Cornell University The Johnson School at Cornell University

Curriculum

Course Descriptions

First-year Courses

Term 1

Leadership
This intensive five-day course focuses on developing qualities of leadership, including self-awareness and self-assessment. The course employs a variety of experiential exercises and self-assessment instruments. Class members will be trained in giving and receiving feedback from team members and trained professionals. Case and group presentations and a two-day business simulation round out the course.

Statistics for Management
This course develops the analytical tools managers need to make decisions. Topics include descriptive statistics, probability, decision theory, hypothesis testing, and regression analysis.

Managing and Leading in Organizations
Participants study effective management of individuals and teams in the context of dynamic organizations. Topics include leadership, organizational design, structure, diversity, culture, change, evolution, and strategy.

Marketing Management
Marketing Management examines how managers make marketing decisions in complex and competitive environments. Topics include consumer behavior, promotion and advertising; channels of distribution; international and competitive strategy; new product development; marketing of services; segmentation; and pricing strategies.

Financial Accounting
This course prepares managers to make effective business decisions using the organization's accounting data. Topics include balance sheets; income and cash flow statements; inventory, plant, and equipment; investment decisions; corporate structure; present value and financial statement analyses; and communicating accounting information.

Term 2

Negotiations
Negotiations addresses planning, communication, information, influence, relationships, emotion, and reaching objectives in the diverse array of interdependent decision making contexts faced by every manager. Topics include distributive and integrative negotiations, coalitions, negotiating on teams, dispute resolution, and multi-party negotiations.

Managerial and Cost Accounting
Students explore the factors managers must consider when establishing an appropriate managerial accounting system for a business. Key topics include overhead allocation in common cost systems, the Balanced Scorecard, performance evaluation, treatment of fixed cost, and activity-based costing. The class answers the questions: What decisions are most crucial to a business's success or failure? What information is most needed to make these decisions and how would that information be reported? What type of accounting system will generate those reports?

Managing Operations
Managing operations examines the management of processes: operations that convert inputs into outputs. Topics include process improvement, queuing theory, productivity, constrained optimization, inventory management, quality management, service operations, supply chain management, and the role of manufacturing in the firm.

Microeconomics
This course explores the bases of economic decisions in profit-making firms. Topics include consumer behavior, supply and demand, competitive industries, pricing and market power, strategic interaction, input markets, contracts and incentives, and the role of government.

Managerial Finance
Students develop the knowledge that managers require to make effective financial decisions and to operate in capital markets. Topics include capital budgeting, portfolio theory, risk and return, security valuation, asset pricing, raising capital, capital structure of the firm, interest rates, mergers and acquisitions, and international finance issues.

Business Strategy
Students learn the tools and analytical techniques that managers need to assess and formulate effective strategies for their organizations. Topics include strategic analysis, industry analysis, value chains, core competencies, competitor analysis, scenario analysis, portfolio analysis, option analysis, and game theory. The focus is on analyzing and diagnosing business problems as well as developing and implementing effective strategic solutions.

Second-year Courses

Term 3

Marketing Strategy
This course focuses on strategic planning at the product group or senior executive level; examines how environmental factors affect long-term marketing strategies and how firms adapt; looks at a firm's opportunities and threats in dynamic environments to assess development of competitive advantages. Topics include segmenting markets, identifying unmet customer needs, forecasting market environments, and allocating resources. The Markstrat™ simulation is used to increase student decision-making competencies.

Valuation Principles
This course provides an analysis of the various approaches to valuation used in investment banking and project evaluation. Focus is on publicly traded firms (or their divisions) or private firms that have publicly traded comparables using the methods of (1) discounted cash flow valuation and (2) valuation by multiples using comparables. Case studies and team projects give students the ability to apply and compare the methodologies.

Managerial Decision Making
This course seeks to make managers better decision makers by teaching decision concepts and skills and by providing a framework for a good decision process. Coursework stresses the role of framing decisions in useful ways, seeing how others may view the same decision, identifying shortcomings in intuitive judgment, and learning from experience. Class sessions are devoted to activities, cases, and exercises to reinforce the application of theory and methodology.

Advanced Financial Strategy
This course focuses on corporate growth via alliances and acquisitions. Participants examine the advantages and disadvantages of three growth options (internal development, mergers and acquisitions, and alliances) and how companies use these strategies to provide value-creating growth when they lack the time or resources to develop the capabilities internally. Guest lectures and cases supplement lecture discussion.

International Finance
International Finance provides students with the conceptual framework to understand problems facing the financial manager in a global financial environment. Topics include the international financial environment, foreign exchange markets, international financial instruments, management of foreign exchange exposure, and cross-border investment.

IT Strategy
In the information economy, the success of any organization is determined by its ability to effectively utilize the potential of information technology (IT). This course provides current and future senior executives with the insights and frameworks necessary to make strategic decisions about information technology. It focuses on the importance of information to organizations and recognizes the capacity of technology to transform the competitive position and operating performance of firms. Course objectives include: establishing the alignment between business strategy and IT; recognizing the role of IT in enabling business operations; and understanding the key issues in managing IT resources.

Global Business Project
This course initiates the application of business analysis in an international setting. Working in project teams, and with faculty direction, students select an international product or service and conduct a thorough analysis of its strategy, operations, and business implications. As a part of the project, student teams visit and conduct appropriate research in the country of origin to apply cross-functional strategy tools in a global context.

Term 4

Supply-Chain and Manufacturing Strategy
Students learn about the effective management of supply chains using old and new technologies. The class examines moving materials to a production facility, controlling the transformation of materials into products, distributing the products to customers, maintaining and recycling the products, and the logistics of service operations. Specific topics include supply-chain integration, e-business and supply-chain strategies, plant and warehouse locations, modes of transportation, systems for managing material flows, inventory systems, and organizational structures for supply-chain management and global logistics.

Financial Statement Analysis
Focus is on using corporate financial statements to make business and investment decisions and to understand the usefulness and limitations of using accounting data in these tasks. Topics include strategic ratio analysis, cash flow evaluations, building pro forma financial statements, and security valuation.

Financial Markets
This course presents an overview of topics in the financial markets. The course considers the role and function of financial markets in allocating capital, and how this differs in various financial systems. The role of the banking system is particularly emphasized, as is the nature of risk management both within the financial institution and more broadly for the financial system. Topics here include swaps, credit derivatives, value at risk models, and Basel II. The role and function of central banks is also analyzed, with a focus on the similarities and differences in central banks across countries. Just as intermediation has moved from institutions to markets, the course follows a similar evolution by investigating the role and function of securitization. Topics here include mortgage-backed securities and CDOs.

Corporate Governance
This course examines the means by which investors attempt to ensure that the corporation is managed in their best interests. Topics include the structure of the corporation; management incentives; the roles of the board of directors and others in monitoring management; the market for corporate control (e.g., mergers and acquisitions); and public policy issues including the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and its implications. Concepts learned in class are applied by studying the shift in focus from shareholders to creditors in bankruptcy proceedings, and cases in which the governance process may (or may not) have failed, followed by government action.

Cornell Management Game
This computer-based simulation provides participants with the opportunity to formulate a strategy for creating shareholder value through strategic and tactical decisions in a competitive business environment.

Enterprise and Private Equity Project
This project is designed to train students in the development of a high-growth venture business plan. Student teams write the plan with periodic consultations with the instructor. Special topics include venture valuation, the infrastructure of the venture capital community, organization and management of high-growth businesses, marketing for high-growth businesses, and initial public offerings.

Strategic Brand Management
Brand management addresses strategic branding decisions faced by an organization. The course seeks to increase understanding of issues in planning and evaluating brand strategies; studying theories, tools, and models for branding decisions; and providing a forum for students to apply these principles through cases and conceptual exercises. Particular attention is paid to psychological principles at the customer level to improve managerial branding decisions.