The W. Edwards Deming School of Business

Bachelor of Science in Business Administration (BSBA) Degree Completion Program

The online Bachelor of Science in Business Administration (BSBA) Degree Completion Program is a directed independent study undergraduate degree program. It is designed to benefit students who have already earned a minimum of 60 semester credits (or an Associates Degree) from an appropriately accredited institution.

The overall goal of the Program is to develop educated business professionals. This is accomplished through the presentation of the technical and interpersonal skills necessary to obtain entry-level positions in business, or as independent business operators.

Graduates of the Program will emerge with a recognized degree and a set of diverse and relevant skills that are applicable in the pursuit of administration, management, or entrepreneurial opportunities and growth.

The online BSBA Completion program offers elective Foundation courses, and the option of one of six areas of specialization (Concentration courses) designed to meet specific professional applications. Foundation courses build a broad understanding of the important elements of business management and administration while providing for a number of elective options. Concentration courses supplement the foundation by allowing students to develop a deeper understanding of a defined area of study.

1. To develop the business and management skills necessary to obtain entry-level positions in business, or as independent business operators.
2. To offer a program of coursework and practical exercises in business financing, management and sound operational practices that will enhance the professional and personal lives of its students
3. To explore the intricacies of effective management and marketing of businesses of varying size and structure.
4. To allow for a number of elective tracks focused on various entrepreneurial and business issues and procedures.
5. To employ faculty who are accomplished in their respective fields from both an academic and practical perspective.

• Application of research and knowledge in the following broad-based areas: business management, accounting, marketing, economics, organizational behavior, and finance.
• The ability to evaluate ethical issues, recognize business, legal and regulatory issues, and make appropriate decisions and recommendations based on sound research reasoning and analysis with sensitivity to stakeholder interests.
• An ability to identify the connections between business and community and make socially responsible and environmentally sustainable choices when incorporating business operations and strategy.
• An understanding of the use of information systems to gather data, assess information, and formulate meaningful reports to make effective business decisions.
• The traits and actions of effective leaders and how to effectively manage individuals and teams in the business environment.

Foreign Degree Evaluation

Applicants wishing to transfer in credits or degrees earned at institutions located outside the United States must have their academic transcripts evaluated and certified by a National Association of Credential Evaluation Services, Inc. (NACES) member organization. Applicants will be assessed a fee by the certifying organization and should request that the report be sent directly to Taft University. Applicants transferring in a degree need to request a General Degree Evaluation sometimes called a Document by Document Evaluation. Applicants wishing to transfer in credits toward specific courses must request a Course-by-Course report.
Transcripts not in English must be evaluated by an appropriate third party and translated into English or a trained transcript evaluator fluent in the language on the transcript.

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COURSE DESCRIPTIONS

ACC300 Accounting I
This is the first of 2 courses that introduce students to the comprehensive components that constitute managerial and financial accounting. Students will examine and be able to prepare financial statements, budgets, and employ accounting data in making strategic and managerial business decisions.

ACC301 Accounting II
This course follows ACC300 Accounting I with topics in financial analysis, costing, and performance evaluation.
Prerequisites: ACC300 Accounting I

ACC410 Cost Accounting
This course presents the most current practice and theory, and reaches beyond cost accounting procedures to consider concepts, analyses, and management. Professional issues related to Management Accounting and Management Accountants are emphasized. Topics cover the accountant's role in the organization to performance measurement, compensation, and multinational considerations.
Prerequisites: ACC300 Accounting I & ACC301 Accounting II

ACC415 Financial Accounting
This course emphasizes the ideas and practices followed by today's business entrepreneurs when developing and implementing accounting information in the preparation of financial reports to external parties including investors, creditors and tax authorities. Students gain valuable insights into the application of accounting and accounting principles as they relate to a company’s performance and valuation.
Prerequisites: ACC300 Accounting I & ACC301 Accounting II

ACC420 Managerial Accounting
This course explores accounting as it applies to the internal managerial decision making process. Students will examine the process of identifying and applying forward-looking accounting information to plan, evaluate and control a corporate entity.

ACC430 Introduction to Taxation
This course introduces students to the major concepts, updates and mandates in federal taxation. Topics include tax research, partnerships, S Corporations, tax returns, administration procedures, and U.S. taxation of foreign-related transactions.

BUS300 Business Research
This course provides students with comprehensive coverage of the research experience as it relates to business topics. Managerial decision making is the underlying theme, and topics are presented and organized in a manner that allows students to thoroughly explore business research functions. Students will complete an in-depth business research project as a part of this course.

BUS301 Business Fundamentals
This course introduces students to fundamental business concepts, the business environment, forms of business, management, marketing and the principles of business finance.

BUS330 Human Relations in Business
This course Focuses on human relations issues and competencies relevant to today’s work environment, taking a two-pronged approach that improves interpersonal skills by first presenting basic concepts and then by facilitating skill development and self-assessment. It features skill-building exercises that prepare students for today’s business environment.

BUS335 Business Math
This course links mathematics with real business practices in real businesses, and gives students a better appreciation for and understanding of the concepts that are vital in the business world. Topics include banking, business statistics, trade and cash discounts, markups and markdowns, payroll, consumer credit, mortgages, insurance, taxes, and stocks and bonds.

BUS340 Business Information Systems
This course introduces students to the fundamentals of management information systems (MIS) and how people use information systems to solve business problems and satisfy business objectives. It explores personal, workgroup, and enterprise management information systems.

BUS345 Business Ethics
This course explores the theoretical background of ethics, ethical decision making, relationships between businesses and stakeholders, ethical issues relating to the firms interaction with the natural environment, health care, and ethical issues related to information technology, strategic planning, and corporate culture. Students will consider the positive consequences of ethical behavior, and the negative consequences of unethical behavior.

BUS350 Human Resource Management
There is no greater asset to a company than its employees. In this course, students evaluate how to maximize a firm’s potential through identifying and keeping an ideal workforce through the world of human resource management. Today’s human resource professionals are not focused solely on administrative tasks. Rather, they work in all levels of the organization, and are aligned with the strategic goals of the firm. Topics include HR business ethics, social responsibility, legal considerations, staffing, human resource development, performance management and appraisal, compensation, employee and labor relations, and operating in a global environment.

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BUS360 Customer Relationship Management
This course emphasizes the importance of customer contact centers, the multiple channels used to communicate effectively with consumers, and why they are so valuable to a company’s bottom line. Students explore multi-channel contact center strategies including all forms of customer contact, such as: voice, email, fax, Web and more. Students evaluate how customer service experiences impact consumer behavior and purchasing plans, and assess numerous lists, charts, and calculations that can be used to determine customer relationship management effectiveness.

BUS370 Business Law
In this course, students will explore both the contracts and the regulatory material that is crucial for business law professions. Topics include business decisions, online commerce & Internet law, business ethics, international law, non internet-related legal issues, and landmark cases which highlight the most important cases and statutes that have shaped the law in the United States.

BUS380 Leadership in Organizations
Effective leadership is the cornerstone of any business venture. Much research has gone into discovering how people lead effectively, and many executives want to know how to turn this research toward their advantage. This course addresses both the theoretical and the practical side of leadership and provides practical advice for business leaders.

BUS390 Entrepreneurship
This course introduces students to the process of entrepreneurial success and shows them how to be effective every step of the way. Topics include recognizing opportunities and generating ideas, feasibility analysis, writing a business plan, industry and competitor analysis, developing an effective business model, preparing the proper ethical and legal foundation, assessing a new venture’s financial strength and viability, financing and funding, unique marketing issues, intellectual property, and strategies for growth.

BUS395 Strategic Management
In today’s economy, gaining and sustaining a competitive advantage is harder than ever. This course examines how firms formulate, implement, and evaluate strategies. Strategic management concepts and techniques are studied with a focus on driving business objectives in the current business environment and global economy.

BUS400 Quantitative Methods
This course provides a simple and practical introduction to an area that students can find difficult, avoiding excessive mathematics and abstract theory. It shows how to apply quantitative ideas to the real problems faced by managers, and includes numerous exercises and examples that help students understand the relevance of quantitative ideas to business.

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BUS405 Fundamentals of Macroeconomics
This course provides an analytical approach to macroeconomics using the latest policy and data. Students are encouraged to think like economists through the application of concepts to today’s events, news, and research. Topics include macroeconomic trends, fluctuations, and policy. Students explore economic growth, finance, saving and investment, inflation, the exchange rate and the balance of payments, aggregate supply and aggregate demand, u.s. inflation, unemployment, fiscal and monetary policy, and international trade policy.

BUS406 Fundamentals of Microeconomics
In this course, students analyze the latest concepts in microeconomic theory. Topics include how markets work, firms and markets, market failure and government, factor markets, inequality, and uncertainty. Students explore demand and supply; elasticity; efficiency and equity; government actions in markets; global markets, utility and demand, production output and costs, perfect competition, monopolistic competition, oligopoly, and economic inequality.

BUS410 Operations Management
This course provides students with a comprehensive framework for addressing operational process and supply chain issues to create value through operations management. Topics include competing with operations, project management, process strategy, process analysis, quality and performance, capacity planning, constraint management, lean systems, supply chain design and integration, inventory management, forecasting, operations planning and scheduling, and resource planning.

BUS499 Comprehensive Business Plan
Students taking this course will develop a comprehensive business plan for a real or fictitious business. Working from knowledge gained through completion of prior courses and with the guidance of the instructional faculty, students will develop and refine a plan that includes the major components: the executive summary section, the business section, the market analysis section, the financing section, and the management section.
Prerequisites: All Foundation and Concentration Courses

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FIN310 Finance Fundamentals
This course Explores the concepts, techniques and tools used for financial decision-making including capital structure planning, financing decisions, working capital management and financial management for global corporations.

MKT305 Marketing Fundamentals
This course will examine how to create customer value, target the correct market, and build customer relationships. The changing nature of consumer expectations means that marketers must learn how to build communities in addition to brand loyalty. Today’s marketing challenge is creating vibrant, interactive communities of consumers who make products and brands a part of their daily lives. Students will explore how to create value and gain loyal customers.

MKT400 Consumer Behavior
This course explores how the examination and application of consumer behavior is central to the planning, development, and implementation of marketing strategies. Topics include introduction to the consumer research process, market segmentation, consumer motivation, personality and consumer behavior, consumer perception, consumer learning, consumer attitude formation and change, communication and consumer behavior, the family and its social class standing, influence of culture on consumer behavior, subcultures and consumer behavior, cross cultural and global consumer behavior, diffusion of innovations, consumer social responsibility, and green marketing.
Prerequisites: MKT305 Marketing Fundamentals

MKT410 Marketing Research
This course provides students with the fundamentals of marketing research and provides them with extensive information on how to use it. Topics include: the marketing research process, characteristics of the marketing research industry, defining the problem and determining research objectives, research design, secondary data and online information databases, standardized information sources, exploratory and qualitative research techniques, evaluating survey data collection methods, measurement in marketing research, developing questions and designing the questionnaire, determining how to select the sample, determining the size of a sample, dealing with field work and data quality issues, descriptive analysis, performing tests, regression analysis, and research reporting and presentation.
Prerequisites: MKT305 Marketing Fundamentals

MKT420 Internet Marketing
The Internet and other technologies have had a profound effect on the way we do business. This transformation has resulted in new business techniques that add customer value, build customer relationships, and increase company profitability. This course explores the Internet in the context of business issues that concern marketers. Topics will include website usability, search engine optimization, and pay-per-click marketing. Social media and mobile marketing are also examined.
Prerequisites: MKT305 Marketing Fundamentals

MKT430Channel Management
This course explores the fundamentals of market channel management. Topics include the design, development, maintenance, and management of effective relationships among worldwide marketing channels to achieve sustainable competitive advantage by using strategic and managerial frames of reference.
Prerequisites: MKT305 Marketing Fundamentals

BUS415 eCommerce
This course covers the three major driving forces behind e-commerce, technology change, business development, and social issues. Topics include: technology infrastructure for e-commerce, the Internet and www, building an e-commerce web site, security and payment, business concepts and social issues, online retailing and services, online content and media, social networks, auctions, portals, and B2B e-commerce.

BUS420 Data Management
This course introduces the essential concepts students need to create and use small databases. Topics include: database fundamentals, the relational mode, structured query language, database design, data modeling and the entity-relationship model, database management, database administration, database processing applications, and database processing for business intelligence.
Prerequisites: BUS415 eCommerce

BUS430 Fulfillment and Customer Service
This course presents the fundamentals of the customer service industry, current trends and the ability to interpret those trends, and the primary abilities and strategies which lead to the successful implementation of customer service. It pinpoints the skills needed to improve and sustain customer satisfaction and business relationships.
Prerequisites: BUS415 eCommerce

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FIN440 Corporate Finance
This course presents core principles of corporate finance within a unique organizational structure that builds from perfect to imperfect markets. This unifying perspective and an example-driven presentation develop students’ understanding by building from simple to complex and from concrete to theoretical. Topics include: Time Value of Money, uncertainty, risk and return, fluctuating interest rates, capital budgeting, comparables, financial theories (CAPM assumptions and M&M propositions), and capital structure.
Prerequisites: FIN 310 Finance Fundamentals

FIN445 Investments and Portfolio Management
This course explores international capital markets using numerous examples to illustrate the applications of concepts and theories. Topics include: currency exchange rates, foreign exchange parity relations, foreign exchange determination and forecasting, international asset pricing, equity concepts and techniques, global bond investing, alternative investments, the case for international diversification; derivatives, currency risk management, global performance evaluation, and structuring the global investment process.
Prerequisites: FIN310 Finance Fundamentals

FIN450 International Finance
this course will illustrate how the leaders of tomorrow’s multinational enterprises will recognize and capitalize on the unique characteristics of global markets. Topics include: globalization and the multinational enterprise, financial goals & governance, the international monetary system, the balance of payments, current multinational financial challenges, the foreign exchange market, foreign currency derivatives, interest rate and cross currency swaps; foreign exchange rate determination & forecasting, transaction exposure, operating exposure, translation exposure, the global cost and availability of capital, international portfolio theory & investment, foreign direct investment theory & strategy, multinational capital budgeting, multinational tax management, working capital management and international trade finance.
Prerequisites: FIN310 Finance Fundamentals

FIN455 Financial Institution Management
This course focuses on managing return and risk in modern financial institutions. The central theme is that the risks faced by managers and the methods and markets through which these risks are managed are becoming increasingly similar, whether an institution is chartered as a commercial bank, a savings bank, an investment bank, or an insurance company. Although the traditional nature of each sector's product activity is analyzed, a greater emphasis is placed on new areas of activities such as asset security, off-balance-sheet banking and international banking.
Prerequisites: FIN310 Finance Fundamentals

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ACC400 Intermediate Accounting
This course integrates FARS/Codification exercises, cases, and simulations into the lessons and introduces students to the codification project. It explores how to leverage everyday accounting programs like Excel, GLS, and other computerized accounting software giving students a strong background in the tools needed in the accounting profession.
Prerequisites: ACC300 Accounting I & ACC301 Accounting II

ACC405 Advanced Accounting
This course allows students to think critically about accounting, just as they will do preparing for the CPA exam. Students gain a well-balanced appreciation of the Accounting profession and explore financial reporting as a product of intense and considered debate that continues today and into the future.
Prerequisites: ACC400 Intermediate Accounting

ACC425 Accounting Information Systems
This course presents an overview of the conceptual foundations of Accounting information Systems (AIS). It explores control and audit of accounting information systems, accounting information systems applications, and the systems development process. Topics include: transaction cycles and controls, systems life cycle, databases and data modeling, computer-based controls, fraud, and auditing.
Prerequisites: ACC300 Accounting I & ACC301 Accounting II

ACC440 Auditing and Attestation
Revised annually, this course is a comprehensive study for the Certified Public Accountant's (CPA) Exam and prepares students with detailed outlines, study guidelines and skill-building problems and solutions that help them to identify, focus on, and master the specific topics that need the most work. It contains all current AICPA content requirements in auditing and attestation.
Prerequisites: ACC400 Intermediate Accounting

BUS460 Global Business Foundations
This course illustrates how successful managers must function in a competitive world. It emphasizes skills development, emerging markets, and geographical literacy. Topics include: an overview of international business; global marketplaces and business centers; legal, technological, and political forces; the role of culture; ethics and social responsibility in international business; international trade and investment theory; international monetary system and the balance of payments; exchange and international financial markets; international cooperation among nations; international strategic management; strategies for analyzing and entering foreign markets; international organization design and control; leadership and employee behavior in international business; international marketing; international financial management; human resource management and labor relations.

BUS465 Trade in International Business
This course introduces students to the fundamentals of trade in international operations and provides an informative focus on the future development of the world economy. Students will explore the underlying issues involved in developing and managing cross-border trade, the structure of the global economy, the dynamics governing world trade, the practice of export trade - the methods, procedures, conventions, documentation and laws. Finally, students will examine the prospects and likely future development of global trade.
Prerequisites: BUS460 Global Business Foundations

BUS470 Legal Operations in International Business
This course emphasizes practical application and theory of international business law. Students will explore the diversity and similarity of how firms are currently regulated and governed around the world. Topics include: structure of the legal environment for global business, international relations, multinational enterprises, dispute settlement across national borders, rules for global trade in goods and services, and legal issues involving foreign investment, intellectual property, money and banking, sales, transportation, financing, and taxation.
Prerequisites: BUS460 Global Business Foundations

MKT435 Marketing Concepts in International Business
This course illustrates the excitement, challenges, and controversies of global marketing. Case studies feature high-profile, real-world companies and products, allowing students to explore the latest research, master concepts, and understand the challenges associated with marketing in a global arena.
Prerequisites: BUS460 Global Business Foundations

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PM400 Fundamentals of Project Management
This course examines the basic principles behind project management; its purpose, the profession, the discipline, its basic concepts and techniques and accepted managerial practices. The primary focus of the course is on the basic framework of project management; methods required to initiate, plan, execute and monitor a project to successful completion.

PM410 Project Quality and Risk Management
Drawing from a basic understanding of quality standards, best practices and methodologies such as Six Sigma and ISO 9000, this course examines the fundamental principles, and critical importance of quality and risk in the managing of projects and the products of projects. Students explore the steps involved in prioritizing requirements and establishing metrics to define and assure quality and effectively identify and manage risks to projects.
Prerequisites: PM400 Fundamentals of Project Management

PM420 Intermediate Project Management
This course combines the academic and Institutional frameworks of Project Management with its practical business applications. This course provides the broad based knowledge required to perform effectively as a project manager and introduces more advanced concepts and tools, aligning concepts with the Project Management Institute’s standard A Guide To The Project Management Body Of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide).
Prerequisites: PM400 Fundamentals of Project Management

PM430 Effective Project Management
This course takes the student beyond basic project management methodologies and into advanced knowledge that includes executive management considerations, agile practices and soft skills. It provides the advanced knowledge required to perform as an experienced leader of projects and people.
Prerequisites: PM400 Fundamentals of Project Management