Courses tagged with "Information environments" (172)
Cross Cultural Leadership is a collaborative research seminar that examines what constitutes "effective" leadership across cultures. It is collaborative because the students are expected to provide some of the content. The weekly readings target particular aspects of cultural differentiation. Working within those topics, students are asked to describe aspects of leadership in particular cultures based on their research and/or personal experiences. The goal of the course is to help prepare students for business assignments outside of their native countries.
Course deliverables include: active participation in the class, contribution of class content on a weekly basis and an end of course paper that explores some aspect of leadership across cultures.
Important emerging trends in innovation are identified, and their implications for innovation management are explored. Major topics to be discussed include the trend to open information ("open source") rather than protected intellectual property; the distribution of innovation over many independent but collaborating actors; and toolkits that empower users to innovate for themselves.
This course introduces students to the fundamentals of nonlinear optimization theory and methods. Topics include unconstrained and constrained optimization, linear and quadratic programming, Lagrange and conic duality theory, interior-point algorithms and theory, Lagrangian relaxation, generalized programming, and semi-definite programming. Algorithmic methods used in the class include steepest descent, Newton's method, conditional gradient and subgradient optimization, interior-point methods and penalty and barrier methods.
This course focuses on some of the important current issues in strategic management. It will concentrate on modern analytical approaches and on enduring successful strategic practices. It is consciously designed with a technological and global outlook since this orientation in many ways highlights the significant emerging trends in strategic management. The course is intended to provide the students with a pragmatic approach that will guide the formulation and implementation of corporate, business, and functional strategies.
This half-semester course introduces and surveys a selection of cutting-edge topics in the field of real estate finance and investments. The course follows an informal "seminar" format to the maximum degree possible, with students expected to take considerable initiative. Lectures and discussions led by the instructors will be supplemented by several guest speakers from the real estate investment industry, who will present perspectives on current trends and important developments in the industry.
This course focuses on dynamic optimization methods, both in discrete and in continuous time. We approach these problems from a dynamic programming and optimal control perspective. We also study the dynamic systems that come from the solutions to these problems. The course will illustrate how these techniques are useful in various applications, drawing on many economic examples. However, the focus will remain on gaining a general command of the tools so that they can be applied later in other classes.
This half-term course introduces students to problems and analysis related to the design, planning, control, and improvement of manufacturing and service operations. Class sessions involve explaining concepts, working examples, and discussing cases. A wide range of topics are covered, including: process analysis, quality management, supply chain design, procurement, and product development. Toward the end of the course, students work in teams to manage a virtual factory in a web-based simulation exercise.
This course helps students develop skills in marketing analysis and planning, and introduces key marketing ideas and phenomena, such as how to deliver benefits to customers and marketing analytics. It presents a framework for marketing analysis and enhances problem solving and decision-making abilities in these areas. Material relevant to understanding, managing, and integrating marketing concepts in managerial situations, from entrepreneurial ventures to large multinational firms, and to consulting are presented.
This subject is a seminar-style course aimed at anyone who is interested in founding a software company or working for a software company or company that uses software technology extensively as a senior manager, developer, or product/program manager. It is also appropriate for people interested in the industry or in working as an industry analyst. Many of the issues we discuss are highly relevant for companies whose businesses are heavily dependent on software, such as in e-business or financial services, or embedded software for industrial applications.
How can we translate real-world challenges into future business opportunities? How can individuals, organizations, and society learn and undergo change at the pace needed to stave off worsening problems? Today, organizations of all kinds—traditional manufacturing firms, those that extract resources, a huge variety of new start-ups, services, non-profits, and governmental organizations of all types, among many others—are tackling these very questions. For some, the massive challenges of moving towards sustainability offer real opportunities for new products and services, for reinventing old ones, or for solving problems in new ways. The course aims to provide participants with access and in-depth exposure to firms that are actively grappling with the sustainability-related issues through cases, readings and guest speakers.
This seminar provides an introduction to scholarship in a growing research community: the sociologists and sociologically-inclined organization theorists who study issues that relate, at least in a broad sense, to the interdisciplinary field of inquiry that is known as "strategy" or "strategic management" research. The course is not designed to survey the field of strategy. Rather, the focus is on getting a closer understanding of the recent work by sociologists and sociologically-oriented organization theorists that investigates central questions in strategic management. In particular, we will be concerned with identifying and assessing sociological work that aims to shed light on: (a) relative firm performance; (b) the nature of competition and market interaction; (c) organizational capabilities; (d) the beginnings of industries and firms; (e) the diffusion or transfer of ideas and practices across firms; and (f) strategic change.
The purpose of this Proseminar in Information Technology and Business Transformation (ITBT) is to provide students with a view of IT-enabled transformation and the strategic issues in the management of IT. The seminar will bring in CIOs, CEOs, and experienced consultants and industry observers to provide their perspectives and tell their stories about the use and management of IT today. Their talks will deal with the new technology, the new applications, the issues of implementation, the changes in industries and companies, and the strategic management of IT. In addition, there will be several case discussions of issues to be decided by senior management, with students taking on the position of executives and consultants. There will also be frameworks presented and used to position all material and speakers. Finally, one session will consist of ITBT alumni discussing career opportunities and issues for students, particularly from MIT, with these interests. Students will gain a perspective of the strategic role of and issues in managing IT as manifested in e-business applications, as a driver and enabler of business transformation, and as an underlying infrastructure resource for all businesses.
This course presents micro-econometric models, including large sample theory for estimation and hypothesis testing, generalized method of moments (GMM), estimation of censored and truncated specifications, quantile regression, structural estimation, nonparametric and semiparametric estimation, treatment effects, panel data, bootstrapping, simulation methods, and Bayesian methods. The methods are illustrated with economic applications.
Our goal is to help you develop a framework for understanding financial, managerial, and tax reports. The course goal is divided into five subordinate challenges that can help you organize the way you learn accounting:
- The record keeping and reporting challenge
- The computation challenge
- The judgment challenge
- The usage challenge
- The search challenge
The course adopts a decision-maker perspective of accounting by emphasizing the relation between accounting data and the underlying economic events generating them. Restricted to first-year Sloan MBA students.
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgment is hereby given to Professor G. Peter Wilson for his authorship of the following content in this course:
- The Five Challenges (see Syllabus and Lecture 1)
- "What Do Intel and Accountants Have in Common?" (see Lecture 1)
- A Conceptual Framework for Financial Accounting (see Lecture 1)