EMBA Course Descriptions

Covers the preparation, analysis, and use of corporate financial statements; asset and liability valuation and income determination; receivables, inventories, present values, tangible and intangible fixed assets, bonds, leases, shareholder equity, intercorporate investments, consolidations, and cash flow accounting. Space is limited.

This foundational course introduces and develops the concepts, principles and techniques from Economics that are essential for understanding the market dynamics at the firm, industry, and macroeconomic level. Models and techniques developed in Economics provide a framework for decision making that can be applied to several business disciplines, as well as an understanding of the forces driving the dynamics of the business environment.

The ever-increasing capacity of computers to analyze data, and the explosion of the amount of data available, has resulted in an increased role for data analysis as an aid to business decision-making. This course exposes the student to the most important ideas and methods relevant for data analysis in a business context. Emphasizing practical applications to real problems, the course covers the following topics: Sampling, Descriptive Statistics, Probability Distributions, and Regression Analysis. Students are strongly encouraged to bring data from work; projects from previous years have returned significant monetary value to students’ current employers and examples of these projects will be provided in class. Repeatable for Credit.

Introduction to the use of financial and cost information by managers in budgeting, resource allocation, pricing, quality control, and other contexts to help managers set goals and monitor and evaluate performance.

Examination of corporate investment and financing, with emphasis on valuation methods and how financial policy impacts corporate value. Includes the implications of agency costs, asymmetric information and signaling, taxes, mergers and acquisitions, corporate restructuring, real and embedded options, and financial risk management. Recommended for finance students.

An introduction to the design and integration of successful operations procedures both within the organization and across the supply chain. The course focuses on understanding, managing and improving processes and flows of products, customers, and information. Covering measurable techniques to deal with bottlenecks, inventory, queues, quality management, and some strategic issues in operations. Recommended Prerequisite(s): BUSI 305 and (ECON 100 or ECON 200)

Introduction to the key concepts and perspectives underlying the function of marketing in a business enterprise. Emphasis is placed on strategic marketing issues and the formulation of marketing strategies. Includes value proposition; customer & market analysis; segmentation & targeting; product strategy; branding; pricing strategy; marketing channels; marketing communication and selling. Lectures and extensive analysis of marketing management case studies.

Personal leadership foundations and principles of strategy formulation, a Houston residency program.

Applied strategic and critical decision-making in the context of the functional skills acquired in the core.

Enterprise-level strategy formulation and execution and leading the organization in change.

An international management off-site intensive caps the global core and the MBA for Executives program.

This seminar focuses on three areas of executive leadership development: 1) sharpening strategic communication skills; 2) fostering high performing teams; and 3) enhancing transformational change and inclusive leadership skills. 

Executive Seminar II provides a channel that facilitates cross-functional learning as you progress through the foundational courses that comprise the second semester of the First Year Core Curriculum: Marketing, Finance, and Operations Management. This seminar will include a selection of expert/executive speakers focused on business topical areas and your professional growth and development as an executive. You also will focus on executive skill-building in the areas of Communication, Negotiation, and Team-building. Faculty will use a variety of teaching methods within and across each session, including traditional lectures, coaching sessions, and/or experiential exercise.

Executive Seminar III integrates the Ethics / Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) module of your EMBA curriculum, together with Communication sessions designed to empower you to communicate about your values and to enhance your interpersonal communication skills. This seminar also incorporates inter-cultural communication skills and explores psychological forces and behaviors leaders can harness to encourage ethical behavior in global business.

Using business case studies and an academic framework built on economic theories, Executive Seminar IV will focus on the foundations of corporate governance from the current debate on objectives of corporations that is captivating corporate America to designing and executing good governance practices. We will use case studies to examine topics such as the roles and responsibilities of corporate boards, how corporate governance should be designed to support growth and transformation from being a private company to IPO, the role of culture and financial incentives on ethics and corporate performance, the pros and cons of dual class structures, and the effects of shareholder activism.

This course builds on earlier courses on cost management and corporate strategy and focuses on the management control systems that can be used for the effective implementation of strategy. Included topics are the balanced scorecard, stretch budgets, performance evaluation and incentives, organizational and operational controls, and the development of metrics to motivate and evaluate performance.

A study of how public policy influences the private competitive environment of the firm. The course examines the major political institutions and actors — Congress, the president, interest groups, the media and administrative agencies — that shape U.S. public policy. Students analyze business political strategies and formulate several of their own.

Throughout contemporary society and corporate America, we frequently hear people touting the value of “mindfulness.” What exactly is this concept – and how can it foster high performance in the workplace and improve the quality of workers’ lives? This course addresses these questions through cases and experiential learning activities.

Overview of the venture capital industry; the organization and operation of venture capital funds; investment methodology; monitoring and portfolio liquidation; leveraged investing; and specialized investments.

This course provides an insider's perspective on the workings and challenges of early to mid-stage biotech (pharmaceutical) and medtech (medical device) startups. Live case studies highlight issues unique to this space, including pre-clinical and clinical development, licensing and business development, the FDA, and intellectual property and patent strategies. Intended for students considering a career in an entrepreneurial life sciences company. Previous or contemporaneous coursework in entrepreneurship or healthcare is preferred.

Students will identify, screen and evaluate start-ups for investment by the Rice venture capital fund. Through this highly experiential course, students will learn tools for rigorously evaluating startup ventures for investment, valuing early-stage companies and structuring investments. Students will present their investment recommendations to an advisory committee.

This course is about learning to think like a game theorist and developing a systematic way to evaluate strategic problems. Emphasis is on real-world applications and in-class business exercises.

The sequence of offerings that provides an introduction to the business of healthcare in the U.S. Topics include health care systems, health service organizations, and issues relating to the aging problem and the technology explosion in healthcare. Required elective for MD/MBA's dual degree students. Repeatable for Credit.

The Brand Strategy course is designed to build on your first-year MBA marketing course and will explore the elements of brand strategy to build capabilities on brand management and how brands drive business strategy and long-term value: what it is, what it is not, how to manage, execute, measure and value.

A manager’s primary purpose is to use power to influence subordinates and create an effective organization. This course will teach students how to build power, how to influence people, and the proper use of power in the modern organization through lectures, discussions, and experiential activities.

With a seismic shift in commercial real estate due to technology-driven changes to distribution networks and the digitization of the economy, developers face challenging and evolving opportunities. How do you adapt and thrive when customer desires change at lightning speed and everyone competes against Amazon? Through simulations and a real-time case study, students learn to capture the rewards of customer-centric design using psychographics and quantitative methodologies.

Companies with strong reputations gain competitive advantage. However, reputation is not a tangible attribute of a firm, but rather an intangible asset held in the minds of the firm's constituents. The goal of this course is to provide students with analytical tools to assess how an organization can build, damage, and repair its reputation.