Online MBA programs are composed of challenging courses meant to equip students for management and other leadership positions in the business world. Building on what students already know, MBA classes outline best practices for problem-solving and communicating in a business environment, delving into business theory and its practical, real-world applications. Students will also update their skill sets, refreshing their knowledge of business technology and software. Many courses help students prepare for challenges by closely examining various case studies; others will emphasize research into an area related to business administration. The courses offered in today’s online MBA programs are interdisciplinary, touching on a variety of interconnected areas. Although the specific classes you take will differ from program to program, most will include the core topics of finance, accounting, management, marketing, global or international business, and technology. Below is a sampling of courses you may take in an MBA program.
- Financial Accounting: This course emphasizes how to read, analyze and interpret financial statements and communicate vital information about a company’s financial performance to its leadership. Accounting processes and methods are also emphasized.
- Managerial Accounting: Students in this class get prepared for leadership roles when managing a company’s accounts with an emphasis on decision making. Students get an in-depth look at cost behavior, cost analysis, profit planning, control measures and capital budgeting decisions.
- Cost Accounting: This course explores accounting as it relates to job order and process costing, cost-volume-profit analysis, activity-based costing, variable costing, budgeting, standard costing systems and variance analysis. Decision making and differentiation between direct and indirect costs are also emphasized.
- Forensic Accounting: The means of investigative auditing for fraud, building a case for litigation and methods for quantifying damages caused by instances of fraud are covered in this class. Legal issues in accounting are also examined.
- Tax Accounting: This class equips students with an in-depth understanding of federal, state and local taxation for people, companies and large organizations. It explores federal income tax laws and how they apply to corporations, partnerships, estates and trusts. Students learn federal and state tax preparation methods and best practices.
- Financial Analysis and Reporting: Through case studies, students taking this course get an intensive look at effective methods for corporate financial reporting, with emphasis on asset evaluation and determining future income. Students learn how to analyze and interpret financial statements and communicate data effectively to other team members.
- Corporate Finance: This class emphasizes capital budgeting techniques, risk management and uncertainty, investment decisions, company valuation and financial planning. It also explores legal and ethical concerns in corporate finance. The course equips students for the role of chief financial officer.
- Risk Management: In this class, students discover best practices for protecting firms from losses by hedging with derivatives. They learn to identify, evaluate and monitor the financial price risks that corporations face.
- Organizational Leadership: Through case studies, this class focuses on teaching students modern management strategies such as networking, coaching, cultivating diversity, crisis leadership, delegation of responsibilities, team leadership and individual leadership.
- Supply Chain Management: This course provides students with a solid foundation in materials and logistics management from the perspective of a general manager. Students learn strategies for customer service, quality control and management of inventory. The focus is on how logistical decisions affect the company or organization overall.
- Management Communication: Effective internal and external communication strategies for managers are explored in this course. Conflict management and communication from the top down are emphasized. Students also learn how to tailor their communication for various audiences.
- Operations Management: Operations Management explores the planning, operation and controlling of products and services. Project management, inventory management, forecasting and quality control are emphasized.
- Human Capital Management: Often included in a human resources management concentration, human capital management teaches managers how to effectively develop and cross-train personnel, helping them to attain their career goals within a company.
- Strategic Planning and Implementation: Students in this course learn leadership skills as they apply to planning for the future. A key point of this class is teaching students the value of a company’s mission, vision and values.
- Project Management: This class teaches students effective techniques for planning, managing, controlling and executing projects of varying scope and the assigning of responsibilities and risk management for major projects.
- Marketing Management and Analysis: Building on basic marketing concepts, this course helps students apply those concepts in a management capacity. Students look at pricing, distribution, promotion and consumer behavior and learn to develop strategies for effectively marketing goods and services.
- Marketing Research: Students learn to define marketing problems, gather data and conduct research in this class. Students also discover how to interpret the results of their research and discuss their implications for marketing.
- Product Management: This class explores strategies for overseeing the conceptualization, development, prototypes, product design and labeling, test marketing and national launch of new or revamped products.
Global or International Business
- International Business Strategy: This course focuses on economics, finance, marketing, technology and operations in a global context. Lectures discuss how to do business in other countries and what it means to lead in cross-cultural settings.
- Global Leadership: Students learn the importance of cultivating the characteristics of a global mind-set and how this relates to leadership in this class. Emphasis is placed on leading international teams.
- Global Economic Environment: This course gives students strategies for competing in an international business environment. Students study how to overcome barriers to doing business in diverse cultures, economies and political environments. Exchange rate risk management is a component of this class.
- Information Systems for Managers: Designed to help managers become information literate, this class explores the various information systems they will encounter. These might include database management, executive information and expert systems.
- Introduction to Information Security: This course teaches students how to protect sensitive company information from getting compromised while allowing access to those who need the information to do their jobs. Controls and countermeasures are emphasized.
- Information Security, Ethics and Policy: The legal and ethical issues associated with information security are examined in this class, with a particular focus on government policy.
Other MBA Courses
- Business Law: In this class, students get a thorough understanding of the American legal system as it applies to businesses and corporations and how business law applies to making informed business decisions to avoid legal risk.
- Business Research and Statistics: Students enrolled in this course study statistics and probability as they apply to making business decisions. Students will define a research question and gather information on it.
- Business Policy: How the administrative team of a company develops policies that affect employees is considered in this class. Case studies are closely examined.
- Entrepreneurship: This course examines strategies for launching business ventures, including initiating a marketable concept, drafting an effective business plan and acquiring startup capital. Creativity and innovation are emphasized.
- Business Economics: Students in this class look at economic principles such as supply and demand, scarce resources and opportunity costs and how they apply to the world of business. An emphasis is placed on economic strategies for maximizing profit.
- Human Resource Management: This course looks at management strategies for recruiting and hiring the best personnel and retaining those employees by supporting and developing them. Theories of motivation and maximizing human capital are emphasized.
- Business Ethics: Students in this class learn how to build ethical practices into a company’s mission, values and overall business strategies. Numerous case studies are typically examined.