how to effectively harness those differences towards maintaining a workplace that promotes good employee relations, and ultimately, good productivity for the organization.

This course examines communication between and among businesses in a global context. The course presents communication as an essential pivot around which revolve the social and institutional relationships within and among nations. Hence, exploring global communication structures and tendencies is an important means to understanding social, cultural, economic and political impositions on global business. The emerging role of technologies of communication, such as social media, will be a particular focus of this course.

This course encompasses the study of individual and group behavior in the workplace. Emphasis is placed on individual behavior and group dynamics, application of current group theories, effective group communication, and effective leadership/followership skills. A comprehensive review of these processes, as well as others, can allow students to examine their role in groups as well as teams.

This course examines communication and culture in organizational settings. Emphasis is placed on managing organizational culture, communication and the relationship between organizational performance and organizational culture. A review of research and analysis as it relates to organizations will allow you to apply what you have learned about organizational culture to real life situations.

This course can provide you with the opportunity to explore, research and discuss practical and theoretical topics in business communication. This capstone course can give you an opportunity to apply the skills and knowledge you have learned throughout the Master of Arts in Business Communication curriculum. Under faculty supervision, you will complete a major project using a variety of research methods.

For those students having no previous knowledge of accounting. The subject is approached from the point of view of the user of accounting information rather than that of the accountant who supplies the information. This course surveys the mechanics of accounting as a means to an end, emphasizing accounting as a tool of management and the language of business. Problems and cases bring out the managerial implications of accounting.

This course is an intensive exposition of the essentials of price theory and income and employment theory. For students with less than a year of introductory economics at the undergraduate level.

Computing proficiency requires understanding implications of advanced information technologies and the ability to successfully apply these technologies in an increasingly global society. This course can enable you to effectively use specific information systems tools (spreadsheet and database management) to begin to design applications for effective decision making.

The central unifying theme of this course is valuation. Valuation is the basis for decisions in all major areas of finance. This course begins with a discussion of basic concepts including time value of money and its application for valuation of stocks and bonds and analysis of risk and return. Further application of valuation for capital investment projects made by a firm is explored by introducing the techniques of capital budgeting.

The purpose of this course is to provide you with an operational understanding of basic marketing principles and concepts. This will be done through interactive exercises and discussions based both on primary source and textbook readings as well as discussions and critical examinations of current marketing practices in companies and industries of interest. Topics covered include environmental analysis, target marketing, product and service strategy, integrated marketing communications, channels of distribution, pricing practices, and the interface between marketing and corporate strategic planning.

A foundation course that provides an introduction to the theory and practice of management. The management functions of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling provide an organizing framework for examining current management challenges (e.g. globalization, ethics, diversity, and multidimensional organizational structures).

Electronic commerce involves the use of information technology to improve, enhance, simplify or enable business transactions. This course examines such business, social, and technical issues of electronic commerce as the technology of the Internet, effective system strategies to attract and maintain customers, security, and electronic payment systems.

In our complex world of global economies and pervasive technology, change is constant. It is a persistent challenge to manage this change. It is the body of knowledge that is project management that helps managers address this change. This course will introduce you to project management for a variety of disciplines. The methods and techniques taught will be applicable not only to software development, but to any series of tasks that could constitute a project. The course content will cover the identification, approval, and management of complex projects. Various project management tools, techniques, and approaches will be covered. This course applies to the Information Systems and Entrepreneurship concentrations.

The purpose of this course is to prepare you to meet the legal, ethical, and regulatory challenges and opportunities you will encounter as you conduct business as a manager and entrepreneur. To excel, managers and entrepreneurs must recognize that the law is important to firm success and that they must always consider the legal ramifications of their business decisions. You can learn how to identify legal and ethical issues before they become legal problems and how to communicate and work collaboratively with legal counsel. The course begins with an overview of business ethics and social responsibility and goes on to cover the U.S. court system and the laws of contracts, torts, and intellectual property. The course covers corporate governance issues including the fiduciary duties of officers, directors, and controlling shareholders, public and private offerings of securities, and securities fraud. Environmental regulation, product quality, legal aspects of the employment relationship (as they relate to the liability of the corporation and managers for the acts of their employees), wrongful termination, discrimination, and sexual harassment will also be covered.

In this course, you can learn to solve problems/exploit opportunities by processing datasets, interpreting results, and deploying solutions. This course provides hands-on experience with these tasks. Upon this base of experience, you can build a robust data mining methodology that can be applied to real-world investigations. The course of study will include Online Analytical Processing (OLAP), statistical and machine learning techniques, and unstructured text analysis. You can learn to apply these techniques through the study of payroll, procurement, and expense report fraud. Cell phone and credit card fraud, credit and bankruptcy analysis, and customer relationship management will also be covered. This course applies to the Business Analytics, Forensic Accounting and Fraud & Forensic Accounting concentrations. This course applies to the graduate certificate in Business Analytics.

The purpose of the course is to provide the analytical skills required to understand complex marketing situations in order to develop and implement appropriate marketing strategies. The decision-making processes in the management of product planning, pricing practices, selection of channels of distribution and development of effective promotion programs are investigated. This involves identification and selection of appropriate target markets, the effective use of marketing research and recognition of organizational dynamics. The case approach is used to develop communication skills and further build team skills as you interact with peers in solving problems.

A study of key individual, group, and organizational processes. At the individual level, the focus is on different personalities, job attitudes, and work motivation. The implication of individual factors is then considered in a team context focusing on the processes of communication, influence, conflict, and leadership. Finally, we examine the impact of organizational culture and change on workplace behavior. In order to integrate the individual, group, and organizational levels of study, the course emphasizes a team- based approach to learning. Prerequisite(s): Completion of MBA pre-program courses.

This course emphasizes the issues encountered by managers regarding performance measurement, incentives, ethics and strategic management accounting tools. Students will learn to recognize ethical issues and apply a code of conduct to those issues, understand the criteria for recognizing revenue, analyze cash flows for investment decisions, compute measures of returns on investments, and understand the uses of a Balance Scorecard in performance evaluation. This course will also cover transfer pricing issues and methods in domestic and international settings, the application of differential analysis to a variety of short-run decisions, and the application of traditional costing methods, activity-based costing, activity-based management, and target costing to products and services. Preparation of a master budget and its role in planning, control, and decision making is also discussed. This course is not open to MAcc students. Prerequisite(s): Completion of MBA pre-program courses.