Courses

The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular semester. Please refer to the published schedule of classes on the Student Link for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.

• QST SI 432: Corporate Strategy: Formulation and Implementation
  This course deepens students' understanding of why and how multi-business corporations can successfully expand their operations into new business areas. The course exposes students to the challenges associated with a range of strategies firms use to manage the vertical and horizontal scope of their activities. These strategies include vertical integration, partnering and supplier relationships, related and unrelated diversification, globalization, franchising, alliances, acquisitions and divestitures. Along with examining the formulation of these corporate strategies, the course also examines the implementation considerations in order to create successful conditions for the pursuit of these strategies. Topics addressed include questions related to the formal organization (i.e., reporting relationships, structural design, incentives, budgeting authority) as well as the informal organization (i.e. culture, dissent, networks) 4 cr.
• QST SI 435: Entertainment Management
  (Offered in Los Angeles) Surveys the application of management concepts and principles to the film, television, video, new media and music industry. This course examines administration and finance, development, production, and distribution, and introduces students to the organizations and people (such as studios, independent production companies, talent managers, and agents) who manage, invest, and eventually profit in this creative industry. Much of the class time is spent in discussion of current entertainment industry trends. Students gain the skills to achieve their own entertainment goals.
• QST SI 438: Talent Representation and Management
  (Offered in Los Angeles) Using case studies and business models, students examine the manner in which critical players interact and attempt to work together in behalf of clients in an effort to make their "professional dreams" come to fruition. Participants will gain an understanding of the different areas of talent representation, how each one functions in the scope of a talent's career and what the responsibilities are for each position in each area of representation. Participants will also gain a clear view of what the business of Entertainment Representation has to offer as a chosen career. 4 cr.
• QST SI 445: Managing a Growing Enterprise
  Designed to help students understand the intricacies of running a small company. The course addresses the major challenges in small companies, including valuation, negotiation, deal structure, personnel and compensation, and marketing and financing. Exposes students to a wide range of business activities, emphasizing significant differences between large and small enterprises. The course uses a competitive computer simulation to provide students with the opportunity to "run" their own business. Please click here to watch a 1 minute video overview of the course.
• QST SI 448: Dilemmas in Scaling New Ventures
  The purpose of this class is to increase students' chances of success in their early stage ventures by helping them avoid common team-related mistakes. We explore specific dilemmas that founders face--decisions that arrive early on, can be uncomfortable, and that need to be made with minimal information--but that can have far-reaching consequences. Whether the founding team stays together, whether the venture achieves an attractive exit, and the extent to which the founder(s) share in those rewards can all be largely determined by early-stage choices.
• QST SI 451: Organizing for Design and Innovation
  This course examines 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 those ideas into new product concepts; and the commercialization of those 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 sustainable innovations of value.
• QST SI 453: Strategies in Environmental Sustainability
  With the growing global call for climate action, firms are recognizing business imperatives for climate resiliency. This course broadens our vision of corporate strategy to incorporate environmental initiatives as a way to create value. If you are a student who embraces the power of the private sector to lead climate imperatives, you will find this course particularly applicable. You will leave this course with a clear and actionable framework for implementing sustainability initiatives at all levels of the firm. Effective Spring 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Digital/Multimedia Expression, Teamwork/Collaboration.
  BU Hub Learn More

  • Digital/Multimedia Expression
  • Teamwork/Collaboration
• QST SI 464: Intellectual Property Strategies
  This course looks at how companies can best use intellectual property (patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets) to protect their proprietary ideas and investments in knowledge assets, shape competition, and realize value from innovation.
• QST SI 469: Real Estate Development
  Real estate development is a process rather than a product. Too often, assumptions about occupancy, market absorption, rental income growth, valuation and competition are based on guesswork and interest in specific product types. The course reviews the underlying demographic market data that drives demand; utilizing data such as population and job growth, market and marketability analysis. The focus then shifts to site selection and feasibility analysis, the available methods of gaining site control and the process of assembling the professional team. Later, the course reviews the regulatory control process, along with budgeting and contract award and review of the construction control processes. The course is introductory in nature and assumes students have little or no knowledge about the development process.
• QST SI 471: International Entrepreneurship
  Designed for students who may at some point be interested in pursuing managerial careers in the international entrepreneurial sector, and covers the development of skills to identify, evaluate, start, and manage ventures that are international in scope. Over the course of the semester, the class "travels" to more than fifteen countries on five continents, and analyze operations at each stage of the entrepreneurial process. The course covers market entry, forming alliances, negotiations, managing growth, and cross-border financing. Support from local governments, and the cultural, ethical, legal, and human resource issues facing the entrepreneur is also covered. Please click here to watch a 1 minute video overview of the course.
• QST SI 475: Global Management Experience
  The Global Management Experience is a four-credit course that involves analytical work throughout the spring semester, and each year the countries, cities and companies studied are changed. Coursework includes an exploration of the economic, governmental and social factors that affect the conduct of business, and ethics, in a variety of industries and contexts. The course will feature presentations and Q&A with different business executives, government leaders and entrepreneurs, providing an opportunity for first-hand observation around the application of management principles and strategies in the global arena. Please click here to watch a 1 minute video overview of the course.
• QST SI 480: The Business of Technology Innovation
  Provides an introduction to entrepreneurship and business for the engineer. Topics include finding business ideas; recognizing good from bad; understanding the importance of business model; turning technology into a business, including what to sell and how to sell it; the role of engineering within a business; business financial statements; and startups and venture capital, including starting a company or joining a startup. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Social Inquiry I.
  BU Hub Learn More

  • Historical Consciousness
  • Social Inquiry I
• QST SI 482: Strategy for Technology-Based Firms
  Serves Questrom students concentrating in entrepreneurship or who are interested in high-technology sectors, and ENG students who have taken SI480. This interdisciplinary course covers technology life-cycles, the co-evolution of industries and technologies, strategies for commercialization of new technologies (appropriability, acquiring complementary assets and capabilities, managing technical teams, and impact of regulatory and other environmental factors on commercialization). Special emphasis is placed on joint learning and interdisciplinary teamwork by students across Engineering and Questrom.
• QST SI 498: Directed Study in Strategy and Innovation
  Directed study in Strategy and Innovation. 2 or 4 cr. Application available on Undergraduate Program website.
• QST SI 750: Competition, Innovation, and Strategy
  "Competition, Innovation, and Strategy" is an integrative course designed to capitalize on your understanding of Finance, Operations Management, Marketing, and other functional issues. The course draws on a number of academic disciplines, especially economics, organization theory, and sociology, to build a fundamental understanding of how and why some firms achieve and sustain superior performance. We also study why some firms persistently generate returns that are lower than average. The course is analytically focused and requires that you evaluate both the external environment and the internal capabilities of organizations. Corporate diversification and global management are important topics that are also featured.
• QST SI 751: Competition, Innovation, and Strategy
  "Competition, Innovation, and Strategy" is an integrative course designed to capitalize on your understanding of Finance, Operations Management, Marketing, and other functional issues. The course draws on a number of academic disciplines, especially economics, organization theory, and sociology, to build a fundamental understanding of how and why some firms achieve and sustain superior performance. We also study why some firms persistently generate returns that are lower than average. The course is analytically focused and requires that you evaluate both the external environment and the internal capabilities of organizations. Corporate diversification and global management are important topics that are also featured.
• QST SI 814: Intellectual Property Strategies
  This course covers the ways in which companies use intellectual property to protect their investments in knowledge assets. Traditionally a concern for technology-intensive businesses, patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets have become important business tools throughout the knowledge-based economy. A good understanding of what IP assets are and how they work has become essential for managers in all types of organizations. This is not a law course, nor a how-to manual rather it is intended to develop your analytical understanding of fundamental economic and legal aspects of intellectual property systems, and how they drive competition and strategy.
• QST SI 830: Corporate Strategies for Growth
  This course will examine strategies for firm growth that involve expanding the range of the firm's business activities. We will study strategic logics underlying vertical integration, franchising, related and unrelated diversification, alliances, corporate venturing and spinouts, and other such strategies. We will also study the management challenges associated with these strategies, including designing organizational structures and managerial incentives, managing acquisitions, structuring supplier relationships, and fostering organizational cultures.
• QST SI 835: Real Estate Management
  This is an introductory course that covers the basics of real estate investing and managing. Subject materials include mortgages, lenders, forms of ownership, tax laws effecting real property, financial analysis and valuation techniques.
• QST SI 836: Decarbonization of the Global Economy
  The changing relationship between business and the natural environment offers both challenges and opportunities for firms. In this course we will discuss many facets of business, including financing, risk management, measurement, competitive positioning, innovation, and strategy in the context of increasing pressures for improved environmental sustainability. The course will be interactive and discussion-oriented, with a case discussion in most class sessions, supplemented by debates, simulation exercises, visitors, student presentations, discussions of recent news articles, and mini-lectures. The course is appropriate for all students interested in how demands for sustainability will continue to change the business environment.

Back to full list of Questrom School of Business