BADM 486-01, Senior Seminar in Business Policy, Spring 2009

Abstract

As the Catalogue description of the course indicates, Senior Seminar requires that you integrate and use concepts presented in your business and economics courses. Further, the Catalogue is explicit in outlining the major areas to be emphasized in the course. Those areas are: 1. appraisal of a company’s situation within the framework of macroeconomic and societal conditions as well as the organizational and economic conditions of the firm; 2. developing objectives and strategies for the firm in the areas of financial operations, management and marketing; 3. presenting your analyses of business situations through both written and oral communication. These areas will be emphasized in the coverage of the seminar. They will be reexamined briefly through class discussion, or at times through short presentations by the professor. Then, the information relevant to specific areas will be applied in cases. We have redesigned Senior Seminar in Business to accomplish two broad, rich, and interrelated purposes. The first purpose is to engage students in a truly integrative experience focused upon the art of applying the theories, principles, and constructs studied in their major to analyze a firm’s performance within the context of its industry’s structure, the prevailing political, legal and social environments, and the student’s own ethical framework. The second purpose is to engage students in an integrative experience of looking forward to the leadership and ethical challenges they will encounter upon leaving college and entering their chosen career paths. Although neither purpose can be accomplished fully by focusing narrowly upon coursework taken as part of the major, the second more forward looking purpose will explicitly engage students in integrating their major coursework with their entire liberal arts education. Historically, Senior Seminar in Business has depended extensively on the case method of instruction. The newly designed Seminar continues that tradition, but some additional pedagogical approaches have been added. Case studies of an actual situation in a company will be studied as a team project. The objective is a highly integrated approach that requires cooperation among students, teams, and faculty. Oral and written presentations for the purpose of defending their decisions and recommendations will be required from all students for each case. An atmosphere of open debate and exchange of ideas inside and outside of class will be encouraged, and students will observe that their professors do not always agree with each other and that disagreement is not necessarily bad. However, it is hoped that students will also observe that arguments should be civil, substantive and framed within the context of analyses and ideas.