Organizational Leadership (Online)

IS 120 Introduction to Business Analytics

Business Analytics includes the specific methods and techniques that are used by organizations to measure performance and provide insights to decision making at all levels. In this course, students will explore and achieve functional competencies in the use of specific Business Analytics tools including spreadsheets and database programs. This course combines the hands-on skills of working with software tools along with the critical thinking skills of properly framing business problems and questions, making comparisons, and ultimately making informed decisions. Students will create, manipulate, and validate spreadsheet data, functions, and techniques to solve various problems. Students will also use SQL in multiple databases environments to collect, extract, organize and present meaningful information. Skills gained in this course serve as core tools used to solve a variety of business problems across most academic and career disciplines.

BU 230 Business Conversations

[Satisfies Communication requirement]

Students will practice the skills necessary for interpersonal and group communications in a business setting. This includes the use of communication technologies for presentation and meetings. Fulfills the University Studies Oral Communication Studies Requirement.

ET 230 Financial Decision Making

This course looks at the ways that entrepreneurs need to understand the finances and accounting principles behind the decisions that they make with regards to funding, launching and operating a venture. This course is a practical look at solving key problems like calculating breakeven point, reading and understanding financial statements and their components, and identifying, analyzing, and utilizing contemporary ways of financing startups

BU 250 Written Business Communication

Students will prepare clear, concise, thorough, fact-based content and deliver it through the appropriate method and message for an intended audience. This includes preparing summaries and analysis of current events and typical business and employment situations. Methods includes reports, letters, e-mail, and social media.

IS 240 Foundations of Information Systems

This course is designed to introduce students to contemporary information systems and demonstrate how these systems are used throughout global organizations. The focus of this course will be on the key components of information systems: people, software, hardware, data, and communication technologies, and how these components can be integrated and managed to create competitive advantage. Students will learn terminology and concepts of Information Systems which provide enabling foundations for interaction between Information Systems and all other functional areas of an organization. Coursework bridges the divide between technical and nontechnical professionals.

OL 300 Self Leadership

Self-Leadership focuses on personal change as the foundation for leading change within an organization. Students consider their positive leadership characteristics, face their challenges as springboards for growth, reflect on their own ethical practices, and grasp the importance of communication, all in the framework of becoming a more effective leader. Students are asked to read and actively critique leadership materials, write an informed and polished research essay on a leadership topic of their choice employing APA. This course will continue to reinforce the standards of academic writing.

MG 300 Organizational Behavior and Change

Understanding how and why people behave the way they do, and how that behavior affects individual, team, and organizational performance is an essential skill for business management. In this course, students will also learn how to influence their own, as well as others' performance to achieve positive results. They will be introduced to such topics as motivation, diversity, organizational structure and design, and explore how diversity and culture impact individuals and organizations. This course also focuses on how to approach and implement organizational change in ways that maximize the likelihood of intended outcomes.

OL 310. Group and Team Dynamics

Course Objectives: This is a hands-on course designed to prepare students for the world of teams. Focus is to develop students’ understanding of team dynamics including team development, member roles, leadership, norm development, role of conflict and diversity in teams, delegation of authority, and team management

MG 340 Human Resources for Managers

In this course, students will learn that identifying the best employees begins with assessing the organization’s needs and carrying out an appropriate recruitment and selection process, how training, development, and performance evaluations assist in shaping employees into an ideal firm resource, and finally, how acceptable, and incentivizing compensation assist in retaining employees.

OL 343 Communication and Conflict 

Introduces students to strategies for effective communication, addressing organizational conflict for reaching collaborative solutions and principles of negotiation. The impact of interpersonal relationships within organizations and the organizational benefits to successful resolution are considered. Participants analyze the ways they think about and handle conflict as well as practice the theoretical approaches to conflict resolution and negotiation including labor union negotiations.

MG 344 Leading Diverse Organizations

Leading Diverse Organizations considers leadership theory and the special challenges and nuances of leading in organizations that are more diverse in every way than in the past. Students will learn about the development of theories of leadership and about their own leadership style. These theories will be examined with an eye toward understanding how the practice of leadership is changing to meet the increased diversity of organization. Finally, students will examine current writing on the leadership practice of building diversity and inclusion into the culture of organizations.

OL 350 Leadership Ethics

Course Objectives: This course takes organizational leadership a step further and focuses on the ethical considerations inherent in leading and following others. It is designed to encourage socially responsible leadership and foster understanding of how to lead competently and professionally, and to prepare students to recognize and address responsibly the ethical dilemmas which they will face in any leadership position. The course also emphasizes consideration of global issues in terms of social responsibility for leaders.

OL 355. Global Leadership

Aspiring global leaders must be well-versed in the implications of globalization in order to be successful. This course focuses on contemporary issues related to the understanding of the roles, responsibilities and processes leaders in a global society need to be successful. Emphasis is placed on developing cultural intelligence, building global context and creating cross boundary partnerships and networks.

IB 330 International Business

Problems and possibilities of doing business in an international context: possible forms of international business involvement; the international monetary system and international exchange markets; multinational firm strangles related to finance, marketing, personnel and production; the impact of cultural and political difference on the business environment.

MG 375 Project Management

Project management is a carefully planned and organized effort to accomplish a specific (and usually) one-time effort, for example: construction of a building, event planning, or implementing a new computer system. Project Management is a skill which must be developed and practiced being successful. The objective of this course is to master the principles of scope definition, Work-Breakdown-Structure development, assignment of logical activity relationships, resource and time constraint planning, construction of a budget and monitoring of planned versus actual progress using a variety of mathematical indices, within a defined timeframe and cost estimate. The concepts and techniques will be developed by navigation through one or more team-based project(s) using a popular project management software package

OL 375 Organizational Creativity, Innovation and High Performance

Course Objectives: In this course students will examine the innovation and creativity necessary to lead an organization to thriving in today’s highly competitive, rapidly changing and dynamic global economy. This course will investigate organizations that operate in this environment shows that high levels of creativity and innovation are key factors in those that are the most successful. This course offers its participants the opportunity to develop the knowledge and skills necessary to encourage creativity and innovation at different levels of an organization: at the individual level, within teams, and at the level of an organization’s systems and processes. Students will also examine the critical roles played by organizational culture and leadership in fostering an organization’s competitive edge

OL 385 Leadership Diversity and Multiculturalism

This course will explore diversity and multiculturalism in today’s organizations. The course will highlight in particular issues of race, social class, gender, and age in the workplace, and will address why leaders should foster multicultural environments. Emphasis will also be on learning to value differences, and best practices for creating diverse organization.

OL450. Organizational Leadership Capstone

The OL capstone course is designed to pull together the material presented in the Organizational Leadership major. It can also be appropriate for Business Management or Management Majors upon advisor recommendation. It combines and integrates elements of leadership, communication, finance, human resource development, and organizational behavior. Students develop an individual project which touches on all the areas named above. They use Project Management principles in this performance learning course to solve an organizational problem or respond to an organizational opportunity. Additionally, through a capstone paper, students will reflect on what they have learned in the OL program or other major and the impact it will have on them as organizational leaders.