Core Curriculum
View the iMBA Specializations.

The Strategic Leadership and Management Specialization will give you the skills you need to practice everyday leadership to manage people, learn concepts and techniques to effectively design and manage organizations, and formulate and implement strategy. You will learn the fundamentals of effectively managing people and organizations as well as tools to analyze business situations and develop strategies. The specialization covers the strategic, human resource, and organizational foundations for creating and capturing value for sustainable competitive advantage – including how to manage people and organizations, analyze the competition, and develop strategies both within a business and across a portfolio of businesses.
Learning outcomes
- Effectively work with and manage people individually and in teams
- Understand how organizations are designed and managed
- Analyze business situations and formulate and implement strategies to gain and sustain competitive advantage
Target audience
- Business professionals and managers who are seeking to enhance their leadership and business skills for immediate impact in their workplace
- Professionals who aspire to be in management positions and are interested in acquiring business skills or want to pursue an MBA degree
- Small business owners and entrepreneurs who are either starting a new business venture or want to strengthen or supplement their existing business knowledge
- Students in disciplines outside of business who seek to develop credentials in business
- Any learner pursuing foundational leadership and management skills
Courses:

In order to effectively manage and operate a business, managers and leaders need to understand the market characteristics and economic environments they operate in. In this specialization you will build a solid understanding of the operation of markets, understand how to assess the macro-economic environment with examples of real-world events, and finally, develop an analytical framework to combine the power of theory and data to make effective business decisions.
Learning outcomes
- Identify firm- and country-level economic factors that impact business decisions
- Develop an analytical framework using statistical tools
- Apply economic theory and data in the analysis of business environments and trends to make effective business decisions
Target audience
- Managers who seek to enhance their business skills for immediate impact in their workplace
- Professionals who aspire to be in management positions and are interested in acquiring business skills or want to pursue an MBA degree
- Entrepreneurs who are either starting a new business venture or seeking to expand their business in different markets or countries
- Students in disciplines outside of business who seek to develop credentials in business
- Any learner pursuing an understanding of how businesses operate in different markets and environments
Courses:

The courses in this specialization focus on organizations’ core activities that create value: identifying and meeting customer needs, designing and managing operations, and using information to facilitate and align operational and strategic decisions. Managerial accounting provides the foundation of information to design and manage operations and serve customers. Process management enables operations from obtaining supplies to adding value to delivering products to customers. Marketing spans the value chain from identifying customer needs to delivering value.
Learning outcomes
- Use accounting to allocate resources and incentivize employees’ use of those resources through concepts such as activity-based costing and cost-volume-profit analysis
- Learn how to design, manage, and improve operations to increase revenues and contain costs throughout organizations and supply chains
- Improve your managerial decision-making through the practice of strategic analysis of marketing opportunities and communication of marketing decisions
Target audience
- Managers who seek to enhance their business skills for immediate impact in their workplace
- Professionals with non-business backgrounds who aspire to be in management positions and are interested in acquiring business skills or want to pursue an MBA degree
- Small business owners and entrepreneurs who are either starting a new business venture or seeking to enhance their business skills
- Any learner pursuing an understanding of how businesses create and sustain value
- Students in disciplines outside of business who seek to develop credentials in business
Courses:

This specialization develops the analytical and practical tools and skills essential for recording economic activity, evaluating major corporate strategic and investment decisions, and understanding capital markets and institutions from a financial perspective. It covers financial accounting, investments, and corporate finance, and provides an integrated framework for value-based financial management and individual financial decision-making.
Learning outcomes
- Apply basic skills of financial accounting; the what and how of recording economic activities
- Apply financial tools and techniques to evaluate portfolios and firm valuation
- Analyze capital investment projects and mergers and acquisitions
- Evaluate financial decision making
Target audience
- Managers who seek to enhance their financial management skills for immediate impact in their workplace
- Professionals who aspire to be in management positions and are interested in acquiring business skills or want to pursue an MBA degree
- Entrepreneurs seeking to improve their knowledge and understanding of finance to better manage their company’s capital
- Students in disciplines outside of business who seek to develop credentials in business.
- Any learner pursuing an understanding of financial management