Master of Science in Management and Leadership

The 🌐 icon appears in the title of traditional courses that are also available as a set of module courses.  

Description and Outcomes

The Master of Science in Management and Leadership program focuses on helping you build specialized leadership skills in a particular discipline and is designed to prepare you to pursue managerial and executive positions in a wide range of industries. From the start of the program, courses help you develop leadership knowledge and abilities that you can apply immediately to your work life and to help advance your career. Through relevant instruction and hands-on application, you may acquire skills and understanding in decision making and day-to-day managerial functions. The curriculum encourages you to identify real-life professional challenges by building a resume of case studies and projects, hypothesizing and testing solutions, and measuring results. You will examine current concepts and effective management and organizational strategies that impact today's global marketplace.

Completion of this program may be especially beneficial if you are interested in pursuing high-level managerial opportunities in various fields such as health care administration, change leadership, project management, and government.

Concentrations

You can choose from seven concentrations that are designed to help develop specific proficiencies: global business, health care management, human resources, information technology, leadership, organizational design and development, and project management.

Project Management Concentration Mission Statement

The mission and purpose of the project management concentration within the Master of Science in Management and Leadership is to build on the leadership, management, and organizational strategies learned within the master’s degree program while preparing students with the critical foundation, knowledge, and skills necessary to pursue a mid-level position in project management. The project management concentration courses provide learning outcomes in key project management areas including project initiation, project planning and execution, project cost and scheduling, and project risk, quality, and assessment.

Society for Human Resources Management Acknowledgement

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) has acknowledged that the Master of Science in Management and Leadership with a concentration in human resources fully aligns with SHRM’s HR Curriculum Guidebook and Templates. The HR Curriculum Guidebook and Templates were developed by SHRM to define the minimum HR content areas that should be studied by HR students at the undergraduate and graduate levels. The guidelines—created in 2006 and revalidated in 2010 and 2013—are part of SHRM’s academic initiative to define HR education standards taught in university business schools and help universities develop degree programs that follow these standards.

Program Length

The Master of Science in Management and Leadership program consists of a minimum of 56 quarter credit hours. Upon successful completion of the program, you will be awarded a master of science degree.

Program Outcomes

  1. Develop a personal leadership and management style for diverse situations.
  2. Assess the impact of theory on the practice of management.
  3. Apply management best practices to effect innovative change.
  4. Evaluate the ethical and social implications of business decisions in a global context.
  5. Evaluate organizational decisions.

Professional Competencies

In addition to the discipline-specific outcomes, professional competencies are integrated throughout your academic program. You can review the professional competencies associated with your academic program in the Professional Competencies section of this Catalog.

Program Availability

For program availability, please refer to the U.S. State and Other Approvals section and Program Availability Information.

Policies

Admissions Requirements

You must meet the below admissions requirements in addition to Purdue Global's general requirements.

You must submit a current, professional resume that details employment history including responsibilities and dates of employment.

Your prior bachelor's degree must be in the field of business from an accredited institution or include a minimum of 30 semester or 45 quarter credit hours in undergraduate coursework across the Common Professional Components (CPC) to align with Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs (ACBSP) accreditation standards. You would also meet these requirements with a master's degree in business (MBA).

ACBSP’s CPC include areas such as marketing, management, finance, economics, law, ethics, accounting, globalization, policy, IT, and statistics. If you have completed the required hours and satisfy the other program entry requirements, no additional coursework is needed to enter the master’s degree program. If you do not meet this requirement, you will be required to take a Peregrine entrance exam free of charge to assess your knowledge in the CPC areas. If you do not meet the minimum scoring requirement of 50 percent on each topic in the exam, you will be required to take a leveling course, comprised of up to 8 modules, before being enrolled in the program. The required module(s) will be determined by the Peregrine score in each CPC area. You are responsible for the fee for each Peregrine module required. You must pass each Peregrine module that is required with a score of 70 percent or higher.

For example, if you do not meet the undergraduate coursework requirements, and do not receive a passing score on the exam in the accounting and business ethics areas, you would be required to take both module 1 and module 2 of the leveling course:

Module 1 Accounting
Module 2 Business Ethics
Module 6 Global Dimensions of Business
Module 7 Information Management Systems
Module 8 Legal Environment of Business
Module 9 Marketing
Module 14 Economics/Macroeconomics
Module 15 Economics/Microeconomics

Instructions for completing the Peregrine entrance exam or modules will be provided by the University.

Progression Requirements

  1. You may not use transfer credit to replace GM502 Leadership Theory and Practice I, GM503 Leadership Theory and Practice II, or GM599 Applied Research Project. These courses must be completed at Purdue Global. No transfer credit may be used for any course in the project management specialization.
  2. As a newly enrolled student, you may request to test out of GB512 🌐 Business Communications by passing an Assessment of Skills and Knowledge (ASK) with a predetermined score. To register for an ASK, you must contact your Student Advisor at least 1 week prior to your scheduled start date. 
  3. If you would like to substitute a course for one of the required core courses, you must submit a Program Option Request Form with documentation supporting the request to the Dean of the School of Business and Information Technology. The decision to approve a core course substitution request rests with the Dean or a designee and is based on an evaluation of your exposure to equivalent subject matter. Regardless of the Dean's decision, you will still have to complete the number of credit hours required for the program.

Certification, State Board, and National Board Exams

Certain state certification and licensure boards have specific educational requirements for programs to lead to a license or certification that is a precondition for employment in a recognized occupation. Prospective and current students must review Purdue Global’s State Licensure and Certifications site to view program and state-specific licensure information.

Unless otherwise specified, Purdue Global's programs are not designed to meet any specific state’s licensure or certification requirements. Licensure-track programs may limit enrollment to students in certain states; please see Purdue Global’s Program Availability Information to determine enrollment eligibility.

You are responsible for understanding the requirements of optional certification exams. Such requirements may change during the course of your program. You are not automatically certified in any way upon program completion. Although certain programs are designed to prepare you to take various optional certification exams, Purdue Global cannot guarantee you will be eligible to take these exams or become certified. Your eligibility may depend on your work experience, completion of education and/or degree requirements, not having a criminal record, and meeting other certification requirements.