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Explore the Management and Organizations undergraduate curriculum, concentrations, and tracks.
Undergraduate Course Index
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Selected Course Descriptions
The Management Concentration helps you develop a skill set to anticipate, address, and resolve the central challenges of navigating and running organizations in the 21st century. You learn how to identify and implement the best strategy for a firm. You also examine ways in which people work as individuals, as team members, and as organizational members. You learn to analyze the business as a whole and how to align all aspects of the business accordingly—evaluating the overall needs of an organization (for-profit, not-for-profit, and government), defining supporting objectives, and implementing optimal approaches and tactics to pursue those objectives.
Students who decide to concentrate in management will take four courses (12 units) in advanced management electives after completing the required core course Management and Organizations MGMT-UB 1. Some multidisciplinary (MULT-UB) courses have also been approved to count toward fulfilling management concentration requirements.
Students pursuing a concentration in management and organizations should consult with their adviser in the Stern Office of Academic Advising by the end of sophomore year to ensure that course distribution requirements are being met and to formally declare the management concentration. The Department of Management and Organizations undergraduate faculty adviser is always available to advise you on which management courses best fulfill your objectives.
Students who are interested in becoming consultants should also consider Stern's Management Consulting Track (MCT). The track provides in-depth preparation for careers in management consulting, strategy consulting, economic consulting, healthcare consulting, and information technology consulting. Courses required for the track are denoted below as MCT Essential, and electives of the track are denoted MCT Elective.
Management and Organizations (4 Credits)
MGMT-UB 1 (MCT Essential)
MGMT-UB 1 (MCT Essential)
In this course you will attain an understanding of the key factors that contribute to organizational success and the role that managers play in helping their organizations become more successful. The better that you understand these issues, the more effective you will be in your future careers. More specifically, the course will explore how organizational leaders develop winning strategies, and then design their organization in a way that aligns structures, social relationships, tasks, human resource practices, and people to achieve those strategies. In exploring these issues, you will identify the challenges that organizational leaders and managers face as they try to make good decisions in the face of a constantly evolving industry environment, competing goals and agendas, and an increasingly diverse and global workforce.
Prerequisites: Soph+.
Strategic Management (4 Credits)
MGMT-UB 2 (MCT Essential)
This course will cover the fundamentals of strategy analysis, strategy formulation and strategy implementation. The primary objective of the course is to help students to be more systematic and critical strategic thinkers. The course will cover external (industry and macroenvironment) analysis, internal analysis and identification of sustainable competitive advantage, analysis and formulation of business-level strategy (competitive positioning and competitive dynamics) and corporate-level strategy (determining the scope and boundaries of the firm).
Prerequisites: ECON-UB 1 OR ECON-UB 2 AND Soph+.
Global Strategy (3 Credits)
MGMT-UB 4 (MCT Elective)
This course focuses on the strategic and organizational challenges facing the multinational firm. Types of questions addressed in the course include: (1) What are the sources of competitive advantage in a global context? (2) What differentiates a global from a domestic industry? (3) How does/should a multinational operate in these different environments?
Prerequisites: MGMT-UB 1, ECON-UB 11.
High-Performance Teams (3 Credits)
MGMT-UB 7 (MCT Elective)
This course combines skill building though experiential exercises and an understanding of the underlying theory to help you learn how to be an effective manager and team member in today’s technology-enabled team context. Topics include issues such as managing collaboration in and across teams, motivating effort, performance, social judgment, and cross-cultural issues. Students learn how organizations can improve their effectiveness through better management of people and how individual managers can be more effective in working with and leading others.
Managing Innovation (3 Credits)
MGMT-UB 8 (MCT Elective)
The success of firms, managers and individual contributors depends on their ability to identify innovative products, processes, or both. Research has shown that managing innovation requires a learning mindset attuned to new experiences, entrepreneurial thinking and pragmatic leadership. Some of the specific questions we will consider are: How is design thinking impacting our understanding of strategy and organization design? What roles do the project, middle and senior management play in the innovation process? How do you decide which ideas are worth pursuing? How do firms choose among multiple attractive innovation projects? What are the best ways to protect a firm’s intellectual property?
Prerequisites: MGMT-UB 1.
Managerial Skills (3 Credits)
MGMT-UB 21
Increasing self-awareness and openness to feedback are important first steps in leading today’s business for tomorrow’s results. Many companies bestow a management title on key talent and expect appropriate behavior to follow, but that is not the most effective way to develop future business leaders. In this course you will focus primarily on the practical aspects of managing. While based on solid research, the course stresses a hands-on approach to improving students’ management skills. Each session focuses on developing (1) personal skills: self-awareness, managing stress, solving problems, and creativity; (2) interpersonal skills: coaching, counseling, supportive communication, gaining power and influence, motivating self and others, and managing conflict; and (3) group skills: empowering, delegating, and building effective teams.
Prerequisites: MGMT-UB 1.
Leading Diverse Organizations (3 Credits)
MGMT-UB 23
Due to changing demographics, increasing global business, technological innovations and the most recent pandemic, the composition of the workforce of today and in the future will be much more diverse. In this course, we will examine the business challenges and opportunities that arise in leading diverse organizations. New faces, differing points of view, life experiences, and cultural values will be seen as attributes that help our social, economic, and government organizations achieve their goals and objectives.
Managing Change (3 Credits)
MGMT-UB 25 (MCT Elective)
Managing change is a central concern for today’s managers. Managing change is also the primary focus of the management consulting industry. To effectively manage change you will need a solid understanding of what change is about, what are its critical aspects, and how one can lead change initiatives in a disciplined and successful way. Case analysis and applied projects are the major vehicles for learning in this course. Note: This course is particularly relevant for students who plan to pursue careers as general managers or management consultants
Negotiation & Consensus Building (3 Credits)
MGMT-UB 30
Effective negotiation and consensus-building skills are essential for success in almost any work life domain—whether your goal is to be an entrepreneur, film producer, business manager, or political leader. In this course, students study how people reach agreement and develop an analytical approach for reaching more effective agreements in organizational settings. The course draws from research in psychology and economics to provide academic content, while making use of role-playing exercises and experiential learning to emphasize key applied lessons.
Prerequisites: Soph+.
Becoming You: Crafting the Authentic Life You Want and Need (1.5 Credits)
MGMT-UB 40
Offered in the undergraduate, full-time MBA, part-time MBA, and Executive MBA programs, "Becoming You" makes extensive use of exercises, activities, psychometric testing, research, and lectures to teach a transformational methodology that guides students through the profound, exhilarating, and sometimes surprising journey of discovery to their authentic purpose, a life and career rich with meaning. In short, "Becoming You" is designed to help students uncover the best, most thoughtful answer to the often elusive question, "What should I do with my life?"
NYC Entrepreneurship Lab (3 Credits)
MGMT-UB 43
The NYC Entrepreneurship Experience is your chance to learn entrepreneurship by working directly with the founders of early stage startups. In the classroom you will learn the leading approaches to navigating uncertainty—grounded in entrepreneurship theory. Outside of the classroom you will apply these practices by working directly with your classmates on supporting your startup on a strategically important project. As part of a student team, you will first identify and scope a meaningful project or set of projects that you can contribute to the startup. After agreeing on a project with startup founders, you will immerse yourself in projects which can range from supporting the launch of a new product line, to providing strategic analysis of the competitive landscape, to providing an in depth understanding of the customer. This class is not structured like a typical lecture based course and thus will require you to spend more time outside of class, conducting research, analysis, and work effectively within a team. To support you along the way, you will receive mentorship from a network of successful entrepreneurs at critical points in your engagement and be required to provide interim individual and group progress reports. The course concludes with you presenting your work back to the startup founders and hearing directly from them how your work may impact their work going forward. A core aspect of this experience is gaining from analysis, action, and reflection cycle, where you will use reflections throughout the course to support long-term generalized knowledge and insights you can apply your own future ventures or other entrepreneurial environments.
Prerequisites: BTEP-UB 1 or MGMT-UB 85.
Prerequisites: BTEP-UB 1 or MGMT-UB 85.
Power & Politics (3 Credits)
MGMT-UB 66
Politics is not a dirty word! You just need to learn how to play good politics and keep out bad politics. By the same logic, power by itself does not necessarily corrupt though absolute power may corrupt absolutely. In other words, this course is about how to conquer the world, or at least survive the corporate jungle, without losing your soul. Even if you don’t want to play politics, good or bad, you need the skills from this course to ensure that you don’t become a victim of politics. By the end of this course you will (1) be able to have not only a conceptual understanding of what power is within an organizational context but a practical grasp of what the actual sources of power are; and (2) will have gained substantial insight into how best to harness your political skills for effective management of your career path.
Entrepreneurship (3 Credits)
Entrepreneurship (3 Credits)
MGMT-UB 85
This course offers a framework for understanding the entrepreneurial process and exposes students to challenges, problems, and issues faced by entrepreneurs who start new businesses. Case studies are the principal teaching method, supplemented by lectures, business cases, and guest speakers. Students learn to identify and evaluate business opportunities, develop a business concept and assess and obtain the required resources, and manage the growth of new ventures.
Entrepreneurship as a Career Choice (1 Credit)
MGMT-UB 86
After completing this course, you will better understand why and how entrepreneurship is a path worth pursuing. The aim of the course is to showcase entrepreneurship as a worthwhile alternative to the traditional corporate career path. Course Takeaways: answering if entrepreneurship is a viable career path for you, identifying the key trait of successful entrepreneurs, strategies for recognizing and managing fear and risk, and analyzing and navigating the pitfalls associated with entrepreneurship.
Ind Sty Mgt/Org Behavior (1 Credit)
MGMT-UB 94
Independent study provides an opportunity for a select group of upperclassmen each year to work one-on-one with a faculty member on a topic selected by the student and approved by the supervising faculty member. Each student is expected to spend as much time on the independent study as would be spent on a regular course, and the topic selected may not replicate an existing course. An information sheet with important guidelines about Independent Study is available at stern.nyu.edu/portal-partners/current-students/undergraduate/resources-policies/forms.
Repeatable for additional credit: Yes
Additional Courses that can be taken as Electives for Management Concentration:
Experiential Learning Seminar: Social Impact Consulting (3 Credits)
BSPA-UB 103
This course is an experiential learning seminar involving project-based collaboration among students, faculty and nonprofit organizations in New York City. Its two objectives are to provide students with an occasion to put the lessons learned in the Social Impact Core Curriculum into practice as consultants; and to produce project outcomes that have meaning and value for participating stakeholders.
Competitive Analysis (3 Credits)
ECON-UB 15 (MCT Elective)
This course offers an economics approach to analyzing the way firms make marketing decisions and interact strategically with each other in the marketplace. The main goal of the course is to develop the basic intuition for pricing and other forms of strategic behavior on the part of firms.
Prerequisites: ECON-UB 1 OR ECON-UA 2 AND MATH-UA 121 AND Soph+.
Case Analysis (2 Credits)
MULT-UB 5 (MCT Elective)
Case methodology is a critical tool for analysts, managers, and entrepreneurs. This course explores how strategic frameworks are applied to high level business problems. Case interviews and case competitions are used as models for learning. Students study the principles behind creating and delivering effective visual slide-based presentations via mock deliveries. Class time focuses on concept lectures and skill-building through individual and group exercises with self-critique. Assignments focus on creating and editing data-based presentations. This course is highly recommended for students who wish to participate in case competitions.
Prerequisites: Soph+.
Decision Models and Analytics (3 Credits)
MULT-UB 7
An introduction to basic principles and techniques of applied mathematical modeling for managerial decision making (models used in fields such as finance, operations, and marketing). Students learn the use of important analytical methods (e.g., spreadsheet modeling, Monte-Carlo simulation) to recognize their assumptions and limitations and to employ them in decision making. Emphasis is placed on model formulation and interpretation of results, not mathematical theory. Aimed at undergraduates with little prior exposure to modeling and quantitative analysis, but appropriate for all students who wish to strengthen their quantitative skills. More details available at https://sites.google.com/stern.nyu.edu/sterndma/home.
Prerequisites: Soph+.
Game Theory (3 Credits)
MULT-UB 20
This course introduces the basics of game theory. It focuses on fundamentals of game theory, covering basic concepts and techniques through a mix of lectures, exercises, and case discussions. Students also think about how the lessons learned may apply to other contexts, such as politics. The course equips students with game theory techniques for making good business decisions by learning how to recognize and model strategic situations and to predict when and how actions will influence the decisions of others.
Business Drivers of Industries (3 Credits)
INTA-GB 6056
Visit http://www.dangode.com/drivers/ for details. We illustrate a streamlined and structured framework to analyze business drivers of companies from a wide range of industries, except financial services. This helps us understand their business model, drill into their financial statements, and assess competitive advantage. The analysis proceeds as follows: (1) We apply the Six-Pack Framework for a top-down and comprehensive analysis of financial statements to extract the six key inputs into valuation – Size, Growth, Margins, Asset intensity, Business risk, and Financial risk. (2) We analyze how these inputs depend upon a company’s strategy by computing the Competitive Advantage Score that assigns weights to competitive drivers and scores the company’s strength on those drivers. This broad exposure will expand your strategic horizons and enable you to foresee challenges and opportunities due to changing competition, technology, and environment. The framework and the perspective will sharpen your ability to lead value creation as an entrepreneur or executive, or to understand value creation as an investor, banker, analyst, or consultant.
Entrepreneurship & Law in Practice (2 Credits)
MULT-UB 86
The two-credit course is divided into two tracks/games: the law game (LawGame) and the entrepreneurship game (StartUp Game), and students choose one. The first is a simulation of litigation (with lawsuits relating to business matters, such as torts, product liability, contracts, etc.) from the beginning to a final trial that takes place at the federal courthouse in Brooklyn. Students must meet with their clients, prepare pleadings, conduct research to argue their cases, depose characters, and ultimately, argue cases over a full day before judges in a real federal court played by actual attorneys who are NYU alumni. It is also my hope that some students go on to a successful career in law. The second is an examination of legal issues for startups. Students on this track come up with a business idea and work on understanding all of the legal ins and outs necessary for bringing their company to life -- from entity formation to intellectual property protection to ownership terms to financing. At the end of the semester, they take part in a mock Shark Tank event, where they pitch their ideas and are extensively challenged on their concepts and how well they have prepared for any legal problems. In addition, they take an exam to test their broader legal knowledge. It is my hope that some students go on to create companies started in the game.
MULT-UB 110 Experiential Learning: Stern Signature Projects (4 Credits)
This is an experiential learning course where students will learn about the fashion & luxury space and marketing. They will understand how to research brands and understand their core consumer, create activities that would attract those consumers, and specifically focus on the GenZ and Gen Alpha populations. They will apply what they are learning to a real world project. Students will develop a comprehensive marketing plan aimed at leveraging fashion weeks to enhance the promotion of King of Style and MJ the Musical. Students selected to participate in this experiential course will be called to understand the relationship between these brands, as well as their positioning, target audience, and brand personalities. The student team will be working directly with the Michael Jackson Estate over the summer.
Prerequisites: MKTG-UB 1.
Digital Innovation & Crowdsourcing (3 Credits)
TECH-UB 70 (MCT Elective)
This course explores new ways in which traditional firms as well as start-ups can become more innovative in today’s global economy by tapping into digital platforms and expertise residing outside traditional firm boundaries. We will discuss new practices of digital innovation and crowdsourcing and how to evaluate risks and benefits of such practices by doing qualitative analysis of cases, applying strategic theories, learning decision making tools, and talking to industry leaders in and outside the classroom. Students will engage in real-time crowdsourcing projects ranging from outsourcing their homework to designing a social innovation challenge online. Specific topics covered include: 1) strategic considerations for taking work outside an organization; 2) evaluation of geographical sourcing locations; 3) risks and benefits of partnering for product innovation; 4) organizing crowds of customers or experts; 5) using online labor markets; 6) enabling innovation in distributed teams. The course will pay special attention to how entrepreneurs can tap into these innovative mechanisms as well as how to use design thinking for social impact. This course is designed to give students a truly multidisciplinary perspective on these issues drawing on theories and cases from strategy, technology management, and organizational behavior.