Master of Science in Business

Graduate Thesis

Master of Science in Business: Administration

The Master of Science program in Business: Administration is broad-based with due emphasis on theoretical constructs and practical applications. It is a program designed for professionals or para-professionals who are often employed as managers or management trainees in business organizations. Students develop, hone and refine and acquire decision-making skills that are crucial to effective management of an organization and its personnel. They will learn to apply sophisticated quantitative and analytical tools, and how to assess and act on complex financial and economic indicators. Strategic planning will also be explored, and program participants will come to understand how the amalgam of sub-fields studied combine to influence organizational structure, culture, and linked control systems. Program curriculum is also designed to provide a global management perspective for managers and leaders operating in an international environment. Among the topics considered are political, cultural, legal and technological forces in the competitive environment.

Program Objectives:

• Prepare for leadership and service within a broad spectrum of business and business-related arenas, by demonstration of process and organizational mastery.
• Hone formerly-acquired tools specific to business processes and procedures and manifest the capacity to understand the principal theory, significance and practical applications related to a broad range of complex issues within the business sector.
• Evidence a comprehensive, nuanced understanding of the functional components of business - economics, marketing, accounting, finance, law, management, thus enabling the holder of the Master’s degree to assume managerial and leadership positions and like positions in which they will have the occasion to contribute to the development, sustenance or growth of the organization.
• Develop and be prepared to articulate and contextualize a significant understanding of ethical situations commonly encountered in business environments. Such an understanding should allow for solution-centered contributions.
• Prepare to embrace and oversee global, political, social, legal, regulatory, and technological issues as they relate to business: knowledge put into applied use.
• Demonstrate preparedness for technical and professional requirements of the workplace, including, where requisite, certification examinations and other formalized verifications of competency and knowledge acquisition.
• Demonstrate an understanding of economic and business theories which, via critical thinking and systematic, informed analysis, allow for strategic contributions that will advance an organization.
• Demonstrate a substantial level of technical skills acquisition – in order to ensure the ability to create an array of documents and to produce data analysis reports, as needed or desirable.
• Further hone communicative skills, which underpin the ability to conduct independent research and to formulate documents, reports, and publications that manifest mastery of content and execution.

Career Opportunities: The successful graduate will be suitably prepared to assume managerial and leadership-level positions in the corporate sector, in industry, in government, in other professional arenas – or, alternatively, to assume enhanced (administrative and managerial) responsibilities within the context of a currently-held position. The degree, founded on, and grounded in, intensive training and high-pitched expectations, is intended to provide the keys to advancement and expanded opportunities at the management levels.

Master of Science in Business: Finance

The Master in Science program in Business: Finance equips graduate students with the skills necessary to excel in today’s financial marketplace. The intensive training prepares degree candidates to assume a wide range of professional responsibilities in the financial industry (including financial engineering, investments management, financial decision-making, quantitative asset management, managerial economics, financial forecasting, financial institutions, and applied research). There is focused on the role of financial intermediaries; valuation of financial assets; determination and behavior of interest rates; incentives and determinants of corporate behavior. The curriculum is designed to build and strengthen skills in financial operations, financial decisions, investment strategies and investment management.

Program Objectives:

• Evidence mastery of the major functional areas of business including: the ability to develop, emend, analyze and produce formalize reports relevant to financial information
• Refine and expand knowledge of finance-based applications which allow for the inclusion of complex financial information in both reporting and in managerial decision-making.
• Identify and embrace the responsibilities of a financial manager’s roles in the areas of planning, organizing, directing, and controlling, with specific expertise in the area of financial leadership.
• Manifest a deep-rooted understanding of the finance and marketing mix to successfully perform what can often be competitive and complex environments.
• Acquire an extended familiarity with fundamental legal concepts and their applications within the business community.
• Manifest substantial knowledge of the use of information technology in managing organizations and the ability to apply modern scientific and mathematical methods to management and finance-related problems with a reasonable degree of sophistication.
• Apply theoretical knowledge to the solution of complex, financial problems -- both individually (in a managerial/leadership role) and through teamwork within the context of an active work environment.
• Demonstrate advanced sills that allow one to direct and executive complex analytical and objective problem solving adapted to the contextual needs of given organizations.
• Further hone communicative skills, which underpin the ability to conduct independent research and to formulate documents, reports, and publications that manifest mastery of content and execution.

Career Opportunities: Employment opportunities are readily identified in corporations, small firms, investment brokerages, financial institutions, government and not-for-profit organizations. Further opportunities include positions within research organizations and consultancy-based enterprises. The program is designed to provide an integral management perspective for leaders operating in domestic and international environments, with a focus on financial leadership.

Master of Science in Business: International Business

The Master of Science program in Business: International Business is centered on global perspectives. The degree provides an opportunity to acquire knowledge and skills in core business disciplines, all with an international focus (comparative, contrastive, contextual) specialization. The curriculum is designed to promote both depth and breadth: marketing, strategy, finance, and operations management. Students will develop business and decision-making skills that are crucial to the direction of organizations within international environments, where the issues present special challenges and call for correlative solutions. Students develop a comprehensive vision of globalization of markets and production, global trade, regional trade agreements and supra-national organizations, the effects of foreign exchange systems and the refined tools required to assess, manage and effect decisions as a function of this confluence of carefully analyzed phenomena and procedures.

Program Objectives:

• Develop and implement creative, often sophisticated, solutions to an array of complex business/administrative/managerial problems with specific focus on comparative and contrastive international settings and an awareness of the given cultural environment.
• Establish a finely-honed understanding of, and sensitivity to, principal complexities (differences and likenesses) between and among business practices across geographical and cultural boundaries.
• Develop a significant, usable knowledge of information technology (a broad skill-set) in managing national and international organizations and the ability to apply modern scientific and mathematical methods to management, leadership and other business-related problems.
• Demonstrate a cross-disciplinary understanding of the functional components of business - economics, marketing, accounting, finance, law, management, both in the US and in a variety of other international settings.
• Evidence the ability to develop, implement and communicate solid business policy using case analysis and discussion (based on the identification and study of comparative and contrastive operations and decisions in various international forums).
• Apply theoretical knowledge to the solution of real-life (field related) problems both individually and through teamwork within the context of multiple active learning environments.
• Manifest a solid command of global, political, social, legal/regulatory, and technological issues as they relate to and impact international business.
• Demonstrate analytical and objective problem solving commonly encountered in international business, including the more complex and multi-focal issues that arise.
• Further hone communicative skills, which underpin the ability to conduct independent research and to formulate documents, reports, and publications that manifest mastery of content and execution.

Career Opportunities:The successful graduate will be well prepared to assume managerial roles in the multi-national corporate sector, in industry, in government, in other professional arenas where awareness of, and sensitivity to, cross-cultural environments are essential. Alternatively, the graduate will be prepared to assume enhanced (internationally-based or globally-focused) responsibilities within the context of a currently-held position at the level of management and leadership. Graduates may wish to consider as well leadership opportunities with parent companies having foreign subsidiaries, import/export-oriented firms and public sector bodies involved in cross border and/or commercial transactions. Global emphases, with intense and expansive comparative and contrastive analysis, clearly distinguish this particular curricular option.

Master of Science in Business: Marketing

The Master of Science program in Business: Marketing is designed to provide graduate students advanced analytical marketing skills and hands-on marketing-project management experience. The curriculum affords a strong foundation in a variety of areas: brand and product management; logistics and supply chain management; marketing research and analysis; management consulting and project management; professional selling and sales management; retail management, services marketing and buying. The objective of this specialized program is to develop mastery of marketing analysis and communications to support business marketing strategy and marketing decisions within the corporate sector and within other public and private organizational settings. Students will acquire decision-making skills and will learn how to apply sophisticated quantitative and analytical tools, how to assess and act on complex political, cultural, legal and technological issues, all of which inform the multi-focal areas of marketing, within the corporate environment and well beyond.

Program Objectives:

• Develop significant mastery of the major functional areas of business including: the ability to prepare, read, analyze and communicate marketing-centered processes, data, and findings and, at the managerial level, to use analytical processes in the course of decision-making and organizational strategy.
• Refine and advance the process by which marketing-based information is analytically reviewed and presented so as to provide a foundation for relevant managerial decisions.
• Demonstrate significant competency in the areas of complex, specialized and often creative-based skill-sets specifically associated with marketing.
• Demonstrate a solidified understanding marketing manager’s (leader’s team-leader’s) roles in the areas of planning, organizing, directing, design, delegation and oversight.
• Manifest the capacity to synthesize and contextualize the multi-variable elements of the marketing mix in order to perform successfully lead within that competitive and complex environment.
• Evidence a well-informed understanding of legal concepts as applied to marketing and their application to the business community.
• Develop a significant knowledge of the use of information technology in managing organizations and the ability to apply modern scientific and mathematical methods to management and marketing-related data analysis, presentation, problems and solutions.
• Master the art of reviewing, calibrating and, as suitable applying case analysis data and materials so as to integrate suitable marketing strategies within the complex plexus of the organization and in order to communicate recommendations to other members of the marketing team and the executive body.
• Further hone communicative skills, which underpin the ability to conduct independent research and to formulate documents, reports, and publications that manifest mastery of content and execution.

Career Opportunities: The successful graduate will be suitably prepared to assume managerial-level positions in the marketing division of the corporate sector, in industry, in government, in other professional arenas – or, alternatively, to assume enhanced responsibilities within the context of a currently-held (marketing-focused) position. Leadership opportunities in sales and sales management, retail management, product and brand management, market research, advertising, distribution and logistics, purchasing are also viable options for program graduates.