Teaching

Strategic management is the study of why some companies generate sustained differential profits relative to their competitors. In this course, we adopt the perspective of the top management team of a firm to identify the underlying forces which drive firm performance and how the management team can make strategic choices that result in increased profitability. This course analyzes business problem-solving from the perspective of various functional areas within a complex external environment. The approach is a mix of theory and case study designed to give students an opportunity to apply previous course work while forcing them to consider tradeoffs and balance alternatives.

Economics is the science of scarcity. In this course you will begin to understand how individuals, firms, and societies allocate scarce resources. The first section of the course will focus on the study of microeconomics. We will learn how individuals and firms trade goods and services in a market economy, the implications of these trading decisions, and the effects of government intervention. In the second section of the course, we will study overall economic activity and its fluctuations. Topics in this section will include unemployment, inflation, and economic growth. Overall, the course serves as an introductory study of the fundamental principles of the operation of the market system, the determination of national income, and the role of money in the economy.

Microeconomics is the study of how individual economic agents, such as consumers and firms make decisions. In this course, we will study how consumers and firms make optimal decisions given the constraints they face. Then, we will examine what occurs when consumers and firms are brought together in a market.

Industrial organization is an application of microeconomic theory to firms and industries. We will study firms and how they make decisions to increase their profitability. In this course you will begin to understand the different strategies that firms use to profit and what the welfare implications of these decisions are. The first section of the course will focus on how a firm in isolation makes decisions to maximize their profits. The second section explores models which allow firms to strategically interact with one another. The final section covers how firms organize themselves, through tools such as mergers & acquisitions and innovation to drive profitability. The implications of firm decisions will be discussed in every section.

Business analytics is the study of statistical techniques used to make more informed business decisions. In this course, we will divide our time among descriptive, predictive, and causal analytics. In the section on descriptive analytics, you will learn how to use tables and figures to describe data, in service of generating further questions and unlocking actionable insights. In our time examining predictive analytics, you will learn how to predict various outcomes and how to use those predictions to optimize business decisions. Our study on causal analytics will show you how to discover the causal factors impacting various aspects of a business.