STRATEGY CURRICULUM

Strategy Courses

MGT 600A Teaching Business 
The course is designed to assist doctoral students help themselves advance their teaching capabilities. The format will include in-class discussions, group work, creating an ‘out-of-class’ video, creating a video of an ‘in-class’ session, presenting to the class, and constructively critiquing the work of others.

B53 MGT 603  Seminar in Strategy and Organization
This course focuses on theoretical and empirical work regarding the economics of organizations defined very broadly.  Rather than focusing solely on organizational economics as it has evolved in the economics literature, this course emphasizes complementary and competing theoretical and empirical work in the organization theory and strategy literatures.  The course also seeks to interpret and analyze observed organizational forms, trends, and choices using insights from the theories that we examine.

B53 MGT 604  Strategy Management of Innovation & Technology
This course is a seminar that reviews and discusses research on the strategic management of innovation and technology.  The course has three goals:  bring students to the knowledge frontier of research in the management of innovation in technology, develop students' ability to formulate research questions and propose feasible research methodologies, and develop students' ability to present research papers.

B53 MGT 606  Economics of the Organization
This course is a seminar that reviews and discusses research in organizational economics, the field that overlaps many other fields in economics, such as industrial organization, contract theory, labor economics, corporate finance, etc.  Students are expected to learn how to build a simple model to explain facts and how to formulate research questions based on implications from models.

B53 MGT 620  Empirical Methods in Business
The objectives of this course are to train Ph.D. students in different business disciplines to understand: how to use data to address research questions, how to build econometric models that can be applied to data, and how to estimate the econometric models using some statistical packages. This course emphasizes on empirical data handling and estimation issues. Pre-requisites: students are expected to have basic statistical knowledge such as random variables and distributions, tests of statistical hypothesis, basic linear regression and maximum likelihood estimation.

B53 MGT 622  Seminar in Strategy

B53 MGT 623  Seminar in Entrepreneurship
This course is a survey of topics that bear on entrepreneurship. The course is divided roughly into two sections; immersion (entrepreneurship statistics, history of entrepreneurship, entrepreneur biographies) and phenomena. In addition to becoming proficient on entrepreneurship theory, you will develop skills as discussants.  Besides being a practical skill that will lead to conference invitations, preparing a good discussion will develop critical thinking.

Other Courses

B53 MGT 601  Doctoral Prep:  University Teaching
Two (2) credits are required for the Ph.D.  Students must provide an Olin Professor 30 hours of assistance in the teaching function; includes, but is not limited to, conducting help sessions, grading, developing lectures or exams.  Maximum of eight (8) credits allowed. Hours performed during this course do not count towards RA/TA requirements. Credits will count towards teaching requirement of the Graduate School of Arts & Science.

B53 MGT 605  Research Internship
Three (3) credits are required for the Ph.D.  Under the direction of a faculty member, students will work (and be graded) on their own research project. This requirement will be completed when students are at candidacy and preparing a dissertation proposal.  Internship must be arranged by the student and approved by the advising faculty member. An outline of objectives must be submitted to the PhD Office prior to enrollment. An additional nine (9) credits may be taken; maximum of twelve (12) credits allowed.

B53 MGT 607A Teaching Presentation Skill Workshop
This course focuses on developing presentation skills for the classroom and for conference papers.  Students will deliver three presentations and write a summary performance evaluation. This course is required for all students prior to graduation in compliance of the teaching requirement governed by the Graduate School of Arts & Science.

B53 MGT 610   Dissertation
Maximum of twelve (12) credits allowed, six (6) per semester.  Prerequisite:  submission of Title, Scope and Procedure Form and successful Proposal of dissertation.

Core Foundation Courses

L11 Econ 503  Microeconomics I  
The first of a two-semester graduate sequence in microeconomic theory.  The courses cover the determination of relative prices and quantities exchanged of final products and factors of production. The first semester considers production and costs, supply of output and demand for inputs, demands for final products, market organization, time and capital.  Fall.

L11 Econ 504  Microeconomics II  
The second of a two-semester graduate sequence in microeconomic theory.  The second semester considers the further development of individual consumer behavior, aggregated demand, general equilibrium analysis, Leontief models, consumer's surplus analysis, social choice, and expected utility analysis.  Spring.

L11 Econ 511  Quantitative Methods in Economics I
Study of those topics of mathematics of special usefulness in economic research. Selection and ordering of topics will vary with level of student preparation but will usually include the following: Vectors, matrices, lines mappings; their manipulation and elementary properties; elementary topology, and elements of multidimensional calculus. Fall.

L11 Econ 512  Quantitative Methods in Economics II 
Introduction to mathematical statistics designed to provide a background for the study of econometrics. Selection of topics will usually include:  probability, introduction to distribution theory, including limiting distributions and distributions of quadratic terms, Bayes Theorem, and hypothesis testing.  3 class hours a week. Fall.

L11 Econ 513  Introduction to Econometrics
Classical multiple regression analysis and an introduction to generalizations useful in empirical research in economics, including a framework for dealing with problems of multicollinearity, specification error, heteroskedasticity, serial and contemporaneous correlation, identification and consistent estimation in simultaneous equation models. Spring, odd yrs.

L11 Econ 5161  Applied Econometrics 
Introduction to econometrics as it is applied in microeconomics and macroeconomics (modular). Topics related to the analysis of microeconomic data include maximum likelihood estimation and hypothesis testing; cross-section and panel data linear models and robust inference; models for discrete choice; truncation, censoring and sample selection models; and models for event counts and duration data. Topics related to the analysis of macroeconomic data include basic linear and nonlinear time series models; practical issues with likelihood-based inference; forecasting; structural identification based on timing restrictions and heteroskedasticity; and computational methods for hypothesis testing and model comparison. Prerequisite: Econ 512. Spring, even yrs.

Course descriptions represent courses offered recently. Not all courses are offered every semester, and it is important to check with Olin Business School prior to scheduling classes to determine course availability for any given semester. Olin Business School reserves the right to make changes in the course offerings/descriptions.