Courses Description

Core Courses:

MBA625          Business Research Methods

This course advances students’ ability to think, adapt, build, apply, evaluate, and conduct business research in support of business decision-making. Topics include research design process, designing a research proposal, selecting the research instrument, ascertaining reliability and validity of instruments, scale measurements, sampling, and data collection methods, using and interpreting the results of univariate and multivariate statistical techniques, and writing the final report.

MBA600          Managerial Economics

The first section of the course covers essential concepts such as supply, demand elasticities and efficiencies in Industries. The subsequent section focuses on advanced topics in market analysis viz. role of externalities and imperfect/ asymmetric info, with specific reference to UAE/GCC/MEA economies.

MBA611          Accounting and Financing decisions

This course blends the use of information (financial and non-financial) for making operating and financing decisions. It links information to manage organizations and finance their activities. Topics covered include financial reporting and analysis, managing working capital, sources of financing business activities, equity analysis and valuation, risk analysis and decision-making under uncertainty, Financial planning, and capital budgeting decisions.

MBA 606         Marketing Management

This course focuses on managing the marketing functions in a dynamic, competitive environment. It introduces the students to a simulation program that gives a real-world scenario of the strategies for the achievement of competitive advantage in product, marketing information, research, consumer behavior, segmentation, the four P’s, and global marketing. StratSim Marketing is a comprehensive marketing strategy simulation based on the automobile industry that demonstrates the impact of marketing decisions on the other functional areas of the business. Marketing strategy is at the core of all decisions in the simulation. Teams target consumer segments and B2B opportunities based on market attractiveness and core competencies, using advanced marketing research techniques such as conjoint analysis, perceptual mapping, and concept testing to identify their customers’ needs and interest

MBA620          Organizational Behavior

This course provides a framework for understanding an individual’s organizational beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. This course covers how individuals and groups collaborate to achieve long-term goals, as well as the reasons for their success or failure. Finally, students will study how to govern the behavior of individuals and groups within an organization in order to fulfill organizational goals in light of the current emphasis on agility and innovation. SDG 3 is represented by one of the CLOs in this course (Good Health and Well Being).

MBA641          Ethics, CSR and Corporate Governance

In a world economy that is becoming increasingly integrated and interdependent, the relationship between business and society is becoming more complex. The globalization of business, the emergence of civil society organizations in many nations, and new government regulations and international agreements have significantly altered the job of managers and the nature of strategic decision making within the firm. This course draws on the latest research to address the challenges facing business organizations and their stakeholders. More specifically, this course focuses on Corporate Social Responsibility, Corporate Governance, ethics within the UAE and international context. It is aligned with SDG 5 Gender Equality, SDG10 Reduced Inequalities and SDG11 Sustainability

MBA645          Strategic Management

The course is designed to integrate knowledge acquired from MBA earlier 6 courses and apply it to the management of the firm at the Corporate and Strategic planning level. Hands on Simulation of business game at the MBA level and case analysis assure the student has mastered the tools, techniques, and methods of the Strategic Management Process. The course includes special topics that are of concern for the strategic competitiveness of organizations e.g., digital transformation, innovation, sustainable development, mergers & acquisitions, strategic agility and resilience, strategic foresight, etc. In this course students will act as managers making decisions that contribute to the success of a business.

Concentration Courses:

MBA 650         Foundation of FinTech

The financial services sector is undergoing substantial disruption as a result of revolutionary and rapidly changing technology. The course examines the impact of Financial Technology (FinTech) on the financial industry and the society. Students are expected to develop a broad understanding of the Fintech ecosystem and how its recent development is disrupting a variety of financial transactions including payments, lending, credit and investment in the UAE/GCC besides globe. The course examines rivals, technologies, policy challenges, and the possibilities for collaboration between incumbents and disruptors in each of these areas.

MBA 652        Data Analytics

The course is an introduction to Business Analytics. It covers managerial statistical tools in descriptive analytics and predictive analytics, including regression. Other topics covered include forecasting, risk analysis, simulation, and data mining (including Artificial Intelligence (AI)/Machine Learning (ML)), and decision analysis. This course provides students with the fundamental concepts and tools needed to understand the emerging role of business analytics in organizations and shows students how to apply basic business analytics tools in a spreadsheet environment, and how to communicate with analytics professionals to effectively use and interpret analytic models and results for making better business decision. Emphasis is placed on applications, concepts, and interpretation of results, rather than theory and calculations. In addition to Excel (Add-in), students use a computer software package (Stata) for data analysis

MBA 654        Current Topics in FinTech

This course explores how FinTech advances are impacting the core business of banks, insurance companies and other financial institutions. The reality is likely to be a more gradual adoption and integration of innovative technology and mobile applications into the existing financial system. While big financial institutions are expected to adopt new technology in different ways including partnering with startups, acquiring some of them and also through internal development, the impact of FinTech can also be seen as a potential threat to traditional financial institutions. This course also addresses risk management and regulatory challenges, particularly those related to payment systems, cyber security, financial crime and fraud detection. It furthermore highlights the concept of the ongoing democratization of wealth management the current shifts happening in wealth and asset management towards a more efficient and client-centric advisory process. The focus is on UAE/GCC and the globe.

MBA 655        Thesis – FinTech Concentration

Typically serving as the culminating experience in the MBA program, the thesis bridges academic study and professional practice, applying the skills gained from the MBA to real-world business management and research. The MBA thesis will give students the opportunity to explore and integrate aspects of theory or methods, knowledge and skills, acquired along the first year of the MBA program. The thesis is an individual assignment that is linked to a practical issue in an existing business, or to the start-up of a new business. Students are expected to propose the research problem after reviewing the literature on a topic of their interest, formulate the research objectives, research questions and develop the relevant research hypothesis. Students need to describe the theoretical framework, design a suitable methodology, gather and analyze information, draw logical conclusions and managerial/policy implications. The purpose is to provide applied and research-based learning experience through thesis. The course allows participants to demonstrate problem-solving skills to analyze highly complex issues with incomplete data and develop innovative solutions and proposals relevant to an academic/professional field, field of work or discipline.The course also provides an important link between the financial institutions (FI) organization and the UD. As such, the Thesis should reflect a need of the FI while meeting the perceived needs and interests of the individual students. Thus, the student is required to develop an action-oriented management thesis report. The Thesis report must be of a rigorous academic/ professional standard. Students should note that this is a 6-credit hour course reflecting the depth and breadth of work needed from them.