Course Description
Builds on 5601. Examines and uses concepts, methods and models from the functional business areas of statistics, finance, management and law. Requires students to integrate each component into a complete business plan.
Course Objectives
The objective of this course is to help business students learn fundamental business concepts and apply them by developing a business plan. This 8 week course is the second in a series of two courses. Students will learn the basics of finance, statistics, management and business law.
Week 1
Lecture: Course Introduction
Outcomes
- Compute the future value of an investment made today
- Compute the present value of cash to be received at some future date
- Compute the return on an investment
- Compute the future value of multiple cash flows
- Compute the present value of multiple cash flows
- Understand how interest rates are quoted
- Understand EAR and APR
Week 2
Lecture: Capital Investment Decisions
Outcomes
- Understand the importance of Capital Budgeting
- Understand the NPV method and its advantages
- Understand the Payback method and its shortcomings
- Understand the IRR method and its strengths & weaknesses
- Understand how to determine the relevant cash flows for a proposed project
- Understand how to analyze a project’s estimated cash flows
- Understand how to evaluate an estimated NPV
- Understand the relationship between Risk and Return
- Learn what Capital Market History tells us about Risk and Return
- Understand the two central lessons of Capital Market History
- Define risk premium
- Understand an efficient capital market
- Understand systematic and unsystematic risk
- Discuss the benefits of diversification
- Understand the Beta coefficient
- Discuss SML
- Understand CAPM
Week 3
Lecture: Statistics Introduction
Outcomes
- Answer the question “Why should managers study statistics?”
- Calculate each measure of central location
- Understand the strengths and weaknesses of each measure of central location
- Understand and measure range, IOR and standard deviation
- Create histograms, box plots, bar charts, pie charts and line charts
- Interpret a scatter plot, and two statistics: the correlation coefficient and the coefficient of determination (r2)
- Describe the main characteristics of a normal distribution, compute and interpret z-scores and calculate probabilities using the standard normal distribution
- Understand the concept of statistical inference
Week 4
Lecture: Statistical Inference
Outcomes
- Discuss the fundamentals of experimental design and analysis
- List the key ideas associated with statistical hypotheses, how to formulate hypothesis tests and the role of probability in assessing the strength of sample evidence
- Perform hypothesis tests for samples with a single population and more than one population
- Perform hypothesis tests on samples with unrelated or related groups
- Describe the basics behind ANOVA testing and multiple regressions
Week 5
Lecture: Management Introduction
Outcomes
- List the four functions of management and the roles of a manager
- Discuss the causes behind the global shift in the business world
- Describe the factors that a manager must consider before entering the global environment
- Explain the aspects and differences between vertical and horizontal organization structure
- Compare and contrast the three types of departmentalization
Week 6
Lecture: Human Resources
Outcomes
- Describe the HR process
- Understand the benefits of using teams
- Describe the types of teams
- Understand the problems that can arise from using teams and the management strategies that can be used to deal with the problems
- Describe the benefits of MIS
Week 7
Lecture: Business Law Introduction
Outcomes
- Describe a property-based legal system
- Discuss the sources of law
- List the sources of values for business ethics
- Summarize the principles of contract law
Week 8
Lecture: Agency Law
Outcomes
- Understand the principles of agency law
- Name the factors you need to consider when selecting a business organizational firm
- Know different types of business organization firms
- Be able to explain the important concepts in the Sherman Act and Clayton Act
- Describe the role of the FTC
- Understand and explain the importance of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, the Securities Act of 1933, and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934
- Understand the major items covered by US Employment Law
- Understand the importance of the Wagner Act and the Taft-Hartley Act
The course description, objectives and learning outcomes are subject to change without notice based on enhancements made to the course. May 2011
