Courses
Customize your program to match your interests
Customize and specialize
The Online MBA program at Northeastern University empowers you to customize your learning experience and set yourself up for success. With a vast array of elective courses, two-thirds of your curriculum can be tailored to your specific career aspirations, as you choose 10-13 courses that best align with your goals.
In addition, you’ll have the opportunity to specialize in two focus areas from business analytics, finance, or innovation and entrepreneurship, as you complete your elective coursework.
The program is structured into five distinct parts: Business Core, Experiential Core, Societal Challenges Core, Business Electives, and Experiential Electives. This modular approach allows you to explore a range of topics and apply your knowledge to real-world business scenarios, equipping you with the skills and confidence to excel in your chosen field.
A quick look
50
Total credit hours
3
Focus areas
29
Elective Credits
10
Experiential Credits
Business Core Courses
14 credits
Analyzing Accounting Data for Strategic Decision Making
Highlights managerial decisions affecting a company’s performance in generating revenues, controlling costs, and producing profits. Begins with a brief review of financial accounting, then focuses on the development and use of information, especially financial information, for managerial decisions related to the firm’s planning—operations—control cycle.
Credits: 2
Analyzing Accounting Data for Strategic Decision Making
Highlights managerial decisions affecting a company’s performance in generating revenues, controlling costs, and producing profits. Begins with a brief review of financial accounting, then focuses on the development and use of information, especially financial information, for managerial decisions related to the firm’s planning—operations—control cycle.
Credits: 2
Innovating and Creating Futures
Introduces a number of entrepreneurship and innovation topics, including innovation and entrepreneurship as a value-creating activity for economies and firms; types of innovation (technological, process, products, business models); fundamentals of product development (design thinking, rapid prototyping, ethnography); startup creation and articulating a value proposition; the role and traits of the entrepreneur; maximizing odds of success and minimizing odds of failure; growing the startup and creating a market; finding or creating the right niche; pivoting and judo strategy; lean startup approach; innovation in established firms and resistance to change; organizational inertia; business model change; and technological discontinuities.
Credits: 2
Financial Management
Highlights managerial decisions affecting a company’s performance in generating revenues, controlling costs, and producing profits. Begins with a brief review of financial accounting, then focuses on the development and use of information, especially financial information, for managerial decisions related to the firm’s planning—operations—control cycle.
Credits: 2
Managing the Organization
Offers key insights every business professional should understand working in, managing, and leading organizations in today’s complex, diverse, and dynamic business environment. The primary goal of this course is to challenge—and improve—students’ understanding of human behavior in organizations so that they are better positioned to strategically leverage human capital. Introduces critical theories and concepts through case analyses, debates, TED Talks, and exercises that aim to help students understand, analyze, and ultimately address real business situations and problems.
Credits: 2
Customer Value and the Enterprise
Examines the role of marketing as an organizational function and a set of processes to manage offerings that provide superior value to customers. Focuses on developing student skill in analyzing the customer and business environment and using that analysis to build an effective marketing strategy. Emphasizes methods for the identification, acquisition, and retention of customers in a way that provides mutual value to the customer and the organization.
Credits: 2
Managing Operations and the Supply Chain
Focuses on the integrative management of processes and activities involved in transformation and delivery of goods and services. Emphasizes foundational knowledge on supply chain and operations management concepts, techniques, and functions. Topics covered include sourcing and procurement, manufacturing and service operations, logistics management, process design and control, inventory management, interfirm relationship management, and attendant information flows.
Credits: 2
Strategic Planning for the Future
Highlights managerial decisions affecting a company’s performance in generating revenues, controlling costs, and producing profits. Begins with a brief review of financial accounting, then focuses on the development and use of information, especially financial information, for managerial decisions related to the firm’s planning—operations—control cycle.
Credits: 2
Experiential Core Course
3 credits
Analyzing Accounting Data for Strategic Decision Making
Highlights managerial decisions affecting a company’s performance in generating revenues, controlling costs, and producing profits. Begins with a brief review of financial accounting, then focuses on the development and use of information, especially financial information, for managerial decisions related to the firm’s planning—operations—control cycle.
Credits: 2
Experiential Business Decision Making
Offers guided instruction about problem identification, problem-solving skills, and working as a team to meet the needs of internal and external stakeholders. The instructor and selected industry experts work with student teams through lectures, question-and-answer sessions, and team feedback sessions to offer real-world feedback. Offers students an opportunity to leverage skills and thinking through an immersive experience; develop observations and reflections of complex situations or challenges; frame the challenges, drawing on concepts, observed patterns, and experiences; synthesize insights into a creative solution; and apply the learnings to new situations.
Credits: 3
Societal Challenge Courses
4 credits
ACCT 6318: Analyzing Accounting Data for Strategic Decision Making
Highlights managerial decisions affecting a company’s performance in generating revenues, controlling costs, and producing profits. Begins with a brief review of financial accounting, then focuses on the development and use of information, especially financial information, for managerial decisions related to the firm’s planning—operations—control cycle.
Credits: 2
STAKEHOLDER VALUES AND SOCIETAL CHALLENGES IN BUSINESS
Examines how to analyze the impact that societal challenges have in business decision making. Focuses on the challenges that companies face when embracing and empowering goals to add value to their shareholders and stakeholders while “doing good.” Examines the increasingly complex relations between businesses with outsized power and reach and governments in developed and emerging economies. Studies the implications of firm-level and government-level decision making and the impact on the specific communities where decisions are enacted. Studies the roles played by for-profit entities, not-for-profit entities, nongovernmental organizations, and government agencies in exploring, understanding, and achieving progress with these challenges.
Credits: 2
EXPO Challenge: Equity and Inclusion
Credits: 2
EXPO Challenge: Sustainability
Credits: 2
Business Elective Courses
24 credits
Analyzing Accounting Data for Strategic Decision Making
Highlights managerial decisions affecting a company’s performance in generating revenues, controlling costs, and producing profits. Begins with a brief review of financial accounting, then focuses on the development and use of information, especially financial information, for managerial decisions related to the firm’s planning—operations—control cycle.
Credits: 2
Database Management for Business
Introduces the methodological frameworks and tool sets for the design, development, and implementation of data management solutions for business. Offers students an opportunity to work hands-on, applying these methods and tools to solve actual business problems. Almost no aspect of business operates without a strong reliance on the flow of data. Even small enterprises track huge volumes of data, from sales transactions and supply chain activities to website traffic. Knowledge workers and managers at all levels within the organization require an understanding of data management, database design and operations, and associated decision-support and data analysis tools and systems to complete even day-to-day tasks.
Credits: 3
Modeling for Business
Focuses on modern decision models in business analytics, with applications to business process design, revenue management, pricing, inventory control, business network planning, and other topics. Includes optimization, simulation, and selected data mining techniques. Emphasizes data-driven, real-world applications of mathematical decision tools and concepts.
Credits: 3
Information Visuals and Dashboards for Business
Introduces design principles for creating meaningful displays of information to support effective business decision making. Studies how to collect and process data; create interactive visualizations; and use them to demonstrate or provide insight into a problem, situation, or phenomenon. Introduces methods to critique visualizations along with ways to identify design principles that make good visualizations effective. Discusses the challenges of making data understandable across a wide range of audiences. Provides an overview of data visualization, key design principles and techniques for visualizing data, and the fundamentals of communication that are required for effective data presentation. Other topics may include ethical uses of information displays, storytelling, infographics, immersive visualizations, and information dashboard design. Offers students an opportunity to use one or more software tools.
Credits: 3
Data Mining and Machine Learning for Business
Examines data mining perspectives and methods in a business context. Introduces the theoretical foundations for major data mining methods and studies how to select and use the appropriate data mining method and the major advantages for each. Students use contemporary data mining software applications and practice basic programming skills. Focuses on solving real-world problems, which require data cleaning, data transformation, and data modeling.
Credits: 3
Acquisitions, Alliances, and Growth
Offers students an opportunity to analyze whether, why, and how multibusiness corporations expand their operations into new business areas by questioning decisions to grow globally through mechanisms such as acquisitions or alliances. Uses rigorous case-based discussions, expert readings, and major current events to discuss issues related to the choice of make, buy, or partner. Offers students an opportunity to evaluate how these different corporate entrepreneurial strategies are used to help firms be more competitive and innovative.
Credits: 3
Platform Innovation
Provides a business perspective on how to design and optimize platform-based business models for growth, value creation, and innovation and a practical analytical toolkit of theories, concepts, and frameworks. Uses case studies from various industries. Many of today’s growth enterprises and startups are organized as platforms. Platforms facilitate other actors and support interactions among a wider “ecosystem” of users, services, suppliers, etc., and they have potential for massive growth and value creation. High returns to successful platform business models lead companies to learn to act like platforms. Technology trends toward digitization, big data, automation, etc., accelerate these trends. Aimed at people looking to work within existing companies or those interested in starting or growing new platforms.
Credits: 3
Lean Design and Development
Credits: 3
Digital Transformations
Credits: 3
Value Creation with Technology
Credits: 3
Investment and Portfolio Management
Credits: 3
Risk Management with Technology
Credits: 3
Experiential Elective Courses
5 credits
Information on Experiential Elective courses coming soon.
For course numbers and more information, visit the D’Amore-McKim School of Business catalog.