Open Courses

Professor: Huaxia Rui
Schedule: Evenings
Registration Deadline: May 11

This course has two major objectives: to develop your ability to frame business decision problems in a way that makes them amenable to quantitative analysis, and to train you in some fundamental techniques useful for analyzing and solving these problems. The course draws on three toolkits: 1. Spreadsheets to model business problems. 2. Optimization techniques to solve complex decision problems involving many variables and constraints. 3. Monte Carlo simulation for understanding and analyzing uncertainty. Examples from different functional areas will demonstrate how the techniques taught can be applied in a practical way to a variety of settings.

Professor: Ravi Mantena
Schedule: Weekends
Registration Deadline: This deadline has passed.

This course has two major objectives: to develop your ability to frame business decision problems in a way that makes them amenable to quantitative analysis, and to train you in some fundamental techniques useful for analyzing and solving these problems. The course draws on three toolkits: 1. Spreadsheets to model business problems. 2. Optimization techniques to solve complex decision problems involving many variables and constraints. 3. Monte Carlo simulation for understanding and analyzing uncertainty. Examples from different functional areas will demonstrate how the techniques taught can be applied in a practical way to a variety of settings.

Professor: Ravi Mantena
Schedule: Evenings
Registration Deadline: This deadline has passed. 

A key goal of GBA471 is to generate insights from data to support business decision making. This course introduces basic techniques for data exploration and visualization, with an emphasis on understanding and reasoning with data and communicating data-driven results to a managerial audience. The course further covers the fundamental concepts in probability and inferential statistics necessary for understanding model building, and the use of data in decision making. Generative AI will be used to uncover conjectures for further exploration of data sets and augment attainable insights from data. Students will use Microsoft Excel and be introduced to Python for data analysis and graphing.

ACC 401 – Corporate Financial Accounting (Spring A, In Person)

Professor: Vivek Pandey
Schedule: Evenings
Registration Deadline: January 5

Corporate financial accounting is concerned with the form and content of the information firms disclose to external parties (e.g., shareholders). In the United States, financial reporting is based on generally accepted accounting principles(GAAP) set by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). GAAP define the accounting methods and disclosure practices that firms select from when providing financial statements to external parties. This course covers these principles and other important financial reporting practices. The primary focus of the course is developing the skills required to interpret and analyze financial information, rather than the skills required to prepare financial statements. Upon completion of the course, students will appreciate how financial accounting information is used in contracts between parties (e.g., lenders and the firm) and to evaluate a firm’s past performance and potential future performance.

CIS 401 – Info Systems for Management (Summer 2026, In Person)

Professor: Roy Jones
Schedule: Evenings
Registration Deadline: May 11

Information technology is transforming firms, markets, products, and processes with remarkable speed. Recent developments in AI have the potential to further accelerate the transformation. This presents managers with new challenges and valuable opportunities. This course dives into the strategic use of information technology within a business context, focusing on how it can enable competitive advantage, enhance business processes, and drive innovation. The course introduces a number of useful frameworks for analyzing the use of information technology and AI in organizations and includes some exposure to database and data visualization tools. The strategic and economic impacts of information technology are emphasized. The course is designed with line and senior managers in mind, as opposed to the managers of the IS function.

MKT 402 – Marketing Management (Spring A, In Person)

Professors: Ron Goettler
Schedule: Weekends
Registration Deadline: January 5

This course is our introduction to marketing management. The key objectives of the course are (1) to provide the student with a series of frameworks for identifying, analyzing, and solving marketing problems and (2) to enhance the student’s ability to effectively communicate analyses and solutions. We first focus on understanding the three C’s–customers, the company, and competitors. Based on this analysis, we develop a strategy for our product(s) and discuss how a marketing strategy can be implemented through the elements of the marketing mix: product design, pricing, advertising & promotion as well as channels of distribution. The class sessions consist of classroom lectures and case study discussions. Rather than focusing on internalizing facts and institutional detail, the emphasis is on critical thinking and application of the fundamental marketing strategy principles to business situations at hand.

STR 401 – Managerial Economics (Fall A, In Person)

Professor: Russell Morton
Schedule: Evenings
Registration Deadline: This deadline has passed. 

The primary objective of the course is to train students to think in economic terms, to identify the relevant economic issue in a given situation, to separate the relevant from the irrelevant, and to analyze the implications of alternative actions. Another objective is to provide an increased understanding of markets. The course presents the basic analytical tools of microeconomics, particularly as those skills are relevant to managers. Important economic concepts used in subsequent courses, such as opportunity costs and a Nash Equilibrium, are covered. Applications of marginal analysis are stressed.

STR 421 – Competitive Strategy (Spring A, In Person)

Professor: Roberto Colangelo
Schedule: Evenings
Registration Deadline: January 5

Competitive strategy deals with the most significant decisions that companies make in the marketplace, including entry into a market, product positioning, pricing, investments, technology choice and acquisitions. This course provides tools and concepts for analyzing these decisions and for designing business strategies that help firms make above-normal profits in the long run. Throughout the course, there is an emphasis on how firms interact with existing or potential competitors and other parties in the market. The tools and concepts used to understand this interaction are partly those of the traditional field of Strategic Management, but more importantly those of modern microeconomics, especially the field of Industrial Organization.
The first half of the course looks at the “big picture” and covers industry analysis, value creation and competitive advantage, and integration and diversification decisions. The second half of the course focuses on strategic interaction among firms, and covers specific topics such as the dynamics of price competition in oligopolies, commitment strategies of firms, entry and exit, networks and standards, and technological competition. The course is largely case-based. About one third of all classes are lectures; the other two thirds are case discussions.

Professor: Dan Keating
Schedule: Evenings
Registration Deadline: Spring B–January 5

GBA478 covers the application of generative AI technologies across diverse business contexts. The course will help you understand how to integrate Generative AI into today’s business workflows, providing frameworks to decide when and how to use it effectively. You’ll gain hands-on experience designing Generative AI tools to create business value and programming basic LLM-driven applications in Python. Finally, the course will ask you to become conversant with the big questions about Generative AI, to debate the moral, philosophical, and ethical challenges inherent in these systems and technologies.

Professor: Roy Jones
Schedule:  Evenings
Registration Deadline: January 5

GBA478 covers the application of generative AI technologies across diverse business contexts. The course will help you understand how to integrate Generative AI into today’s business workflows, providing frameworks to decide when and how to use it effectively. You’ll gain hands-on experience designing Generative AI tools to create business value and programming basic LLM-driven applications in Python. Finally, the course will ask you to become conversant with the big questions about Generative AI, to debate the moral, philosophical, and ethical challenges inherent in these systems and technologies.