Tepper School of Business
Undergraduate Business Course List
Here is a list of courses taught in The Tepper School of Business Undergraduate Business Program at Carnegie Mellon University.
Many of the faculty who teach courses in the undergraduate business program also teach courses in the MBA and PhD program at the Tepper School of Business.
70-100 Global Business: Principles and Functions
This course provides an overview of the functional areas of business and how they contribute to the management of a firm. It places business within the broader context of business history, business ethics and the role of business in various world cultures. Students may not receive credit for both 70-100 and 70-101.
Student Status: undergraduate business freshman only
70-101 Introduction to Business Management
Through case studies and analyses of documents such as annual reports, students gain an understanding of the business functions and of how business decisions are made. BA majors may not take this course without special permission. Students may not receive credit for both 70-100 and 70-101.
70-122 Introduction to Accounting
This course provides the knowledge and skills necessary for the student to understand financial statements and financial records and make use of the information for management and investment decisions. Topics include an overview of financial statements and business decisions; the balance sheet, the income statement, and the cash flow statement; sales revenue, receivables, and cash; cost of goods sold and inventory; long-lived assets and depreciation, and amortization; current and long-term liabilities; owners’ equity; investments in other corporations; an introduction to financial statement analysis and international issues dealing with financial statements.
Student Status: Sophomore
70-160 Graphic Media Management
This course provides a foundation for the study of graphic communications management by investigating the processes and materials used in the graphic arts. The subjects examined include typography, papermaking, ink technology, electronic imaging, process control and color separation.
Student Status: Sophomore
70-194 Publishing in the Information Age
As the digital era transforms the publishing industry, this course addresses how best to manage the opportunities brought about by profound technological changes. The course focuses on the management of intellectual property, the publishing process, career opportunities and the impacts of new technologies. Lectures, guest speakers and student business simulations integrate learning.
Student Status: Sophomore
70-201 Professional and Service Projects
70-207 Probability and Statistics for Business
Elementary ideas in probability, statistics and data analysis presented in the context of their importance to modern business management.
Prerequisite: 21-120 or 21-121.
Student Status: Sophomore
70-208 Regression Analysis
The theory and applications of multivariate regression and time series analysis, with particular emphasis on business applications.
Prerequisites: (36-201/202, 70-207, 36-310, 36-220, 36-226 or 36-247), (73-100 or 73-110).
Student Status: Sophomore
70-311 Organizational Behavior
This course examines the factors which influence individual, group and firm behavior in the context of the workplace. Topics covered include perception, group behavior, decision making, motivation, leadership and organizational design and change.
Student Status: Second Semester Sophomore
70-313 Organizational Power and Politics
Using case studies and their own experience, students learn to analyze organizational relationships, dependencies and internal power relationships; to develop creative implementation strategies; and to gain cooperation in the work setting. Emphasis is placed on the structural bases for power as they affect individuals within organizations and the introduction of diagnostic techniques for analyzing the distribution and bases of power.
Prerequisite: 70-311
Student Status: Junior
70-315 Human Resource Management (HRM)
Human Resource Management (HRM) is concerned with how to best attract, select, develop and retain employees in organizations. Topics will include employee selection, training, performance evaluation, compensation, job design, health and safety, and termination. We will focus on designing HRM practices in the context of social, legal, technological and other environmental changes.
Prerequisite: 70-311 (Statistics is strongly encouraged).
Student Status: Junior
70-321 Negotiation and Conflict Resolution
This course will complement the technical and diagnostic skills you have learned in other courses at Tepper. A basic premise of the course is that, while you will need analytical skills to discover optimal solutions to problems, you will also need a broad array of negotiation skills to implement these solutions and make sure that they are truly effective. Your long-term effectiveness - both in your professional and personal life - is likely to depend on your negotiating abilities. This course will give you the opportunity to develop these skills experientially and to understand the analytical frameworks that underlie negotiations.
Student Status: Second Semester Sophomore
70-332 Business, Society & Ethics
The course examines the political, social and legal environment of the firm, within and outside the United States. Topics include restrictive trade practices, laws and directors’ responsibilities and liabilities, manufacturers’ responsibilities and liabilities, securities regulation, environmental protection, intellectual property, labor unions, trade associations, employee rights and duties, the attorney-client relationship, advertising and the media, the role of regulatory agencies, multinational operations, basic ethical theories (Utilitarian, Kantian, Aristotelian), dealing with bribery and corruption, values in a business society, societal implications of business policies and corporate social responsibility.
Student Status: Junior
70-340 Business Communications
Business Communications develops and sharpens your written, oral, and interpersonal communication, introducing you to common forms of professional writing and speaking in specific business situations. The course explores crucial rhetorical issues that impact your ability to communicate and achieve your objectives as a business leader.
Prerequisite: 76-100 or 76-101 or 76-104 or 82-085
Student Status: Second semester Sophomore
70-342 Managing Across Cultures
This course is designed for students who expect to do business in other countries or work with people from other cultures. It provides an intellectual framework for understanding other cultures (and eventually one’s own), as well as detailed studies of particular countries. It discusses how culture defines organizations, contracts, personal relationships, attitudes toward authority, time and space, ethics, wealth, and subcultures, and how these affect business. Student teams study a culture of their choice and make presentations, based on interviews and literature research.
Student Status: Junior
70-343 Interpersonal Communication
This course examines various types of interpersonal communication usually found in business situations. Topics covered will vary each semester, but can include business and social etiquette, ethics in business, dressing for success, interviewing skills, leadership skills, listening skills, how to run a successful meeting, intercultural communications, motivating employees, negotiating, networking in business, non-verbal communications, performance appraisals, power communication, telephone skills and team/small group communication. Co-curricular events will be required and may include conducting mock interviews, role playing business luncheons and navigating business social events.
Student Status: Junior
70-345 Oral Communications
In this course, students prepare, present, discuss, and critique the different oral presentations currently practiced in business. Topics include developing verbal and physical presence; planning presentations based on audience needs and expectations; projecting personal credibility, professionalism, and appropriate emotional responses; and using various multi-media technology. Assignments and cases will cover informative and persuasive presentations, which will vary from term to term and may include talks such as formal public introductions; explanations of policy and/or procedures; employee training sessions; state-of-the-company addresses; sales presentations; team-driven strategic plans; public interviews with a hostile press; and talks on other more free-ranging topics.
Prerequisite: 70-340 or 73-270
Student Status: Junior
70-350 Business Acting
This course provides a uniquely broadening educational experience for business students through an exploration & understanding of the process of Acting & the unique performer/audience relationship. Using techniques of Acting, the course will concern itself with: a new self-awareness & greater confidence in public communication; the expansion & diversification of one’s range of personal expression; methods to more effectively shape a public performance & of empowering the student to put his/her best Self forward when in contact with an audience; & a re-investment in passion.
Student Status: Junior
70-364 Business Law
The external political, social and legal environment of the firm and its managers. Legal and regulatory matters, United States and multinational, will be considered, including restrictive trade practices laws and regulations, acquisitions and mergers, licensing, franchising, officers’ and directors’ responsibilities and liabilities, manufacturers’ responsibilities and liabilities, securities regulation, environmental protection, intellectual property, labor unions, trade associations, employee rights and duties, the attorney-client relationship; values in a business society; social implications of business policies, and corporate social responsibility. The effects of laws upon day-to-day business administration. Contracts, sales, commercial paper, the Uniform Commercial Code, credit transactions, bankruptcy, insurance, agency, partnership, incorporation and corporate governance.
Student Status: Sophomore
70-365 International Trade and International Law
The course discusses the international legal system and laws that affect international trade. It covers the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, treaties and concessions, shipping and customs, appointment of foreign sales agents, resolution of trade disputes, international mergers and joint ventures, international competition law, UN sales convention, international trade organizations (IMF, WTO, World Bank, etc.) , risk insurance, cultural factors, international E-Commerce and intellectual property.
Student Status: Junior
70-366 Intellectual Property and E-Commerce
This course covers the basics of doing business on the internet with emphasis on E-Commerce issues such as intellectual property, cyber squatting and commercial transactions.
Student Status: Junior
70-371 Production/Operations Management
This course is an introduction to production and operations management that covers both manufacturing and services. It deals with strategic issues (design of flexible supply), planning issues (capacity management), and operational issues (inventory management). The linkage between strategy and tactics will be emphasized. The students will learn concepts and tools that will help them to manage from the "boardroom" to the "toolroom."
Prerequisites: (21-257 or 21-292), (36-202, 36-220, 36-226, 70-207, 36-247, or 36-310).
Student Status: Junior
70-381 Marketing
An introduction to the nature and fundamentals of the marketing activity. Topics include an analysis of the economic factors influencing buyer behavior, marketing research, market segmentation, development of marketing programs (new product, price, advertising and distribution decisions), and international marketing.
Prerequisite: 76-100 or 76-101 or 76-104 or 82-085
Student Status: Junior
70-391 Finance
The course examines the role of the financial manager in the overall management and control of a firm. Stress is placed on the use of analytical models for improving the decision-making process. Both the short-term management of working capital and the long-term planning of capital structure and investment strategy are covered.
Prerequisites: (21-257 or 21-292), 70-122, (36-202, 36-226, 70-207, 36-247, or 36-310).
Student Status: Junior
70-398 International Finance
This course covers three main topics: the institutional structure of the various foreign exchange markets, the measurement of risk and return in an international setting and foreign currency risk management. Applications change from year to year to reflect current events. Recent examples are the various international financial crises (Mexico 94-95, South East Asia 97-98, Argentina 2002, etc.), the application of Value at Risk principles to the measuring and managing of the risks associated with foreign investments, and issues related to economic development in China and the U.S. current account deficit.
Prerequisite: 70-391 and 73-200
Student Status: Junior
70-401 Management Game
This course is designed to integrate the managerial concepts and techniques studied earlier in the curriculum and to focus on elements of organizational structure and behavior. Student teams assume the role of top management of firms competing in an international economy simulated by the Carnegie Mellon University Management Game. Each team is responsible to a Board of Directors comprised of alumni of the MBA program and business masters students. Emphasis is placed on the development and implementation of sound organizational decision structures as well as the formulation of effective competitive strategies.
Prerequisites: 70-122, 70-332, 70-371, 70-381, 70-391.
Student Status: Business Seniors and Seniors pursuing an Additional Major in Business
70-414 Technology-Based Entrepreneurship
Technology-Based Entrepreneurship, primarily for non-Industrial Management students, includes most of 70-415 and assumes no background courses in business. Therefore it involves additional sessions in core concepts in business. Students with majors in science, technology, engineering, the humanities or the arts are exposed to fundamental concepts and issues in business and gain a basic understanding of functional areas such as accounting, finance, marketing, sales and organizational behavior.
Student Status: Sophomore
70-415 Introduction to Entrepreneurship
This course is designed primarily to provide an overview of entrepreneurship, develop an entrepreneurial frame of mind and learn the rudiments of how to differentiate an idea from an opportunity. Students come up with a business idea and explore its potential for becoming a viable business. They learn to do market research and experience first-hand the rewards and difficulties in dealing with people in the real world. They will meet entrepreneurs and business professionals as part of the course and learn how to make effective presentations — both written and oral. Other important aspects of the course include self-assessment to determine one’s strengths and weaknesses, understanding the "magic" of leadership and gaining an entrepreneurial perspective on life.
Student Status: Sophomore
70-416 New Venture Creation
This course exposes students to the nuances of financing new ventures, getting them started legally and marketing their products or services. Students pull together all the ideas and information from different functional aspects of their projects into coherent and persuasive mini-business plans that serve as roadmaps for building their businesses; and useful instruments to find sufficient financing for the new ventures, so that they can convince the outside world that these opportunities are viable, with substantial potential for success.
Prerequisite: 70-414 or 70-415.
Student Status: Sophomore
70-417 Topics in Entrepreneurship
An independent study course in which students work on a one-to-one basis with the instructor to study in depth particular topics in which they are interested. Topics can include family business, entrepreneurship or development of their mini-business plan into a full-blown business plan.
Student Status: Sophomore
70-418 Financing Entrepreneurial Ventures
This course addresses the financial issues facing entrepreneurs. Various sources of financing are covered including bootstrapping, angels, venture capitalists and others. Guest entrepreneurs are invited to class to discuss how they got sufficient funding at the various stages of building their companies. In addition, the venture capital industry is reviewed and issues involved in arriving at company valuations are discussed.
Student Status: Sophomore
70-420 Technology-Based Entrepreneurship for MCS
This course offers an introduction to entrepreneurial thinking and business concepts for science majors. There are no prerequisites. The course provides an introduction to basic business concepts which can impact those seeking a career in science and technology. It includes sessions in core concepts in business and guest lectures by successful entrepreneurs. Students with majors in science are exposed to fundamental concepts and issues in business and gain a basic understanding of functional areas such as accounting, finance, marketing, sales, and organizational behavior.
Students, working in teams, are required to conceive an original idea for a business. They then subject that idea to scrutiny, assessing the market potential, competition, competitive advantages, management requirements, and likelihood for business success.
Student Status: Sophomore
70-424 Corporate Financial Reporting
This course is designed to strengthen your ability to correctly interpret financial statements and their accompanying disclosures. The course is aimed at anyone whose career might involve working with accounting data, and should be especially useful for those interested in consulting and financial analysis. Throughout the semester we will discuss the key disclosure rules in the United States, the communication methods available to managers, managers’ incentives and ability to exert discretion over reported earnings, and the interplay between a company’s corporate strategy and its financial reporting policies and practices. The course revolves around a number of topics of recent interest to the business community including the quality of earnings, mergers and acquisitions, purchased R&D, post employment benefits, executive compensation, and intangible assets.
Prerequisites: 70-122
Student Status: Junior
70-428 Financial Statement Analysis
This course is about fundamental analysis using financial statements. We develop and apply technologies for understanding and identifying firm activities that generate shareholder value and for developing valuation benchmarks. The ultimate goal of such analysis is to aid the security valuation and risk analysis exercises. This course is intended to help students establish a good foundation and introduce students the basics of equity and debt analysis techniques.
Prerequisite: 70-122
Student Status: Junior
70-430 International Management
This course is designed to familiarize the student with the problems and opportunities involved in operating a business that spans national borders. It addresses recent developments in world trade, changes in international investment patterns, the world financial environment, business policy and strategy for firms competing in the global marketplace and theory behind international business. Issues in managing cross cultural differences, global marketing, multinational finance, accounting and taxation are also examined.
Student Status: Junior
70-440 Corporate Strategy
This course is designed to provide the student with a general management perspective and an understanding of the total business enterprise. It builds upon previous course work in functional areas and provides insights and analytical tools which a general manager should have in order to plan and implement successful business strategy. The student will analyze complex business problems and formulate realistic strategic solutions. Emphasis is placed on the practical application of business theory by the student in his/her business career.
Prerequisites: 70-122, 70-371, 70-381, 70-391.
Student status: business seniors only
70-449 Social, Economic and Information Networks
This course explores the networked nature of social, market and information interactions, and building simple models for them that explain their qualitative behavior. Topics include how opinions, trends and fads grow and spread, and the politics, economics and technology of on-line networks. Methods discussed include similarity and centrality measures in social networks, auctions and matching markets in economic networks, the structure of the www, models of internet search and sponsored search auctions in information networks. Models of network dynamics are also introduced, such as the formation of cascades, the diffusion of innovation, network effects, power laws and rich-get-richer phenomena, the small world phenomenon and epidemic models.
Prerequisite: 76-101
Student Status: Second Semester Sophomore
70-451 Management Information Systems
The objectives of this course are to provide students with basic knowledge of the technology used in computer-based information systems and to enable them to acquire the skills for analyzing how to manage this technology in business. There is a strong emphasis on how to become both an intelligent user of information systems and also an effective participant in the design process of these systems. Credit will not be allowed for both 70-451 and Information Systems, 88-200.
Prerequisite: one programming course.
Student Status: Junior
70-453 Systems Analysis and Design
This course is designed to provide students with a basic understanding of how to develop and implement computer-based management information systems. Students will be introduced to a variety of system development concepts and techniques. These can include traditional approaches such as top-down or structured analysis, problem definition, feasibility analysis, enterprise analysis and data flow diagrams, as well as interactive and iterative development approaches such as prototyping and object-oriented concepts and techniques. The course also explores topics related to successful implementation of systems such as testing strategies, project management, user-oriented design and software maintenance. Students will work in teams to analyze, design and build a small information system.
Prerequisite: 70-451.
Student Status: Junior
70-455 Information Resource Management
The objective of this course is to explore information resources management issues from a managerial perspective. In this course students learn how information resources can influence and define corporate strategy, how to discover opportunities to gain competitive advantages with information resources and how managers control the development and use of such information resources (covering topics such as end-user computing expert systems and privacy). Students also learn how to model and analyze corporate information needs, how database management systems serve to support those needs and how managers address significant issues concerning that support.
Prerequisite: 70-451.
Student Status: Junior
70-456 Telecommunication and Network Management
This course introduces students to telecommunication and computer network technologies. We discuss computer telecommunications, local area networks and wide area networks. Topics include the ISO reference model; network architecture; data communications; local area networks; and ISDN. Students will develop a project to demonstrate the impact of telecommunication technology in business.
Prerequisite: 70-451.
Student Status: Junior
70-459 Web Business Engineering
In this course students will learn how to set up a business on the Internet and how to use the Internet and other telecommunications technologies to tie businesses together to form "virtual business."
Prerequisites: (70-451 or 88-200).
Student Status: Junior
70-460 Mathematical Models for Consulting
This course introduces students to a wide variety of models and techniques used by consultants and decision-support software. It covers applications of linear and integer programming, fuzzy logic and fuzzy control, neural networks, constraint programming, Bayesian networks, influence diagrams, analytical hierarchy process and data envelopment analysis. Such heuristic methods as tabu search, simulated annealing, genetic algorithms, learning based methods, asynchronous teams and ant colonies are briefly discussed.
Prerequisites: 21-257 or 21-292.
Student Status: Junior
70-461 Real-Time Decisions with Resource Planning Systems
This course will teach students to solve complex problems involving real-time data using a tool that is commonly used within business, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. Emphasis will be placed on operation problems that span the boundaries of multiple functional areas within a firm. Students who take this course will not only possess significant domain knowledge, but will also be able to assess how ERP systems fit strategically with a company’s strategy.
Student Status: Junior
70-471 Logistics and Supply Chain Management
Further examination of the objectives, constraints and processes associated with the production of products in industrial organizations. Topics include: process design investment, replacement analysis, human factors, project design, facilities layout, facilities location, short term forecasting, aggregate planning, inventories, scheduling and control. There is extensive usage of cases, computer work, homework and exams.
Prerequisite: 70-371.
Student Status: Junior
70-474 Quality Principles and Techniques
The goal in this course is twofold: (i) to develop a high-level understanding of the ideas and philosophies concerning quality in business processes; and (ii) to develop expertise with the tools used to evaluate and improve quality. The goal of the course is not to indoctrinate students into any single quality assurance framework, but rather to teach them the techniques that are common, and central, to any effective quantitative quality design and maintenance program.
Prerequisite: 70-371.
Student Status: Junior
70-481 Marketing Research
The purpose of this course is to teach multiple research techniques used in marketing. This course is an applied marketing course that gives insight into how various techniques are used in marketing research firms. There are three projects and a final. The first project is designed to teach students about research survey methods. The second is an experiment in which the whole class is involved. The third, an individual project, is designed to teach quantitative research techniques.
Prerequisite: (36-202, 36-220, 36-226, 70-207, 36-247 or 36-310), 70-381.
Student Status: Junior
70-483 Advertising and Marketing Communications
The first contact with a customer is by marketing communications. Marketing communications touches us all today in numerous ways. This course examines the marketing mix component of communications within the context of marketing strategy and the interface with the other mix components. Additionally, communications theory, planning and marketplace performance are discussed. Lastly, audience targeting and the specific elements of marketing communications (broadcast, print, promotions, direct marketing, electronic and word of mouth) are reviewed. This course also has a project that involves student teams developing a marketing communications campaign for a company client.
Prerequisite: 70-381.
Student Status: Junior
70-484 Direct and Interactive Marketing
This course covers direct marketing deals with mail-order catalogs, telemarketing and other new strategies that a producer uses to seek direct response from the consumer. The course defines and applies direct marketing in consumer and business markets. Emphasis is on current applications.
Prerequisite: 70-381.
Student Status: Junior
70-485 Product Management
Course focuses on problems and strategies specific to managing products and services. Emphasis is primarily on the design and marketing of new products/ services. The objectives of the course are to acquaint students with the new product development process; to introduce students to the concepts and techniques useful for making new product decisions; and to give students an opportunity to apply course concepts to the actual development of a new product or service by working on a semester-long group project.
Prerequisite: 70-381.
Student Status: Junior
70-486 Pricing Strategy
The purpose of this course is to present a framework for assessing pricing decisions, the central element of marketing. The course is structured around marketing’s three C’s: Costs; Customers; and Competitors. In the first part of the course we discuss how costs should, and should not, enter the pricing decision. We move on to show how a marketing focus on the customer provides insight into the pricing decision. Then we discuss how competitors impact the pricing decision. The course concludes with pricing strategies, tactics and their applications: dynamic pricing over the product life cycle, product line pricing through the marketing channel, price bundling and legal aspects of pricing.
Prerequisites: 70-381, (73-100 or 73-110).
Student Status: Junior
70-488 Interactive Marketing
In this course we analyze what happens to marketing practice when cheap and powerful computers and communication networks are used to mediate markets. This course focuses on several areas where the presence of computers and networks are likely to have the most profound affect on the field of marketing. These areas include branding, promotion, competitive strategy, channel conflict, pricing and marketing information goods, and identifying and differentiating customers. We will use both lectures, cases, and analysis of real-world datasets to analyze these issues.
Prerequisite: 70-381
Student Status: Junior
70-492 Investment Analysis
Students gain an understanding of financial theories through learning the theory and development of basic computer programs that can be applied in a real-world environment. Typical projects include obtaining the efficient frontier of a given set of securities; deciding on the optimal investment strategy for a given set of securities; calculating option prices using Black-Scholes and Binomial option pricing models.
Prerequisite: 70-391.
Student Status: Junior
70-495 Corporate Finance
This course focuses on how firms make decisions on investments, financing and dividend payout policies, as well as other advanced topics in finance.
Prerequisite: 70-391.
Student Status: Junior
70-497 Derivative Securities (formerly "Options")
In this course students will learn to evaluate contingent claims such as options, futures, swaps and other exotic securities. In addition to covering canonical valuation formulae for standard option and future contracts, students will use numerical simulation methods to evaluate more exotic securities. The course will also cover various aspects of using derivative securities for risk management purposes.
Prerequisite: 70-492.
Student Status: Junior
70-635 Desktop Publishing
This course presents a variety of topics related to desktop publishing in a hands-on laboratory environment. The topics covered include PostScript, file formats, fonts, trapping, illustration programs, image processing programs, page assembly programs, imposition, preflighting, output issues to films, plates, or disk and an introduction to new media.
Student Status: Sophomore
70-637 Interactive Media Management
Applications of computer systems in creating and managing electronic print and new media projects, with emphasis on the latter in creating effective communication pieces. Goals are the ability to use desktop publishing applications, animations and authoring applications, and the ability to input and use different types of information, including text, photographs, illustrations, animations, sound effects and voice.
Prerequisite: (70-160 or 70-161) or permission of instructor.
Student Status: Sophomore
70-641 Color Reproduction
This course presents an in-depth view of the issues and technologies related to color reproduction. The theory, perception, specification and measurement of color are presented. Color separation techniques, color proofing, color management and the control of color production are all considered. Special effects and color manipulation are examined.
Student Status: Sophomore
70-643 Publishing on the World Wide Web
This course addresses topics related to the rapidly evolving area of WWW publishing, which has moved into the mainstream. Today, virtually every major newspaper, magazine, and book publisher has an active website. In addition, the Internet is used as a publishing medium by millions of other individuals and companies. In this course, the rush to WWW publishing is studied in context of the evolution of the internet; the lure of interactivity; the maturing desktop publishing revolution; and the continued development of tools and standards that lower the barriers to entry. The lecture topics encompass the history, technology, business applications and the design of materials to be published on the web. The course includes a lab component where the students perform individual and group projects to improve their design and applications skills.
Student Status: Sophomore
