Course Descriptions MBA

TOOLS AND PERSPECTIVES ON BUSINESS COURSES — 12 CREDIT HOURS

MBA 601. Accounting and Finance for Managers. 3 Hours.
Decision oriented survey course of the principles of both financial accounting and financial management. Broad study of the basic concepts and tools of financial accounting and finance from both the theoretical and practical perspectives. Topics include financial reporting responsibilities of management, analysis and interpretation of financial statements, and the application of time value concepts to the valuation of stocks, bonds, and capital projects.

MBA 631. Management and Organizations. 3 Hours.
Course focuses on both the internal organizational environment, specifically organizational behaviors, and externally, the legal, ethical, and social environment both domestically and internationally. Students will be able to identify policy issues externally from the legal, social, and ethical environment. Students will also gain an understanding of internal organizational behavior.

MBA 642. Economics for Managers. 3 Hours.
Enables students to understand core microeconomic and macroeconomic concepts and how economics theory can be used to direct managers in understanding economic forces and making rational global and domestic economic decisions.

MBA 662. Quantitative Analysis for Business Managers. 3 Hours.
Covers a wide range of topics in quantitative analysis for managerial decision making. The goal is to provide students with essential analytical skills needed to make better business decisions with an emphasis on proficiency using Microsoft Excel.

FUNCTIONAL CORE — 15 CREDIT HOURS 
MBA 608. Strategic Cost Analysis and Decision Making. 3 Hours.
Determination and use of cost data for decision making, control, and evaluation of performance, and formulation of goals and budgets. The strategic context of managerial decision making is emphasized.
Prerequisites: MBA 601 [Min Grade: C]

MBA 619. Information Technology and Business Strategy. 3 Hours.
Designed to improve students’ understanding of business strategies and the technology management practices that support them, this course focuses on understanding the basic concepts and terminology of information technology and developing insight into the role of information technology in the strategy and management of organizations.

MBA 621. Topics in Corporate Finance. 3 Hours.
An advanced course in finance with emphasis on special topics such as financial planning, working capital management, leasing, hybrid financing, real options, and international capital budgeting. Case studies are used.
Prerequisites: MBA 601 [Min Grade: C]

MBA 637. Operations and Supply Chain Management. 3 Hours.
Concepts and principles necessary to manage the operations and supply chain function in both service and manufacturing organizations. Topics include planning, controlling, directing , and organizing of people, facilities, and materials involved in operations and supply chain management. Global considerations also presented.

MBA 651. Marketing Strategy. 3 Hours.
This course focuses on planning, implementing, and controlling strategic marketing activities. The objective is for students to understand the concepts and processes that guide marketing strategy decision making and to be able to apply these concepts and processes to organizations. Marketing strategy is examined in the context of uncertain competitive environments and from a global perspective.

CAPSTONE — 3 CREDIT HOURS
MBA 634. Strategic Management. 3 Hours.
The integration of management, finance, accounting, marketing, economics, production, information technology, and decision making concepts through the study of business policy and strategy. Must be in last term in the MBA program to register. Permission of advisor required.

ELECTIVES – 6-9 CREDIT HOURS
– Students who select the general MBA option will take two elective courses (6 credit hours)
– Students who select a specific concentration will take the three elective courses (9 credit hours) required for their track

UAB MBA Electives and Concentration Classes

*Students pursuing a General MBA are required to take 2 additional MBA electives. Students pursuing an MBA with a concentration are required to take 3 additional elective courses in their respective concentration.

Management Information Systems
MBA 613. Information Security Management. 3 Hours.
Develop an understanding of key information security concepts. Develop an understanding of how people, technology and organizational policies should be developed and managed to safeguard an organization’s information resources. Learn how to manage under uncertainty and risk. Develop policies and procedures to make information systems secure. Learn how to audit and recover from security breaches.

MBA 614. Social Media and Virtual Communities in Business. 3 Hours.
This course focuses on how social media and virtual communities are changing business in fundamental ways. Students gain practical facility in the use of social media tools and learn meta-skills like how to use new social media tools, how to use filters to make sense of social media, and how to curate news and reports in a manner that contributes to business knowledge and intellect.

MBA 616. Web Analytics. 3 Hours.
The Web Analytics course introduces technologies and tools used to realize the full potential of web sites. The course focuses on collection and use of web data such as web traffic and visitor information to design web sites that will enable firms to acquire, convert, and retain customers.

IS 417. Introduction to Business Intelligence. 3 Hours.
Business Intelligence is an umbrella term describing a wide range of events and activities, hardware and software systems, and methods and algorithms that revolve around a central theme-using data to improve business decision making. This course is an introductory level exposition to this exciting new field with the emphasis of providing a descriptive understanding to the following major components of business intelligence: data warehousing, business performance management, data mining, and business intelligence implementation.

Finance
MBA 622. Portfolio Theory and Construction. 3 Hours.
Theoretical and practical aspects of investments and portfolio management. Preq: MBA 621.

MBA 623. Mergers and Acquisitions. 3 Hours.
In-depth examination, study, and analysis of current issues and problems in selected areas of finance. Preq: MBA 621.

MBA 627. Financial Risk Analysis and Management. 3 Hours.
Exploration of issues in the measurement, analysis, and management of financial risk including interest rate, exchange rate, and commodity price risks. Preq: MBA 621.

MBA 629. Treasury Management. 3 Hours.
Multi-disciplinary approach to analysis of financial statements and working capital management. Financial planning, corporate liquidity, and short-term financial policy issues. Preq: MBA 621.

Marketing
MBA 653. Marketing Analysis and Decision Making. 3 Hours.
Fundamentals of market-based management and the impact of marketing decisions on profitability. Core themes include customer value, customer satisfaction and marketing performance metrics. Students acquire an understanding of important marketing tools by applying them to key marketing mix decisions.

MBA 658. Applied Marketing Research. 3 Hours.
This course covers the fundamentals of the marketing research process, including problem definition, research design, research performance, collecting, inputting and analyzing data using IBM SPSS software, interpretation of statistical results into managerial insights, and the presentation of those results to business managers.

MBA 690. Directed Study. 3 Hours.
Selected topics in business: graduate level.

MBA 671. Health Care Marketing. 3 Hours.
This class is designed for master level students seeking employment in the healthcare industry. The primary objective of this course is to provide students with a comprehensive overview of the marketing fundamentals in the health care environment. This course also examines health care organizations as customers in a B2B environment.
Health Services

Health Services
MBA 671. Health Care Marketing. 3 Hours.
This class is designed for master level students seeking employment in the healthcare industry. The primary objective of this course is to provide students with a comprehensive overview of the marketing fundamentals in the health care environment. This course also examines health care organizations as customers in a B2B environment.

MBA . Leadership. 3 Hours.
The course focuses on understanding your strengths and weaknesses so you can develop and begin applying a plan for leadership improvement. The course balances theory with application, and challenges you to become a more effective and authentic leader via external projects. Team work focuses on completing project activities, but also allows you to provide and receive constructive feedback about leadership. Thus, you learn by doing and by sharing insights with others.

HPO 601Q. Health Economics Online. 3 Hours.
Economics as systematic way of thinking about use of resources. Tools of economics applied to issues of organization, delivery, financing and outcome of health care. Develops economic principles and describes system of health care financing and delivery in the United States, providing basis for analyzing health management and policy options. With didactic coursework provided in HPO 601, doctoral students prepare a major paper under instructor’s direction.

HSC 690. Healthcare Innovation (Directed Study). 3 Hours.
Selected topics in business; graduate level.

Business Analytics

MBA 617. Data Science for Business. 3 Hours.
Business intelligence is an umbrella term describing a wide range of events and activities, hardware and software systems, and methods and algorithms that revolve around a central theme: using data to improve business decision making. This course is an introductory level exposition to this exciting new field with an emphasis on providing a descriptive understanding of the following major components of business intelligence: data warehousing, business performance management, data mining, and business intelligence implementation.

IS 619. Advanced Business Analytics. 3 Hours.
The course is the study and practice of how we can extract insightful knowledge from large amounts of data. This burgeoning area is currently attracting substantial demand from academy and industry.

IS 651. Data Management & SQL for Analytics. 3 Hours.
Explore various concepts of data management/ data warehousing for business analytics. The focus of this course is the process of extracting data from a diverse set of sources, transforming and cleaning data, and loading this data into a format used by analytics professionals. Students will also gain expertise in advanced data querying using Structured Query Language (SQL).

IS 652. Data Visualization for Business. 3 Hours.
In this course, students gain experience with techniques on how to effectively communicate the results of an analysis using information and visual aids. Students learn effective methods of presenting information in textual and graphical formats and how to frame data results in a business case format for interpretation by business managers. Students gain hands-on experience with the use of Tableau.

MK 536. Digital Marketing Analytics. 3 Hours.
Exploration of measuring and analyzing digital marketing strategies. Students will acquire industry certification in addition to creating an online marketing strategy with an emphasis on campaign optimization.

MBA 616. Web Analytics. 3 Hours.
The Web Analytics course introduces technologies and tools used to realize the full potential of websites. The course focuses on the collection and use of web data such as web traffic and visitor information to design websites that will enable firms to acquire, convert, and retain customers.