143ESTADO Y POLÍTICA EN ARGENTINA l M Barrera G Cáceres L Gielis

This program is designed in both an online and combina- tion online and face-to-face format for working professionals from a wide range of academic and organizational back- grounds. The program can be completed in 32 months without interrupting the student’s career. The objectives of the program are to explore the evolving nature of corpora- tions, blend leadership with change management, better measure an organization’s intellectual assets, merge product development with entrepreneurship, and foster new approaches to measuring the economic performance of organizations. Organizational and management processes are discussed in the context of the global business environment. The MBA program combines current management theory and relevant research with the real-world experiences of students and faculty to address the major competitive challenges of the 21st century.

Students interested in an accelerated executive MBA format should refer to page 164. Classes for this program are held on Saturdays in a face-to-face format and the coursework is enhanced via the Internet. The entire Executive MBA program can be completed in 21 months.

Students who first complete the entire cohort MBA degree program (43 credits) and meet all requirements for gradua- tion will be eligible to earn a dual degree by completing extra semester hours in one of the following programs: Master of International Management, Master of Science in electronic commerce, Master of Science in management, or Master of Science in technology management. These degree programs are offered either online or in a combination of online and traditional face-to-face format. Please refer to pages 149–163 for more information.

Degree Program

The 43-credit MBA program consists of seven 6-credit courses, each of which is 14 weeks long with 3 weeks off between courses. Each student is assigned to a cohort of approximately 30 students that continue together through completion of their MBA program. Upon acceptance to the MBA program, students register for a required 14-week MBA Fundamentals course (AMBA 600) which is worth one credit. Department Chair Salvatore Monaco [email protected] Associate Chair Michael Evanchik [email protected] Program Directors Rosemary Hartigan [email protected] Vinod Jain [email protected] Judith Kirkhorn [email protected] D. Jane Ross [email protected]

Assistant Program Director

Nancy Gentry [email protected] Coordinators Barbara Asabre [email protected] Kathleen Puckett [email protected] Administrative Assistant Helen Carapetian [email protected] Phone: 301-985-7069

Staff

Required Library Research Skills Course

To ensure students are well prepared to take advantage of modern library and information resources, the Graduate School has developed a 100-percent online, noncredit library research course. All students must successfully complete UCSP 610E Library Skills for the Information Age during AMBA 600.

Admission Requirements

The Graduate School does not require the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) or the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) for admission to this program.

Core Courses

AMBA 600 1 credit

MBA Fundamentals

This 14-week course is designed to provide students with management fundamentals and an opportunity to improve their proficiency in the Web-based technologies used throughout the MBA program. The objective of this course is to prepare people with diverse academic and business backgrounds to work and learn effectively in an online environment. There are assignments in statistics, financial accounting, and the Theory of Constraints. Students also prepare a PowerPoint presentation and write a research paper. By the end of the course, students should have a good understanding of both the academic requirements and the technical skills necessary to succeed in the MBA program.

AMBA 601 6 credits

The Role of Managers and Organizations in Society This course introduces participants to the concepts and theories that are the essential building blocks of manage- ment thinking. These key themes are incorporated through- out the MBA program and will be further developed in subsequent courses. They are sequenced so that they build upon each other during the program.

The core themes are:

■ The manager as a leader

■ The manager as a systems thinker

■ The manager as a critical thinker

■ Ethics and social responsibility

■ The organization as a global enterprise

■ Evolving business models A student may be admitted in one of two classifications:

degree-seeking and provisional. The admission requirements for each classification are explained below.

Degree Status

Degree status is granted to students who meet or exceed the following criteria: a bachelor’s degree from a regionally accredited university or college; an overall undergraduate GPA of at least 3.0 on a 4.0 scale, submission of the official transcript from the bachelor’s-degree-granting institution, and a personal statement. The UMUC Graduate School reserves the right to request additional transcripts.

Note: Applicants educated in countries other than the United States and who are non-native speakers of English should refer to the section entitled International Applicants (page 33) for information about the TOEFL and TWE examinations and evaluation of international education.

Provisional Status

Provisional status for the MBA may be granted to students who fall slightly below the minimum grade-point require- ment for degree status. Once admitted to this category, students are given an opportunity to demonstrate, by performance, their ability to succeed in graduate studies. Those who achieve a 3.0 GPA during completion of seven MBA credits are moved automatically to degree status. No courses may be repeated while a student is in provisional status. The minimum admission requirements for provi- sional status are a bachelor’s degree from a regionally accredited university or college, an undergraduate GPA of at least 2.5 on a 4.0 scale in the student’s major area of study, submission of the official transcript from the bachelor- degree granting institution, and a personal statement. The UMUC Graduate School reserves the right to request additional transcripts.

Locations

Students should check the current graduate Schedule of Classes to determine when courses will be offered at specific locations.

AMBA 602 6 credits

The Dynamics of Individuals and Groups at Work This course is designed to offer learning opportunities wherein students can evaluate the interplay of the nature, meaning and value of work with individual, group, organi- zational and societal outcomes. It explores strategies and methods for aligning individual interests and organizational needs to reach organizational goals. Through readings, case analyses, exercises, presentations and discussions, students analyze the philosophical, legal, psychological, and struc- tural decisions that managers and leaders must make in managing the dynamic human element at work. The course includes interpersonal skill development, with an emphasis on effective communication processes, to assist students in increasing their competence in successfully working with people.

AMBA 603 6 credits

The Marketing of New Ideas

As a managerial process, marketing is the way in which an organization determines its best opportunities in the marketplace. The managerial philosophy of marketing puts central emphasis on the customer. Accelerated technological change and globalization exert increased pressure on organizations to develop and transform their products, services, and marketing programs. Stable product design and long production runs are no longer the norm. This course approaches the process of new product development and strategic marketing from the perspective of understanding customers and cultivating and nurturing customer relation- ships through the effective flow of knowledge resources within, and external to, the organization, with an emphasis on the importance of market research, customer relationship management, and data mining. This course addresses the increasing importance of electronic commerce as a distribu- tion and promotional channel for business and explores emerging New economy marketing applications and the effectiveness of various e-commerce strategies. Finally, the course addresses issues of ethics and social responsibility in marketing management. Topic areas include:

■ Strategic marketing management

■ Entrepreneurship and Intrapreneurship

■ Knowledge management

■ Product development and innovation

■ Electronic commerce

AMBA 604 6 credits

Technology and Operations Management

This course explores the latest information technologies that enable an organization to operate around the world and around the clock. To maintain an organization’s competi- tiveness, managers need the tools—such as statistical process control, decision trees, forecasting techniques, expert systems, and organizational benchmarking—to quickly and effectively acquire and analyze information. This involves taking advantage of changes in technology, monitoring customer and competitor behavior, and analyzing their own organization’s processes. Because shortened product life cycles make managing new projects a critical task, effective project management concludes the course. Topic areas include: ■ Information systems ■ Quality control ■ Forecasting ■ Operations management ■ Project management AMBA 605 6 credits

The Economics of Management Decisions

The economic environment of an organization defines the threats to its survival and the opportunities for its future success. This course applies the concept of economic decision making to a wide range of management issues. The global economy is continually undergoing changes. Of special significance is the evolution of financial markets in response to rapidly expanding worldwide investment opportunities. This course provides a framework for discussion and insight into these issues. Important valuation themes include the valuation of intellectual property and the valuation of businesses as a whole for the purpose of merger

or acquisition. Increasingly, managers are restructuring financial information as well as supplementing it with nonfinancial information to better analyze the economic performance of their organizations. Several important techniques of performance evaluation are discussed— economic value added (EVA™_{), the Balanced Scorecard, and} throughput accounting. Cost management remains an essential topic within every organization and provides the framework to study activity-based costing. However, too much attention to cost often overlooks the key objective of every organization: to increase the value it provides to the customer. Therefore, an organization’s performance is also analyzed from the perspective of the theory of constraints. The course is divided into four modules:

■ Financial statement analysis

■ Valuation

■ Performance measurement

■ Cost management

AMBA 606 6 credits

Organizations and the External Environment This course focuses on the various types of business organizations and the public regulatory environments that shape organizational decisions. Emphasis is placed on the

framework of relevant laws, regulatory structures, and public policies at local, state, national, and international levels that define the inner workings of business activities. The impact of law, regulation, and technology on corporate decision making are key focus points in this course. Systems think- ing, critical thinking, ethics and social responsibility, the impact of technology on management, the future of organizations, and global challenges are linked with the course’s critical features. Increased student knowledge of and comfort with the nature of external business environments is a course goal. Topic areas include:

■ Business and antitrust law

■ Regulatory environments

■ International trade

■ Macroeconomic policy

■ Technology standards

AMBA 607A 3 credits

Strategic Management

Strategy is concerned with value creation and involves defining the scope of a firm’s business operations, its corporate strategy, and determining how it will compete in its selected business(es); its business strategy. This course addresses the challenges of formulating and implementing strategy in both single-business and multi-business firms, from the perspectives of their top-level decision makers. It focuses on the overall firm, integrates concepts from functional areas of management, and explores the problem of the firm’s strategic direction with respect to its external

AMBA 607 is comprised of two, 3-credit courses taken consecu- tively by students: AMBA 607A and AMBA 607B. All MBA stu- dents must take AMBA 607A. Students with approved transfer credits and students pursuing a dual degree program may choose not to take AMBA 607B. Those with approved transfer credits may simply substitute those credits for AMBA 607B.

Master of Business Administration

competitive environment and internal resources and capabilities.

■ Different perspectives on strategy

■ Analytical models and frameworks in strategy formulation

■ Building and sustaining competitive advantage

■ Growth and international strategies

■ Strategy implementation

■ Corporate governance

■ Strategy in the New Economy

AMBA 607B 3 credits

Elective Project

Under the supervision of a faculty member, students design and complete a research project on a topic of their choice in this course. A key requirement is that the project must deal with a substantive management issue related to a real or

proposed organization. Students can work on the project alone or in a team. Here are some examples of topics students could select for their projects:

■ Develop a business plan for their employer (or for their own venture).

■ Carry out industry and competitor analysis for an organization.

■ Design an organization’s business- or corporate-level strategy, for example, competitive strategy, growth strategy, internationalization strategy, e-business strategy, and so forth.

■ Study the competitive advantages of a specific region, state, or country.

■ Design and complete an organizational assessment with change strategy as appropriate.

■ Undertake a benchmarking study for an organization.

Department Chair Eugene Rubin [email protected] Program Director Yolanda Gayol [email protected] Administrative Assistant Pat Musick [email protected] Phone: 301-985-7056

Staff