Business Administration Core Courses

Introduction to Management　(3 credits)
Introduction to management is a required course for all the undergraduate students of the School of Business. Management is a science and art, and dynamic as well. This course is expected to enable students to have a full understanding of the importance of management in today’s daily increasing global competitive business environment. It provides students with basic managerial theories, concepts & principles. Emphases are given to the four functions of management, i.e., planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. By the end of this course, students are expected to understand basic theories about management and be able to apply what they have learned from this course into practice. This course aims to assist students to build up a scientific framework for analyzing business and management. It will prepare students to better cope with disciplines that are related to advance management in the coming semesters. Hence, this course will enable them to develop managerial skills in the future.

Microeconomics (3 credits)

This course offers an introduction to the basic concepts, frameworks, theories as well as applications of economics. Specifically, it includes the classic topics such as market and equilibrium, demand and elasticity, supply and cost of perfectly competitive markets, efficiency, and the working of the "invisible hand." It will also discuss behaviors of firms in imperfectly competitive markets, such as monopoly and oligopoly. The basic concepts and theories of game theory and information economics will also be briefly discussed. This course will help students develop rigorous thinking skills through learning the concepts, theories, and applications. Students will be able to apply some models of economics to analyze real problems from economics perspectives after finishing this course.

Macroeconomics (3 credits)

This course studies the economy as a whole. It will include such topics as GDP, unemployment, inflation, exchange rate, and other macroeconomic indicators. AD-AS model, economic fluctuations and economic growth, open economy, monetary policy, and fiscal policy will also be covered. Students will be able to apply some macroeconomic models to analyze some economic policies and predict the possible economic trends after learning this course.

Business Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility (3 credits)

 This course aims to introduce students to basic theories and topics of business ethics, ethical decision-making, employment rights, professional privacy policy, and social responsibility. Topics that cover the scopes of management, finance, and accounting will help students understand ethical issues and dilemmas within organizations and explore how to resolve ethical issues properly. The course is interactive with lectures, case studies, class discussion, and group assignments, etc.

Introduction to Financial Accounting (3 credits)

The course covers the concepts in financial accounting, basic accounting principles, journal entries, and frequently-used financial statements. It aims to facilitate the understanding of financial accounting information which serves decision-making and communicates the business outcomes. It is a prerequisite for Intermediate Accounting and Introduction to Managerial Accounting.

Introduction to Managerial Accounting (3 credits)

 The course will introduce basic concepts, theories of managerial accounting, and cost control practice. It discusses what information is critical, how to access the information, and how to plan, control, and make decisions based on the information. Topics cover cost behavior and forecast, budgeting, activity-based costing and management, cost-volume analysis, and decision making.

Fundamentals of Finance (3 credits)

The course is designed to cover the topics in fundamental finance. Students can learn the basic concepts of financial management, financial report, valuation of cash flow and stock market. This course introduces the fundamental theories of finance and basic quantitative tools used in the major decisions of corporate financial management. It covers financial statement analysis, time value of money, bond valuation, stock valuation, risk and return, cost of capital, capital budgeting, and financing decision. Upon successful completion of this course, students are able to perform basic financial ratio analysis based on financial statements, to apply the model of time value of money to do solve money problems, such as financial asset pricing, future value, present value, the return on an investment, payment value and payment periods. Students will know how to calculate expected returns of stock, the security market line and the risk-return trade-off based on Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM).

Organizational Behavior　(3 credits)
This course aims to provide students with the fundamental knowledge of psychology to understand employees’ behaviors in an organization. It will introduce the fundamental concepts of organizational behavior. The primary focus will be on gaining a better understanding of the behavior of individuals and groups within organizations. It facilitates students with the knowledge and skills required to diagnose different behavioral situations, and the necessary techniques in influencing and controlling the behavior of employees in the achievement of individual and organizational effectiveness. A great deal of emphasis will be placed on examining how the theoretical concepts introduced in class relate to the day-to-day operations of a business and the future (or current) career.

Business Communication (3 credits)

The course aims to develop written and verbal communication skills for effective business communication. Important communication theories and strategies will be introduced as the foundation for different types of corporate communication tasks, ranging from e-mail messages, blogs, to formal reports. The communication skills and methods taught in this course are essential for surviving and succeeding in today’s corporate world. Students will learn to analyze, understand and write clear and concise business communiqués, develop skills for interpersonal (team) communication and strengthen their oral presentation competence with technological tools available.

Legal Environment of Business (3 credits)

This course is designed to assist undergraduate business students in gaining an understanding of important legal principles and laws which affect business—that is, the “legal environment” in which business operates. During the course, a wide range of legal topics which impact many aspects of the business will be examined. Increased knowledge of legal and regulatory issues will help students make better business decisions.

Business Statistics (3 credits)

This course introduces ideas of probability distribution and main statistical analysis tools which are widely used in modern business management. This course will cover sampling and data gathering, descriptive statistics, concept of probability and probability distribution, sampling distribution, hypothesis test and regression analysis. This course aims to encourage students to apply the ideas and methods to solve specific problems in business administration.

Management Information Systems (3 credits)

This course is designed to facilitate BBA students the understanding of basic concepts of information systems. The course aims at equipping students with the capabilities to understand and apply information technologies to support the organization’s business objectives. Different levels of IS/IT usages will be covered. For example, at the strategic level, IS/IT strategy and management will be examined on how IT enables/drives organizations to conduct business in radically different and more effective/efficient ways. At the operational level, the students will learn how IS/IT can help organizations, for instance, to serve their customers more efficiently and effectively. The emphasis of this course will be given on how IS/IT can help organizations to make better business decisions, especially on how to analyze data to increase an organization’s business intelligence capabilities.

Accounting Information Systems (3 credits)

This course is designed to facilitate students the understanding of basic concepts of information systems. Particularly, the course aims at introducing a verity of topics about the systems used by organizations to process accounting information. The course focuses on accounting information systems as a tool to understand and integrate processes, process activities and data, perform analysis, and create information to facilitate managerial decision-making.

(Accounting Information System is required for students majoring in accounting, and Management Information System is required for non-accounting majors.)

Operations Management (3 credits)

This course is designed to provide students with a solid understanding of the concepts and applications of operations management. To accomplish this, teaching materials include real-life examples, solved questions, and cases studies in the area of forecasting, capacity planning, inventory management, quality management, location planning and analysis, supply chain management, MRP & ERP, scheduling and project management.

Marketing (3 credits)

Marketing is the art and science of creating customer value and market exchanges that benefit the organization and its stakeholders. It is an organizational philosophy and a set of guiding principles for interacting with customers, competitors, collaborators, and the environment. Marketing entails planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods, and services. It starts with identifying and measuring consumers' needs and wants, assessing the competitive environment, selecting the most appropriate customer targets, and developing a marketing strategy and implementation program for an offering that satisfies consumers' needs better than the competition.

The course is designed to serve as an introduction to the theories and practices of marketing and to provide students with the framework of marketing knowledge and skills. The course will be a mix of lectures, case discussions, individual assignments, and group projects.

Strategic Management (3 credits)

This course introduces the concepts, analytical tools, typical cases, and process of strategic management in modern global business administration. Topics include characteristics of strategic management, business model, strategy hierarchy, external environment analysis, competitive position, internal situation analysis, generic competitive strategies, partnership and strategic alliances, merger and acquisition, vertical integration, outsource strategy, internalization strategy, value chain, diversification, corporate social responsibility, organizational structure, corporate culture, core competence development, etc. This course stresses the principles and practices in strategic management and leads students to discuss and help them understand the key issues in strategic management by plenty of case studies.