Courses

• GSM SI 838: Technology Commercialization and Entrepreneurship: Essential Tools for the New Entrepreneur
  This course addresses the innovative transformation of knowledge into new commercial products and services. The course begins with a rigorous study of intellectual property, licensing and the core aspects of planning, creating, funding and building new entrepreneurial ventures. Concepts and tools are presented for assessing new technologies and their potential to be the basis for a new entrepreneurial venture. Comparisons will be made of how technologies can be sourced and commercialized out of three very different environments: universities, national laboratories and corporate laboratories. Cross-disciplinary teams of students will be formed which will evaluate real technologies and their potential for transformation into a start-up company. Students may bring their own technology ideas to the class for assessment. Each class there will be a case study which will discuss examples of both success and failure in technology commercialization. Many of these case studies examine Boston University spin-out companies, and the founders and CEO?s of these ventures will share their experiences with the class. The course is listed in a number of schools of the University and attracts a diverse mix of students including MBA students, law school students, scientists, engineers and clinicians. This diversity of interest adds significantly to the learning experience.
• GSM SI 839: Managing and Leading Innovation
  This class will examine how managers and leaders can create the conditions for innovation at the individual, team and organizational levels ? and how those conditions differ for startup and mature organizations. Managing innovation includes the generation of ideas; the integration of ideas into new product concepts; and the commercialization of ideas. While core strategy courses address the questions of what innovations to pursue and whether and when those innovations will bring value, this course addresses the question of how managers can create organizations to deliver innovations of value. Thus, the course will focus on the practices and processes that mangers need to put in place to enable organizations to execute on an innovation strategy. In doing so, students will evaluate how to balance the challenges of organizing, managing and leading innovation with the need to produce concrete, routine and expected outcomes within the organization. To be innovative, any new idea must resolve the innovation paradox ? introducing enough novelty to appeal to new markets while retaining enough familiarity to tap into existing behaviors. Because design and innovation are frequently inseparable in managing this paradox, the class will assess how design contributes to innovation in product, process and business models across industry sectors. The course will also consider the role that all sources of innovation play ? including communities, networks, brokers and other forms of open innovation. Students will be asked to reflect upon innovations that have been critical to their lives, and how these innovations were produced and gained market traction. Final group projects will explore how to ?rescue? innovations in trouble with turnaround teams.
• GSM SI 852: Starting New Ventures
  This course focuses on the process of identifying and obtaining the necessary resources to launch an entrepreneurial venture through the development of a business plan. A well-written business plan will communicate the business concept in a way that attracts the various resource providers necessary for the venture?s success. Students will individually develop a business concept and prepare and present a professional business plan.
• GSM SI 855: Entrepreneurship
  The course is a comprehensive introduction to the entrepreneurial process from idea generation through venture launch and later growth. Initial lectures and case studies focus on idea generation and concept feasibility along with the skills, competencies and perspectives entrepreneurs must develop to manage the organization through each phase of development. Later lectures and cases emphasize the issues faced by entrepreneurs in scaling innovative enterprises; use of strategic alliances, attracting funding and managing investors, managing growth expansion and choosing among exit options.
• GSM SI 856: International Entrepreneurship
  This course focuses on international entrepreneurship, covering the development of skills to identify, evaluate, start and manage ventures that are international in scope. Specific topics will include market entry, forming alliances, managing growth and crossborder financing in different regions of the world. Support from local governments and the cultural, ethical, legal, and human resource issues facing the entrepreneur will also be discussed. Readings will primarily be in the form of case studies and will be supplemented with outside articles and guest speakers. Team projects addressing current events, international negotiations, and business strategies will be used to integrate the course material.
• GSM SI 859: Strategy Implementation
  Gain the skills and know-how to manage up and across your organization, passing the normal organizational tests along the way from technical expert to cross-functional integrator to directing the future course of your organization. This is strategy implementation for the middle manager who needs to 1) size-up the situation and 2) determine how to gain the power needed to achieve their objectives. One of the qualitative factors that will be explored in great detail is personal style choice vis à vis different stakeholders and organizational politics and the resultant perceptions of you and your programs. Students will study both successful and less-successful managers through cases and readings, honing their own, personal managerial style.
• GSM SI 863: Strategic and Financial Analysis and Design
  The purpose of this course is to increase students' awareness of what they already know about business and what they can know through strategic corporate financial analysis. Students will use numeric thinking and documentation to reduce uncertainty and to bring the strategic and limiting factors of managerial decisions into focus. The course is appropriate for students who have financial savvy as well as those who want to develop their analytical capabilities. It is case-based, emphasizing business sense first, and developing through first-hand experience a sense of the strengths and limitations of corporate financial data, financial theory and strategic evaluation models. It stresses fast approximate analysis to achieve managerial insights over precise calculation.
• GSM SI 871: Strategies for Bringing Technology to Market
  Strategies for Bringing Technology to Market is a unique course that guides student teams as they undertake commercial go-to-market strategy for scientific and engineering breakthroughs. By collaborating with faculty and graduate students in the University?s research labs and mentors from the business community, teams will assess the economic and social prospects of recent technology innovations, outline the technical and market risks and the key commercial milestones and make recommendations for the most effective commercialization strategy. 

Project work is supported by lectures that focus on critical skills required. Guidance will be provided in assessing critical commercialization milestones by a combination of faculty and mentors from the business community.
• SMG AC 221: Financial Accounting
  Sophomore requirement. Basic concepts underlying financial statements and accounting procedures used in preparing statements of financial position, income statements, and statements of cash flow. Stresses the interpretation, analysis, and evaluation of published financial statements.
• SMG AC 222: Managerial Accounting
  Sophomore requirement. Introduces the basic principles, methods, and challenges of modern managerial accounting. Covers traditional topics such as job-order costing, cost-volume-profit analysis, budgeting and variance analysis, profitability analysis, relevant costs for decision making, and cost-plus pricing, as well as emerging topics such as Activity-Based Cost (ABC) accounting. The material is examined from the perspective of students preparing to use management accounting information as managers, to support decision making (such as pricing, product mix, sourcing, and technology decisions) and short- and long-term planning, and to measure, evaluate, and reward performance. Emphasizes the relationships between accounting techniques and other organizational activities (such as strategy and motivation).
• SMG AC 347: Intermediate Accounting I
  Required for Accounting concentrators. Provides foundation for solving financial reporting issues through the study of the conceptual framework of accounting, recognition and measurement of current and non-current assets, revenue recognition, and the development of the income statement and balance sheet.
• SMG AC 348: Intermediate Accounting II
  Required for Accounting concentrators. Continues with providing a foundation for solving financial reporting issues through the study of liabilities (including pensions, bonds, and leases), interperiod tax allocation, stockholder?s equity, and the statement of cash flows.
• SMG AC 414: Financial Statement Analysis
  Analysis of corporate financial statements. Includes profitability analysis, liquidity and solvency analysis, the incentives of management in corporate reporting, and the use of accounting information in efficient capital markets.
• SMG AC 430: Accounting Research
  Develops and practices research skills required of an accounting professional. Use accounting-related resources to research and understand accounting reporting issues and authoritative guidance for application of GAAP.
• SMG AC 445: Advanced Managerial Accounting
  Integrates knowledge from the fields of accounting, economics, and finance to investigate current issues related to management control, financial analysis and valuation, corporate governance, and strategic cost analysis.
• SMG AC 469: Principles of Income Taxation I
  Federal income tax law common to all taxpayers: individuals, partnerships, and corporations. Tax returns for individuals. Topics include tax accounting, income to be included and excluded in returns, tax deductions, ordinary and capital gains and losses, inventories, installment sales, depreciation, bad debts, and other losses.
• SMG AC 498: Directed Study: Accounting
  
• SMG AC 541: Advanced Accounting
  Examines accounting issues relating to business combinations and foreign operations (accounting for mergers and acquisitions, constructing consolidated financial statements, recording foreign-currency transactions and hedging exchange risk, translating foreign subsidiaries? local currency financial statements), business segments, reporting for local governments, and the impact of the SEC and international standards on financial reporting.
• SMG AC 544: International Accounting
  Current international accounting regulations and practices are discussed. Focuses on the impact of international accounting regulations and practices upon multinational corporations' financial planning, their economic consequences, and international financial statement analysis. Additional discussions deal with joint ventures, foreign currency transactions and translation of foreign financial statements, international taxation, and international standards and organizations.
• SMG AC 555: Not-for-Profit Accounting
  Principles of accounting and reporting for nonprofit organizations and local government.

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