Business Administration

This course introduces the world of digital platforms and helps understand what makes them click. From network effects to monetization strategies to metrics, students are exposed to the underlying nuts and bolts of creating successful digital platforms. Digital platforms – whose value proposition differs from the traditional pipeline business paradigm – still employ certain business fundamentals such as corporate governance, customer lifetime value, pricing, etc. The course also curates these fundamentals and applies them to a platform setting. Overall, the course aims to equip students to critically analyze digital platforms and serve as an impetus to creating their own. In this interdisciplinary course, students are exposed to the world of platform-based business models as well as the underlying fundamentals of finance and marketing. The course tries to answer interesting questions such as: what’s Airbnb’s business model, how much do you have to save every year for retirement, how do you read a company’s balance sheet, why is Starbucks successful, how do you price a product, etc. For the platforms section of this course, students learn about platform models of business and how they differ from a traditional pipeline model of business. Students learn how platforms generate value through network effects. Students are exposed to the types of metrics they should keep in mind during various phases of a platform: startup, growth, and maturity. Finally, students learn about the types of industries most susceptible to the platform revolution, and thus, the future of platforms. For the finance part, students learn four carefully curated topics: corporate governance, basics of financial accounting, financial statement analysis, and time value of money. These topics allow a student to easily grasp the fundamentals of modern corporate finance and help to critically analyze contemporary issues in the world of business. The marketing part of the course attempts to unravel the secrets of what it takes to be global leaders in various products and services. The course delves into the fundamentals of marketing and introduces the idea of customer lifetime value-a principle that’s indispensable in today’s world of platforms. Finally, the course explores the idea of pricing, and various pricing strategies that are used by successful companies.

This course develops appropriate methods and constructs enabling students to examine forces operating within food supply chains. The course covers supply chain analysis, vertical coordination, power and analytical frameworks. 

This interdisciplinary course provides students with the opportunity to address complex problems identified by industry, community, and government organizations, and gain valuable experience in working across disciplinary boundaries. In collaboration with a
major industry partner and an academic lead, students integrate their academic skills and knowledge by working in teams with students from a range of disciplinary backgrounds. This experience allows students to research, analyze and present solutions to a real-world problem, and to build on their interpersonal and transferable skills by engaging with and learning from industry experts and presenting their ideas and solutions to the industry partner.

This course examines concepts of system analysis and design. 

This course explores the theories and concepts drawn from research in marketing psychology and how these shed light on consumers' motivations and behaviors. It examines fundamental processes in consumer behavior, such as decision-making, perception, learning, memory, the self, attitudes, and persuasion. It investigates the extent to which these processes are influenced by individual, situational, environmental, inter-personal, and cultural (sub-cultural) factors. Through a focus on contemporary issues in consumer behavior, and the challenges these may pose to marketing managers, students apply conceptual and theoretical ideas in marketing psychology and to analyze, evaluate, and improve, marketing strategies. Students reflect and critically evaluate their own behaviors as consumers.

Operations management can be defined as the design, operation, and improvement of the systems that create and deliver the firm's primary products and services. This class provides an understanding of the operations management function and its relationship to other functional areas within the firm (both services and manufacturing). It develops frameworks to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of a firm's operations and to develop viable alternatives in pursuing its goals and objectives. 

The course also examines the tradeoffs that managers face in emphasizing one goal (such as high-capacity utilization) as compared to another goal (such as customer service); it compares the strengths and weaknesses of different strategies and techniques, as determined by industry and global operating environments.  

Operations management provides the tools, techniques, and strategies for making organizations work more effectively and efficiently; hence, making one a better manager, within any field of business. 

Strong design cultures have proven to be a source of resilience and prosperity for nations, cities and enterprises. As recent AI developments portend disruption of industries, work, and familiar career paths, this course aims to equip students with a solid understanding of design principles and practice. Once associated with the built environment, physical products, and corporate illustration, design principles are widely applied to experiences, systems and processes, places and identities. In contrast to those familiar with humanities and sciences, the course demonstrates how design thinking represents a distinctive way of seeing and thinking yet complements and strengthens a liberal arts education. Design is optimistic, aims to make a difference through problem-finding and solving, and is inherently multi-disciplinary. By exploring the evolution of design practice through historical and contemporary examples, and a group project of design inquiry, students will begin to cultivate a design mindset. 

It is important to understand how public and private organizations work and how public and organizational policies are created. The course Public Administration and Organizations offers an introduction to the disciplines of Public Administration (focusing on the political science element of policymaking) and Organizational science. Central concepts and important theoretical themes are introduced, and the practical implications of theories are explored and practiced.

This course introduces students to the world of start-ups, SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises), and corporate venturing. It acquaints students with concepts and theories that are relevant to the process of setting up and managing a business. Students explore how entrepreneurial behavior in large companies can positively influence multiple individual and firm-level performance variables. The course also offers students a "learning-by-doing" environment in which they practice certain fundamentals of the entrepreneurial process such as value creation, opportunity recognition, and creativity. The theories covered are then applied in their specific business context. The course discusses the different steps in the entrepreneurial and small-business process including opportunity recognition; gathering resources; strategic planning in smaller companies; managing the venture; and growth, exit, or failure of the business. It also introduces different types of entrepreneurships, such as social, academic, and corporate venturing, as well as the theories that are important within this research field.