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ONLINE MBA PROGRAM

Fast facts

Fact 1

Credit Hours

30-36

Fact 2

Per Credit

$760

Fact 3

Duration

1 Year*

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Program Benefits

  • #1 Minnesota online MBA - 2022 by U.S. News & World Report 
  • Digital Badging and Graduate Certificates Available (course waivers available for certificates)
  • GRE/GMAT Waiver Available
  • No Business Background Required
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A Curriculum That’s Tailored to You

Customize your learning experience with Saint Mary’s Accelerators, which are graduate certificate offerings that can be stacked to ensure you gain the diverse skills for the career you want.

Saint Mary’s accelerated online MBA curriculum focuses on real-world issues and provides learning that is immediately applicable to students’ careers. Designed to help students rapidly advance their progress as professionals, you can complete the program in as little as 12 months1. Students can complete all of the courses in this program online.

This MBA consists of 10 courses for 30 total credit hours. All students must complete seven core courses (21 credits), one elective course, and two general MBA courses (6 credits).

Students may choose a certificate in a content area of interest: business analytics, cybersecurity management, cybersecurity technology, finance, healthcare analytics, healthcare administration, human resource management, innovation and entrepreneurship, international human resource management, nonprofit management, or project management. While most certificates are 12 credits, the business analytics and healthcare analytics programs are 15 credits each. Students with either of these certificates may substitute the additional credits for MBA600 Quantitative Decision Making. 

Enhance Your Education with Saint Mary’s Accelerators

Choose from a selection of graduate certificate programs designed to accelerate your degree and help you achieve your goals faster. Each of Saint Mary’s Accelerators requires the completion of 12–15 credits and adds only six additional credits (two courses) to your degree program, allowing you to complete extra credentials while saving time and money.

With Saint Mary’s Accelerators, you’ll get a glimpse at graduate coursework and the opportunity to customize your learning experience. Additionally, several certificate programs also offer Credly badging for each course.

These badges serve as a graphic representation of the skills you gained by completing a specific course or graduate certificate program. They can be displayed on social media platforms like LinkedIn, along with your CV and resume to visually showcase your specific leadership knowledge and skills to current and potential employers, credentialing programs, and admissions offices.

Core Courses (21 credits)

MBA 600 Quantitative Decision Making (3 credits)

This course is designed to give students a practitioner’s ability to utilize quantitative decision making tools and techniques commonly used in business. The QDM tools and techniques used in operations management, inventory management, marketing, project management, and finance are covered. Topics include hypothesis testing, confidence intervals, subjective probability, decision trees, Bayes Theorem, and regression.

Upon completion of the course, students are expected to be able to do the following:

  1. Utilize hypothesis testing, confidence intervals, and regression to obtain a quantitative basis to make business decisions.
  2. Apply decisions trees to qualitative situations in business.
  3. Apply subjective probabilities to provide insight into business situations involving uncertainty and risk.
  4. Utilize decision software designed to support qualitative business decision making.

MBA 604 Managerial Economics (3 credits)

This course focuses on the application of economic theory to examine how an organization can efficiently achieve its aims or objectives. The tools and applications used by organizations to make decisions and assess their outcomes in a global context are covered. Topics include advanced supply and demand analysis and estimation, production and cost analysis, market structure and price analysis, regulation and risk analysis, and global pricing practices.

Upon completion of the course, students are expected to be able to do the following:

  1. Forecast market trends in prices and industry profitability in a global context.
  2. Assess the competitiveness of a firm within an industry from a production and cost perspective in a global environment.
  3. Analyze market demand from a competitive and profitability perspective in a global environment.
  4. Analyze the impact of global forces on market structure and firm behavior.

MBA 609 Operations Management (3 credits)

This course covers the tools, techniques, and methodologies used by managers to plan, design, and implement control systems that create/produce services and/or goods in an organization. The decisions for which operations managers are held accountable, methods used to make those decisions, and the factors affecting productivity, effectiveness, and efficiency in an organization are covered. Topics include strategic considerations in operations management, operations decision-making, quality management, forecasting, just-in-time inventory management, and facility location.

Upon completion of this course, students are expected to be able to do the following:

  1. Apply the basic terms, principles, concepts, techniques, tools, and methodologies of operations management.
  2. Review and examine techniques of enterprise control and performance management.
  3. Assess the impact of strategic managerial actions on the shape and direction of the operational function.
  4. Develop an operations plan which integrates human, technological, and economic factors.
  5. Assess the linkage between the factors that affect the operations system.

MBA 640 Managerial Accounting (3 credits)

This course examines on the principles and techniques of managerial cost accounting. It covers various cost accounting techniques and the effective use of accounting information for business decision-making. Topics include cost-volume-profit analysis, activity based costing, activity based management, inventory costing and capacity analysis, cost allocation, and budgeting.

Upon completion of this course, students are expected to be able to do the following:

  1. Use cost accounting techniques to support decision making in an organization.
  2. Solve previously unseen problems using the concepts and techniques of managerial accounting.
  3. Apply strategic cost management techniques.
  4. Contribute to the management capacity of a firm by proper use of costing information.

MBA 643 Corporate Finance (3 credits)

This course examines the principles of corporate finance and the tools and practices used in financial decision making. It examines the treasury function of an organization and the decisions made by the treasurer. Topics include long term financing, capital budgeting decisions, beta, debt-equity options, dividend policy analysis, and IPOs.

  1. Upon completion of this course, students are expected to be able to do the following:
  2. Use tools and techniques of corporate finance.
  3. Support treasurer level decision making with financial information.
  4. Demonstrate the ability to make capital budgeting decisions.
  5. Create a dividend policy.
  6. Prepare financial information necessary to take a company public.

MBA 655 Marketing Strategy (3 credits)

This course addresses the principles of marketing and the tools and practices used to design and implement a comprehensive marketing strategy. It examines the frameworks and strategies behind making effective marketing decisions that build customer value and drive an organization’s growth. Topics include market research, target marketing, product development and positioning, brand-building, buyer behavior, pricing, distribution, and integrated marketing communications. In addition, the course focuses on achieving competitive advantage within the context of ethics and sustainability.

Upon completion of this course, students are expected to be able to do the following:

  1. Describe different types of marketing research and construct a marketing research approach for a brand.
  2. Formulate a marketing strategy based upon effective segmentation, targeting, and positioning.
  3. Practice application of different pricing models and distribution strategies.
  4. Develop integrated marketing communication and other strategies to leverage promotion opportunities.
  5. Create comprehensive marketing plans in the context of strategic brand planning and product lifecycle management.
  6. Explain the role of marketing in the context of ethics, mission, and sustainability.

MBA 669 Strategic Management Capstone (3 credits)

This course is the capstone for the MBA program. Students integrate knowledge from previous courses to analyze and evaluate competitive strategies used by firms. The case method is applied to a wide variety of industries and business issues. In addition, students have the live case experience of working with a sponsoring organization. Students assess the external and internal environments of the organization and develop a strategic plan.

Upon completion of this course, students are expected to be able to do the following:

  1. Utilize appropriate tools to analyze and evaluate strategic decisions of firms.
  2. Design strategies to obtain and sustain competitive advantage.
  3. Create a strategic plan to address an organizational need.

Elective Courses (3 credits)

ACCT 600 Financial Communication (3 credits)

The course provides students with an understanding of how accounting and other information necessary to assess a firm’s economic status is created, packaged and disseminated to a company’s management team and external users such as investors, customers, analysts and the financial media. Course also covers academic writing used in the program and information literacy required for research.

Upon completion of this course, students are expected to be able to do the following:

  1. Evaluate methods used to communicate complex accounting concepts.
  2. Interpret how effectively annual reports communicate an organization’s objectives.
  3. Develop different communication strategies for all stakeholders.
  4. Employ multimedia, hypermedia and electronic literature resources to gather and distribute accounting and business knowledge and information.
  5. Employ clear writing and speaking skills appropriate to the audience.
  6. Capture ideas, data and relationships visually.

BIA 630 Data Analysis and Business Modeling (3 credits)

This course provides an introduction to advanced concepts in predictive modeling and techniques to discover patterns in data, identify variables with the most predictive power, and develop predictive models. Students are introduced to descriptive, predictive, prescriptive analytics and optimization models. The course utilizes Microsoft Excel to engineer and analyze business models. Students identify the proper use of and complete regression, optimization, and exponential smoothing models.

Upon completion of this course, students are expected to be able to do the following:

  1. Utilize datasets to develop statistics and probability to predict future outcomes.
  2. Implement appropriate models needed to analyze and critically evaluate business objectives.
  3. Develop written and oral communication skills required to report on data-intensive business situations.
  4. Organize data-intensive content in a professional setting.
  5. Execute advanced analytics techniques.

CYBR 600 Foundations of Cybersecurity (3 credits)

This course provides an overview and foundational understanding of concepts essential to the cybersecurity professional to evaluate best practices in implementing security systems within the enterprise. This course covers key bodies of knowledge in security, privacy, and compliance.  Topics include security planning, risk management, security technologies, basic cryptography, digital forensics, application security, intrusion detection and prevention, physical security, and privacy issues.

Upon completion of the course, students are expected to be able to do the following:

  1. Apply the principles of information technology security.
  2. Analyze situations of computer and network usage from a security perspective to develop a security mindset.
  3. Explain information security’s importance in our increasingly computer-driven world.
  4. Identify appropriate strategies to ensure confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information.
  5. Express management’s role in the development, maintenance, and enforcement of an information security program.
  6. Describe the relationship among laws, regulations, and professional issues in information security.
  7. Articulate how cryptography serves as the central language of information security.
  8. Analyze how physical security fits within an information security program.
  9. Define the roles of computer forensics in information security.
  10. Apply basic software tools for assessing the security posture of a business.
  11. Explain how issues of privacy relate to business information security.

HS 662 Financial Practices in the Health and Human Services Sector (3 credits)

This course explores the skills required for effective, ethical financial management within the health sector. Students analyze and interpret financial statements, create and evaluate operating and capital budgets, and incorporate general principles of financial management.

Upon completion of this course, students are expected to be able to do the following:

  1. Relate the historical context of healthcare financial management, theory, and concepts to the current state of the health sector.
  2. Create and evaluate an operating and capital budget for an organization.
  3. Examine the reimbursement requirements and regulatory compliance on financial performance, including exploration billing and collections practices.
  4. Analyze and evaluate the financial statements of organizations in the health or human service sectors.
  5. Use the tools of financial forecasting, planning auditing programs, reporting systems, and control needed to make managerial decisions within the health sector.

IENT 600 Design Thinking and Innovation (3 credits)

This course provides an introduction to design thinking, ideation, and implementation strategies using theories, processes, and tools associated with innovation in business development. Using a human-centered approach to innovation, students evaluate desirability, viability, and feasibility to determine potential for responding to an identified need. Students are introduced to different types of value propositions and customer segments, with a focus towards learning to leverage Lean Startup tools in developing and pivoting a business model through execution and iteration. Topics covered include value propositions, customer segments, revenue streams, channels, partners, and key resources.

Upon completion of this course, students are expected to be able to do the following:

  1. Apply knowledge of the principles, theories, and strategies of design thinking.
  2. Evaluate and identify the viability of a business idea in relation to feasibility and desirability.
  3. Build a business model that addresses the relationship between the key components.
  4. Create innovative implementation strategies for the execution of new business models in organizations.

MAPA 601 Strategic Nonprofit Management (3 credits)

This course provides an overview of the management principles used in nonprofit organizations. The course examines the historical and current context for work in the nonprofit sector; strategic leadership, including board governance and executive leadership; concepts of strategic planning, benchmarking and evaluation; and an overview of operations planning. Strategic linkages between an organization’s mission and values, strategic direction, and programming are examined.

Upon completion of the course, students are expected to be able to do the following:

  1. Analyze types and characteristics of nonprofit operating principles and structures.
  2. Apply concepts of nonprofit accountability and ownership.
  3. Explain operations and characteristics of a board governance model.
  4. Create measurable benchmarks for monitoring progress against strategy.
  5. Evaluate operating goals, objectives, tactics, and implementation tools.
  6. Analyze the role of strategic planning within organizational life, explaining the relationship among organizational mission, strategy, vision, and values.

PRM 600 Foundations of Project Management (3 credits)

This foundation course covers key terminology, project management context, and the project management framework. This framework includes the project management knowledge areas and the project process groups.

Upon completion of this course, students are expected to be able to do the following:

  1. Apply key project management terms.
  2. Analyze the environment in which projects operate.
  3. Describe a generalized view of how the various project management processes commonly interact.
  4. Identify project integration, scope, schedule, cost, quality, resource, communications, risk, procurement, and stakeholder management process inputs, tools and techniques, and outputs.
  5. Analyze stakeholder needs and expectations.
  6. Interpret the role of the project manager.
  7. Initiate a project by creating a project charter and analyzing stakeholder needs.
  8. Apply citation and documentation carefully to all assignments.

OL614 Leadership and Ethics (3)

This course focuses on theories and styles of leadership and the ways in which outcomes are influenced through increased awareness of personal style and skills. Personal and professional ethics are analyzed, and ethical issues in organizations are explored.

Upon completion of this course, students are expected to be able to do the following:

Evaluate personal leadership strengths and opportunities for leadership success.
Analyze the role of the leader in the context of organizational issues.
Analyze one’s learning and communication style as it applies to leadership in a technological world.
Distinguish emotional intelligence competencies that contribute to leadership success.
Analyze ethical principles that affect decision making.
Analyze ethical dilemmas within organizations.
Synthesize the individual, organizational, and systemic issues in ethical situations.
Construct a process for ethically responsible decision making and apply this model to ethical decision points.

General MBA Curriculum (6 credits)

Students selecting the General MBA option must complete the following courses in addition to the core courses.

MBA 610 Organizations and Human Behavior (3 credits)

This course examines human behavior and social relationships in the workplace setting from a domestic and intercultural perspective. The theories, history, and practice of promoting effective individual and group behavior in organizations across cultures are covered. Topics include groups and teams, multicultural teams, power and influence, trust, gender and equality, the impact of culture on work behavior, and creating cultural synergy in a multicultural work environment.

Upon completion of this course, students are expected to be able to do the following:

  1. Deconstruct the dynamics and complexities of individual and group behavior in a workplace setting.
  2. Build multicultural teams.
  3. Recognize and manage issues of justice, gender, equality, ethics, and trust as they arise in the workplace.
  4. Design a plan to promote cultural synergy in a workplace setting.

MBA 613 Ethical Leadership (3 credits)

This course provides a theoretical framework to analyze and evaluate the ethical dimension of leadership practices. Topics include the implementation of ethical leadership models and practices, ethical considerations in multinational organizational strategy, and building and maintaining international partnerships. The case method is employed to analyze and evaluate the leaders of firms diverse in their perspective and scope.

Upon completion of this course, students are expected to be able to do the following:

  1. Apply ethical leadership techniques.
  2. Evaluate the ethical dimension of organizational strategy with an emphasis on social responsibility.
  3. Analyze ethical leadership models via the case study method.
  4. Evaluate the impact of leadership practices on organizational climate.
  5. Articulate the unique challenges of ethical leadership in international partnerships.

To find out more about Saint Mary’s online accelerated MBA program and its curriculum, call 877-308-9954 to speak with an enrollment counselor or request more information.

 

1Students must be registered for 12+ credit hours each semester in order to complete the program in 12 months.

 

Current Degree Requirements

For current degree requirements, visit the Saint Mary's University of Minnesota Course. Catalog at https://catalog.smumn.edu