Houston Professional MBA

Curriculum

Tulane's Professional MBA in Houston offers a 56-credit hour, broad-based curriculum. Core management fundamentals lay the groundwork for the program. Courses then build on this foundation, emphasizing strategic management and problem-solving techniques. Operational concepts are integrated into the curriculum, focusing on application and real-world issues and providing students with the analytical and strategic skills needed to excel in management within their companies. Graduates earn a Tulane MBA degree with concentrations in both finance and general management.

Professional MBA in Houston Curriculum

Macroeconomics

Managerial Perspective

Decision Models

Legal Environment of Business

Financial Accounting

Management Communication

Microeconomics

Managerial Accounting

Financial Management I

Change Management

Financial Management II

Strategy Formulation

Cross-Cultural Management

Financial Statement Analysis

Consumer Behavior

Managing People

Negotiations

Leadership

Entrepreneurial Management

Managing Organizational Creativity

Global Marketing

Portfolio Theory

Cases in Finance

Options & Advanced Valuation

Corporate Risk Management

Managing the Global Enterprise

Macroeconomics - CMBA 642 - introduces the theory of national income determination in relation to full employment, price stability, international trade, and economic growth. The emphasis is on macroeconomic issues for managerial decisions. Topics include the determination of interest rates, inflation, wage levels, real output growth, exchange rates, international trade patterns and how these variables impact business decision making.

Managerial Perspective - CMBA 601 - provides a framework for analyzing and identifying key management issues and developing plans for action. Study focuses on identifying what managers do, what distinguishes effective management, how managers make decisions, and what makes a company excellent.

Decision Models - CMBA 660 - examines the art of solving problems under uncertainty. Course topics include descriptive statistics, probability, sampling distributions, confidence intervals, hypothesis testing and simple and multiple regressions. Methods are applied to management problems drawn from marketing, finance, economics, organizational behavior, and operations management.

Managing People - CMBA 621 - The course introduces students to some of the policies, practices, and procedures used to promote individual and group contributions to organizational effectiveness. The rationales as well as the assets and liabilities of such strategies are addressed.

Microeconomics - CMBA 640 - examines the key aspects of markets and economic behavior as they relate to managerial decision making. The basics of market supply and demand are developed with emphasis on applications to business decision making. The determinants and role of market structure are examined in relation to business competition, market concentration, and economic efficiency. Basic concepts of strategy include learning curves, returns to scale and scope, and pricing. Students are also introduced to game theoretic topics such as bidding in private versus common value auctions, and the differences between quantity, price, and location competition.

Management Communication - CMBA 620 - focuses on the different ways companies communicate with both internal and external constituencies, including employees, shareholders, regulators, the public, etc. The practical emphasis is on student exercises and includes informal individual briefings, formal group presentations, and media events during crisis situations. The course also uses video and print media extensively to illustrate good and poor communication efforts on the part of existing corporations over the past several years, including examples from the oil and chemical industries, the mining industry, the tobacco industry, the accounting/consulting industry, and the wine/beer industry.

Financial Accounting - CMBA 611 - familiarizes students with key financial accounting concepts, methods and terminology and introduces the tools of financial statement analysis. The financial reporting roles of management, auditors and regulators are studied, and students learn how accounting policy choices can influence reported performance and financial position. Students develop knowledge and skills that allow them to read, interpret and analyze financial statements at a basic level and to discuss business issues in accounting terms.

Leadership - CMBA 622 - introduces students to leadership in business organizations. Leading teams and leading during times of change are also covered. Students will study current business leaders and analyze their leadership practices. Team projects and presentations are used to illustrate team leadership. Current models of change are also discussed.

Managerial Accounting - CMBA 610 -applies the accounting models that support managerial decision-making in an advanced environment. Topics include cost behavior, cost-volume profit analysis, variable costing, differential (incremental) analysis, capital budgeting (with emphasis on the sources of accounting data), and interdivisional transfer pricing. Models are applied to service and merchandising as well as manufacturing environments.

Consumer Behavior - CMBA 682 - analyzes the market-driven corporation with respect to the marketing mix (product, promotion, price and distribution strategy) as it applies to consumer and industrial goods and services in the private and public sectors. Emphasis is placed on the application of the marketing mix through real-world projects.

Cross-Cultural Management - CMBA 708 - considers how culture and cultural differences impact perceptions of the social and organizational environment, as well as how culture and cultural values are a major influence on ethics and ethical reasoning. It also explores the challenge of making ethical decisions in specific situations and what organizations can do in order to prevent misconduct.

Change Management - CMBA 741 - examines the key aspects of leading a successful organizational change. The course analyzes both successful and unsuccessful change management efforts. The course will build a framework for leading a successful organizational change.

Financial Management I - CMBA 630 - provides a rigorous introduction to the field of financial economics. The first section of the course develops an analytical understanding of the time value of money concept, and applies it through basic techniques for the valuation of stocks, bonds, and investment projects. Various capital budgeting rules are also discussed in this section. The second section focuses on capital markets including the statistical concepts of covariance and diversification and the capital asset pricing model. The third section introduces capital structure policy and discusses the impact of the different financing choices on risk and required return on firm's equity. This section also introduces the notion of weighted average cost of capital.

Financial Management II - CMBA 631 - builds directly on the material covered in Financial Management I. The course focuses on the key policy decisions made in corporate finance and discusses their impact on firm and shareholder value. The course will include an in-depth analysis of firms' financing choices and capital structure and their role in capital budgeting decisions. The course also introduces the different discounted cash flow valuation techniques for the valuation of corporate cash flows. The last third of the course focuses on options, option pricing, and applications of option pricing in corporate finance including warrant and convertible bond valuation.

Strategy Formulation - CMBA 663 - increases understanding of the functions and responsibilities of general management. It examines the problems that affect the character and success of an entire enterprise, whether an entrepreneurial venture or a multinational conglomerate.

Financial Statement Analysis - CMBA 633 - explores the principles and techniques for understanding and interpreting financial statements, including statement comparability, income measurement and disclosure, cash flow analysis, ratio analysis and the disaggregation of ratios, quality of earnings, account analysis, and footnote disclosures. The financial relationships of the accounting model are applied to published financial statements. Cases are used extensively.

Legal Environment of Business - CMBA 770 - introduces the basic concepts of contracts, labor laws, discrimination, torts, partnership, corporations, securities, and bankruptcy and gives students an understanding of the relationships between parties in a typical business setting. Tax consequences relative to various entities used in business transactions are also examined.

Negotiations - CMBA 763 - explores the behavioral processes and phenomena which are inherent in virtually all types of negotiations. Emphasis is on systematic preparation of a negotiating strategy. In-class negotiation exercises and extensive debriefings are used by participants to test and evaluate their strategies and tactics.

Managing Organizational Creativity - CMBA 742 - develops a theoretical, conceptual, and practical understanding of organizational creativity. Through reading, discussion, and praxis students develop a critical appreciation of the organizational creativity and create a knowledge framework they can apply to their own contexts. Students engage in class projects that put knowledge and reflection to use. Fostering organizational creativity is intricately intertwined with leadership, so the focus beyond what creativity is will involve leadership actions that encourage creativity and help overcome challenges to creative processes.

Entrepreneurial Management - CMBA 765 - conveys skills and modes of analysis that will be used directly in initiating or acquiring, managing, and harvesting a new venture. Concepts are also applicable to venturing within an existing corporation. Students will be expected to apply tools and theories learned in functional area core courses and additional knowledge gained from this class to the analysis of cases, a venture feasibility analysis process, and the formulation of a business plan.

Global Marketing - CMBA 681 - includes case studies, group projects, and presents a framework for formulating and implementing international marketing strategies. The marketing decision process is studied in an international context.

Cases in Finance - CMBA 632 - Through case analysis, this course explores ways to value different types of business enterprises. The course emphasizes discounted cash flow methods of valuation, though other methods, such as the method of multiples, the venture capital method, and real options are also introduced. Students develop and practice valuation skills, such as financial forecasting, cash flow measurement, discount rate estimation and continuing value calculation. In addition, students work with a variety of corporate situations, such as LBO's, IPO's, spin-offs, and mergers, in which valuation plays a key role.

Portfolio Theory - CMBA 733 -examines the foundations of investment theory and practice. It begins by elaborating the concepts of risk and risk aversion, wealth allocation between risky and risk-free assets, and optimally risky portfolios. The course proceeds to develop various asset-pricing models, paying special attention to the CAPM and APT. The course will also examine the concept of market efficiency and review the empirical evidence for and against efficiency. The second half of the course examines theories and strategies for managing investment portfolios. This includes surveying how securities are actually traded and cleared. It then examines theories of active portfolio management ranging from the Peter Lynch approach to more formal models such as the Treynor-Black model. Issues of asset allocation, extended (e.g. global and real asset) diversification, and investment company organization and policy formation are studied. The course concludes with a study of portfolio performance measurement.

Options & Advanced Valuation - CMBA 731 - This course will develop state-of-the-art quantitative tools for evaluating large, complex investment projects that cannot be evaluated in a satisfactory manner with standard discounted cash flow techniques. Issues covered include risk-adjusted probability measures and an introduction to modeling project cash flows as financial options. The course will also address financing and distribution policies and restructuring strategies with a special focus on the energy industry. The second half of the course will include valuing capital projects using discrete time and continuous time option pricing models. Special attention will be paid to actual and strategic real option problems in energy finance such as off-shore exploration and power plant management.

Corporate Risk Management - CMBA 734 -Corporations face a variety of risks including interest rate risk, commodity price risk, foreign exchange rate risk, counter party default risk and political risk in addition to the usual business risks of their chosen fields of operation. This course analyzes the corporate decision to hedge (or not to hedge) focusing on how these decisions maximize shareholder value. The course explores ways in which firms manage their exposure to product market and financial risk and provides a balanced treatment of commodity price, interest rate, and currency risks. Topics include swaps, financial futures, FRAs, options and other recent innovations in the derivatives markets. The issue of counter party default risk and risk management approaches such as VAR (value-at risk) are also studied.

Managing the Global Enterprise - CMBA 709 - focuses on the structure and processes of management, particularly those of a global organization, and simulates upper-level management activities of the global enterprise. Course objectives include developing an integrated understanding of strategic and operational decision-making in a global enterprise from a general management perspective.