GM500: Management Theories and Practices I

This course is the first in a series of two courses that provide a foundation for understanding key management principles in the Master of Science in Management and Leadership program. This foundation is created in a wide range of learning activities that are grounded in real-world contexts. You will analyze and evaluate key management principles and learn how managers use resources to attain organizational goals through the functions of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. In this course, you will concentrate on the management functions of planning and organizing. Planning involves defining goals for future performance and devising ways to attain these goals, whereas organizing involves assigning and grouping tasks and allocating resources. It is worthy to note that the second course in this series, GM501 Management Theories and Practices II, will concentrate on the managerial functions of leading and controlling.

Quarter Credit Hours: 4 | Prerequisite: None

GM501: Management Theories and Practices II

This course is the second of two that focus on key management principles. In this course, students concentrate on the management functions of leading and controlling. Leadership involves influencing and motivating employees to achieve organizational objectives, whereas controlling involves monitoring employee activities and performance that affect standards and performance. GM 501 offers specific learning activities to strengthen critical thinking and professional writing skills that students can apply to real-world problems in the workplace.

Quarter Credit Hours: 4 | Prerequisite: GM500

GM502: Leadership Theory and Practice I

This course is the first of two courses that provide a foundation for understanding the leadership development process. This course examines classic and contemporary leadership studies and explores how leadership studies can be applied in real-world organizations. The theories and practices studied will enhance your understanding of trait, skill, behavioral, situational, path-goal, followership, and adaptive leadership theories providing an ample leadership toolkit to use in your leadership practice. The course emphasizes understanding the role and practice of personal ethics in leadership for future development and practice.

Quarter Credit Hours: 4 | Prerequisite: GM500

GM503: Leadership Theory and Practice II

This course is the second of two courses that provide a foundation for understanding the leadership development process. This course builds upon the foundation set in GM502: Leadership Theory and Practice I by continuing to review, understand, and apply leadership studies and adding additional tools to your leadership toolkit. Special emphasis will be placed on understanding and applying the Leader-Member Exchange (LMX), transformational leadership, authentic leadership, servant leadership, and team leadership theory. The course emphasizes the critical change initiatives needed by organizations and how to apply your leadership practice. The course takes an in-depth look at the role of gender and culture in leadership with a review of African American women's leadership practice.

Quarter Credit Hours: 4 | Prerequisite: GM502

GM504: Organizational Excellence and Change

This course uses a multi-contingency model and an information processing approach to create an optimal organizational design to address challenges organizations face in competitive environments. A multi-contingency model and information processing approach will be used to conduct a diagnosis involving an assessment and analysis of a selected organization's nine design components. The focus is on eliminating misalignments to create a good fit with the organization's goals, strategy, and environment to provide an organizational design change recommendation for the selected organization.

Quarter Credit Hours: 4 | Prerequisite: GM500

GM505: Action Research and Consulting Skills

This course focuses on action research and the development of critical skills required not only for consultants, but also for any manager desiring to strengthen his or her interpersonal effectiveness as a successful change agent. An introduction to the consulting process, and the consulting skills associated with entry, contracting, meeting management, defining issues and gathering data, diagnosing problems, formulating solutions, and creating and implementing action plans will also be examined.

Quarter Credit Hours: 4 | Prerequisite: GM504

GM506: Strategic Financial Analysis

The purpose of this course is to facilitate the non-financial manager's ability to develop a framework for understanding a company's true value and financial performance. The course will equip you with the skills necessary to communicate with peers in the accomplishment of shared objectives. You will learn how to interpret financial statements and use that information in the formulation and implementation of business strategies.

Quarter Credit Hours: 4 | Prerequisite: None

GM541: Foundations of Organization Development

This course provides an overview of the field of organization development. Application of organizational development principles and best practices to current business problems are the focus, emphasizing intervention theory. The organizational development strategies used in the field to address rapid changes and ethical challenges will also be examined.

Quarter Credit Hours: 4 | Prerequisite: Completion of all core courses or taken with the last core course

GM543: Organization Diagnosis and Design

This course introduces the nature, characteristics, and design of organizations as systems. You will develop a framework for assessing how organizations can respond through structural design and adaptation to internal and external environments. You will explore how managers design the organization for the international environment and embrace corporate social responsibility. Techniques that managers can use to successfully implement change and innovation, as well as decision making and the types of decisions that managers make, are examined.

Quarter Credit Hours: 4 | Prerequisite: Completion of all core courses or taken with the last core course

GM585: Mentoring and Coaching

This course introduces you to the nature and purpose of coaching and mentoring in organizations. You will learn fundamental principles and apply tools and techniques to develop your skills as a coach and mentor. The course uses scenario analysis to provide you with opportunities to identify and evaluate the effect of coaching and mentoring in the work environment.

Quarter Credit Hours: 4 | Prerequisite: Completion of all core courses or taken with the last core course

GM586: Transformational Leadership

This course examines transformational leadership theory and includes an exploration of the four factors development model that makes up one of the most effective leadership styles. Transformational leadership is examined through the lens of developing employees, cross-functional teams, strategies for enacting change, and applying that knowledge to improve organizational effectiveness. Through self-analysis you will have the opportunity to develop your transformational leadership potential regardless of your career stage.

Quarter Credit Hours: 4 | Prerequisite: Completion of all core courses or taken with the last core course

GM591: Strategic Project Selection and Initiation

This course covers project management from a strategic perspective. The course emphasizes the decision-making process used by leaders to launch projects that are aligned with the mission and vision of the organization. It stresses the techniques used by the project team to optimize the project selection process, such as return on investment (ROI), payback period, internal rate of return (IRR), and net present value (NPV). Further, this course examines the impact of various project management tools and techniques on time, cost, scope, quality, risk, customer satisfaction, and resources.

Quarter Credit Hours: 4 | Prerequisite: None

GM592: Project Planning and the Project Plan

Topics in this course include: setting project goals and objectives; conducting feasibility studies; selecting management approaches; preparing a project plan; establishing measurement tools; and executing control within the project for optimal performance. Additional instruction includes strategies for effective resource acquisition, management, and performance reporting, with special attention on workforce globalization, ethics/legal issues, outsourcing, and conflict management in diverse environments. This course also includes guidance on alternate methods for project planning, such as agile and extreme approaches for complex and obscure projects.

Quarter Credit Hours: 4 | Prerequisite: None

GM593: Project Execution With Monitoring and Control

This course provides an analysis of the principles, tools, and techniques for the execution, monitoring, and controlling of project performance, specifically schedule, cost, and scope. You will learn the tools, techniques, and software needed to establish a project baseline and control the impact of changes to schedule and cost. Topics include network diagrams, estimating time and resources, creating the project baseline, controlling the baseline, crashing the network, optimization and heuristics techniques for resource allocation, earned value management, and statistical control tools.

Quarter Credit Hours: 4 | Prerequisite: None

GM594: Project Closing, Ethics, and Professional Responsibilities

This course provides an in-depth understanding of the final phase of the project life cycle, the various ethical dimensions of projects, and the professional responsibilities of project managers. Closing phase activities explored in the course include final project accounting, closing procurements, and capturing lessons learned, among others. You will gain an understanding of the ethical dimensions of project management, an ability to differentiate between ethics and legality as they pertain to projects, and a recognition of the function of organizational codes of conduct relative to projects. Finally, you will learn the professional responsibilities of project managers.

Quarter Credit Hours: 4 | Prerequisite: GM591, GM592, and GM593

GM599: Applied Research Project

This course serves as the capstone to the Master of Science in Management and Leadership program, which allows you to integrate theories with practical application. This course utilizes the conceptual foundations and skills acquired in earlier core and specialization courses as the basis for an in-depth examination of a significant organizational problem of special interest to you. You will utilize a research methodology to identify a problem and design an applied research project to advance plausible solutions.

Quarter Credit Hours: 4 | Prerequisite: Capstone must be taken in final term or have approval of the Dean