Woven throughout your Business School curriculum will be six integrated themes:

Globalization

Globalization emphasizes the connections of business with nearly everything else you’ll study. Your globalization requirement can be fulfilled by an introductory course on globalization (IB101) or by an approved history course in this area. In these, you examine worldwide events and cultures that have contributed to the globalization of business. In Business Foundations, you’ll start to get a feel for the international nature of business. The Business Ethics and Law course incorporates discussion of ethics across various cultures, and both Micro and Macro Economics incorporate global issues. In fact, you’ll find global issues are discussed in every major, from accounting to marketing to finance. The Strategic Management “capstone” course provides an opportunity in your senior year to link global issues with learning in your field. Most exciting of all, you’ll have the opportunity to study or travel abroad to see how business is conducted in other countries.

Ethics and Social Responsibility

To address the theme of ethics and social responsibility, you are encouraged to select a course for the Social Change in the US and Abroad requirement that touches on issues of social changes and movements spawned by unethical or ethical behaviors or individuals or corporations. Business Ethics and Law will give you the foundation for identifying ethical dilemmas, applying varying models of decision making, understanding organizational and cultural influences on decisions, and analyzing the impact leaders have on ethical decision making and corporate social responsibility. In Leadership and Social Responsibility, guest speakers will describe the management challenges they face in running a not-for-profit organization, and the corporations that partner with and support them. In that class you’ll work in teams to develop solutions to challenges these organizations face. You’ll examine ethical concepts in other courses as well, including Organizational Behavior, Principles of Business Law, Information Technology & Productivity Tools, Management Information Systems as well as major courses.  

Diversity and Diverse Culture

Learning about diversity and diverse culture begins with a Duck Tour of Boston as part of your freshman cohort experience (LINK). You’ll also explore these issues through two requirements: a survey course on globalization and an introductory course on business ethics in a global environment. In your sophomore year, you’ll learn about cross-cultural communication in a business setting in your Professional Communication course. In your junior year Organizational Behavior course, you’ll develop an understanding of diversity as it relates to leadership, motivation, group dynamics, and other workplace issues. You’ll also take a course in the humanities or social sciences where you might look at culture through the lens of literature, philosophy, or sociology.

Teamwork

Employers in all organizations stress that new hires need to have the interpersonal and team skills that will allow them to thrive in a new job. This is an essential skill in today’s business environment; therefore teamwork is emphasized throughout the Business School. Highlights from your courses will include team case analyses, projects and presentations. Your introduction to this experience will come in MGT101 Business Foundations, where your team will complete a case analysis and present its conclusions and recommendations to a panel of executives. In your sophomore year, MGT200 Leadership and Social Responsibility, your team will learn about effective team behaviors and coordination while it develops a project for a local not-for-profit organization. In your junior year, you will take MGT317 Organizational Behavior and MGT L317. In the latter, your team’s lab experience will be to visit a local organization and conduct an analysis. Most majors have capstone courses and other requirements where team experiences are central to the learning.