This course is designed to introduce students to the field of integrated marketing communications (IMC), which includes communication tools such as advertising, promotion, sales, and public relations, among others. The development of an IMC strategy requires an understanding of the overall marketing process, consumer behavior, and communications theory.
This course is concerned with understanding the psychology of consumer behaviors by focusing on the factors that affect the consumers' pre-purchase, purchase, and post-purchase processes. An in-depth analysis of the components of the consumer decision making process is presented in order to illustrate and integrate theoretical and empirical knowledge from a variety of perspectives. Emphasis is placed upon the evaluation of the relevance of such data and the application of what is learned in the classroom to the solution of real world marketing problems.
Marketing research is the common currency in modern business practices as business and marketing decisions rely on research to make informed choices. This course helps students: explore the critical role of marketing research in business; learn the language of marketing research; learn how to design and implement a research plan using key marketing research techniques (e.g., surveys, experiments, focus groups); analyze and interpret marketing research data; and report the results of marketing research.
The Business Leadership Seminar meets between 10-12 times per semester and offers students an opportunity to network with representatives from regional businesses and to learn about their companies' strategies and business practices. Guest speakers in the Business Leadership Seminar also discuss careers in various business fields and functional areas. Speakers present information on current leadership topics and practices and provide perspective on the theories and tools studied in class. Some seminars are devoted to the particular needs of a BLP class.
This course provides students with an introduction to the art and science of the leadership process. It is not limited to business leadership. Topics include organizational culture and climate, motivation, performance, power, tactics, ethics and values, personality traits, and intelligence. Students develop skills necessary to effectively analyze historical, contemporary, and even fictional leadership case studies. A primary aim is to help prepare students to meet the challenges of "life's leadership situations."
This course develops understandings of the dynamics and consequences of power differentials, inequalities, and divisions among cultural groups through the lens of criminal and civil law in US state and federal law. In both criminal and civil contexts, students examine the feasibility of legal pluralism in three types of cases: intra-cultural, inter-cultural, and no-longer accepted cultural practices in an intra-cultural event.
The broad objective of this course is to provide students with a framework of how taxes affect individual financial planning and corporate business activities. The course focuses on fundamental concepts and develops a conceptual framework that incorporates the myriad tax rules and exceptions of the U.S. Tax Code. The focus will not be on learning all the technical details of the Code but on the understanding of tax policy as an organic whole. The course will also examine how taxes are used as an instrument of fiscal policy and to address social issues.
To create a successful triple bottom-line organization (people, planet, profits), human resource management (HRM) practices that support this focus must be implemented.
As corporations grow in size and influence, their impact on both social wellbeing and the natural environment has increased. Understanding interactions between corporations and the social and natural environments plays a large and growing role in effective management. This course provides an overview of the opportunities and challenges that established US businesses face regarding sustainable business. Students investigate corporations' ethical, regulatory, and financial interests in relation to the social and environmental values of the communities in which they operate.
This course introduces students to the external constraints that society places on business activity and behavior. The most obvious are those constraints imposed by law in its various forms: case law from courts, statutory law from legislatures, and regulations from government agencies. However, in addition to these formal systems there are the informal, but extremely powerful constraints imposed by generally accepted moral beliefs and norms of ethical behavior.