MBA in General Studies
To earn a MBA in General Business Studies, you'll need to complete 12 courses:
Total Credits: 36
The Ellis MBA core curriculum prepares you with the skills and knowledge you need for managing individuals and running organizations. While undertaking one of Ellis University's online MBA programs, you'll learn how to design, evaluate, and improve the processes and procedures that compose businesses. You'll also learn how to put together sound business tactics and strategies that are grounded in solid economic principles.
In addition to the core courses, you'll have the opportunity to explore advanced concepts through your elective courses. Choose three courses from any of the MBA specializations. You can take courses from a single specialization or select courses according to your interests.
Whether you're searching for a distance learning MBA program, or just prefer the flexibility of online learning, Ellis MBA programs give you everything you want from a respected, online MBA school. For more information on the MBA Program, see Frequently Asked Questions.
Ellis MBA Core Curriculum
For both MBA program options, students complete nine core courses (27 credits) that explore fundamental business concepts essential for every manager.
The Ellis MBA core curriculum grounds students in business language and skills for managing individuals and organizations. Students learn how to design, evaluate, and improve the processes and procedures that constitute a business. Students also learn how to formulate sound business tactics and strategies that are grounded in solid economic principles. The core also provides a basis from which students can explore more advanced concepts through elective courses.
- 9 courses from the Core Curriculum
- 3 electives
Total Credits: 36
The Ellis MBA core curriculum prepares you with the skills and knowledge you need for managing individuals and running organizations. While undertaking one of Ellis University's online MBA programs, you'll learn how to design, evaluate, and improve the processes and procedures that compose businesses. You'll also learn how to put together sound business tactics and strategies that are grounded in solid economic principles.
In addition to the core courses, you'll have the opportunity to explore advanced concepts through your elective courses. Choose three courses from any of the MBA specializations. You can take courses from a single specialization or select courses according to your interests.
Whether you're searching for a distance learning MBA program, or just prefer the flexibility of online learning, Ellis MBA programs give you everything you want from a respected, online MBA school. For more information on the MBA Program, see Frequently Asked Questions.
Ellis MBA Core Curriculum
For both MBA program options, students complete nine core courses (27 credits) that explore fundamental business concepts essential for every manager.
The Ellis MBA core curriculum grounds students in business language and skills for managing individuals and organizations. Students learn how to design, evaluate, and improve the processes and procedures that constitute a business. Students also learn how to formulate sound business tactics and strategies that are grounded in solid economic principles. The core also provides a basis from which students can explore more advanced concepts through elective courses.
MBA in General Studies - Program Outline
Core Courses
| Code | Course Name | Credits |
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- This course focuses on problem solving techniques that take into consideration all aspects of the organization: the people, informal organization, work, formal organization, and external culture. Students are introduced to a process to identify management problems through root-cause analysis, diagnose the causes of the problems, recommend solutions, and plan implementation.
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- This course focuses on analyzing the marketing environment, including customers and competition, as well as how the marketing efforts align with the strategic goals of the company. As part of the MBA curriculum, students learn to determine which customers should be targeted in the marketing effort, choose which products the company should offer, establish how and when customers will be informed about the product, determine the best pricing strategy for a product and decide the best way to get the product to market.
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- Major topics in this MBA curriculum course include profit-maximization for a competitive firm, economic allocation of costs, price discrimination and other pricing strategies, pricing with market power, and an introduction to game theory.
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- This course focuses on how managers use corporate accounting information for making business decisions. Major topics include the use of financial statements and accounting information to determine profitability and financial performance, risk, differences in structure and business models, and the relationship of cash flow statements to the balance sheet and income statements, and the use of ratios to assess the quality of a company's accounting information, and the use of internal operating metrics.
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- This course introduces the fundamental financial concepts managers use to make crucial corporate investment decisions. Students in the MBA curriculum will also encounter important concepts such as free cash flow and the cost of capital. Students will learn to use techniques such as net present value (NPV), internal rate of return (IRR), Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), capital budgeting, and regression output to distinguish between systematic and unsystematic risk.
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- Major topics include engineering business processes, choosing the right architecture for production systems, capacity sizing and timing, lead time management, and supply chain management.
- Major topics include engineering business processes, choosing the right architecture for production systems, capacity sizing and timing, lead time management, and supply chain management.
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- Many decision situations such as optimization and risk lend themselves to quantitative modeling. The first major topic is optimization using linear programming, non-linear programming and integer programming with the Excel add-in Solver. The other major topic is Monte Carlo simulation using the Excel add-in Crystal Ball to analyze decisions involving uncertainty and risk.
- Many decision situations such as optimization and risk lend themselves to quantitative modeling. The first major topic is optimization using linear programming, non-linear programming and integer programming with the Excel add-in Solver. The other major topic is Monte Carlo simulation using the Excel add-in Crystal Ball to analyze decisions involving uncertainty and risk.
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- This course introduces the student to an integrated framework for global management. This framework focuses on the relationships between organizational structure, environment (market and non-market), and strategy-the Organization-Environment-Strategy ("OES") triangle. This approach offers managers a systematic way of thinking about basic global strategy decisions and key tradeoffs.
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- Part of the MBA curriculum, this course includes industry analysis, six forces analysis, identifying competitive advantages, and strategy evaluation.
Electives (Choose 3 Courses)
| Code | Course Name | Credits |
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- What are the common pitfalls that most managers fall into when making decisions? This course discusses descriptive decision models and the heuristics and biases that lead people to poor decisions. Prescriptive models such as multi-criteria decision analysis, probability models, and decision trees are presented that show how to structure values and risk to make better decisions. Decision support software is used in the course as an integral part of management decision making.
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- A detailed examination of the relationship involving consumption, investment spending, the impact that government and international economic transactions have on the economy and the special role that money and interest rates play in determining output and employment levels. Also, analyses and phenomena of productivity and economic growth, including a discussion of the major theoretical approaches to these issues.
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- This course is designed to bridge the gap between the abstract-theoretical models and the practical data-based needs of decision-makers. It is also intended to provide decision-makers with a compact and consistent framework for a sophisticated reading of economic signals for the gauging of the state of the global economy. A small subset of economic indicators will be used to capture the essence of the bewildering stream of economic signals about performance and trends in economic activity. This course examines sources of international economic information for the monitoring of trends in international economic performance by regions and sectors. Global competitive reports are used to gain a comprehensive world economic outlook.
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- This course teaches how multi-national firms or firms facing international competition manage financial risk unique to a multi-national setting such as fluctuations in currency exchange rates, interest rates, and political stability. Prerequisite: MBA 504. Specializations: Finance, Global Management.
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- This course involves study and analysis of various forms of derivative securities. Explanation of various risk-transfer devices such as options and futures contracts, valuation of and strategies involved in trading these securities, hedging and speculating with options and futures. Specialization: Finance.
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- Major topics include capital structure, determining discount rates, the risk return tradeoff, capital markets, and derivatives and options. Specialization: Finance.
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- This course explores different trends in the assurance area. Assurance services include professional activities that improve information quality for decision makers. Major course topics include assurance services and corporate governance, continuous auditing, international assurance models, earnings management, and fraud detection. Specialization: Accounting and Information Systems.
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- Risk Management covers the fundamental principles of financial risk management, evaluating risks, and managing them using derivative securities. The objective of this course is to present a realistic overview of risk management for multinational corporations. This course involves study and analysis of various forms of risk-transfer financial instruments, such as options and futures contracts, valuation of these securities, and hedging with options and futures. Specialization: Risk Management.
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- This course will focus on financial institutions and markets in the context of portfolio construction, management, performance evaluation and performance presentation standards. Specific topics include: capital markets and money markets, roles and functions of monetary institutions, sources and uses of funds, institutional investors, economic indicators, sources of information on global markets, the efficient market hypothesis, market inefficiencies and selection criteria, portfolio diversification methods, asset pricing models, portfolio construction and asset allocations, hedging and risk management, performance presentation standards, performance evaluation and attribution.
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- Managerial policies in the management of health care facilities, budgeting and cost-effectiveness analysis, and development of health information systems. Specialization: Health Care Administration.
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- Methods of health care delivery and conditions imposed externally and internally in compliance with regulations and laws that relate to such institutions as health maintenance organizations, health care corporation, group practice clinics, prepaid health care organizations. Specialization: Health Care Administration.
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- Politics and economics of health care, national health insurance and risk factors and their effect on the economy. Providers of these services will be studied. Changing legislation relating to the operation and management of health care facilities. Specialization: Health Care Administration.
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- This course explores different methodologies and perspectives in the risk and control area. Major course topics include risk assessment models, operational and organizational control structures, and strategic use of risk and control feedback. Specializations: Accounting and Information Systems, Management of Information Systems, Risk Management.
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- Reviews the current security issues in terms of technical, managerial, and legal aspects in a gamut of information systems, with emphasis on electronic commerce. Prevention and administration techniques for securing computers and networks will be discussed in terms of theory and practice. Specialization: Risk Management.
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- Major topics include determining business problems or questions that might be effectively answered via data mining, comparing and contrasting different data mining techniques, evaluating data mining reports, developing organizational policies on data mining, understanding the typical data-mining project cycle, and developing a plan for implementing and evaluating data mining. Specializations: Accounting and Information Systems, Management of Information Systems.
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- Introduces the use of the information resources through which a business can achieve competitive advantage. Topics covered include systems development, end-user computing approaches, computer-based information systems, and enterprise computing, both domestic and global. Specializations: Management of Information Systems, Management of Technology.
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- Effective managerial decision making and financial planning through accounting information and costing systems, performance evaluation and control of operations, budgeting, and management of assets. Specialization: Professional Accounting.
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- An analysis and evaluation of corporate financial statements as an aid to accountants, security analysis, lending officers and managers in making decisions based on financial data. Financial statements will be reviewed for fairness and completeness in reporting and revision will be made to financial statement data for analytical purposes. Communication of such analysis will be discussed.
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- Accounting concepts and principles are combined with accounting practices and methods in order to provide a comprehensive presentation of the discipline of financial accounting. Interpretation and use of financial statements is covered with a focus on the complementary relationships between the accrual and historical cost-based traditional financial statements, on the one hand, and the newer statement of cash flow on the other. Specific topics include: accounting for revenues, expenses, assets, liabilities, and owners' equity; financial statements, and accrual income and framework for financial statement analysis. Prerequisite: MBA 503. Specialization: Professional Accounting.
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- Analyze the general characteristics of computer systems and programming languages. Develop criteria to evaluate hardware and software selection for "end users" and information systems development.
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- A study of federal tax structure as it applies to the taxation of individuals and corporations. Property transactions are also covered in this course. The course will include elements of tax research, communication of tax strategies, ethics and the preparation of tax forms. A tax research project is required.
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- Application of systems approach to the analysis and design of information systems. Topics covered include techniques for information requirement analysis, systems analysis issues, design theory, design techniques, system development life cycle and project management issues.
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- Business combinations and consolidated financial statements under the purchase method and the accounting for goodwill is the core of this course. Specialized topics include branch accounting, partnership and foreign currency translation. A research project is required.
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- This course focuses on the general concepts and methodologies in file and data-base management systems-data representation, data modeling and file organization. Additional focus will be on the movement of data to related data-base systems within and outside the user organization. Students are required to understand the architecture of and start implementing simple data-base applications using commercially available packages.
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- Fundamentals of auditing principles and procedures under generally accepted auditing standards will be covered. Auditor's reports, professional ethics and legal responsibilities, EDP considerations, statistical sampling, applications in auditing, the role of internal control in relation to the auditor and substantive audit procedures of assets, liabilities and equity capital will be reviewed. Communication of auditor findings to applicable parties will also be studied. Specialization: Professional Accounting.
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- This course provides an introduction to networking, generating and receiving data, encoding and decoding, local area and wide area networks, client server networks, decentralized and centralized networks. Topics include data transmission channels, procedures, security, electronic mail, electronic fund transfer, network administration, and integration of networks and databases.
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- Principles of Project Management introduces the fundamental concepts, principles, and practices of the project management field. Topics include defining scope, assessing risk, assessing cost, developing timelines, planning communication, considering procurement, human resource and integration issues, and defining and managing quality for a variety of project management settings. Specializaton: Project Management.
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- This course explores the importance of corporate visionary as a source of long-term business success, as well as the practical guidelines for how to move one's organization toward that status. This course elaborates on the visionary frameworks identified in book Built to Last. The material emphasizes the organizational change principles necessary to implement the Built to Last vision framework. Specialization: Leadership.
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- This course explores current organizational and behavioral challenges in successful project management. Topics include organizational change and professional project management development. Specialization: Project Management.
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- Major topics include analyzing simultaneous and sequential games (Nash equilibrium, backwards induction, sensitivity analysis), valuing information, information as a commodity and information markets, problems of information asymmetry (including moral hazard and adverse selection), and auctions. Specializations: Strategy and Economics, E-Commerce, Management of Technology.
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- An introduction to human resource management in the modern organization. Major functional areas including employment, compensation, benefits, HRIS, employee and labor relations, training and development, human resource planning, personnel policy and procedures are covered. Specialization: Human Resources Management.
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- This course will concentrate on development and execution of export/import operations. Sources of data and methods for evaluating market potential within the context of international agreements and regulations are explored. The methods of executing export/import transactions, including instruments of trade financing, are examined extensively. Specialization: Global Management.
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- This course explores the definitions and philosophies of leadership in the corporate environment. Topics include how leadership is instilled through education and training, the role of values and ethics in leadership, the role of power and influence and an exploration of successful leadership traits. Specialization: Leadership.
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- Major topics include barriers to implementing organizational change; chaos, anxiety and political sources of employee resistance to change; using Dissatisfaction, Vision and Process tools to implement change; applying different leadership styles to supporting change; and balancing change for dynamic stability using different implementation approaches and pacing of different kinds of changes. Specialization: Leadership.
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- This course introduces the student to analytic methods for managing employees that are based on economic principles. It also covers important concepts such as job design. This course is useful to managers who want concise ways to think about building the right workforce and motivating it efficiently. Specialization: Human Resources Management.
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- An introduction to fundamental concepts, principles and practices of the collective bargaining process from the organization of workers through negotiations. Topics include subjects of bargaining, strikes, slowdowns, contract administration and enforcement. The course also examines the roles of participants and of government agencies as related to the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, in the process. Specialization: Human Resources Management.
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- Cross-Cultural Promotional Concepts and Practices is designed to sensitize the student to the cultural antecedents of managing promotional activities in international settings. Of special concern are the areas of advertising, public relations, publicity, personal selling, and negotiations. Students will investigate management of these functions within the context of methodologies applicable to measurement and understanding of cultures, customs, and business practices.
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- This course explores quality assurance topics that are suitable in applications for various business disciplines. Course discussions include the latest in quality and productivity improvement tools, leadership requirements in quality organizations to manage change, and innovation. Advanced topics related to the principles and application of quality management methodologies are presented. Specialization: Project Management.
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- This course helps students recognize negotiation opportunities in all walks of life; negotiate rationally by using knowledge of perceptions and biases, develop effective negotiation plans, form coalitions and strategic relationships, and conduct post negotiation audits to improve their future negotiations. Specialization: Human Resources Management.
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- Major topics include the collection and use of online customer data, attracting customers to a web site, using a web site to create customer value, transitioning customers to online purchasing, and competition strategies in industries with both online and traditional channels. Specialization: Marketing, E-Commerce.
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- In this course, students will engage in some of the activities required when developing a marketing plan for a new product, including marketing research and post research to measure the success of the product's introduction. Students will develop a branding strategy for a new product and the marketing communication strategies to communicate the benefits of the new product to the marketplace. Specialization: Marketing.
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- Application of fundamental management principles to the sales function of a marketing oriented firm. The course focuses on the external and internal responsibilities of the sales manager who has to generate and maintain an adequate sales volume while profitably managing human, physical and geographic resources.
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- This course teaches the organizational and marketing skills to develop new products. Specific approaches to organizing product development processes and teams, choosing markets, generating and evaluating product ideas, choosing product attributes, predicting the success of new products and launching products are covered. Specialization: Marketing.
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- The course addresses the issues arising in the process of generating data and information for decision making in the area of marketing. Emphases are on the validity and reliability of the techniques associated with exploratory, descriptive and causal research designs; methodologies in measurement and scaling, sampling and fieldwork. Basic parametric and nonparametric techniques of data analysis are explored. Students gain experience in analyzing "real-life" marketing research data, which provides some exposure to the multivariate data analysis.
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- Problems of cross-national marketing; identification of market potential; development of strategies to suit cultural differences; management of multinational marketing efforts. The development of product promotion policies, pricing strategies and distribution methods. Legal aspects of international marketing. Government trade regulations and impediments to technological innovation in developing countries. The political dimensions of multinational marketing. Specialization: Marketing, Global Mangement.
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- This course will deal with fundamental concepts of marketing communication, including assessment of demand and legal environment of marketing communication; government impact on advertising and promotion through the Federal Trade Commission and other regulatory agencies. It also covers the development of promotion budgets; management of the advertising function; relationships with outside agencies; personal selling and supportive communication; the conditions of and integrations with the entire promotional program: and economic and social dimensions of promotional strategy.
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- This course is intended to help students make ethical choices in a business context. Students analyze case studies dealing with such topics as employee rights and responsibilities, consumer issues and product liability, community and environmental issues and ethical norms in different cultures. In each area, an analytic framework is used to identify stakeholder rights and interests, and relevant moral duties and virtues. Specialization: Leadership.
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- Major topics include vertical integration, strategic alliances, and strategies for technology companies. Specialization: Strategy and Economics, Management of Technology.