Wide-ranging courses in the essentials of economics, finance, accounting, marketing, strategy, organizational behavior and operations management form the program’s backbone. Electives in areas such as people analytics, negotiations, data management and entrepreneurship support the exploration of specific interests.
The MBA degree requires 60 units, which can be completed at an accelerated pace in 10-months or spread out over multiple years. Once admitted, students have the option of selecting a plan of study that best suits them. Courses are offered face-to-face during daytime hours typically on Monday through Thursday. Fridays are reserved for team projects, guest speakers, career services and other extracurricular pursuits.
Due to the structured nature of the program, courses are offered only once per year. Core courses remain constant. However, electives may change from year to year.
Core Courses
Required 36 units
| Course Number & Description | Course Title | Units |
|---|---|---|
| GSB 511 Term Typically Offered: Winter. Prerequisite: OCOB graduate standing or approval from the Associate Dean. Emphasis on development of the ability to read and interpret public and internal financial reports. Public reporting responsibilities of companies and management’s responsibilities for developing and maintaining effective internal control systems. 3 lectures, 1 activity. | Accounting for Managers | 4 |
| GSB 512 Term Typically Offered: Fall. Prerequisite: OCOB graduate standing or approval from the Associate Dean. Focus on a variety of statistical techniques that help to transform data into useful information that can be used to make informed business predictions and decisions. 3 seminars, 1 laboratory. | Quantitative Analysis | 4 |
| GSB 513 Term Typically Offered: Fall. Prerequisite: OCOB graduate standing or approval from the Associate Dean. Application of behavioral, social and organizational science concepts to management. Individual, team and organizational levels of analysis, including such topics as expectations, perception, motivation, communications, creativity, leadership, cultural and ethical behavior, group dynamics, team effectiveness, work design, organization change and development. 4 seminars. | Organizational Behavior | 4 |
| GSB 523 Term Typically Offered: Spring. Prerequisite: OCOB graduate standing or approval from the Associate Dean. Managerial economics, or microeconomics, focuses on private markets. Choices made by firms and consumers within topics that include demand, supply, efficiency, marketing structure, and government intervention. Development of an analytical framework for analyzing how these topics are important for managers. 4 lectures. | Managerial Economics | 4 |
| GSB 524 Term Typically Offered: Fall. Prerequisite: OCOB graduate standing or approval from the Associate Dean. Introduction to marketing management. Concepts and principles necessary to plan, direct and control the product, promotion, distribution and pricing strategies of the firm. 4 lectures. | Marketing Management | 4 |
| GSB 531 Term Typically Offered: Winter. Prerequisite: OCOB graduate standing or approval from the Associate Dean. Theories, practices and tools of corporate financial decision making. Topics include valuation of fixed income securities and stocks, capital budgeting, capital structure, dividends, and an overview of financial markets and institutions. Introduction to valuation of derivative securities, market efficiency, and agency costs. 4 seminars. | Managerial Finance | 4 |
| GSB 533 Term Typically Offered: Winter. Prerequisite: OCOB graduate standing or approval from the Associate Dean. Development of the theoretical and empirical framework of the macroeconomy in which businesses must operate. Topics include GDP, inflation, unemployment, interest rates and monetary and fiscal policies. The dynamics of the macroeconomic environment over time. 4 lectures. | Aggregate Economic Analysis & Policy | 4 |
| GSB 534 Term Typically Offered: TBD. Prerequisite: OCOB graduate standing or approval from the Associate Dean. Introduction to the operations function and its interaction with other areas in an organization. Emphasis on applying lean six sigma thinking to achieve competitive advantage in cost, quality, time, and flexibility in manufacturing and service operations. 4 seminars. | Lean Operations Management | 4 |
| GSB 562 Term Typically Offered: Spring. Prerequisite: OCOB graduate standing and GSB 511, GSB 513, GSB 523, GSB 531, GSB 533 and either GSB 512 or IME 503; and either GSB 524 or GSB 573; and either GSB 534 or IME 580, or approval from the Associate Dean. Application of interdisciplinary skills to business and corporate strategy formulation and implementation. Analysis of interdependence between external environments and internal systems. Focus on responsibilities, tasks, and skills of general managers. Case studies, group problem solving. Integrating course of MBA core curriculum. Course satisfies comprehensive examination requirement. 4 seminars. | Seminar in General Management and Strategy | 4 |
Electives
Select 24 units*
| Course Number & Description | Course Title | Units |
|---|---|---|
| GSB 510 Term Typically Offered: Winter. Prerequisite: OCOB graduate standing or approval from the Associate Dean. Principles of data visualization and storytelling. Data visualization tools for different types of data in the context of business analytics. Communication of results for business actionable insights. Software use includes Excel, Tableau and R. 3 lectures, 1 laboratory. | Data Visualization and Communication in Business | 4 |
| GSB 514 Term Typically Offered: TBD. Prerequisite: OCOB graduate standing or approval from the Associate Dean. Legal and regulatory environment in which business operates. Consideration of historical, societal, and global perspectives reflecting political, social and/or economic beliefs and values. Strong emphasis on fundamental concepts of law and analytical tools to understand interaction between law, ethics and management decisions. 4 seminars. | The Legal and Regulatory Environment of Business | 4 |
| GSB 520 Term Typically Offered: Fall. Exploration of data management including relational databases, data warehouses, and NOSQL databases. Foundation for analyzing, designing, implementing and using information repositories in a business environment. Topics include the database development life cycle, data modeling, SQL programming, data quality and integration. 4 lectures. | Data Management for Business Analytics | 4 |
| GSB 525 Term Typically Offered: Summer. Prerequisite: OCOB graduate standing or approval from the Associate Dean. Focus on project management tools and processes required to establish priorities for and management of projects within normal and abnormal scope, money and time constraints. Planning, organizational and resource challenges common to a variety of project types. Product life cycle, normal operational, new product introduction and profit oriented product family projects reviewed in service and production environments. 4 lectures. | Project Management | 4 |
| GSB 529 Term Typically Offered: Summer. Prerequisite: OCOB graduate standing or approval from the Associate Dean. Enhancement of business writing and oral presentation skills, organized around two areas: 1) preparing written business documents and reports, and 2) professional oral presentation skills. Preparation of a variety of business reports and documents. Multiple business presentations. 4 lectures. | Effective Communication Skills for Managers | 4 |
| GSB 530 Term Typically Offered: TBD. Prerequisite: GSB 520. Exploration of the concepts, tools and techniques of data mining in the business context, using case study and problem-solving approaches. Topics include multidimensional data modeling, predictive analytics, pattern discovery, forecasting, text mining, and data visualization. 4 lectures. | Data Analytics & Mining for Business | 4 |
| GSB 555 Term Typically Offered: Spring. Prerequisite: OCOB graduate standing or approval from the Associate Dean. Theory and practice of negotiation in a variety of professional and managerial contexts (e.g., business acquisitions, compensation, business disputes, transfer pricing, inter- and intra-organizational) and in one-on-one, group, and team-based arrangements. Includes impact of culture, ethics, dispute resolution, coalitions and use of creativity to develop integrative solutions. 4 seminars. | Negotiation | 4 |
| GSB 556 Term Typically Offered: TBD. Prerequisite: OCOB graduate standing or approval from the Associate Dean. Exploration of entrepreneurship with emphasis on the formation and management of new business ventures. Analysis of typical operating problems of these firms and application of appropriate techniques for their solution. 4 seminars. | Entrepreneurship and New Venture Mgmt | 4 |
| GSB 583 Term Typically Offered: TBD. Prerequisite: OCOB graduate standing or approval from the Associate Dean. An overview of the major functional and support activities in the personnel/human resource field, including strategic human resource planning, job analysis, recruitment, selection, performance appraisal, compensation, employee rights, and employee safety and health. 4 seminars. | Human Resource Management | 4 |
| GSB 595 Term Typically Offered: Winter. Prerequisite: OCOB graduate standing or approval from the Associate Dean. The knowledge and the elementary skills/competencies needed to intervene in an organization in order to improve its effectiveness. Design and use of action to improve organizational effectiveness. 4 seminars. | Managing Change | 4 |
* Please note: electives offered during Pre-Fall Intersession are through Extended Education and have a different fee structure.
For more details about the courses, see the Cal Poly catalog.
