Business Administration Graduate Certificate Outline

This non-credit orientation is a foundation-building experience that introduces and refreshes the skills necessary for success. You'll learn how to navigate ProQuest, Ashworth College's online library, and review the distinguishing characteristics of academic journals and other publications. Internet research skills are polished enabling you to identify credible and unbiased Web sites for your research. Emphasis is placed on submission requirements, project structures, and writing formats used throughout your coursework, and APA writing style. The final portion of this course provides you the opportunity to research and explore the various career fields in the world of Business Management.

Integrate accounting data into your decision-making process. Managerial accounting is an essential tool that enhances managers' abilities to make sound decisions. You'll examine concepts and procedures of managerial accounting from the user's viewpoint, how they are typically applied in real-world situations, and see the role they play in improving the decision-making process within all types of organizations. Also discussed are issues in cost basics, cost management systems, planning and control, and product costing.

This course will spark your interest in starting a new endeavor by introducing you to the basic tools and processes of launching a new venture. Begin with the start-up phase and the entrepreneurial mindset … establishing a vision … and evaluating industries. Then, conduct a feasibility analysis; analyze the risks and benefits; and form strategic alliances. Next, develop a business plan; determine the most effective legal form of business; form a personnel team; devise a marketing strategy; and prepare a complete set of financials. Then, plan for growth and the inevitable operational changes.

Create a strong corporate and personal value system. Learn ethical theory, principles, and language, and how each applies to managerial decision making. Analyze how a business establishes, maintains, and lives by its ethical foundation. Assess the traits of a company and how they affect employees, investors, and consumers. Create a business ethics manual for a new business.

An in-depth view of the impact of public interest and government regulation on business activities. Emphasis is placed on the legal ramifications of corporate governance, citing court cases and judicial decisions that reveal the law's interface with business actions. Thought-provoking examples further demonstrate the law's broad influence on the day-to-day decisions involved in business operations and management.

Organize teams for achievement. Investigate the theory and practice of project management, culminating in the analysis of real-world examples taken from manufacturing, service, and construction businesses. Learn how to organize and manage effective project teams, how to document and communicate project development within and outside the team, and how to integrate people and technology successfully.

Use financial data to your advantage. Learn what financial disclosures contain and how they affect management decision-making, plus the principles and economic factors behind publicly reported disclosures, their limitations and constraints, and how to analyze them. You'll examine research methods and how they help you convert raw data into useful information that influences decisions about financial performance, wealth creation and economic valuation.

A comprehensive introduction to current theories and practices of marketing and advertising in the U.S. and worldwide. You'll examine the achievements of marketing and advertising experts of note, to discover how they used their expertise to identify customers, set prices, manage brands, select channels of distribution, build customer loyalty, enter new markets and convince people to buy products and services.

A thorough review and analysis of international business and globalization that reveals the effects companies have on the economy, politics, laws, and cultures of other countries. Learn the requirements and challenges of doing business in other countries. Find out what's necessary to establish an international business, build it, and survive competition in situations where the rules can be new and radically different.