MBA Now Courses
The renowned UConn faculty is committed to offering a new set of MBA Now Courses which will focus on industry-driven, in-demand business topics each year.
What are UConn MBA Now Courses?
Each year the UConn Online and Flex MBA programs will provide new, in-demand, industry-relevant courses centered on popular, on-trend, essential business topics. Students will dive deep with our world-class research faculty and bring the knowledge they gain in class directly back to their organizations. These courses are designed to set our students apart from their peers with practical skills applied before they even graduate from their MBA program. These optional MBA Now Courses will be integrated into the existing MBA curriculum and will provide students the opportunity to learn about the newest trends in business, before they are even trends.
Who is eligible to register for MBA Now Courses?
All UConn Online MBA and Flex MBA students are eligible to register.
Current and Future MBA Now Courses
FNCE 5344 – Enterprise Risk Management
A real-world approach to Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) in identifying, managing, and mitigating risk. A review of enterprise risks will include strategic, operational (e.g., supply chain), technological, and regulatory risk. The steps necessary to achieve an effective ERM process through a methodology for identifying, prioritizing, quantifying, decision-making and messaging of enterprise risks. This will include industry tools, reports and case studies providing a practical guide for implementing ERM. There will also be a discussion of the value of ERM to the enterprise and its various stakeholders.
OPIM 5115 Supply Chain Finance
An operations manager is concerned with designing, operating and controlling a system for producing goods and services. Design decisions include selecting a process technology, organizing jobs, selecting vendors, and developing the location and layout of facilities. Operating the system involves planning and scheduling work and material flow, controlling quality, and managing inventories. General systems concepts and models are developed and applied. Topics include process flow analysis, inventory systems, waiting line analysis, quality design, capacity resource planning, project management, and integrating operations with the firm's strategic plans.
OPIM 5894 Generative AI for Business
A focused course blending foundational knowledge and practical application of generative AI in business. It begins with an overview of generative AI architecture and its business applications, including essential skills in prompt engineering for effective AI model interaction. The course then advances to cover Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) and fine-tuning techniques, tailoring AI to specific industry needs while emphasizing ethical and responsible AI usage. Designed for participants with a basic understanding of AI or relevant business technology experience, this course offers a hands-on approach, preparing students to skillfully integrate generative AI into their business strategies and operations.
MKTG 5255: Global Issues in Marketing for Social Impact
This course provides an overview of current local and global market-focused topics and practices that can both positively contribute to, and adversely affect, societal well-being. Students learn how to evaluate the social impact of marketing and business strategies. Students gain experience analyzing and developing business strategies for social responsibility and impact.
MKTG 5258: Marketing Strategy for Environmental & Social Impact
This course examines strategic marketing decisions associated with creating and serving customer demand for products and services with positive social and environmental impact. Students learn to assess and plan for organization and market readiness to make and adopt such offerings and to go to market with impactful and authentic products, services, brands, and customer experiences. Students gain experience researching and presenting current readiness, designing, and positioning potential offers to connect with targeted customer segments, and developing creative briefs to guide potential promotional campaigns.
Previous MBA Now Courses
BLAW 5253 – Sustainability, Markets, and Society
Scheduled to run in Summer 2024
This course examines sustainability in the context of the natural and social ecosystems in which business operates. Students learn how the environmental and social impacts of business are affected by the interactions of firms with laws and legal institutions, markets, and society globally. Students gain experience assessing firm policies and practices and developing legally-astute and ethically-aware policies to achieve sustainability and to generate positive environmental and social outcomes.
BLAW 5894 – Revolutionary Technologies and the Social Responsibility of Business
Scheduled to run in Summer 2024
A number of rapidly evolving technologies are dramatically influencing how business operate. But what are the social responsibilities of business to society when a new technology is introduced? This course will explore the legal and ethical issues embedded in technological change from an organizational perspective. This course will prepare you to address legal and ethical issues in cutting-edge technology and the laws surrounding them in ways that can make a material difference for the success of your company in socially responsible and visionary ways.
MENT 5894 – Emotional Intelligence at Work
Scheduled to run in Winter 2024
Emotions are pervasive in organizations and everyday life and profoundly influence our decisions, relationships, and outcomes. In this course, we integrate theory and research in psychology, behavioral economics, and decision-making to more fully understand the characteristics and consequences of emotions in negotiations, organizations, and interpersonal interactions. In this process, the course will help you to develop your emotional intelligence and teach you how to harness the power of your emotions and those of others.
BADM 5894 – AI for Managers
Scheduled to run in Spring 2024
The primary objective of this course is to teach students a wide range of AI techniques and how they can be applied to the challenges and opportunities that firms face. AI techniques such as language models, image processing, and document classification are becoming prominent in firms' pricing models, sales forecasts, product creation, market analysis, and customer service. Since many executives today would like to consider adopting AI for their firms, but lack internal expertise in this relatively new field, this course emphasizes the viewpoint of a manager or consultant who must understand and offer advice on a wide range of AI topics relevant to a variety of business needs.