Curriculum

Corporate Finance (I)

This course presents the central concepts and analytic methods of corporate finance. Students will learn about the structure of financial markets, the techniques and language of finance, and the various responsibilities of the corporate financial manager. In particular, the following issues will be addressed: the objective of creating shareholder value, valuation of corporate securities, including stocks and bonds, the risk-return relationship and its implications for finance and financial techniques for evaluating corporate investments.

Corporate Finance (II)

This course builds on Corporate Finance I by applying many of the concepts and tools introduced in the earlier course to understand key corporate finance issues, including corporate valuation, corporate financing, risk management and corporate restructuring.

Data Analysis

Many different skills are required in arriving at informed managerial decisions. Among these are analytical and quantitative skills. Data Analysis is one in a sequence of two courses that seeks to develop these two important skills. More formally, the goals of this course are: to introduce basic statistical techniques: summarizing and presenting data; confidence intervals and hypothesis tests; regression analysis; to implement these techniques using spreadsheets; and to become active users of data analysis in making managerial decisions.

Financial Accounting

Focuses on the preparation, understanding and analysis of financial statements: income statement, balance sheet and the statement of cash flows. These statements report a company’s profitability and financial health and are useful to all economic agents who are engaged with the firm. These include investors (actual and potential), employees, customers and governments. The overall objective of this course is to provide students with the concepts and tools needed to understand and effectively use a company’s external or financial accounting information system.

The Global Economic Environment

Provides managers with the tools necessary to intelligently interpret the national and international economic environment, including the impact of economic policies on the economy and the firm. The course develops basic macroeconomic theory to enable managers to critically evaluate economic forecasts and policy recommendations and then apply these concepts in a series of case studies.

Leadership and Teamwork

Builds on students’ leadership experience to extend their theoretical knowledge and applied skills. Using assessment tools, exercises, films, cases and other assignments, students gain a stronger understanding and skill set to excel in leadership positions today. Also provides an overview of the key issues related to managing human capital in organizations. Covers critical issues that every professional needs to know, regardless of functional area, and examines them from both a strategic and a tactical level that should be relevant to all practicing managers and leaders.

Managerial Accounting

Helps to analyze financial as well as nonfinancial information in planning, control and decision making. Managerial accounting is primarily concerned with helping managers make effective decisions related to utilization of resources, cost analysis, performance evaluation, etc. The overall objective of this course is to provide you with the concepts and tools needed to understand and effectively use a company’s internal or managerial accounting information system.

Managerial Economics and Public Policy

Examines basic microeconomic principles used by firms, including supply and demand, elasticity, costs, productivity, pricing, market structure and competitive implications of alternative market structures, market failures and government intervention, and public policy processes affecting business operations.

Marketing Management

Focuses on the development and application of a framework governing the marketing process with emphasis on strategic decisions including market segmentation, target market selection and brand positioning. Discussions include: the marketing concept, promotion strategies, go-to-market plans, pricing and sales force management.

Operations Management

Examines the strategic role that the operations function can play and offers specific tools and techniques that the firm can use for strategy execution. Covers concepts of operations management applied to both manufacturing and services, including operations strategy, analysis of process flows and bottlenecks, waiting line models, total quality management, Six Sigma and lean management.

Strategic Information Systems

Examines how to identify transformational technologies and develop strategies to take advantage of them, including case studies to illustrate managerial decisions about technology as well as lectures that help frame the issues. The course is focused on management issues and is suitable for the student with no IT experience, as well as for students with technical backgrounds who want to understand how to manage IT in the firm.

Strategic Management

Analyze and identify profit opportunities and threats in different industry and competitive environments; Analyze and identify a firm’s valuable assets, resources and capabilities and how they might be protected, leveraged, and extended in the market; Learn how to organize your company to be the best prepared to adapt its strategy over time as the market environment changes; and how to use organic growth as well as mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, alliances, and divestitures to ensure that the firm maintains the proper scale and scope to compete effectively over time.

Introduction to Fundamentals of Business

Our two-day, on-campus experience is designed to welcome you to the Smith School community. You’ll start coursework, get to know the faculty and staff at the University of Maryland, College Park, and join classmates in the program for team-building.

AI & Business Strategy Electives*

^{*Specialization coming in Spring 2025}
Foundations of AI
AI in Business Strategy
Marketing in the Age of AI

Finance Electives

Applied Equity Analysis
Commercial Bank Management
Financial Restructuring

Information Systems & Business Analytics Electives

Data Mining and Predictive Analytics
Decision Modeling
Managing Digital Businesses and Platforms
Social Media and Web Analytics

Marketing Electives

Consumer Behavior
Customer Equity Management
Marketing Analytics
Marketing in the Age of AI

Supply Chain Management Electives

Supply Chain Management
Innovative Solutions to Supply Chain Challenges
Supply Chain Risk Management

Supplemental Electives

Action Learning Projects
Corporate Venturing
Entrepreneurship
Executive Powers and Negotiation
International Business
Global Study
Organizational Change
Sustainability: Economics and Strategy