School of Professional Studies

Marketing Major Course Descriptions

ACC2010 Foundations of Financial Accounting (3 credits)
The study of the fundamental principles of financial accounting theory and practice, including the analysis of assets, liabilities, and owners' equity accounts; allocation, estimation, and accrual procedures for financial statement preparation.

ACC2020 Foundations of Management Accounting (3 credits)
The accounting procedures that help business managers in decision making: job order and process costing, cost behavior and how volume effects cost, different approaches to profit reporting, standard costing and variance analysis, and differential analysis and product costing. Activity-based costing and the just-in time philosophy will also be addressed.

BUS1010 Business Environment and Ethical Dimensions (2 credits)
This course is designed to familiarize students with a range of information that speaks to the many institutional and human arrangements, and ethical dimensions associated with the profession and practices of business. Course content will include, but not to be limited to the different forms of business organization; the underlying economic laws that govern business and consumer behavior; the legal and regulatory environment; the many responsibilities that managers must discharge in order to assure business success; and, an examination of both basic accounting principles and financial markets, among other subjects. In addition, this course examines the ethics of management and provides the students with a template with which to analyze and address the complex nature of moral problems in business management. By doing so, this focus can serve to inform and to sensitize the students to the ethical challenges that will test them not only when doing business, but in living their personal lives as well.

BUS2010 Legal Environment of Business (2 credits)
This course introduces students to the nature of the legal system in which so society functions, including criminal law, litigation, basic business agreements, business entities and government regulation.

BUS3200 Foundations of Management (3 credits)
The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the fundamental concepts and techniques involved in managing today's dynamic organization. A solid grounding in management is essential to successfully guiding organizations. Students will become familiar with such basic managerial practices as planning, organizing, leading and controlling in a variety of organizational settings.

BUS3220 Management Information Systems (3 credits)
This course explores the variety and richness of support systems for management - the wide range of users, problems, and technologies employed and illustrates how the concepts and principles have been applied in specific systems. Designed to be an introduction to this continually developing field, the course includes the full range of systems and users, but extra emphasis on managers and their use of systems such as EIS, rather than an emphasis on management analysts who develop expert systems. A module of this course will also train students on how to create their own website.

BUS3280 Organizational Behavior (3 credits)
A study of the social and psychological factors that influence the management of groups and individuals in work settings. Topics include communication, leadership, decision-making, power, politics, and job design.

BUS3300 Foundations of Marketing (3 credits)
In this course, students will be introduced to all aspects of marketing foundations and principles with a focus on an application of meeting target customers needs and wants, a marketing strategic approach based on product, pricing, promotional, and place objectives, brand building, value delivery methodology, evaluating market opportunities based on changes in environmental business forces, and analyzing marketing problems and provide solutions based on critical examination of marketing information.

BUS3310 Integrated Marketing Communications (3 credits)
The purpose of this course is to provide a thorough understanding of promotional objectives, integrated marketing communications (knowing how different media work synergistically), and the development of promotional campaigns (using specific promotional activities) that convert qualified leads into prospects, prospects into new customers, and new customers into long term relationship partners. Students learn the logic of how prospects become interested in what organizations offer. Students develop a promotional campaign designed to elicit a direct inquiry or response from a qualified lead (a member of a narrow target market) to a prospect. Additionally, students determine how to form communication with customers that create a relationship with existing customers in order to develop on-going repeat purchases. As a result of completing this course, the student will be able to conduct a promotional plan and direct marketing/advertising campaign. Students develop a multi-step promotional plan and create the promotional pieces for a campaign designed to generate an initial inquiry and initial trial purchase.

BUS3320 The Professional Sales Process (3 credits)
As a result of taking this course on professional selling and sales management, students will be able to work through the entire sales process. This includes prospecting, sales pre-planning, writing sales proposals, preventing and handling objections, sales closing, and post sales servicing. The student will be able to use these selling tools to enhance their sales performance. In addition, students will be able to make better sales management decisions including hiring and motivation activities. The specific outcomes students will obtain from taking the course include: mapping out the entire client/customer buying process, conducting written sales plans and a professional interactive oral sales presentation, developing a sales strategy with action points for every step in the professional sales process, knowing how to use multiple prospecting methods, responding effectively to objections, and asking for commitments that move the sales process forward and complete in a buying decision. Students will also examine sales force management issues. They will investigate the specific responsibilities of sales managers including: sales force recruitment and selection, training and motivation of the sales team, and compensation strategies.

BUS3350 Consumer Behavior (3 credits)
An investigation of behavior and communication research, appraising models, methodology, and concepts applicable to marketing. Designing marketing communication systems whose structure and output reflect a behavioral buying orientation toward the market place. Uses contemporary examples to illustrate consumer behavior models.

BUS3400 Foundations of Finance (3 credits)
This course introduces students to financial markets; time value of money; risk and return; market valuation of securities; capital budgeting, capital structure, and the fundamentals of international finance.

BUS3500 International Business (3 credits)
This course examines the "rules of the game" in international business and their impact on the strategies and operations of multinational firms. Divergent political, economic, social institutions across countries, and key international institutions of trade and investment, (e.g., WTO and NAFTA), will be studied. The objective of this scrutiny is to understand how the global and national business environments affect critical business decisions such as global functional strategies, global opportunity analysis, market(s) selection, market entry and timing, choice of production site for global sourcing, and organizational implications. Students learn to develop global marketing and management strategies, paying attention to their implementation through organizational innovations such as fostering a global mindset within the organization and using global strategic alliances.

BUS3940/BUS4940 Business Internships (2-4 credits)
Students will have the opportunity to embark on new business related experiential learning opportunities through the use of general elective business internships. Students will work with a faculty coordinator to identify an organization where they can gain pragmatic business skills. Specific new learning objectives will be set and agreed upon by the student, site coordinator, and faculty member.

BUS4350 Marketing Research (3 credits)
Methods of design and analysis of marketing research studies, including surveys and laboratory and marketplace experiments, information evaluation, sampling techniques, instrument construction and statistical analysis; problems of validity and reliability. Students design and execute a complete marketing research data collection project.

BUS4990 Senior Seminar in Business Strategy (3 credits)
A capstone course for those majoring in business administration, accounting, marketing, or business management and innovation. In the course, students test and further develop both knowledge and skills by being cast in the role of top executives for a major company. In that role, students must analyze the industry in which they are operating and develop an implementable and winning strategy for the company they represent. It is a highly challenging semester-long project, and requires students to deal with a complicated real-world situation. Students work in cross-functional teams of three or four members each, draw on the range of knowledge they have accumulated, and use major analytical and quantitative tools they have developed. At the conclusion of the semester, students present detailed reports of their findings and recommendations. In addition to thorough written reports, students make formal presentations as if they were presenting to senior management.

ECN2010 Foundations of Microeconomics (3 credits)
This course introduces students to the study of market and non-market mechanisms in the allocation of productive resources and in the distribution of income. Includes the study of competitive markets, monopolies, oligopolies, international trade, as well as applications to selected current economic problems.

ECN2020 Foundations of Macroeconomics (3 credits)
This course introduces students to the study of economic factors determining national output, income, employment, and general price level. Such factors include roles of government, the Federal Reserve System, banking system and international monetary relations.

MTH1800 Quantitative Business Methods (4 credits)
This course has two major components: first, the student will be introduced to the tools of finite mathematics: linear equations, linear programming, matrices, and financial mathematics. Second, the course will acquaint the student with the principles of descriptive and inferential statistics. Topics in this segment will include: measures of central tendency, variability, probability, confidence intervals, hypothesis testing, correlation, and regression analysis.

For further information about the George Williams College program, call Jeremy Altschafl at 262-245-8573 or e-mail jaltscha@aurora.edu.