STR7531 Strategy & the CEO
3 Elective Credits

Today's CEOs are viewed either as visionaries and corporate wizards, or liabilities and dead weight leading their organizations to stagnation or ruin. Society and investors increasingly look to the CEO as responsible for a company's strategy and its overall performance. How should CEOs approach their jobs? What are the things only the CEO can do? What are the characteristics of a good CEO?

By examining the role of the CEO, this course aims to deepen our understanding of strategy and leadership. We will bring the CEO perspective into the classroom - through regular guest CEOs, videos and case discussions - and outside of class through live interaction with the leader of your own organization or another of your choosing. Hear directly from CEOs how they think about strategy, what is different about their current role from previous functional leadership positions, and what they have struggled with or been surprised by in the job. Think through the intersection of strategy and leadership through case-based discussions and a simulation in which you play the role of CEO.

At the end of the course, students will have a deeper, more hands-on view of strategy and organizational leadership. Students will learn how taking a "CEO perspective" can improve decision-making, problem solving and one's leadership profile at any level of an organization.

For more information: http://www.kaltura.com/tiny/x4wey

Prerequisites: None (strongly recommended to take Strategy (MOB7801 or STR 7800) first)

STR7500 Strategy Execution
3 Credits

This course in Strategy Execution is designed to introduce students to the complexity, and challenges associated with implementing a developed strategy into both emerging and existing markets. There are three major objectives in the course.

1. The first is to help students articulate a philosophy designed to guide in successfully executing strategic initiatives. Here, you will explore the concepts of intended versus emergent strategy, the operating environment versus the executing environment and the various levers of power available to managers to utilize in the successful execution of business-level strategy.

2. The second objective is to explore both successful and unsuccessful firm-level strategy executions. Using the case method, we will explore the various levers of power available to managers analyzing and critiquing the outcomes of various firms' efforts to execute a business level strategic initiative.

3. The third objective is in two parts. The first part is to give students hands-on experience via an online simulation in strategy execution. Strategy execution is best learned by doing. The intent is to expose students to the complexities of strategy implementation where information is incomplete and unanticipated challenges to implementing a strategy emerge from unexpected sources. Students learn to prioritize, work within tight time schedules, learn to cope with limited resources, and respond to unexpected demands. The second part is to fully demonstrate your understanding of the complex relationships that characterize strategy execution during the final exam.

For more information: http://www.kaltura.com/tiny/ownhj

Prerequisites: MOB7202 or MOB7801 or STR7800

MOB7500 Strategy Execution
3 Credits

This course in Strategy Execution is designed to introduce students to the complexity, and challenges associated with implementing a developed strategy into both emerging and existing markets. There are three major objectives in the course.

1. The first is to help students articulate a philosophy designed to guide in successfully executing strategic initiatives. Here, you will explore the concepts of intended versus emergent strategy, the operating environment versus the executing environment and the various levers of power available to managers to utilize in the successful execution of business-level strategy.
2. The second objective is to explore both successful and unsuccessful firm-level strategy executions. Using the case method, we will explore the various levers of power available to managers analyzing and critiquing the outcomes of various firms' efforts to execute a business level strategic initiative.
3. The third objective is in two parts. The first part is to give students hands-on experience via an online simulation in strategy execution. Strategy execution is best learned by doing. The intent is to expose students to the complexities of strategy implementation where information is incomplete and unanticipated challenges to implementing a strategy emerge from unexpected sources. Students learn to prioritize, work within tight time schedules, learn to cope with limited resources, and respond to unexpected demands. The second part is to fully demonstrate your understanding of the complex relationships that characterize strategy execution during the final exam.

For more information: http://www.kaltura.com/tiny/ownhj

Prerequisites: MOB7202 or MOB7801

STR 7502: Strategy and Economic Disruption in Iceland

3 credits

Iceland's economic and business systems have faced multiple disruptive events. In 2008, the nation allowed its entire banking system to fail amid the Great Recession. As elsewhere, the COVID-19 Pandemic forced many businesses to innovate and adapt rapidly, and the following resurgence and further growth of tourism and recreation are rapidly displacing traditional fishing and agricultural economies. The nation's unique geography also presents unique challenges against natural disasters while providing the opportunity of abundant green energy. Throughout these disruptions, business owners and entrepreneurs have remained ahead of the curve and continuously innovated and adapted to changing situations while leading the world in renewable energy and gender equity. This course involves an interdisciplinary approach toward understanding strategy, economics, and entrepreneurship amid disruption and what successful business leaders have done to continually adapt and find new opportunities in a rapidly and drastically changing environment. Students will attend orientation and debriefing sessions before and after a 10-day study tour to Reykjavik, where they will meet and learn from business leaders and entrepreneurs.

LTA2062 Suburban America in Literature and Culture
4 Intermediate Liberal Arts CreditsAmerican suburbs are simultaneously reviled as physical spaces comprised of little boxes made of ticky tacky, churning out homogeneous values and people, and revered as mythically perfect imagined spaces in television sitcoms and advertising. This class aims to examine the American suburbs as constructed through popular texts, classic literature, and contemporary art. We will consider how the tension between utopia and dystopia is imagined and re-imagined over time and across genres and texts, reading and analyzing works such as the poetry of Anne Sexton, Richard Yates' novel Revolutionary Road, and the short stories of John Cheever. We will also examine representations of the suburbs in science fiction and film.

This course is typically offered in the following semesters: Fall

Prerequisites: (FCI1000 or AHS1000) and (WRT1001or RHT1000)

OIM 7507: Supply Chain Analytics

3 credits

Traditionally, supply chains were seen as sources of cost that were necessary to achieve the goals of buying, selling, manufacturing, assembling, warehousing, transporting, and delivering goods. More recently, managers have come to understand the potential of the supply chain as a source of competitive advantage and expand efforts beyond cost minimization and into the realm of profit maximization and expanding market share. At the same time, supply chains have become increasingly large and complex with the potential for thousands of suppliers, manufacturers, distributms, and retailers to be included in the supply chain for a single product. This increase in supply chain size has coincided with exponential increases in the amount of data collected and maintained by firms and the computing power we have available to analyze it. Problems which were entirely intractable decades ago can now be solved at scale in a matter of minutes. As technology has increased the number of problems that can be solved at industrial scale, firms have shifted from primarily focusing on descriptive analytics to utilizing the power of predictive and prescriptive analytics to solve supply chain problems.

This course is designed to provide you with a broad introduction to the uses of prescriptive analytics to optimize common supply chain decisions associated with purchasing, manufacturing, distributing, and retailing goods and services. The focus will be on identifying areas of Supply Chain Management where optimization and simulation are helpful tools, selecting and implementing appropriate models given the context, and interpreting those models and their limitations. We will discuss a variety of decisions across the different functions of the supply chain and the role of optimization and data in making those decisions. Students will gain a foundational understanding of how analytics can be applied to Supply Chains, the currently available tools and software, and how to recognize common pitfalls or issues.

Prerequisites: None

OIM3573 Supply Chain Management
4 Advanced Management Credits

Supply chain management (SCM) is an integrated approach to managing the flow of goods/services, information and financials from the raw materials to the consumer (throughout the supply chain) to satisfy customers' expectations and achieve profitability. Demand Chain management (DCM) takes a more customer focused approach to SCM. This course is designed to provide undergraduate students with an integrated perspective of SCM & DCM to develop the capability to analyze current supply chain operations, to reconfigure the structure of supply chain, and to develop competitive supply chains. Students will identify major barrier to effective supply and demand chain management, recognize best practices in supply and demand chain management, and assess the effect of advanced technologies on supply chain implementation.

Prerequisites: (SME2001 or ACC2002) and (SME2002 or OIM2001)

OIM7572 Supply Chain Management
3 Elective Credits

Supply Chain Management (SCM) is primarily the management of flows. These flows involve multiple, interactive parties. Thus, asymmetric interests & information pooling often govern the Chain itself as it interprets the uncertainty inherent in both supply and demand. The goal of all supply chains is to satisfy or exceed customer's expectations and to do so at sustainable and reliable levels of profitability. The achievement of these goals is both enabled and challenged by the nature of complex systems in an increasingly globalized economy. In many industries supply chains are the primary determinant of product cost, capital efficiency and customer satisfaction. Indeed, in certain firms, Supply Chain Management is a compelling source of competitive advantage and shareholder interest.

This course is a foundational elective designed to provide students with an integrated perspective of SCM; with enough specificity to critically assess the strategic fit of an existing supply chain design and to offer discrete recommendations for improvement. Students will also learn to recognize best practices in supply chain management, identify possible supply chain barriers to effectively scaling a venture, and assess the effectiveness of advanced technologies such as robotics, blockchain and AI to further improve supply chain execution & product/service life-cycle management. As such the course will be an essential component to the portfolio of studies of those pursuing advanced management skills & research. The course is intended for CEO's, COO's, CSO's, Product Managers and Operations leaders in ventures where the supply chain is an instrument of strategic intent & actualization.

This course is structured on the fundamental assertion that a system is more than the sum of its parts. As systems, supply chains may exhibit adaptive, dynamic, self-resilient and even goal seeking behaviors. Our scope of study is through a lens involving networks, platforms and ecosystems - often well beyond the hard boundaries of a firm. For purposes of our course, Supply Chain Management is defined as the transdisciplinary & integrated approach to managing the flow of goods/services, information, and capital, from raw materials through to the end user - and increasingly the conversion of end-of-life products back into sourcing streams.

Prerequisites: 1) NONE for those involved in Specialty Masters Programs (MSBA, MSF, MSEL)

2) Completion of OIM 7800 for all other students

OIM7529 Sustainability Innovation
1.5 Elective Credits

Our economic systems are running on an enormous ecological deficit. However, there's some good news for entrepreneurial leaders everywhere; everything needs to be redesigned. What you get when you have new technologies, new user needs, new markets, and new business plans is new opportunities for sustainable development. With this mindset, the industrial and economic systems are in sustainability transformation from the industrial age to the climate change and social impact age.

In this new age, entrepreneurial leaders must understand the socio-ecological impacts of their businesses, and integrate sustainability risks and opportunities into discussions and decisions on risk, revenue, and business strategy. They must explore and develop innovations with sustainability priorities for their markets and industries. They must be able to evaluate value and impact at scale in the context of short- and long-term strategic decision making. Otherwise, their businesses will be inevitably extinct in the climate change and social impact age.

This course aims to prepare entrepreneurial leaders for critical sustainability transformation. Students will gain knowledge about the sustainability challenges (e.g., energy, transportation, waste, carbon management, agriculture, production and consumption) and practical skills for exploring sustainability innovations and accelerating the growth of sustainable businesses (e.g, net zero, zero-carbon tech, decarbonization, ESG, UN SDG). Students will 1) learn and employ integrated systems thinking to address social responsibility, ecological integrity, and value creation; 2) apply an innovation process framework to generate sustainability ideas and develop business strategies; and 3) assess the suitability, scalability, and sustainability of innovations for consumers/users, investors, and other stakeholders of interest.

Students who are interested in any of the following roles may find this course useful:

• An entrepreneur wanting to understand sustainability as a business opportunity
• An individual or corporate strategy group developing a sustainability strategy
• An individual or corporate strategy group seeking growth through sustainability innovations
• A leader wanting to develop a culture of sustainability and organizational change
• An R&D group aiming to integrate sustainability into its innovation process
• A financier deciding whether to invest in a sustainability-oriented entrepreneur

Prerequisite: NONE

NST2040 Case Studies in Sustainable Food Systems
4 Intermediate Liberal Arts CreditsWhat is food - where does it come from, how is it grown, what resources does it use, what's the difference between a GMO and an organic product, what do labels mean, is it sustainable? This course looks to take a scientific and systems based look at the food we eat and deeply examine all of the steps that occur between "farm to table". We need food to survive and food must be grown, cultivated, harvested, processed, and distributed so that we can benefit from it. These steps take place in different ways all across the globe, across the country, and among our neighbors. In this class, we'll look at what it means to be a sustainable food system, look at historical approaches that worked to meet/deviate from this goal, and look at how the future aims to feed a growing world with increasingly diminishing resources.

By the end of this course, you will recognize the importance of sustainable food systems and know the different areas that comprise this system. You will be able to distinguish between sustainable and non-sustainable food systems. Through this design, this course meets the college learning goals of Rhetoric, Quantitative and Information Analysis, Ethics and SEERS, and Critical and Integrative Thinking.

Prerequisites: NST10%%