Graduate Curriculum and Course Descriptions - Entire Listing

MGMT 701  Fundamentals of Executive Development
This course introduces the fundamentals of management principles and serves as the initial foundation for the Master of Science in Management. It emphasizes creative management in dynamic organizations, assessing business opportunities, organizational linkages, ethics and social responsibility, and benchmarking. Students will learn through the use of mainstream popular business books, case studies, facilities tours, guest speakers, lectures, discussions and experiential exercises. Students will begin their electronic portfolios.

MGMT 702  Research Methods
This course introduces both qualitative and quantitative research methodologies, providing the student with an overview of the different steps in the research process. The course evaluates common methods of data analysis, develops skills in critical thinking and provides experience in data analysis using SPSS.

MGMT 703  Management Information Systems
This course presents the conceptual foundations of information technology and examines the development, application, and advances of information technology resources in organizations. With a focus on the managerial perspective, students will investigate issues related to the development of contemporary systems development approaches. The emphasis will be on project work.

MGMT 704  Financial Management
This course focuses on understanding the fundamental principles of finance, including financial statement analysis, present/future value/NPV/discounted cash flows, capital budgeting and risk analysis.

MGMT 705  Organizational Behavior
This course studies the behavior of individuals and groups within organizations, and the influence that the environment has on such behaviors. The course is primarily experiential and case-based, with considerable group work.

MGMT 706  Marketing Management
This course provides a decision-oriented overview of marketing management in modern organizations. The emphasis is on developing skills in identifying marketing opportunities, utilizing segmenting, targeting and positioning, and planning and communicating integrated marketing strategies.

MGMT 707  Operations Management
This course involves the study of concepts relating to the operations function in both manufacturing and service organizations. Students will study how the operations process is responsible for planning, organizing and controlling resources in order to effectively and efficiently produce goods and services. The instructor will employ a wide variety of teaching approaches, including lectures, discussions, experiential exercises, simulations, computer modeling, plant tours and multimedia cases.

MGMT 709 Conflict Resolution by Negotiation
This course focuses on the nature, advantages, and limitations of negotiations as a conflict resolution tool. Provides a normative and practical framework for pursuing a negotiation strategy as a method of resolving disputes. Provides students with opportunities to apply this knowledge in a variety of simulated negotiation contexts. Finally, exposes students to feedback regarding their negotiation approaches via explicit instructor evaluation and via the impact of their actions on their teammates and opponents.

MGMT 710 Electronic Portfolio I (1 Credit)
This course is part of three one-credit course sequence (MGMT 710, 711 and 712) that covers the electronic portfolio (ePortfolio) for the Lasell College Graduate program. Graduate students elect whether or not to do an ePortfolio. Those who elect to produce an ePortfolio can take the entire sequence of courses, which together count as one elective course. The three courses are taken in sequence, with MGMT 710 taken first, MGMT 711 taken toward the mid-point of the degree and MGMT 712 taken in the final semester.

MGMT 711 Electronic Portfolio II (1 Credit)
This course is part of three one-credit course sequence (MGMT 710, 711 and 712) that covers the electronic portfolio (ePortfolio) for the Lasell College Graduate program. See description under MGMT 710.

MGMT 712 Electronic Portfolio III (1 Credit)
This course is part of three one-credit course sequence (MGMT 710, 711 and 712) that covers the electronic portfolio (ePortfolio) for the Lasell College Graduate program. See description under MGMT 710.

MGMT 713 Fundraising and Development
This course examines the critical role of fundraising and development in successful nonprofit organizations. Students learn to analyze, plan, and evaluate a comprehensive fundraising program and to create elements of a professional fundraising portfolio. Explores management and leadership issues associated with the rapidly changing field of development and philanthropy.

MGMT 714 Principles of Project Management
This course focuses on the essentials of project management. It approaches project management from the standpoint of managing a single, stand-alone project that is small to medium in size. The course takes attendees through the project life cycle in the same sequence they would face when managing a real project in the workplace. Topics covered include the product and project life cycles, including initiation, planning, executing, controlling, and closing.

MGMT 720  Social Gerontology
The purpose of this course is to develop the student’s understanding of the effects of human aging on various body systems. The relation between physical activity/exercise and aging will be emphasized. Methods of functional assessment and age appropriate exercise prescription will also be discussed. The course will also address psychological aspects of the aging process and the importance of aging to individuals and to society and why it is difficult to draw conclusions from research on aging.

MGMT 721  Elder Care: Policy & Politics
The purpose of this course is to examine the environment in which elder care services are delivered. The course examines the legal, regulatory and public policy issues, as well as some of the resulting financing options (e.g. Medicare, Medicaid, and private long-term care insurance).

MGMT 722  Housing and Long-term Care Options for Older Adults
This course is an introduction to the issues related to housing and long-term care options for older adults. The course will examine the continuum of care available, including adult day care, Alzheimer’s care facilities, assisted living, CCACs, CCRCs, hospice care, nursing homes, and general retirement communities. Students will examine the structure of each option, its pros and cons for older adults and explore the inherent differences in them.

MGMT 723  Multicultural Issues in Aging
This course presents a bio-psycho-social perspective for understanding aging while focusing on the variability in the aging process and the heterogeneity of the older population. The roles of gender and ethnicity are emphasized. The class will provide a conceptual framework for understanding diversity in aging between individuals, within major ethnic groups, and between ethnic groups, with special consideration to the role of gender and culture.

MGMT 724  Marketing to Seniors
This course utilizes a combination of family life cycle and cohort marketing frameworks to understand the issues in marketing products and services to elderly consumers. Students will prepare detailed marketing plans and implementation programs for firms or organizations specializing in senior customers.

MGMT 726  Services and Programs for Older Adults
This course examines the theory and practices relevant to the management and administration of programs for the elderly. The economic, political, legal and social issues that affect these organizations are studied in the context of the effect these issues have on the administration of services. Identification of deficiencies in current programs and the proposing of alternative modes of care for the elderly are explored.

MGMT 727  Senior Facilities Management
This course is designed to give students an understanding of maintenance, renovation, and design of senior housing facilities. Students will develop techniques for supervising engineering managers, managing safely and avoiding lawsuits, and effectively managing facility-related fiscal responsibilities, all within the context of providing specialty services to an older clientele.

MGMT 728  Human Resources Management
This course examines the staffing function of management including planning, recruiting, selection, training, motivation, appraisal, compensation, labor laws, and organizational development. This course will also address the current issues affecting the human resource manager including the changing work force and need to increase productivity as well as changes in the areas of unions and affirmative action.

MGMT 729  Elder Care Management Challenges
This is a capstone elective that covers current management challenges in elder care services, such as the integration of acute and long-term care systems, consumer-directed care options and implementing the patient self-determination act.

MGMT 730  Health Management for Seniors
Health management for older adults is a major issue in contemporary society. Policy, economics, organizational structure, and clinical care are intermingled in responding on societal, institutional, and clinical levels. This course will charge the inquisitive and creative student to approach the health of the older adult by addressing these complex issues. It will focus on effective outcomes and understanding the range of roles professionals may adopt. It will provide the knowledge base and skill set necessary for interdisciplinary professional practice. The course will be conducted in collaboration between Harvard Medical School, Simmons School of Social Work, Massachusetts General Hospital Institute of Health Professions, Boston University Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, and Northeastern University School of Pharmacy.

MGMT 731 Human Resource Law
This course introduces students to individual employment law, which is concerned with rules that govern the relations between employers and employees, primarily as applicable to non-unionized workers. Employment law includes rules developed and recognized by the common law, as well as the "floor of rights," normally proved by protective or prescriptive legislation. As such, this course includes such subject areas as identifying a contract of employment, creation and modification of the employment relationship, the common law obligations of employee and employer, the employer's statutory obligations to its employees, privacy in the workplace, human rights legislation in the workplace, and the termination of employment. Also included is a discussion of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

MGMT 740  Consumer Behavior
This course is designed to help you understand how and why consumers behave the way they do. Consumers can be individual households buying goods and services for their own consumption or they can be buyers in industrial and other business-related markets

The course takes an interdisciplinary, in-depth approach to the study of buyer behavior. The essence of the marketing concept is a focus on the needs, wants and aspirations of customers. Thus, practitioners require a thorough understanding of how customers behave and why customers behave the way they do in order to influence consumption behavior most effectively, and more importantly, to achieve a high level of customer satisfaction.

Buyer behavior, like human behavior in general, is complex. Thus, the course will provide a survey of the main theories and research findings about consumer behavior from a variety of different fields: cognitive and social psychology, sociology, economics and anthropology.

MGMT 741   Marketing Research
The objective of this course it to assist the student in understanding the theory and the methods of marketing research through class discussions and project work. The emphasis in this course is on marketing research as an aid to management decision making. The primary issues in marketing research are:
1.  Whether to conduct market research at all, and how much to pay for a research study
2.  Deciding what information is needed, developing the data collection instrument, and collecting the data
3.  Analyzing the data and arriving at conclusions regarding marketing actions.

MGMT 742  Marketing Communications
This course analyzes all the elements of the marketing communications mix, including advertising, sales promotion, personal selling, publicity and direct marketing. Students will create integrated marketing communications programs for firms that will communicate with one voice to a specific target audience.

MGMT 744  Global Marketing
The purpose of this course is to explore the nature of marketing in a global context. This will include the decision of extending or adapting domestic marketing strategies for use abroad and the special demands of managing the marketing functions globally. Major emphasis will be on developing global marketing strategies. However, the course will also address issues of importance to entrepreneurs just entering global markets.

MGMT 745  Marketing Strategy
This course emphasizes the development of analytical skills for marketing decision making, strategic marketing management concepts, and the effective formulation/implementation of strategic market plans. A variety of teaching methods are used, including cases, lectures, discussion and a computerized marketing simulation.

MGMT 746  E-Commerce
Electronic commerce is the ability to perform transactions involving the exchange of goods or services between two or more parties using electronic tools and techniques. This course will address issues related to developing an Internet strategy for both pure play e-tailers and existing brick and mortar organizations. In particular, the course will investigate opportunities and threats created by e-commerce, driving Web traffic and developing a customer focus, dealing with disruptive technologies, implementation strategies for new technologies, building trust through security, electronic payment systems, and the international, ethical and public policy challenges raised by electronic commerce.

MGMT 747  Sales Management
This course investigates the role of management as it applies to the sales function. The student will investigate the various levels of decision making responsibility in the sales force: the sales representative, the field sales manager and the sales executive. In addition, there will be a number of exercises developing time management skills and professional selling skills.

MGMT 748  Social Marketing
This course is an application-based course that concentrates on marketing plans for non-profit organizations and marketing plans to implement changes in social policy. The course makes extensive use of the Center for Community Based Learning.

MGMT 749  Ethical Theory in Management
This course provides students with a general introduction to the discipline of ethical analysis and its application to management. A presupposition of the course approach is that ethical considerations are an integral part of management practices. Using a case-study approach, this course will examine different methods of value clarifications, the sources of ethical conflict in management practices, the structure of ethical arguments, as well as the ethical theories and principles associated with management. The course will also demonstrate how these concepts are concretely applied in organizations and professional life.

MGMT 751 Business Strategy
The course studies strategy formulation and implementation in international and domestic business enterprise. Case analysis and other appropriate methodologies are used to develop the skills and judgment necessary to provide overall direction to the organization. In particular, the course will emphasize the translation of strategy formulation to strategy implementation.

MGMT 752 Change Management
This course focuses on how organizational change can be managed. In order to survive in rapidly changing and highly competitive operating environments organizations must learn how to continually adapt, evolve, contract, expand, and innovate. Organizational change management is about implementation of business strategies, and more generally, new ideas and practices.

MGMT 753 Topics in Finance
This course covers several finance topics of special interest which may vary each time the course is offered, and builds on the foundation built in Management 704, Financial Management. Topics include: cash management, risk management, investments, financial services, financial statement analysis, capital budgeting and multinational financial issues. The course is taught using a variety of teaching techniques, including case studies, practical applications and group work.

MGMT 799  Internship/Research Project Capstone
Whether undertaken as an internship or research project, this class becomes the capstone of the MSM curriculum. In addition to their individual projects, students will meet as a group to help integrate learning across the curriculum and to complete their portfolios. The internship is a hands-on working experience in the field of concentration. Students will undertake meaningful projects under the supervision of both an employer and faculty member. Research projects will be undertaken under the direction of a faculty advisor and must be comprehensive. (Must be taken in the final term.)