First Year Courses

• Financial Accounting
  Objective: To develop a sophisticated and coherent approach to the use of financial accounting information.
  
  Course Description: An examination of the strengths and weaknesses of the information produced in financial reports as well as the pressures faced by management and auditors as they prepare financial statements and the impact of accounting information on strategic decisions.
• Statistics and Decision Analysis
  Objective: To enable an understanding of the extraction of information from data and how decisions are made with imperfect information. To develop and motivate fundamental statistical principles and methods, and to illustrate their proper application to a wide variety of business problems.
  
  Course Description: Basic concepts of methods of data and decision analysis are introduced. These include statistical control and random processes, probability and statistical inference, regression analysis, decision making under uncertainty, and risky decision making. A study of descriptive statistics, probability distributions, sampling distributions, estimation, hypothesis testing, statistical control and random walks.
• Leading People and Organizations
  Objective: To develop effective managerial skills and the ability to lead organizations through change.
  
  Course Description: Through a sequence of readings, lectures, cases and experiential exercises, students will be introduced to frameworks from the social sciences that are useful for understanding organizational processes and learn how to apply these frameworks to particular situations. This course is designed to sharpen students' ability to diagnose and solve a broad range of organizational problems from the perspective of an organizational consultant.
• Financial Management
  Objective: To examine the role of financial management in creating value and to present the analytic framework used in the study of finance.
  
  Course Description: A study of the basic concepts of valuation theory and efficient markets. An examination of capital budgeting; cost of capital; capital structure and dividend policy; agency theory; issues of corporate control and governance; the workings of the debt and equity markets; and the options perspective of debt and equity.
  
• Operations Management
  Objective: To provide a process-oriented understanding of operations.
  
  Course Description: An examination of processes that transform inputs into finished goods and services, process improvement, total quality management, product and process development, and supply chain management; the relation of operations strategy to product and service design and to business strategy.
  
• International Management Seminar/Global Studies Trip
  In addition to a seminar in comparative international management, students attend an international group study tour. Prior to the trip, students will learn about the history, culture, politics, and economics of a region. The trip will involve company visits as well as visiting cultural sites. Students will have the opportunity to meet with local business leaders, government officials and academic experts in the region. Students also have the opportunity to travel through the region before or after the main trip.
  
  

  The Texas MBA program office makes the arrangements and financial deposits for the international trips based on 100% attendance. Should a student be scheduled for a particular trip and then cancel, that student will be responsible for any costs incurred on his or her behalf. Students are responsible for making their own travel arrangements to and from the designated city of the trip. Should you have any issues that could impact your ability to travel, please immediately consult with the program office. The international trip is a course and, as such, attendance and participation in all scheduled events is mandatory.

• Managerial Economics
  Objective: To analyze the economic constraints and forces determining the profitability and viability of the firm.
  
  Course Description: A study of many of the microeconomic and macroeconomic variables that arise in our economy which can benefit or hinder business decisions. Provides an understanding of the economic forces, both domestic and international, that influence management decisions and corporate performance. Topics include interest rates, economic policy, business cycles, input demand and supply, market structure, and externalities.
  
• Strategies for Networked Economy
  Objective: To provide a business perspective on how to improve and manage critical business process using IT and how to estimate and realize the associated business value.
  
  Course Description: Today, IT permeates every aspect of a company's operations, creating unparalleled opportunities for driving the customer experience, understanding, analyzing and improving business processes, delivering financially validated savings, driving bottom-line improvements and achieving competitive advantage through business process excellence. The focus of this course is how firms achieve operational and strategic business excellence through business process management (BPM), business process improvement (BPI) and business process reengineering (BPR) supported by information technology (IT).
  

Second Year Courses

• Strategic Management 
  Objective: To develop a strategic management orientation by learning new skills and by synthesizing knowledge obtained through prior course and work experience.
  
  Course Description: A study of the role of the general manager in: articulating organizational objectives; formulating and implementing organizational strategies; motivating and managing strategic change.
  
• Marketing Management
  Objective: To build an understanding of the key elements of marketing and distribution.
  
  Course Description: An examination of the marketing function and how it relates to value creation, strategic corporate management, and marketing decisions. Both theory and cases are used to develop a managerial perspective of marketing and to link marketing strategy to financial value.
• Investment Theory and Advanced Topics in Corporate Finance
  Objective: This course focuses on the examination and valuation of the major investment vehicles popular today throughout the world. To extend the discussion of basic corporate financial management decision-making process begun the Financial Management course.
  
  Course Description: Investments is the study of financial assets and pricing. An examination of the pricing and the use of equity securities, fixed income securities, and options. Additional topics covered include: modern portfolio theory; the capital asset pricing model; the relationship between the economy and financial securities; the functioning of markets; asset allocation; measuring returns; and mutual funds. Topics covered in the course will include: an overview of financial management in the global marketplace; comparisons of financial and real investments; valuing real assets and real options; valuation with taxation; the role of financial leverage; optimal capital structure; bondholder-stockholder conflicts; stockholder-owner conflicts; evaluating financial distress; optimal debt management; managerial incentives and compensation arrangements; value-based management and information management; corporate control and restructuring; mergers, acquisitions, takeovers, spinoffs and selloffs; corporate governance issues; and the role of institutional activism.
  
• Advanced Marketing
  Objective: To provide an overview of the components and considerations involved in marketing communications strategy decisions.
  
  Course Description: Students will participate in a competitive marketing simulation designed to focus on strategic marketing issues.
  
• Legal Environment of Business 
  Objective: To provide an understanding of significant legal constraints that affect the management decision-making process.
  
  Course Description: A study of selected internal legal constraints imposed on business by contractual relationships, by external legal constraints, by actual and potential liabilities, by statutes governing the sale and purchase of goods, and by rights and duties imposed in debtor-creditor relationships. The study of the various means and procedures for resolving legal disputes in business matters.
  
• Managerial Accounting and Financial Statement Analysis
  Objective: To examine cost accounting systems, decision support systems, and management control systems in order to develop skill in and understanding of the use of internal accounting data by management. To understand a company's history, current position and future financial prospects.
  
  Course Description: An investigation of the construction and strategic use of cost accounting systems including activity-based costing; decision support systems, including relevant costs and capital budgeting; management control systems, including planning and budgeting systems. Specific topics in Financial Statement Analysis include: analyzing the firm's industry and economic environment; analyzing the firm's recent financial performance; analyzing the firm's accounting methods and evaluating the quality of financial reporting; forecasting the firm's future financial performance and independently estimating the value of a firm.
• Art and Science of Negotiation 
  Objective: To create an understanding of the theory and processes of negotiation as it is practiced in a variety of settings.
  
  Course Description: The course is designed to be relevant to the broad spectrum of negotiation problems that are faced by the manager and professional. The course will allow the participants to develop a broad array of negotiation skills experientially and to understand negotiations in useful analytical frameworks. Considerable emphasis will be placed on simulations, role playing and cases.
• Business Ethics
  Objective: To examine the social and ethical responsibility of business.
  
  Course Description: A study of the appropriate roles of business in society; the roles of government and regulation in monitoring business; and the ethical responsibilities of managers.
• Capstone Integrative
  The academic goal of the Capstone Integrative is to develop the skills necessary for creating a new venture, with a focus on market validation, business model development, financing and communicating through written and verbal presentation formats. At the end of this course, you will be able to evaluate business opportunities as both an entrepreneur and an investor, within start-ups and established companies. This course will call on the core skills you have built as MBA candidates and will enable you to integrate horizontally the vertical skills you have developed in your other coursework. For the final class weekend in your second year, you will return to the AT&T Center on the University of Texas at Austin campus. This weekend will include activities such as the Capstone Competition.