Business Administration, Master (MBA)

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
This course will introduce students to advanced methods for data driven decision making in business including forecasting and evaluating alternative possible strategies. Topics include designing randomized controlled trials in the field, evaluating natural experiments (e.g. differences-in-differences, instrumental variables and regression discontinuity) and machine learning tools for forecasting (e.g. linear regularization, tree models and random forest). The course work will include problem sets evaluating experimental and non-experimental data, writing code and making business decisions using the results.
Data Analytics: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015, Fall 2013, Fall 2010
Leadership Communication is a workshop in the fundamentals of public speaking in today's business environment. Through prepared and impromptu speeches aimed at moving others to action, peer coaching, and lectures, students will sharpen their authentic and persuasive communication skills, develop critical listening skills, improve abilities to give, receive, and apply feedback, and gain confidence as public speakers.
Leadership Communication: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
This course is a hands-on experience in making the business case. Structuring and delivering persuasive communications requires effective use of both narrative and data. Students explore this process through rigorous content and visual design, weekly presentations, integration of core course work such as leadership communications, and substantive peer review and feedback on presentation impact. The bottom line: did you change minds today?
Data-Driven Presentations: Making the Business Case: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015, Fall 2013
The course will introduce the Design Thinking mindset to MBA students and support it with tools, processes and strategies to solve business problems with a non-traditional problem-solving approach. Design thinking uses quantitative information to inform qualitative decision making. Rooted in the formal disciplines of design, the course works with core principles of creativity, discovery, curiosity, deferred judgment, process discipline and positive human collaboration. Students will gain experience using the design thinking process through hands-on learning, reading and team-based collaborative projects.
Fundamentals of Design Thinking: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015, Fall 2013, Fall 2010
The objective of this core course is to make students critical consumers of statistical analysis using available software packages. Key concepts include interpretation of regression analysis, model formation and testing, and diagnostic checking.
Data and Decisions: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015, Fall 2013, Fall 2010
Business success depends on the successful positioning of the firm and the management of its resources. The goal of this course is to think systematically about achieving competitive advantage through the management of the firm's resources. We will analyze management decisions concerning real options, cost determination, pricing, and market entry and exit. We will use readings and cases along with class discussion to develop practical insights into managing for competitive advantage.
Economics for Business Decision Making: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2015, Spring 2014, Spring 2013
This course develops and applies models of the world's economies to explain long-run trends and short-run fluctuations in key macroeconomic variables, such as GDP, wage and profit rates, inflation, interest rates, employment and unemployment, budget deficits, exchange rates, and trade balances.
Macroeconomics in the Global Economy: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015, Fall 2013, Fall 2010
This course examines accounting measurements for general-purpose financial reports. An objective of the course is to provide not only a working knowledge but also a clear understanding of the contents of published financial statements.
Financial Accounting: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015, Fall 2013, Fall 2010
This is an introductory MBA course in investments. Students learn how to value assets given forecasts of future cash flows and about the risk characteristics of different asset classes. The first part of the course focuses on the time value of money. The second part of the course deals with measuring and pricing risk. Finally, the course touches on derivative-basics and capital market efficiency. An effort will be made to tie the theoretical underpinnings of finance to real-world examples.
Introduction to Finance: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2015, Spring 2014, Spring 2013
This course provides a broad overview of strategic, operational, and tactical issues facing manufacturing and service companies. Major topics include process analysis, quality management, project management, supply-chain management, service-systems management, and operations strategy. These issues are explored through lectures, case studies, and videos pertaining to a variety of industries, from fast food to fashion goods to automobile manufacturing to telephone call centers.
Operations: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015, Fall 2013, Fall 2010
How can you motivate employees to go above and beyond the call of duty to get the job done? How can you be sure that your decisions are not biased? What influence tactics can you use when you do not have the formal authority to tell someone what to do? This course adds to your understanding of life in complex organizations by covering topics spanning the micro (individual level of analysis), the macro (organizational level of analysis), and also topics that integrate these two levels.
Leading People: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
This course focuses on essential communication skills in the contemporary knowledge economy, where leaders must create sustainable settings for productive interaction among people with very different backgrounds and experiences. To harness this diversity, leaders must be adept at having difficult conversations, managing conflict, debating effectively, providing and receiving feedback, mitigating problems associated with stereotypes and biases, and identifying and addressing structural sources of inequity. Students will develop their critical thinking on topics such as identity, relationships across differences, and equality of opportunity and improve their ability to create, work within, and lead diverse teams and global organizations.
Business Communication in Diverse Work Environments: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015, Fall 2013, Fall 2010
This course is designed for students who need to understand the basic concepts and techniques of marketing strategy as a foundation for more advanced study in the area. The course treats marketing from the perspective of strategic analysis and provides a framework for the decisions associated with the management of the marketing function in the modern organization focusing on customer analysis, competitive analysis and the analysis of marketing investments.
Marketing: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2015, Spring 2014, Spring 2013
This course provides students with the ability to anticipate, critically analyze, and appropriately respond to the social, ethical, and political challenges that face managers operating in a global economy.
Ethics and Responsibility in Business: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Not yet offered
Course covers core topics in strategy, including selection of goals; the choice of products and services to offer; competitive positioning in product markets; decisions about scope and diversity; and the design of organizational structure, administrative systems, and other issues of control and internal regulation.
Strategic Leadership: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024
An introduction to business methods of analysis and terminology for nonbusiness graduate students. The course is taught in three five-week modules: (1) organizational behavior and management, (2) accounting and finance, and (3) marketing and strategy.
Fundamentals of Business: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025
Survey of major life financial decisions (e.g., career choice, consumption versus saving, investments, mortgages, insurance) and how decision-making biases (e.g., overconfidence, present bias, limited attention) can lead to sub-optimal choice. The course draws on research from economics, psychology, and sociology.
Personal Financial Management: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2014, Fall 2013, Fall 2012
This course uses insights from economics to develop structure, tactics, and incentives to achieve the firm's goals. It develops a framework for analyzing organizational architecture, focusing on the allocation of decision rights, the measurement of performance, and the design of incentives. Includes managing the vertical chain of upstream suppliers and downstream distributors, design and operation of incentive and performance management systems, techniques for dealing with informational asymmetries.
Strategy, Structure, and Incentives: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015, Fall 2014, Spring 2007
A survey of the main ideas and techniques of game-theoretic analysis related to bargaining, conflict, and negotiation. Emphasizes the identification and analysis of archetypal strategic situations in bargaining. Goals of the course are to provide a foundation for applying game-theoretic analysis, both formally and intuitively, to negotiation and bargaining; to recognize and assess archetypal strategic situations in complicated negotiation settings.
Game Theory: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
A survey of the main ideas and techniques of game-theoretic analysis related to bargaining, conflict, and negotiation. Emphasizes the identification and analysis of archetypal strategic situations in bargaining. Goals of the course are to provide a foundation for applying game-theoretic analysis, both formally and intuitively, to negotiation and bargaining; to recognize and assess archetypal strategic situations in complicated negotiation settings. This course is taught online.
Game Theory (Online Version): Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2015, Spring 2014, Spring 2010
Business strategy and public issues in energy and environmental markets. Topics include development and effect of organized spot, futures, and derivative energy markets; political economy of regulation and deregulation; climate change and environmental policies related to energy production and use; cartels, market power and competition policy; pricing of exhaustible resources; competitiveness of alternative energy sources; and transportation and storage of energy commodities.
Energy and Environmental Markets: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015, Fall 2014
In this course, interdisciplinary teams of graduate students work with scientists from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and across the UCB campus to commercialize new solar, biofuel, battery, and smart grid/energy management technologies. Students are drawn from Business, Engineering, Science, Law, and the Energy and Resources Group. Students explore topics such as: Potential application in multiple markets; alignment with target or desired market(s); distinguishing advantages and disadvantages; customer and user profiles; top competitors; commercialization and scale-up challenges; relevant government policies; revenue potential and cost sensitivities; intellectual property issues; and multiple other related topics.
Cleantech to Market: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
This course will explore the key commercial, legal, economic and policy issues affecting the development and financing of infrastructure projects, with special emphasis on practical concerns related to investments in alternative energy and other power generation facilities. These topics will be raised in the context of comparative, real-world case studies of different types of energy and infrastructure projects.
Legal and Regulatory Frameworks for Energy and Infrastructure Project Finance: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
This course compliments the course "Legal and Regulatory Frameworks for Energy and Infrastructure Project Finance". Where the former focuses on the legal and risk framework for project financings, this course is devoted to the financial and quantitative aspects of project finance. The course focuses on the application of project finance to the power generation industry with a particular emphasis on examples from gas-fired, wind and solar technologies.
Modeling for Energy and Infrastructure Project Finance: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
Introduction to advanced methods for data driven decision making in business. This course covers methods designed to provide evidence for two types of fundamental business issues: (i) forecasting and (ii) evaluating alternative possible strategies. The course aims to train business leaders to understand the value of data-based decision making, evaluate analytics tools and products, and conduct richer analysis of randomized and naturally occurring experiments. Topics include designing randomized controlled trials in the field, evaluating natural experiments, and machine learning tools for forecasting. The goal of the course is not to train you as a Data Scientist but to be able to read and evaluate empirical/analytic approaches and products.
Big Data, Better Decisions: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015
This course helps students to study the institutions of emerging markets that are relevant for managers, analyze opportunities presented by emerging markets, analyze the additional ethical challenges and issues of social responsibility common in emerging markets, and learn to minimize the risks in doing business in emerging markets. This course is a combination of lectures, class participation, and cases.
Business Strategies for Emerging Markets: Management, Investment, and Opportunities: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2022, Spring 2021, Fall 2013
Advanced study in the field of economic analysis and policy. Topics will vary from year to year and will be announced at the beginning of each semester.
Topics in Economic Analysis and Policy: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
Students who have taken this course should (i) know and understand the literature and evidence on key health policy questions (e.g. why do we spend so much on health care in the U.S.?), (ii) understand what constitutes causal evidence on key business and policy questions in health care, (iii) be able to design evaluations of business and policy decisions using different
data sources and methods, (iv) understand the major health policies in the U.S. and the associated incentives/opportunities (i.e. the ACA, Medicare, Medicaid, etc.), and (v) using these tools, be able to evaluate companies, policies, entrepreneurial ideas and investment opportunities that can change health and health care in the U.S. and beyond.
Health Economics and Policy: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015, Fall 2014, Fall 2013
Issues of accounting information evaluation with special emphasis on the use of financial statements by decision makers external to the firm. The implications of recent research in finance and accounting for external reporting issues will be explored. Emphasis will be placed on models that describe the user's decision context.
Financial Information Analysis: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2008, Fall 2006, Fall 2005
This course examines the theory and practice of financial accounting and the issues involved in determining corporate financial reporting policies. It provides an in-depth knowledge of how financial statements are prepared but emphasizes the evaluation of accounting reports from a managerial perspective. Cases supplement lecture, discussion, and problem solving.
Corporate Financial Reporting: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015, Spring 2012, Fall 2010
This course emphasizes the use of accounting information throughout the planning, operation and control stages of managing an organization. The course is divided into three sections to reflect these three stages of management: 1) information for planning and decision making; 2) information received during operations (cost accounting); and 3) information for control and performance evaluation.
Managerial Accounting: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
This course will cover various topics in personal or corporate taxation or both. Topics will vary from semester to semester.
Taxes and Firm Strategy: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2019, Fall 2015, Spring 2015
This course will study the principles underlying alternative financial arrangements and contracts and their application to corporate financial management. In particular, it will examine the impact of incentive, moral hazard, and principal-agent problems, that arise as a consequence of asymmetric information, government intervention, managerial incentives and taxes, on financial decisions regarding capital budgeting, dividend policy, capital structure and mergers.
Corporate Finance: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2007, Spring 2006, Fall 2005
This course will analyze the role of financial markets and financial institutions in allocating capital. The major focus will be on debt contracts and securities and on innovations in the bond and money markets. The functions of commercial banks, investment banks, and other financial intermediaries will be covered, and aspects of the regulation of these institutions will be examined.
Financial Institutions and Markets: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2010, Fall 2006, Fall 2005
This course will examine four different types of asset markets: equity markets, fixed income markets, futures markets and options markets. It will focus on the valuation of assets in these markets, the empirical evidence on asset valuation models, and strategies that can be employed to achieve various investment goals.
Asset Management: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015, Fall 2014, Fall 2013
Introduction to alternative investment strategies and styles as practiced by leading money managers. A money manager will spend approximately half of the class discussing his general investment philosophy. In the other half, students, practitioner, and instructor will explore the investment merits of one particular company. Students will be expected to use the library's resources, class handouts, and their ingenuity to address a set of questions relating to the firm's investment value.
Investment Strategies and Styles: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2011, Fall 2010, Fall 2009
Survey of the forces changing and shaping global finance and intermediation, especially the effects of greater ease of communication, deregulation, and globalized disciplines expected to continue to be essential to corporate finance and intermediation, e.g., investment analysis, valuation, structured finance/securitization, and derivative applications. The case method is utilized with occasional additional assigned readings and text sources.
Global Financial Services: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2014, Fall 2012, Fall 2010
This course explores the broad range of portfolio management in practice. The class will examine the assets, strategies, characteristics, operations, and concerns unique to each type of portfolio. Practitioners will present descriptions of their businesses as well as methods and strategies that they employ.
Portfolio Management: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2010, Spring 2007
Survey of the day-to-day practices and techniques used in change of control transaction. Topics include valuation, financing, deal structuring, tax and accounting considerations, agreements, closing document, practices used in management buyouts, divestitures, hostile takeovers, and takeover defenses. Also covers distinctions in technology M&A, detecting corruption in cross border transaction attempts, and betting on deals through risk arbitrage. Blend of lecture, case study, and guest lectures.
Mergers and Acquisitions: A Focus on Creating Value: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2007
This course looks at the influence of decision heuristics and biases on investor welfare, financial markets, and corporate decisions. Topics include overconfidence, attribution theory, representative heuristic, availability heuristic, anchoring and adjustment, prospect theory, "Winner's Curse," speculative bubbles, IPOs, market efficiency, limits of arbitrage, relative mis-pricing of common stocks, the tendency to trade in a highly correlated fashion, investor welfare, and market anomalies.
Behavioral Finance: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2017, Fall 2015, Fall 2014
Spreadsheet financial models are often too big, complicated, and buggy to help people. In this course, students learn to design financial models that work because they're small (fit on a screen or two), straightforward (involve only basic math), clear (a non-MBA can follow them readily), and fast to build. These simple yet powerful representations of the cash flows for a new product/deal/venture help people share their vision, recognize tradeoffs, brainstorm possibilities, and make decisions.
Designing Financial Models that Work: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2015
Financial statement modeling refers to taking historical financial statements for a specific company, projecting those statements two to five years into the future, and using the resulting projections for valuation and insight into the potential for transactions such as a strategic merger, an initial public offering, a leveraged recapitalization, or a leveraged buyout. This course teaches this skill set in a way that is simultaneously high level and hands-on.
Financial Statement Modeling for Finance Careers: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
This course first surveys the basics of fixed income: terminology, security types, debt and money markets. Attention then moves to the valuation of cash flows, term structure of interest rates and modeling of credit risk. Building on that foundation, the course then examines the key role that fixed income plays in the global financial system, other asset classes and derivatives. The course is firmly grounded in a quantitative and analytical approach, with each topic placed in the relevant real world context -- for example, the role that high yield securities play in an LBO, and negotiation of bond covenants. The course is at the more quantitative end of the MBA curriculum, with a large focus on bond math, including duration and convexity.
Fixed Income: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
This course combines broad exposure to the many types of hedge funds and their strategies, together with hands-on development of unique investment strategies within student teams. Course content delivered via speakers representing different sectors of the hedge fund industry, lectures, readings and individual and team projects. Students also learn about investing in hedge funds, including evaluation of fund performance. Concurrently, student teams develop their own investment strategies by exploring unique expertise and insights that are resident within the teams, forming original theses on changes and catalysts, incorporating lessons from hedge fund speakers, and crafting investment strategies designed to capitalize on the teams’ insights.
Hedge Fund Strategies: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
Students who elect to continue on to this course from the Hedge Fund Strategies course have the opportunity to proceed from strategy development into implementation phase, investing capital from a dedicated fund. Judges for the final pitch in Hedge Fund Strategies allocate capital from the fund based on perceived promise of market-beating returns, taken together with perceived risk. The teams refine their strategies based on feedback from the judges’ feedback and instructors’ guidance, building out their portfolios and managing their strategies over several months. Teams access trading accounts and are responsible for their portfolios.
Haas Investment Fund: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
This course focuses primarily on leveraged buyouts (LBOs), as the largest category of PE transactions. The study includes the sourcing of potential acquisitions, analysis of operations and potential improvements, corporate valuation, optimal capital structures, modeling of expected cash flows and debt repayment, negotiation of purchase price and financing terms, incentivizing management teams, and eventual monetizing investments through M&A or IPOs. These subjects are studied through lectures, interactive discussion, case studies, individual assignments and especially group projects. The 2-unit section covers a broader spectrum of types of PE transactions and includes guest speakers from the PE industry, and a more expansive final project.
Private Equity, Leveraged Buyouts: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
This course introduces the world of operational and strategic turnarounds of troubled and underperforming businesses. It focuses on the leadership practices that work in fixing flawed enterprises, from underperforming businesses to those on the brink of a death spiral. Most time in the course is spent learning how to more effectively lead companies that are underperforming or in trouble. The course is taught by cases, with the view that the best way to learn leadership is by taking the perspective of business leaders facing crises that demand new direction. Since a rescue plan only works if it is embraced, students take various roles in the cases, including bosses, subordinates, boards and lenders.
Turnarounds: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
This is a non-traditional finance course that focuses on who gets "rents" in existing finance markets and the barriers to entry that can be overcome by technology. The course covers (i) the basics of the payment system and how it is changing, (ii) how other stores of value embedded in mobile technology are used, in both high- and low-income countries, (iii) changes in other financial sectors including advice, banking and insurance, and (iv) the potential of cryptocurrencies and the possibilities for disruption inherent in an open, consensus ledger (e.g., the BlockChain). Students will learn to make analytical judgments about the benefit that technology can bring to financial intermediaries.
Fin Tech: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2017
This is a course about financing new entrepreneurial ventures, emphasizing those that have the possibility of creating a national or international impact or both. It will take two perspectives - the entrepreneur's and the investor's - and it will place a special focus on the venture capital process, including how they are formed and managed, accessing the public markets, mergers, and strategic alliances.
New Venture Finance: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015, Fall 2014, Spring 2014
Advanced study in the field of finance. Topics will vary from year to year and will be announced at the beginning of each semester.
Topics in Finance: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015, Fall 2013, Spring 2007
Survey of the formulation, solution, and interpretation of mathematical models to assist managerial decisions. Emphasis on applications from diverse businesses and industries, including inventory management, project management, portfolio optimization, revenue management, production planning, and others. Three types of models are covered: simulation, dynamic programming, and optimization. Analysis is facilitated by the Excel add-in Analytic Solver Platform.
Decision Models: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2010, Spring 2007, Spring 2006
The course considers two techniques for guiding a managerial decision maker who has to make a choice now but will only know later whether the choice was good. Decision analysis helps if the outcome of the choice depends on "nature"; game models help if the outcome depends on human opponents (e.g., competitors). Foundations of the two techniques, and a variety of applications, are studied.
Decisions, Games, and Strategies: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
The primary objective of this course is to develop the critical skills and knowledge needed to successfully pitch and lead projects, and to deliver those projects on time and within budget. The course delves into formal planning and scheduling techniques including: project definition, project selection, Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), Resource Estimation, Critical Path Method (CPM), Pert, Gantt Charts, Resource Constrained Scheduling, Project Monitoring and Project Closing.
Project Management: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2008, Fall 2006
This course is designed to teach general management principles involved in the planning, execution, and management of service businesses. It covers both strategic and tactical aspects, including the development of a strategic service vision, building employee loyalty, developing customer loyalty and satisfaction, improving productivity and service quality, service innovation, and the role of technology in services. Blend of case studies, group projects, class discussions, and selected readings.
Service Strategy: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2015, Fall 2014
Advanced study in the field of manufacturing and operations. Topics will vary from year to year and will be announced at the beginning of each semester.
Topics in Operations and Information Technology Management: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2013, Fall 2010, Fall 2007
Supply chain management concerns the flow of materials and information in multi-stage production and distribution networks. This course provides knowledge of organizational models and analytical decision support tools necessary to design, implement, and sustain successful supply chain strategies. Topics include demand and supply management, inventory management, supplier-buyer coordination via incentives, vendor management, and the role of information technology in supply chain management.
Supply Chain Management: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
This course helps students hone and develop the leadership skills needed to lead dynamic, complex, global teams. Globalization, rapid technological change, and a shift towards an innovation-based economy have resulted in more dynamic, distributed, cross-functional, as well as demographically and culturally diverse teams. Students will learn to create team developmental plans and accountability, coach teams through challenges, encourage teams to recognize and avoid bias and misattributions, and lead from a distance and across boundaries.
Leading High Impact Teams: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
Students will gain command of the core statistical concepts needed to measure and understand measurements of people in organizations. Students learn how to interpret statistics to make critical recommendations to (or as) senior leaders, and how to tell a compelling story using People Analytics data. This involves learning the fundamental tools of analytics (descriptive statistics, correlations, etc.), building and testing HR chat bots, reviewing and conducting randomized experiments, interpreting and producing data visualizations, all while accounting for ethical concerns such as data privacy and biases (human and algorithmic).
People Analytics: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015, Fall 2014, Fall 2013
The purpose of this course is for students to understand the theory and processes of negotiation so that they can negotiate successfully in a variety of settings. This course is designed to complement the technical and diagnostic skills learned in other courses in the MBA program.
Negotiations and Conflict Resolution: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
This course aims to improve the quality of decisions people make. Students learn to be aware of, and to avoid, common inferential errors and systematic biases in decision making. There are many decision traps that we tend to repeatedly fall into. These traps relate to how we think about risk and probability, how we learn from experience, and how we make choices. Upon completion, students will have internalized the basic principles of decision making and will be able to avoid falling into these traps. The course additionally aims to create a deeper understanding of the psychology of decision making, which can create an advantage in negotiations and other interactions through gaining an awareness of the predictable mistakes of others.
Decision Making: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2020, Fall 2019, Fall 2015
This course will provide students with a sense of "political intelligence." After taking this course, students will be able to: (1) diagnose the true distribution of power in organizations, (2) identify strategies for building sources of power, (3) develop techniques for influencing others, (4) understand the role of power in building cooperation and leading change in organizations, and (5) make sense of others' attempts to influence them. These skills are essential for effective and satisfying career building.
Power and Politics in Organizations: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2002
This course will increase your awareness of your own strengths and opportunities for improvement while gaining an understanding of the qualities essential to being an extraordinary leader. By the end of the course, we are hoping that you will have: Increased your understanding of what distinguishes between more and less successful leaders and construct a plan for your own development as a leader; sharpened your ability to diagnose situations and determine how you can add value; gained experience and confidence in leadership situations, such as dealing with difficult people and inspiring others to accomplish shared team and organizational goals; and developed the ability to accept and leverage feedback and offer useful feedback to others.
Leadership: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
With more women in the workforce than ever before – and even more joining top leadership ranks – the need for women’s voices to be heard has never been greater. This course seeks to over-write outdated scripts about power that have historically produced deep ambivalence in women pursuing leadership. Pushing past the usual stereotypes that require women to “fit into” a masculine world, this course combines evidence-based findings with pragmatic insights to override stubborn barriers to gender equality. We will focus heavily on issues facing women in global business contexts, yet the skills we will develop are applicable to anyone who is invested in creating more just and equitable organizations and societies. All students are welcome.
Gender, Equity, and Leadership in the 21st Century: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2019
This course aims to increase students' awareness of their own strengths and opportunities for improvement while gaining an understanding of the qualities essential to effective leadership. The course cultivates leadership skills via: (i) assessment feedback detailing each student's leadership skills; (ii) in-class experiential exercises that identify effective approaches to leadership and help students gauge their opportunities for improvement; (iii) outdoor experiential exercises in the Andes or Patagonia that put students in extreme real-life conditions that challenge them to demonstrate leadership skills; and (iv) post-analysis that will evaluate students’ leadership skills and their improvement during the out-of-class trips.
Extreme Leadership: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015, Fall 2014, Fall 2013
Key behaviors of successful global leaders are examined based on recent research and examples. Blended learning approach enables students to build skills for working effectively with virtual colleagues, motivating people from different backgrounds, running a global team, exerting influence without direct authority, integrating a merger or acquisition, leading a cross-border innovation effort, handling customer or supplier relations, coaching and developing talent, driving a change initiative, and making tough ethical choices. Areas of focus will include self, team, and organization, with the aim to increase both personal awareness and organizational impact in a global context.
Global Leadership: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2015, Spring 2014, Fall 2012
Analysis of recent literature and developments related to such topics as organization development, environmental determinants of organization structure and decision-making behavior, management of professionals and management in temporary structures, cross-cultural studies of management organizations, and industrial relation systems and practices are examined.
Special Topics in Management of Organizations: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
This course explores what it takes for work to be both satisfying and effective. To what extent is good work the result of bringing the right attitude to the workplace, and to what extent is it the result of the way work is structured and organized? This course explores how the modern work environment of accountability, metrics, big data, and incentives results in work that is both less satisfying to employees and less profitable to employers.
Work, Wisdom, and Happiness: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
This course inspires, trains and equips participants to convert raw energy and enthusiasm for creating a better world into real leadership skills and mindsets which will empower you to create positive change at an individual, organizational and societal level. Anchored in change leadership and bringing together the fields of entrepreneurship, innovation, leadership & social impact, the course is focused on moving from ideas to action; gaining inspiration from diverse changemakers across roles and sectors; learning how to navigate, shape and lead change to thrive amidst uncertainty; and helping you become the kind of leader our companies, our communities and our world need right now.
Becoming a Changemaker: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2017, Spring 2010, Spring 2007
Examines concepts and theories from behavioral science useful for the understanding and prediction of market place behavior and demand analysis. Emphasizes applications to the development of marketing policy planning and strategy and to various decision areas within marketing.
Customer Insights: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015, Fall 2012, Fall 2011
This course develops the skills necessary to plan and implement an effective market research study. Topics include research design, psychological measurement, survey methods, experimentation, statistical analysis of marketing data, and effective reporting of technical material to management. Students select a client and prepare a market research study during the course. Course intended for students with substantive interests in marketing.
Marketing Research: Tools and Techniques for Data Collection and Analysis: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2014, Fall 2009, Fall 2007
The focus of this course is on developing student skills to formulate and critique complete marketing programs including product, price, distribution and promotion policies. There is a heavy use of case analysis. Course is primarily designed for those who will take a limited number of advanced marketing courses and wish an integrated approach.
Strategic Brand Management: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
This course will immerse students in the roles and responsibilities of a Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). Students will examine key marketplace drivers of B2B and B2C companies and learn how to generate organic growth. Emphasis will be placed on practical skills needed to successfully execute job responsibilities. Students will explore various product launch strategies and marketing mixes in different country contexts, examine how to use Big Data to generate sales growth, and learn the key elements to producing and executing a strategic marketing plan. The course uses a combination of lecturer, case studies, and group and individual projects. Presentation and writing skills are given extra attention.
Brand Manager Boot Camp: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2007, Spring 2007, Spring 2006
Information technology has allowed firms to gather and process large quantities of information about consumers' choices and reactions to marketing campaigns. However, few firms have the expertise to intelligently act on such information. This course addresses this shortcoming by teaching students how to use customer information to better market to consumers. In addition, the course addresses how information technology affects marketing strategy.
Marketing Analytics: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2005, Fall 2004, Fall 2003
High technology refers to that class of products and services which is subject to technological change at a pace significantly faster than for most goods in the economy. Under such circumstances, the marketing task faced by the high technology firm differs in some ways from the usual. The purpose of this course is to explore these differences.
High Technology Marketing Management: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2007, Spring 2007, Spring 2006
A specialized course in advertising, focusing on management and decision-making. Topics include objective-setting, copy decisions, media decisions, budgeting, and examination of theories, models, and other research methods appropriate to these decision areas. Other topics include social/economic issues of advertising by nonprofit organizations.
Influencing Consumers: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2010
The success of any marketing program often weighs heavily upon its co-execution by members of the firm's distribution channel. This course seeks to provide an understanding of how the strategic and tactical roles of the channel can be identified and managed. This is accomplished, first, through studying the broad economic and social forces which govern the channel evolution. It is completed through the examination of tools to select, manage and motivate channel partners.
Sales Force Management and Channel Strategy: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015, Fall 2014, Fall 2013
Advanced study in the field of Marketing. Topics will vary from year to year and will be announced at the beginning of each semester.
Topics in Marketing: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
Provides frameworks, knowledge, and sensitivities to formulate and implement marketing strategies for competing in the international arena. Regions and countries covered include the Americas, Europe, Japan, China, India, Russia, Africa, and Asia-Pacific. Issues covered include global versus local advertising, international pricing strategies, selecting and managing strategic international alliances and distribution channels, managing international brands and product lines through product life cycle, international retailing, and international marketing organization and control.
International Marketing: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2014
The course covers the implications of the evolution of communication on marketing strategy in the new landscape where traditional and digital media coexist and interact. While advertising spending on traditional media has recently declined, increasing amounts are spent online in addition to unpaid media. These new communication channels, however, are presenting significant challenges to marketers in selecting the best strategies to maximize returns. The course covers a number of topics including, but not limited to: The differences and interaction between traditional and social media; two-sided markets and social media platforms; a basic theory of social networks online and offline; consumer behavior and digital media.
Social Media Marketing: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
With rapid advancements in materials and technologies, the product life cycle is getting shorter and shorter. Consequently, companies need to constantly improve existing products and develop new ones. This course examines the strategies, processes and methods used by these companies, and the cutting-edge tools and techniques used for new-product development. Readings and guest speakers from both product and services will be used to develop understanding and mastery. Upon conclusion, students will be able to identify new market space opportunities, evaluate qualitative and quantitative research and turn it into actionable decisions, and develop long-range business plans to meet both strategic and financial objectives of a new product launch.
Design and Marketing New Products: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015, Fall 2014, Fall 2013
This three-module course aims to equip students with proven concepts, techniques, and frameworks for assessing and formulating pricing strategies. The first module develops the economics and behavorial foundations of pricing. The second module discusses several innovative pricing concepts including price customization, nonlinear pricing, price matching, and product line pricing. The third module analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of several Internet-based, buyer-determined pricing models.
Pricing: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2010, Spring 2007, Spring 2006
Introduction to political economy, the role of government in a mixed economy, business-government relations, the public policy process, regulation of business, corporate political activity and corporate governance. Compares United States corporate governance systems, public policies and political system to those of Western Europe and Japan.
Business Strategy in the Global Political Economy: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
This course critically examines how new technologies and business models impact cities, and identifies the approaches that produce not only the best business outcomes, but also the most equitable and sustainable outcomes. To begin, we explore what makes cities such compelling laboratories for technology innovation, learn from past attempts at “smart city” interventions, and discuss how technologists can identify more effective solutions to today’s urban challenges. We’ll then hear from a variety of cutting edge practitioners, including venture investors, startup founders, government officials, tech journalists and community organizers about the unique opportunities and challenges of building an urban tech startup today.
Tech and the City: How to Get Urban Innovation Right: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
This is a course in strategic management. It draws on a variety of disciplines and integrates them in the fashion that will generate key insights into how technology can be developed and managed.
This course will help students acquire and practice concepts and skills that are relevant to management in a technologically dynamic environment. It provides frameworks for intellectual capital management in the private sector.
This course is aimed at those interested in working for either large or small firms in technologically progressive industries, as well as those wishing to understand how mature industries can create and respond to innovation.
Dynamic Capabilities and Innovation: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2006
A manager must understand the legal environments which impact business and understand how to work effectively with lawyers. This course addresses the legal aspects of business relationships and business agreements. Topics covered include forms of business organization, duties of officers and directors, intellectual property, antitrust, contracts, employment relationships, criminal law, and debtor-creditor relationships including bankruptcy.
Managing the Legal Environment of Business: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2010, Spring 2007, Fall 2006
Topics vary by semester at discretion of instructor and by student demand. Topical areas include: business and professional ethics and the role of corporate social responsibility in the mixed economy; managing the external affairs of the corporation, including community, government, media and stakeholder relations; technology policy, research and development and the effects of government regulation of business on technological innovation and adoption.
Special Topics in Business and Public Policy: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
This class uses a mix of lectures, class discussions and case studies to survey firms engaged in international business. We commence by examining the causes and consequences of increased global and regional economic integration, including an introduction of the impact of increased integration on firm strategy.
International Business: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2009, Spring 2007, Spring 2006
Intensive review of literature in the theory of land use, urban growth, and real estate market behavior; property rights and valuation; residential and nonresidential markets; construction; debt and equity financing; public controls and policies.
Real Estate Investment Analysis and Sustainability: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015, Fall 2014, Fall 2012
The interaction of the private and public sectors in urban development; modeling the urban economy; growth and decline of urban areas; selected policy issues: housing, transportation, financing, local government, urban redevelopment and neighborhood change are examined.
Real Estate Development: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2014, Fall 2010, Fall 2009
Students will be introduced to the fundamentals of real estate financial analysis, including elements of mortgage financing and taxation. The course will apply the standard tools of financial analysis to specialized real estate financing circumstances and real estate evaluation.
Real Estate Finance and Securitization: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2010, Spring 2007, Spring 2006
Analysis of selected problems and special studies; cases in residental and non-residental development and financing, urban redevelopment, real estate taxation, mortgage market developments, equity investment, valuation, and zoning.
Real Estate Investment Strategy: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
This course is designed as an interdisciplinary approach for students to learn about every aspect of deal making in the land development process. Although it focuses on real estate and land investment, the thrust of the course is on deal making, whether it be on acquisition, financing, environmental review, entitlement, obtaining community support, or ultimate disposition of a successful project. The course introduces the use of green technology and the inclusion of affordable housing issues in the development process.
Land Development and Investment: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2006, Fall 2005, Fall 2004
This course considers the economics of urban housing and land markets from the viewpoints of investors, developers, public and private managers, and consumers. It considers the interactions between private action and public regulation--including land use policy, taxation, and government subsidy programs. We will also analyze the links between primary and secondary mortgage markets, securitization, and liquidity. Finally, the links between local housing and related markets--such as transportation and public finance--will be explored.
Housing and the Urban Economy: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2014, Spring 2009, Spring 2008
Topics vary each semester. Topic areas include advanced techniques for real estate financial analysis and structuring and evaluation; the securitization of real estate debt and equity; issues in international real estate; cyclical behavior of real estate markets; portfolio theory and real estate asset allocation.
Special Topics in Real Estate Economics and Finance: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2014, Fall 2009, Fall 2008
The primary objective of this course and the associated innovation consulting projects is for students to learn and apply the approaches, skills, and behaviors required to successfully initiate and drive innovation in a complex organization. Students taking the course will use concepts and tools from several other Haas courses, including Economic Analysis for Business Decisions, Strategic Leadership, Leading People, Finance, and Problem Finding Problem Solving. As important, the student teams are expected to deliver the highest quality work and deliverables, genuine insights, innovative solutions, and real value on mission-critical client projects.
Haas@Work: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2011
This course examines services innovation, first covering key concepts, including how services innovation differs from product innovation, the role of openness in services, the role of business models, and co-creation. The course then introduces several tools and frameworks to apply those concepts to specific services situations. These include process design, process mapping and improvement, business models, co-creation, and platform innovation.
Innovation in Services and Business Models: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2013, Fall 2012, Fall 2010
An operationally focused course that aims to develop the interdisciplinary skills required for successful product development. Through readings, case studies, guest speakers, applied projects, and student research, students discover the basic tools, methods, and organizational structures used in new product development management. Course covers process phases: idea generation, product definition, product development, testing and refinement, manufacturing ramp-up and product launch.
Managing the New Product Development Process: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2020, Spring 2015, Fall 2014
Advanced study in the fields of innovation and design. Topics will vary from year to year and will be announced at the beginning of each semester.
Special Topics in Innovation and Design: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
This course develops the basic building blocks of impactful communication--e.g., concentration, energy, voice, physical expressiveness, spontaneity, listening, awareness, and presence--by drawing upon expertise from theater arts. Active, participatory exercises allow for the development and embodiment of effective communication skills. Class readings, lectures, and discussions address participants' specific workplace applications.
Active Communicating: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015
This course exposes the problems of poor data presentation and introduces design practices necessary to communicate quantitative business information clearly, efficiently, and powerfully. This course identifies what to look for in the data and describes the types of graphs and visual analysis techniques most effective for spotting what is meaningful and making sense of it.
Data Visualization: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
This course provides a step-by-step roadmap to learn how to “regulate” unconscious reactivity, as well as build – and repair – trust and meaningful connection amidst challenges and misunderstanding that involve social identity, power dynamics, and other dimensions of difference. These essential capacities enable leaders to embody choiceful expressions of “being” and leading in personal and professional contexts, and for diverse teams to move through challenges and differences, while staying connected, in order to collaborate on shared goals and create possibilities around the most pressing systems issues of our time.
Interpersonal Skills and Embodied Systems Leadership: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
Students will learn to identify and present from their strengths; utilize techniques to understand and address their audience's overt and hidden agendas; determine what is pertinent in their presentations, and what should be left out; present information tailored to a specific audience's way of understanding, and thus answer the audience's unspoken questions; analyze, receive and offer constructive feedback; use their bodies and breath to give themselves more presence and power; communicate to groups via video-conference; and demonstrate a level of mastery of presentation skills by exuding confidence, presence, and influence through strategic, audience-focused communication.
Audience-Focused Communication: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
This class explores the broad principles of improvisation, a performing art form that has developed pedagogical methods to enhance individual spontaneity, listening and awareness, expressive skills, risk-taking, and one’s ability to make authentic social and emotional connections. The ultimate aim of the course is to help students develop an innovative and improvisational leadership mindset, sharpening in-the-moment decision making and the ability to quickly recognize and act upon opportunities when presented. In practical terms, this course strives to enhance students’ business communication skills and increase both interpersonal intuition and confidence.
Improvisational Leadership: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
This course focuses on the art and science of coaching including theory and practice. The curriculum will cover theory and practice for three aspects of the coaching process – knowledge-based (information and skills), motivation-based (inspiration and passion), and strategy-based (communication and integration). The curriculum will focus on primary coaching skills, tools, processes and behaviors that a coach uses. In addition, participants will learn facilitation skills as the preferred methodology in achieving successful coaching programs. Course participants will have the opportunity to utilize this material in practice coaching sessions with supervision and feedback from peers and the instructor.
Leader as Coach: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
The objective of this course is to help students become better leaders by strengthening their ability to build trust-based relationships with others such as direct reports, supervisors, peers and customers. The course draws appropriate links back to Leadership Communications and forward to Applied Innovation. Students will (i) debrief their experience of putting learning from Leadership Communications into action in their workplace; (ii) practice various approaches to honing their empathy, including the use of insightful questions rather than assertions as the basis for a dialogue with others; and (iii) learn a simple peer coaching model that they will use in between face-to-face sessions with their classmates.
Building Trust-Based Relationships: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015, Spring 2015, Fall 2014
This course provides students with personal leadership development through the ability to tell "Who Am I" leadership journey stories, for use in the business context. For leaders, whose job it is to manage change, the approach to storytelling facilitates learning and is a vehicle to assist others in overcoming obstacles, generating enthusiasm and team work, sharing knowledge and ultimately leading to build trust and connection. This course give strategies, skills and practices for the three elements of telling powerful leadership stories: Story Content, Story Structure and Story Delivery. The course is highly interactive.
Storytelling for Leadership: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2015, Fall 2013, Fall 2012
This course will provide the student with specialized knowledge in some area of managerial communications. Topics include multimedia business presentations, personal leadership development, diversity management, and making meetings work. Topics will vary from semester to semester.
Topics in Managerial Communications: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2014, Fall 2013, Fall 2012
This course serves as an introduction to social impact classes at Haas. It prepares students to understand the complexity of social and economic problems that leaders seek to solve. Students are also prepared to clearly understand the ecosystems and specific contexts where these problems exist – including the complex, overlapping landscapes of NGOs, social ventures, business and government. Throughout this course, students develop effective strategy and leadership approaches to solve these problems.
Strategy and Leadership for Social Impact: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015, Fall 2014, Fall 2013
The purpose of this class is to acquaint Master of Business Administration students, many of whom will be asked to serve on nonprofit boards throughout their careers, with the nonprofit sector and the roles and responsibilities of nonprofit boards. Students will learn why nonprofit boards exist, how they are structured, how they differ from corporate boards, what their legal responsibilities are, how boards and chief executives relate to each other, and how boards contribute to the effectiveness of nonprofit organizations.
Nonprofit Boards: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2007, Spring 2006
This course explores the concept and practice of corporate sustainability (CS) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) through a series of lectures, guest speakers, and live consulting projects focused on CS and CSR challenges facing actual companies. The course provides the tools and experiences that sustainable management practitioners can utilize as a part of their value-creating strategies. Viewing CS and CSR from a corporate strategy perspective enables students to understand how considerations of social impact can, in fact, support core business objectives, core competencies, and bottom-line profits.
Strategic and Sustainable Business Solutions: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
This required course for the Designated Emphasis in Development Engineering will include projects and case studies, many related to projects at UC Berkeley, such as those associated with the Development Impact Labs (DIL). Student teams will work with preliminary data to define the problem. They will then collect and analyze interview and survey data from potential users and begin to design a solution. Students will explore how to use novel monitoring technologies and “big data” for product improvement and evaluation. The student teams will use the case studies (with improvements based on user feedback and data analysis) to develop a plan for scaling and evaluation with a rigorous controlled trial.
Design, Evaluate, and Scale Development Technologies: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2010, Spring 2007
The course focuses on financial management issues faced by board members and senior and executive managers in nonprofit organizations. Students learn tools and techniques for effective planning and budgeting and how to control, evaluate and revise plans. Use and development of internal and external financial reports are studied with an emphasis on using financial information in decision making. Tools and techniques of financial statement analysis, interpretation, and presentation are practiced.
Strategic Financial Management of Nonprofit Organizations: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
This course will provide students with an overview of the international human rights framework and global business and human rights standards and guidelines; give students a full understanding of the ways in which companies can impact human rights negatively and positively; enable students to critically assess the degree to which companies are and should be responsible for human rights impacts; give students the knowledge, skills, and tools to effectively manage corporate human rights impacts as corporate human rights managers, external consultants, or civil society advocates; and practice the communication and persuasion skills necessary to successfully address emerging issues within a complex multinational corporation.
Managing Human Rights in Business: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
This is a short, high-octane course for students interested in meeting other innovators and getting hands-on experience developing a new impact startup concept. All “social and environmental” impact themes are welcome. The course is inspired by other “hackathon” and startup weekend formats. A structured roadmap helps guide students through a sprint formation and ideation process. All students will be asked to submit an idea during the week prior to the class. After a peer vote selects the top ideas, teams are organically formed during the first session. At the end of the course, each team will present their validated concept and their next steps plan to a panel of impact venture experts.
Impact Startup Disco: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
This course simulates the conditions in which students can become social venture designers, founders, and leaders, and learn to create a business model that intentionally integrates financial objectives with measurable social and/or environmental outputs. Students work in interdisciplinary teams to practice starting a social venture. This course uses the Lean Launchpad methodology from the Haas entrepreneurship curriculum to frame the strategies and practices that distinguish social ventures, including: innovative company legal structures, constitutional documents, stakeholder enrollment, business model design, and social impact assessment. Each team is matched with practitioners who will serve as social venture mentor coaches.
Impact Startup Launchpad: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015
In this course, students manage a real investment fund ($3 million +) focused on both social and financial returns. Through the Fund, students have the opportunity to test the investment and corporate responsibility principles they have learned in the classroom, and to experience the complexities, challenges, and rewards of the investing world. Students have primary responsibility for investment decisions, including conducting their own research on funds and companies’ environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance. Students receive guidance from both faculty advisors and an advisory board. The faculty advisors provide regular input on portfolio management, understanding portfolio performance and ESG investing.
Haas Sustainable Investment Fund: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
Students will identify and solve novel and pressing challenges in the broader food-system; develop insights into the systemic interdepencies that impact personal health and planetary sustainability; and work to conceive, test and launch high impact, market-based solutions. The course emphasizes mission-driven business designs that create positive social impact. Human-centered design, lean-launch, rapid prototyping, business model development, venture formation and venture pitch-presentation are blended into an accelerated experiential learning program. The course attracts leading food industry leaders and entrepreneurs as guest speakers and mentors. The actual course topics and projects are originated and chosen by student teams.
Food Innovation Studio: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
This course covers the methods and applications of impact evaluations, which is the science of measuring the causal impact of a program or policy on outcomes of interest. At its essence, impact evaluation is about generating evidence on which policies work, and which don’t. This subject matter should appeal to three main audiences: (1) those in decision-making positions, such as policy makers and business leaders, and need to consume the information generated from impact evaluations to make informed evidence-based decisions, (2) project managers, development practitioners and business managers who commission impact evaluations and (3) researchers who actually design and implement impact evaluations.
Applied Impact Evaluation: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2005
To provide an overview of the real world challenges of measuring impact in the social sector, this course will delve into the metrics challenges facing four nonprofit organizations selected as “clients”.  Students will apply frameworks and approaches from the course to help these nonprofits address the specific metrics problems they have identified and improve their performance. Students will have the opportunity to work directly with executives of the nonprofit organizations during the course, and to present their metrics solutions to the nonprofit cancer organizations, each of whom have all received grants from Amgen to implement the metrics solutions proposed by the student teams.
Social Impact Metrics: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2007
This course incorporates business and sustainability aspects into the field of natural resource management. Using economic and ecological concepts, students will solve practical problems in this field. The course covers relevant theories and frameworks for assessing natural resource management, ecosystems services, economic valuation, climate change and water, corporate carbon footprint, forestry management, and strategies to add value through corporate sustainability. The course emulates the assessment and decision making processes that are the norm in this field. Students will improve their decision making process related to natural resources and their understanding of how those decisions influence competitive advantage in business.
Business and Natural Resources: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2014, Fall 2013, Fall 2012
The purpose of this course is to develop students' skills and knowledge in problem solving, management consulting, and nonprofit organizations. Instruction covers frameworks for problem solving, senior management consulting, and assessing nonprofit organizations. The course includes an assignment to a consultation team that works with a select nonprofit client to help them succeed in an entrepreneurial venture. A partnership with a professional management consulting firm, McKinsey & Company, the course includes experienced McKinsey consultants coaching each of the student teams.
Social Sector Solutions: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2020, Fall 2019, Fall 2015
Advanced study in the field of Socially Responsible Business. Topics will vary from year to year and will be announced at the beginning of each semester.
Topics in Business and Social Impact: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2016, Fall 2015, Fall 2014
Individually supervised study of subjects not available to the student in the regular schedule, approved by faculty adviser as appropriate for the student's program.
Individually Supervised Study for Graduate Students: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Summer 2022 8 Week Session, Summer 2021 8 Week Session, Summer 2020 8 Week Session
Internships are off-campus experiential learning activities designed to provide students with opportunities to make connections between the theory and practice of academic study and the practical application of that study in a professional work environment. Internships offer the opportunity to experience a career while gaining relevant skills and professional connections. Internships are completed under the guidance of an on-site supervisor and a faculty sponsor, who in combination with the student will create a framework for learning and reflection. Enrolled students would not be able to apply units earned towards satisfying elective unit graduation requirements.
Practical Training: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015, Fall 2014, Fall 2013
The course focuses on a specific industry, field of management, or region of the world and is initiated and organized by students. It is usually a survey course. Topics will vary from year to year and will be announced at the beginning of each semester.
Selected Topics for MBA Students: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2014, Spring 2010, Spring 2007
This course is about how to start a new business and how to write a business plan. Students are organized in teams of four around new venture ideas of their own choosing. They conduct research, consult with members of the business community, perform analysis, and write a formal business plan. They then present an appeal for funding to a panel consisting of the instructors and members of the investing community.
Entrepreneurship: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015, Fall 2014, Fall 2013
This is an advanced case-based course intended to provide the background, tools, and themes of the venture capital industry. The course is organized in four modules of the private equity cycle: (1) fund raising -- examines how private equity funds are raised and structured, (2) investing -- considers the interactions between private equity investors and the entrepreneurs that they finance, (3) exiting -- examines the process through which private equity investors exit their investments; and (4) new frontiers -- reviews many of the key ideas developed in the course.
Venture Capital and Private Equity: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2015, Spring 2014, Spring 2011
This course is intended to provide the core skills needed for the identification of opportunities that can lead to successful, entrepreneurial high technology ventures, regardless of the individual's "home" skill set, whether technical or managerial. We examine in depth the approaches most likely to succeed for entrepreneurial companies as a function of markets and technologies. Emphasis is placed on the special requirements for creating and executing strategy in a setting of rapid technological change and limited resources. This course is particularly suited for those who anticipate founding or operating technology companies.
Opportunity Recognition: Technology and Entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2007
This course provides real world, hands-on learning on what it’s like to actually start a hightech company. This class is not about how to write a business plan. It’s not an exercise on
how smart you are in a classroom, or how well you use the research library to size markets. And the end result is not a PowerPoint slide deck for a VC presentation. And it is most
definitely not an incubator where you come to build the “hot-idea” that you have in mind. This is a practical class: Our goal, within the constraints of a classroom and a limited amount of time, is to create an entrepreneurial experience for you with all of the pressures and demands of the real world in an early stage start up.
The Lean Launch Pad: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2009, Fall 2008, Fall 2007
This course intends to help students apply the skills of applied innovation in a loosely-structured, open-ended project. Students will learn advanced techniques in the innovation process and apply it to a project of their choice. The course is loosely structured and includes a lot of coaching time with faculty, as well as feedback and critique time with peers. The course largely follows the innovation cycle — observe and notice, frame and reframe, imagine and design, and make and test — but does so nonlinearly.
Advanced Innovation: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2015, Fall 2014, Fall 2011
This workshop is intended for students who have their own experiemental venture project under development. The business concept may be in the startup mode, or further along in its evolution. The pedagogy is one of "guided" entrepreneurship where students, often working in teams, undertake the real challenges of building a venture. Students must be willing to discuss their project with others in the workshop as group deliberation of the entrepreneurial challenges is a key component of the class.
Entrepreneurship Workshop for Start-ups: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015, Fall 2014, Fall 2013
The class teaches how to characterize and analyze business models and how to efficiently construct and test new business models. The course examines businesses across industries and phases of a firm's growth. Critical entrepreneurial strategies are illuminated for new ventures or in building a new enterprise inside a corporation. The course provides students with the skills and knowledge to rapidly assess and shape business models to their advantage in constructing new enterprises.
Business Model Innovation and Entrepreneurial Strategy: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
This course provides students with an overview of the media business and how it is changing — from startups to global conglomerates. It addresses the economics of media organizations (and industries), their organizational structures, cultures, brands, and approaches. Some of the questions discussed include: (1) How do traditional media address changing technologies;(2) ¬How is the media business driven by metrics and data; (3) How is it driven by artistic creativity; (4) ¬Are media companies too big? Are they too small? Students will develop and present competitive strategies for media companies, hear from guest speakers, and discuss the transformations happening in media.
Media: New and Otherwise: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
Students learn about the key strategic choices that shape whether companies deliver real value to stakeholders. They are taught to organize the strategic choices into four different strategy “playbooks” that they can use to systematically consider alternate strategies for a startup, and the core elements needed to make these strategies work: Intellectual Property Strategy, Disruptive Strategy, Value Chain Strategy, and Architectural Strategy. Students must (a) analyze cases, thinking systematically through what they would do if they were a founder or early-employee in the protagonists’ shoes; (b) engage in class discussions, treating the classroom as a laboratory; and (c) formulate a real strategic plan for a final strategy assignment.
Entrepreneurial Strategy: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015, Fall 2014, Spring 2014
Courses of this kind will cover issues in entrepreneurship that either appeal to a specialized interest by type of firm being started (e.g., new ventures in computer software) or in the aspect of the entrepreneurial process being considered (e.g., new venture funding). The courses typically will be designed to take advantage of the access offered by the University and the locale to knowledgeable and experienced members of the business community.
Special Topics in Entrepreneurship: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Spring 2023
Advanced study in various fields of business administration. Topics will vary from year to year and will be announced at the beginning of each semester.
Special Topics in Business Administration: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
This course helps MBA students communicate more effectively with technical colleagues by understanding the basics of the programming world. Students learn industry standard vocabulary, tools, and processes used by developers. As an introductory course, it focuses on breadth instead of depth providing a foundation for learning the core topics critical to a career in technology. The course is a mixture of in-class lectures, quizzes, readings, and online tutorials. Each session introduces a new topic, with depth added in readings and reinforced through quizzes and assignments. The material is introduced cumulatively and the pace is specifically tuned for beginners. The course is aimed at non-technical students with no prior coding experience.
Introduction to Coding for MBAs: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015, Fall 2014, Fall 2013
This course gives a systematic overview of the U.S. health care system by providing students with an understanding of its structure, financing, and special properties. Applies social science theory, disciplinary contributions, and research findings to the understanding of health care delivery problems; examines current courses of data about health status, health services use, financing, and performance indicators; and analyzes the larger management and policy issues that drive reform efforts.
Healthcare in the 21st Century: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2006
This course covers the strategic financial management in the health services industry, including provider organizations (e.g., hospitals and physician groups) and insurance firms. Cases are used to apply the financial analysis and planning skills learned in the course. Topic areas include financial statement analysis, cost behavior, pricing and service decisions, planning and budgeting, management control, debt and equity financing, risk and return, capital budgeting, and project risk assessment.
Advanced Health Care Finance: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
The purpose of this course is to provide students with insights into the newest innovations in healthcare service delivery, information technology, and medical devices. Through presentations by leading entrepreneurs in the field, students will be challenged to make investment decisions in those firms with the greatest promise. Students will also be asked to develop an investment philosopy that supports their commitments to specific companies.
Innovations in Healthcare: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
This course is designed to provide students with insights into the biotech/pharma industry and the challenges and opportunities it faces; exposure to the deliberations around pricing a new drug and creating access strategies; the opportunity to analyze relevant cases that will highlight the real-world impact of select trends on the industry; and insights into how larger healthcare management and policy issues interact with biopharma, seeking to both advance efforts to reform the U.S. health care system and change how innovators engage with key stakeholders.
Trends in Biotech and Pharma: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
Marketing is a critical component of organizations operating in the Life Sciences responsible for interfacing with customers, competitors, collaborators, and the broader ecosystem. Marketers in Life Sciences face unique challenges due to the need to understand and appeal to a broad range of stakeholders which includes patients, payers, physicians, health systems, government and advocacy groups. The course covers leading and emerging practices in life sciences marketing, identification of unmet customer needs and translation into actionable insights, development of winning brand strategies, and the use of foundational marketing methods. The primary focus is on the biopharmaceutical industry and MedTech sectors.
Life Sciences Marketing: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2015, Spring 2014, Spring 2013
This course explores the issues of conducting business in an international context, including an analysis of project management, information resources, and cultural differences. The three-week project, typically in a developing economy, provides a real-life application of theories of this course and of the first-year MBA courses. The fall segment highlights the presentations of each returning team on their project findings and experiences.
International Business Development for MBAs: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015, Fall 2014, Fall 2013
This course explores the issues of conducting business in an international context, including an analysis of project management, information resources, and cultural differences. The three-week project, typically in a developing economy, provides a real-life application of theories of this course and of the first-year MBA courses. The fall segment highlights the presentations of each returning team on their project findings and experiences.
International Business Development for MBAs: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2007, Spring 2007
This course involves a series of speaker and seminar-type classes in preparation for a two-week study tour of a specific country or region. Participants will visit companies and organizations and meet with top-level management to learn about the opportunities and challenges of operating in a specific country or region. Evaluation is based on student presentations, participation, and a research paper.
Seminar in International Business: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2019, Fall 2018
Students who participate in one of the Haas School's domestic or international exchange programs receive credit (usually 12 units) at Haas for the set of courses that they successfully complete at their host school. The courses that the students take at the host school are subject to review by the MBA Program office to ensure that they match course requirements at the Haas School.
MBA Exchange Program: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2007, Fall 2004, Spring 2004
Identifies the management challenges facing international firms. Attention to business strategies, organizational structures, and the role of governments in the global environment. Special attention to the challenges of developing and implementing global new product development strategies when industrial structures and government policies differ. Efficacy of joint ventures and strategic alliances. Implications for industrial policy and global governance.
Global Strategy and Multinational Enterprise: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2013, Fall 2012, Fall 2011
Examines optimal production and pricing policies for firms in competitive environments; optimal strategies through time; strategies in the presence of imperfect information. How differing market structures and government policies (including taxation) affect output and pricing decisions. Social welfare implications of decisions by competitive firms also explored.
Competitive and Corporate Strategy: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2006, Spring 2005, Fall 2004
This is a course in strategic management of health services organizations. It systematically addresses system-wide, organization-wide, group-level, and individual-level issues in strategy formulation, content, implementation, and performance. It considers internal and external factors that affect organizational performance. Emphasis is on the development and implementation of strategies to meet stakeholders' demands, and total quality management approaches. This course covers a wide variety of health care organizations including providers, plans, systems, suppliers, pharmaceuticals, and biotechs. The course builds on 205 and Public Health 223A.
Strategic Management and the Organization of Health Services: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015, Fall 2012, Fall 2009
Strategic planning theory and methods with an emphasis on customer, competitor, industry, and environmental analysis and its application to strategy development and choice.
Marketing Strategy: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Fall 2023
This course will cover the important skills and resources necessary to be an effective graduate student instructor (GSI) in the Haas School of Business. GSIs are an integral part of instruction at Haas, supporting faculty teaching through administrative and pedagogical support. This course seeks to prepare MBA students for their first GSI positions, ensuring that they are ready for the many potential challenges that might await them in the ensuing semester. Students will learn effective teaching strategies from faculty and veteran GSIs, as well as resources available to them both through Haas and the Berkeley campus. This course will also teach MBA students the common pitfalls of any class--both in pedagogical style and in student interaction.
Teaching Business: Read More [+]