Information system courses focus on utilizing technology to successfully manage business operations, marketing strategies and global communication. Harvard Business School's technology courses enable students to learn the basic components of information technology and how it relates to a company's overall operations strategy.
Most statistics courses for MBA programs focus on teaching students statistics for analysis purposes. At the University at Buffalo School of Management, MBA students are required to complete at least one managerial statistics course, which includes mastering regression analysis, computing probability variations or random variables and hypothesis testing.
The basis for most economic courses in MBA programs is to teach students economic theories that can be applied in a global business environment. The Rochester Institute of Technology MBA program offers an Economics for Managers course teaching students both Microeconomic and Macroeconomic theories that incorporate current events to explain individual business decisions and market shifts on the domestic and global level.
Courses in the Operations and Supply Chain cluster often include topics such as Supply Chains and Global Operations, Purchasing and Logistics and Global Supply Chain Management. These courses teach students how to design and operate supply chains, and explain the importance of successful inventory models. In the MBA program at The University at Buffalo School of Management, students will learn negotiating strategies with suppliers, e-commerce technologies that support purchasing practices, and supplier relationship management (SRM) strategies.
Most marketing courses cover the topics of brand management, managing market considerations and mastering pricing strategies on both a domestic and global interface.Harvard Business School's marketing courses are designed to teach students the role of marketing for companies and how to understand buyer behavior in order to create value for the consumer.
Finance and accounting courses incorporate basic skills such as spreadsheet management, interest and depreciation calculating. The Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of technology offers MBA students a Financial Accounting course focusing on interpreting financial information and the analyzing of the relationship between accounting data and economic events in the global landscape.
Courses in this cluster vary, but generally revolve around leadership, communication and organizational behavior. For example, The University of Pennsylvania Wharton Business School offers a selection of courses from this cluster such as Foundations of Leadership, and the Government and Legal environment of Business. Other MBA programs may focus this cluster more heavily on organizational behavior or business policy. The People and Government cluster differs from the other course clusters in that it focuses on qualitative rather than quantitative elements of business. For example, the study of leadership and organizational behavior is centered on individual and group behavior rather than the technical aspects of statistics, finance and economics.