Course Descriptions — MBA Degree Online
The University of Saint Mary Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree online program requires a total of 33 credit hours of graduate-level courses, including 8 required core courses and 3 elective courses. You'll take core courses with topics in organizational management, marketing management, managerial economics, global management, the legal environment, and commercial transactions. Then, you can choose three elective courses to complete a concentration of your choice.
You can take your eight-week online courses full-time or part-time at your convenience, and finish the MBA degree online program in as little as one year. To be admitted and begin taking MBA degree online classes, you must hold a bachelor's degree from a regionally accredited institution and have an undergraduate GPA of at least 2.75 on a scale of 4.0.
Core Courses
MGT 701 Organizational Management (3 credits)
This class explores the role of the manager in organizational settings. It also covers concepts that help students respond to the forces affecting the behavior of individuals in the work place. Through case studies, students examine motivation, self-concept, interpersonal dynamics, conflict and resolution, group dynamics, leadership, and change.
MGT 704 Marketing Management (3 credits)
Learn to apply marketing concepts for identifying, developing, and meeting customer needs. Understand how marketing relates to other corporate functions, such as production, finance, and human resources.
MGT 709 Managerial Economics (3 credits)
Students examine microeconomic principles that influence how consumers and businesses decide what to purchase and what to produce. The class covers how supply and demand in goods, labor and capital markets determines prices. Macroeconomic environments and the fiscal, monetary, and international trade policies of government are studied as well.
MGT 710 Legal Environment & Commercial Transactions (3 credits)
MGT 711 Managerial Accounting (3 credits)
Students learn the relevance of accounting information in marketing, production, systems design, engineering, management, and other non-accounting activities. The class includes an overview of managerial accounting, cost methods and systems used, concepts and methods for managerial decision-making, managerial planning, control, and internal performance evaluation. Special topics—fraud, ethical issues, and more—are included.
MGT 712 Managerial Finance (3 credits)
This class focuses on the importance of finance to the organization and the role of the manager in finance. Topics include the financial environment, goals of the firm, working capital management, the time value of money, valuation of securities, and capital budgeting.
MGT 714 Global Management (3 credits)
Study the cultural, social, political, legal, ethical, and economic issues that affect global business and how they influence business structure, organization, and management processes. Through case studies, students develop diagnostic tools for exercising leadership and management.
MGT 795 Strategic Management and Ethics (3 credits)
This course is an integrated examination of business management focusing on the application, analysis, and synthesis of business and management problems and issues at the executive level. Students will develop a perspective of the organization as a whole and explore the means by which overall direction and strategy is established and implemented. Emphasis is on the responsibilities, skills, and perspectives required of executives. The course also examines ethical and corporate social responsibility issues and the trade-offs that must be assessed and made to achieve strategic objectives. Most students will submit the required final assessment during this course. This course is the capstone course of the MBA program and is recommended to be taken at the end of your program.
Three credits over 8 weeks.
Leadership and Organizational Health:
The online MBA in Leadership and Organizational Health concentration is based on Patrick Lencioni's core leadership model and principles.
MGT 780 Leadership and Organizational Health (3 credits)
In this course, students will learn the foundations of Organizational Health, as defined through open and honest communication, an informed decision making process, and the execution and accountability of business decisions in an organization. The premise of organizational health lies first in an individual's ability to understand themselves and others in the various facets of work life – their individual work preferences, trust, accountability, and commitment – in order to optimize an organization's performance and drive a sustainable competitive advantage. Students will examine the dynamics of healthy and dysfunctional teams, explore individual work behavioral styles and learn how these impact team performance and communication. They will evaluate communication strategies, conflict resolution models, and strategies for building a cohesive and healthy team.
MGT 781 Strategic Leadership and Team Building (3 credits)
In this course, students will learn how to build cohesive teams by exploring the best practices and strategies of healthy organizations. These practices and strategies include six critical areas that define and sustain a healthy organization: (1) the organization's purpose, (2) values that guide the organization's purpose, (3) the business definition, (4) measurement of success, (5) a single overarching goal, and (6) ownership of goals. Students will evaluate an organization's performance against the six critical areas, creating a 'playbook' that ensures organizational health.
MGT 782 Strategic Communication and Human Performance Support Systems (3 credits)
In healthy organizations, leaders communicate a clear, goal-focused message throughout the organization. In this course, students will learn how to develop a strategic communication plan, foster interdependence, and build human capital. Students will examine strategies for healthy organizational communication, assess criteria for effective meetings, and evaluate the components of a human performance support system. Included in this course is a capstone experience where students will apply all four of the Lencioni leadership frameworks by synthesizing and integrating the concepts and principles in a real-world project.
Finance:
In the online MBA's finance concentration, you'll strengthen your investment and management skills, and position yourself for a leadership role in this dynamic professional field.
MGT 760 Advanced Financial Topics (3 credits)
This course offers the opportunity to focus on other financial issues facing managers in an increasingly savvy marketplace. The course combines discussion, extensive reading and lecture with several projects suited to demonstrate mastery of the topics included in the course.
MGT 768 Financial and Capital Issues (3 credits)
This class Integrates capital structure and corporate financial decisions with corporate strategy. Topics to be discussed include financial markets and instruments, valuing financial assets, valuing real assets, capital structure, incentives, information and corporate control and risk management. Within these broad topics, students will examine the allocation of capital for real investment, financing the firm, knowing whether and how to hedge risk, and allocating funds for financial investments.
MGT 769 Financial Decisions (3 credits)
This course focuses on the application of graduate level financial concepts through case studies to solve financial problems. The course will emphasize additional funds needed, future growth, appropriate capital structure, cash flow issues and others.
General Management (you may also choose courses from other concentrations):
In the MBA's online general management degree concentration, you'll learn how to formulate and implement strategic solutions that help build your confidence to spearhead teams and projects.
MGT 713 Operations Management (3 credits)
Explore the decisions required to effectively manage production and operations. Examine the planning, coordination, and other activities required to create and distribute goods and services. This course develops and explores the concept of trade off analysis, linking it to manufacturing, operations, and corporate strategy.
MGT 731 Management Information Systems (3 credits)
Students will learn to assess an organization's information processing systems in the organization, with a focus on methods of integrating systems into daily operations for analyzing and representing data in forms useful for decision-making.
MGT 751 Project Management (3 credits)
Project management, the process and skill required to manage complex, non-routine, one-time undertakings, is essential to fuel the process of change in an organization and meet strategic goals while continuing to serve clients. Important topics will include the process of selecting projects that best support organizational goals, and the technical and managerial processes to complete those goals. Students will study work structuring, budgeting, resource allocation and performance measurement and control. The course will also explore the organizational and behavioral issues involved in managing projects.
MGT 750 Leadership (3 credits)
This course focuses on how leaders create the vision to change firm structures, motivate people, improve performance, and position the company for the challenges of the future. You will learn to identify both good and poor leadership characteristics with an emphasis on cases, examples, and personal experience. Each of you will be challenged to envision yourself as a leader and to identify traits necessary to improve your skills. Leadership will be analyzed and reflected through problems, observation, readings, case analysis, and examples from culture.
Health Care Management:
The MBA degree online program with a concentration in Health Care Management (HCM) covers content areas that will prepare you to sit for the ACHE (American College of Healthcare Executives) board certification.
Choose three courses:
HCMGT 720 Healthcare Informatics and Technologies (3 credits)
The course provides a fundamental understanding of health informatics and the management and use of patient healthcare information. It is a multidisciplinary field that uses health information technology (HIT) to improve healthcare in any combination of higher quality, higher efficiency, and new opportunities. Key topics include: healthcare information systems, HIPAA privacy and security regulations, systems development life cycle, cybersecurity, electronic health records, telemedicine, IT certifications, data information and sharing, social media, and evidence-based practice.
HCMGT 721 Leadership and Business Operations in Healthcare (3 credits)
This course introduces the students to the key leadership concepts and theories and their effective use in the oversight of a healthcare organization. Students will develop and apply strategies for leadership and management in areas of accounting, finance, marketing, human resources and operations.
HCMGT 722 Legal and Ethical Issues in Healthcare (3 credits)
Introduces the major ethical theories and principles needed to evaluate current legal and ethical issues. Students explore health care issues such as patient rights, withdrawing life support, promoting client autonomy, business ethics and the legal responsibilities of health care organizations. Students evaluate varied perspectives and develop a reasoned analysis of current topics.
Human Resource Management:
The online MBA with a human resources concentration allows you to study how a business's employees are essential to its success.
MGT 708 Human Resource Management (3 credits)
This class focuses on key Human Resources issues managers are likely to face—staffing, compensation, performance management, and employee voice. The course emphasizes the influence of business strategy, global competition, technological change, unionization, workforce characteristics, and government regulation on HR decisions.
MGT 753 Conflict Management and Negotiation (3 credits)
This course is designed to explore the way that power is used in conflict situations. You will examine ways to make conflict a creative, rather than a negative, experience and will practice methods of conflict resolution through role playing, case analysis and resolution, and assignments. This experience will provide you insight into human behavior to gain experience and confidence in negotiation, managing workplace conflict, leading group decision making, and facilitating processes with teams and individuals. Conflict will be discussed, dissected, and analyzed in the one-on-one and group contexts.
MGT 774 Organizational Change and Development (3 credits)
This course examines methods to improve organizational effectiveness. You will study organizational change, including the concept of planning change. Focus is on the basic roles and styles of the organizational development practitioner, and resistance to organizational change and how to overcome it.
MGT 757 Training and Development (3 credits)
This is a Master's level course in Training and Development which helps prepare students to assist their organizations in improving overall effectiveness. The primary focus is organizational development and human resource topics at the tactical level. This class focuses on employee development and training, and the evolution of training methods that would support and meet individual and company goals.
Marketing and Advertising Management:
The Marketing and Advertising Management concentration explores the ideology behind effectively motivating team members to take ideas from the drawing board to market.
MGT 747 The Advertising Industry in the 21st Century (3 credits)
This course will address the complex management challenges in advertising today, including the new client service model, working with contract services, campaign planning, modern media and media planning, how to develop a “creative brief,” working with creative staff, and basic advertising production techniques.
MGT 748 Buyer Behavior and Advertising Research (3 credits)
Understanding why and how a consumer decides to purchase a certain product, and what effect advertising has on the decision, is a key part of the marketing and advertising process. You will gain insight into this process through the systematic collection of data through targeted marketing research on the consumer and his or her preferences. This course will explore both sides of the equation: what makes a consumer buy and how do we determine his or her buying style, likes and dislikes, and brand preference.
MGT 749 Advanced Marketing Strategy and Planning (3 credits)
The advertising plan is a critical part of the overall marketing plan for products. Proper utilization of the 4 Ps of the marketing mix in the formulation of strategy will determine the future effectiveness of a campaign. This course will teach you how integrated marketing communications, through targeted strategic planning, will help ensure success of all of the key elements of an advertising campaign. This course will also cover the use of social media.