Academic Courses
The courses listed below represent a typical group of courses that students could receive in the combined on-campus and distance education components of the Accounting MBA program. Depending on faculty resources and scheduling constraints, some courses may not be available to all entry classes.
Mgt 513 Business Law and Taxation for Accountants: Laws in their Role toward Fulfilling Natural Law (2 credits). This course examines key legal concepts (e.g., torts, contracts and negotiable instruments) that may affect the work of management accountants in the USA. In addition, students will be exposed to basic personal and corporate income tax laws and tax preparation forms. Students will explore the relationships between man-made laws and the purposes of natural laws including behavioral and ethical issues.
MGT 518 Operations Management: Managing an organization’s inputs, transformations, and outputs to structure automation in administration (4 credits). Operations management is concerned with the process of transforming inputs into higher-value outputs with maximum efficiency. Topics include process design; quality management and control; lean production; supplier certification; capacity planning, facilities, and scheduling; and inventory management including materials requirements planning. Students research facility and personnel requirements, along with production and delivery plans including milestone dates for their business plan.
Mgt 534 Career Strategies: In this course, graduate students explore professional options in their chosen fields. In light of Maharishi’s Consciousness-Based principles of success, students conduct occupational research, locate Internet and networking resources, interview successful professionals, and design an action plan and effective strategies for achieving their next career target. They also develop scripts for introducing themselves and describing their achievements and capabilities in various formats, including writing cover letters, resumes, and portfolios, and speaking to potential colleagues, funding sources, and employers.
MGT 541 Management Information Systems: Do Less and Accomplish More (4 credits). Students explore basic concepts of accounting system design and development, including terminology related to systems, networks, electronic commerce, and ERP systems. This course develops hands-on skills with software programs utilized by management accountants including EXCEL spreadsheets, ACCESS databases and POWERPOINT presentations. Students will learn advanced tools such as how to use EXCEL pivot tables, a technique for extracting and analyzing data with greater insights.
MGT 551 Corporate Finance: Enlivening the Intellect (4 credits). This course examines quantitative tools for intelligent management of corporate finances, including managerial and real options, warrants and convertibles, and risk management. Investment decision-analysis topics include discounted and non-discounted cash flow analysis, ranking investment projects, income tax implications, and risk analysis. Students discover how various quantitative tools empower decision-makers with broad awareness that sharpens the ability to focus on key variables.
MGT 591 Business Practicum: Stabilizing the Knowledge (0.5 credits per month up to a maximum of 4 credits). Action creates the steps of progress. Students gain hands-on accounting experience with a US company as a financial analyst, staff accountant, internal auditor or another type of accounting-related work. Training goals and objectives will be developed in conjunction with the on-site company supervisors. Students provide regular progress reports.
MGT 594 Industry Analysis for Strategic Planning: The Whole is More than the Sum of the Parts (4 credits). The goal of this MBA program is to cultivate the holistic and specific values of management in the awareness of the student so that whatever management responsibility one may have, the process of management is always spontaneously upheld by the infinite organizing power of Natural Law. This capstone course weaves together the student's knowledge of the specific areas of accounting, finance, marketing, operations, and management and organization. Students research a firmin the context ofits industry to identify the firm's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.Each student'sproject concludes with either a strategy formulation for the firm, a valuation of its stock, or a plan for a mock jobinterview.
MGT 5151 The Business Environment for Financial Accountants: Enlivening the Laws of Nature (4 credits). The course explores the fundamental laws of nature that structure success in financial accounting. Content covered includes knowledge of alternative business organizations, economic concepts, financing and working capital, information technology, and management accounting. Topics covered in CPA Exam Part 1.
MGT 5152 Auditing for Financial Accountants: Principle of Second Element (4 credits). As independent auditors, CPA’s verify the fairness of corporate financial statements and thereby enhance the confidence of those making investment decisions. Auditors play the role of the Second Element by dispelling doubts about the truthfulness of financial statements. Topics include audit engagement planning, verification and testing of internal controls, and evidence sampling, collection and testing. In addition, the various types of audit report formats are examined. Topics covered for CPA Exam Part 2.
MGT 5153 GAAP for Financial Accounting: Structuring Collective Coherence (4 credits). Students explore and gain the knowledge of generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) for business enterprises, not-for-profit organizations, and governmental entities, and the skills needed to apply that knowledge. GAAP is seen as structure of collective consciousness that specifies rules for financial reporting. Topics covered in CPA Exam Part 3.
MGT 5154 Ethical & Regulatory Environment for Financial Accountants: The Path to Right Action (4 credits). Man-made laws are created to restore the path to right action and meet social needs. In this course, students gain knowledge of legal and ethical responsibilities required for professional accountants. Topics include business law concepts (such as contracts and agency) as well as specific laws (such as Sarbanes-Oxley Act). In addition, the course covers federal taxation for individuals, partnerships and corporations. Topics covered in CPA Exam Part 4.
MGT 5155 Lean Management and Organizational Excellence: Utilizing Nature’s Principle of Least Action to Improve Organizational Performance and Productivity (4 credits). This course examines key principles and methods of creating and sustaining performance excellence in both service and manufacturing organizations through application of the “Lean Enterprise” and “Lean Six Sigma” performance-improvement systems. Best practices of world-class companies will be examined through readings, case studies, and management simulations. Topics include: principles and practices of lean management as developed by Toyota; Lean Six Sigma; value stream mapping; simplifying business processes and reducing the seven types of waste; identifying performance metrics; kaizen events and other approaches to business process improvement; lean accounting; application of lean management to environmental management and sustainability.
MGT 5161 Financial Planning, Performance and Control: Enjoy Greater Efficiency and Accomplish More. In this course on topics covered in Part 1 (of the 2-part version) of the Certified Management Accountant (CMA) examination, the student is exposed to relevant professional skills and topics in budget planning and preparation, cost management terminology, accumulation systems, and allocation techniques. Additional topics include standard costing, variance analysis, responsibility accounting, internal controls and business ethics. The course is designed to build competency for CMA exam conditions including multiple-choice questions, essays, and business simulations. Professors offer technical insights about how to develop solutions quickly. Just as business feedback loops create opportunities for improved decision making, students in this course receive valuable feedback towards successful completion of the CMA.
MGT 5162 Financial Decision Making: Knowledge is Gained from Inside and Outside. Both inner knowledge and information from the environment are critical to properly manage business risks. In this course on topics covered in Part 2 (of the 2-part version) of the Certified Management Accountant (CMA) examination, the student is exposed to relevant professional skills and topics in financial statement analysis, business performance metrics, profitability analysis, investment risk and portfolio management, financial instruments and cost of capital issues, international finance, corporate restructuring, decision analysis, and investment decisions. The course is designed to build competency for CMA exam conditions including multiple-choice questions, essays, and business simulations. Professors offer technical insights about how to develop solutions quickly.
MGT 5821 Executive Management Practices for Accountants: Leading from the field of all possibilities (2 credits). World-class leadership in organizations requires knowledge of a variety of key management skills including how to recruit, select and develop personnel. In this course, students discover leading-edge techniques in behavioral-based interviewing, managing employee performance, creative employee recruitment techniques, leadership behaviors and effective communication through memo writing and PowerPoint presentations. Students will be challenged by individual and small group projects, case studies, Harvard Business Review articles, field trips, business simulations and guest speakers.
MGT 5852 Lean Accounting Transformation for Accountants: Transformation flowing from Path of Least Action(4 credits). As Lean Management techniques sweep the world, accountants are asked to prepare reports and support decision-making utilizing a new set of reporting tools. In this course, students begin with an intensive review of traditional management accounting topics (including cost-volume-profit analysis, variable costing, incremental analysis, and responsibility accounting) each of which are foundational for Lean Accounting. Through case studies, guest lectures, articles, and field trips, students will explore how to: (a) support Lean Management transformation by preparing reports that will facilitate analysis and decision-making, and (b) implement Lean Management techniques to improve internal accounting services. Additional lectures cover contemporary topics in financial accounting including Sarbanes-Oxley Act, US payroll accounting, and US-GAAP. (2 credits)
MGT 5859: U.S. and International Accounting Practices: Order is Basis of Success. In this course for experienced international accountants, important topics are covered to orient accounting professionals to the USA workplace. Students learn the US-GAAP procedures for accounting for payrolls, uncollectible accounts receivable, marketable securities, periodic and perpetual inventories. Additional topics include preparation of financial statements, provisions of Sarbanes Oxley Act, convergence issues regarding IFRS, financial ratios for investments, and foundations of strategic planning. Students begin a comprehensive review of managerial and cost accounting. By examining the rules and regulations for economic order in the USA, students appreciate the framework for building their professional success. (2 credits)
MGT 5941 Business Process Modeling: Smoothing the Flow of Consciousness. In this course, business analysts learn how to effectively communicate with IT professionals who are developing data solutions for management. This course is ideal for non-technical business analysts and management accountants. Through the knowledge of UML Business Analysis, students learn how to combine business knowledge, financial processes, policies and rules to the support the IT team. With the material covered in this course, non-technical business analysts and accountants will successfully impart the business and financial reality to IT experts. They will produce precise, comprehensive, standardized text and diagrams that are easy to understand and that tie together business and financial realities. Students learn how to create the path of least resistance in communication by utilizing the flow of consciousness. (2 or 4 credits)
SCI 500 Science of Creative Intelligence: Water the Root to Enjoy the Fruit (4 credits). The 33-lesson Science of Creative Intelligence (SCI) course presents the interdisciplinary basis of the entire graduate MBA program. This first course in the MBA program is based on a series of videotaped lectures by Maharishi on the nature, range, qualities, and principles of creative intelligence — as expressed in human consciousness and the laws of nature studied by the sciences. Maharishi also presents the expressions of creative intelligence in individual life and its application in every area of society to realize the highest potential. Because MBA like all other disciplines is based in the intellectual understanding and experience of the structures of Natural Law, the general principles brought out in this course provide a unifying theme for all of the more specific principles studied in all other courses in the curriculum.
FOR 510 Forest Academy: Rest is the Basis of Powerful Action (2 credits). Students experience a schedule of extended rest and rejuvenation. During class meetings, students see videotapes and discuss issues about the relationships between SCI (Science of Creative Intelligence) and business management. Tapes are selected by the faculty from the library’s extensive course of videotapes of Maharishi discussing practical business issues and SCI.
The above information is subject to change any time. The content of this page was reviewed in April 2010.