The Foster Hybrid MBA curriculum builds a strong foundation in business essentials, while giving students the opportunity to enhance their degree with Hybrid MBA elective courses. This MBA for working professionals emphasizes evidence-based challenges, so students can learn a concept one day and apply it at work the next. Taught by Foster’s world-class MBA faculty, course content is grounded in executive management, strategy and leadership principles, theories, and frameworks. Hands-on case analysis allows students to examine real-world business problems and learn how to best evaluate a situation by applying concepts and strategies acquired throughout the program. Visit the Student Experience page to learn more about the online and in-person Hybrid MBA experience.
The beginning of each quarter sets the stage for engaged and connected learning with mandatory 4-5 day intensive, on UW Seattle campus immersion. Our in-person Foster Together immersions create opportunities for quality connections among students and faculty, both through academics and professional networking and social events.
A combination of dynamic live online classes and guided independent work, supplemented with virtual team driven projects. Students engage with their classmates and faculty occur during weekly Foster Live sessions (a 90 minute interactive session on Tuesdays and many Wednesday evenings with Foster faculty and Hybrid classmates) and optional Thursday evening online review sessions.
Curriculum for this two-year program is comprised of 50 credits of core courses and 12 credits of Hybrid MBA electives. Due to the unique online and in-person format, Hybrid MBA electives are exclusive to the Hybrid MBA program. Year One and Year Two are outlined below*:
Quarter 1 – Autumn
Building Effective Teams (1)
This course covers tools you will need to build a highly effective Hybrid MBA Team. However, while our main focus will be on your Hybrid MBA Teams, the tools we will examine are crucial whenever and wherever you must assemble a team to accomplish an objective.
Probability & Statistics (2)
This course covers statistics and probability relevant to the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data, and deals with uncertainty in the decision-making process. Important for future business leaders it teaches students to use descriptive statistics, probability, and investigate ways to deal with uncertainty by assigning likelihood to certain events.
Financial Reporting and Analysis (4)
Provides students with an understanding of the numbers side of business. Students will learn how to use financial information in real-life management situations to impact business decisions.
Leading Teams & Organizations (4)
This course takes a strategic view of how organization behavior can enhance organizational effectiveness, and will give you an overview of the fundamental principles underlying leading teams and organizations.
Quarter 2 – Winter
Building Effective Teams (1)
See description above; this course spans two quarters as you work with your assigned study team.
Global Strategy (2)
In an ever-growing global economy, managers need to develop a broad vision and an organization that can operate and compete effectively worldwide. This requires an appreciation of international markets. It means being willing to really think about the differences (and similarities) that exist among national markets and national business practices.
Microeconomics for Managers (4)
A manager’s goal is to maximize profits, and to do so, he must answer a series of “how much” questions: how much to produce, how much of each raw material to use, and how much to charge his/her customers. The course explores a cost-benefit framework used to make each of these decisions under different types of market conditions. It will also reinforce an “economic way of thinking” for situations that arise in your everyday life.
Strategic Marketing Management (4)
Marketing is about actions that change the way your customers think, feel, and behave, and this course aims to make you a more effective and efficient in doing so. By the conclusion of the course, you will have mastered a set of evidence-based theories, tools, and frameworks that allow you to analyze a marketspace’s 5 market forces, design focused marketing strategies, and instantiate those strategies in an aligned, resonant marketing mix across the customer journey. Your marketing decisions will have a higher probability of achieving desired marketing outcomes, and you will generate them using a decision process that consumes fewer resources.
Quarter 3 – Spring
Operations Management (4)
As goods and services are produced and distributed, they move through a set of inter-related operations or processes in order to match supply with demand. The design of these operations for strategic advantage, investment in improving their efficiency and effectiveness, and controlling these operations to meet performance objectives is essential in making sound business decisions.
Corporate Finance (4)
This course covers the foundations of finance with an emphasis on applications that are vital for corporate managers and investors. Topics include criteria for making investment decisions, valuation of financial assets and liabilities, relationships between risk and return, market efficiency, and capital structure choice.
Decision Modeling (2)
This course introduces the concepts and methods of management science, which applies mathematical modeling and analysis to management problems. It teaches the skills necessary to build and evaluate models and to understand the reasoning behind the model-based analysis.
In the final year, you will finish the core courses and enhance your degree by choosing five Hybrid MBA elective courses.
Optional International Study Tour* (2)
The optional international study tour is an opportunity of a lifetime and highly recommended. See the Student Experience page for more information. This is offered Quarter 4 or Quarter 6 depending on the year and travel advisories/restrictions.
*credits not applicable to graduation requirements
Quarter 4 – Autumn
Business Strategy (4)
Business Strategy provides students with the frameworks to think about business strategies that will outperform the competition and lead to business success in an ever-growing competitive and global marketplace. This course leverages learning from other courses in the curriculum including, marketing, microeconomics, and finance.
Analysis of Global Economic Conditions (4)
This course covers both the domestic and global aspects of macroeconomics, and provides tools to understand the key elements of economic growth, inflation, unemployment, business cycles, fiscal policy, monetary policy, trade policy, and current economic developments.
Hybrid MBA Elective (2)
Quarter 5 – Winter
Managerial Accounting (4)
Topics of managerial accounting are fundamental in management ranks, regardless of industry or role. Students will learn core concepts of costing, transfer pricing, profit planning, and performance measurement and apply them in contexts as varied as carbon labeling and non-profit management. Cases in the course emphasize universal principles more than extensive calculations, and students explore mixed media content to see these principles in action in today’s (and tomorrow’s) economy.
Hybrid MBA Elective (2)
Hybrid MBA Elective (2)
Hybrid MBA Elective (2)
Quarter 6 – Spring
Capstone (4)
This class will be cross-functional and integrated in approach (including applying the functional areas of strategy, marketing, leading teams, finance, accounting, operations management as well as being able to apply various decision modeling and economic concepts). Most importantly, this is not a typical class with readings and many lectures, rather you will be “learning by doing” in two significant projects for the course, including a case competition presented to a company client.
Ethical Leadership (2)
Explores ethical aspects of business. This course provides students with frameworks to recognize and address ethical issues in management, provide ethical leadership within the organization, and conduct business responsibly.
Hybrid MBA Elective (2)
Hybrid MBA Elective (2)
Offered Quarter 4 – Fall
Leading Organizational Change (2)
This course is focused on increasing your knowledge of highly effective evidence-based models and methods for enhancing your leadership in all aspects of the activities you do at work, and in your community. Each student builds a comprehensive leadership development plan, that can be used during the program in your interactions with teammates and after you complete your MBA. Each learning module is anchored in practical applications of what you are learning about leadership and teams that are based on research and best practice.
Mergers & Acquisitions (2)
This is an advanced finance course that seeks to provide students with an understanding of the processes and issues involved with business combinations, commonly referred to as “mergers and acquisitions”. This course will cover all aspects of the merger and acquisition process from valuation, negotiation, structuring and closing the deal, to merger integration.
Marketing Analytics (2)
In today’s environment, Executives require Analytics to leverage the strategic value of customer data. Such use of Analytics drives formulating marketing initiatives, generating new revenue from data monetization, and maximizing marketing campaign performance. This course is designed to help Executives maximize the use of Analytics and customer data to make better and more informed Marketing decisions.
The course covers multiple types of advanced analysis used in typical marketing situations. In particular, we will cover multiple regression, integer variables in multiple regression, logistic regression, RFM analysis and segmentation techniques via trees. These are vital algorithmic techniques that are part of the foundation of data science, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. Methodologies are presented to drive value from Marketing Analytics and identify optimal customer marketing strategies. We will also explore the complexities and importance of the ethics in using customer data. Your learning journey will include examining analytics through case studies about Netflix, Amazon, Fintech, Online Commerce, Apple, and Uber.
You will gain a valuable perspective that is especially applicable to those leading broad customer initiatives and those in or aspiring to fill Executive Marketing responsibilities in the enterprise.
Offered Quarter 5 – Winter
Successful Negotiations (2)
We negotiate every day—with potential employers, coworkers, roommates, landlords, family members, bosses, merchants, service providers, etc. Determining what price we will pay, the amount of our salary and compensation, task deadlines, what movie to watch, even bedtime . . . all of these are negotiations. Despite the prevalence of negotiations in our lives, many people know little about the strategy and psychology of effective negotiations. A basic premise of the course is that while a manager needs analytical skills to discover optimal solutions to problems, a broad array of negotiation skills is also needed for these solutions to be accepted and implemented. The course allows participants the opportunity to develop these skills experientially and to understand negotiations in useful analytic frameworks.
Foundations of Entrepreneurship (2)
The course provides an overview of the major aspects of entrepreneurship and creating a startup company. In a five-week time frame, students will learn the fundamentals of modern innovation in a hands-on environment. Throughout the course, students will also be treated to guest speakers from the Seattle startup community.
Behavioral Finance (2)
In many ways, “behavioral finance” is a tautology. All finance and economics deal with human behavior, the interactions of such behavior, and the resulting allocation of resources, typically through a market mechanism. However, since “traditional” finance assumes wealth-maximizing and fully rational behavior, “behavioral finance” specifically studies (seemingly) non-optimal and irrational behavior, in particular, of investors and executives.
Offered Quarter 6 – Spring
Business Analytics: Tools for Big Data (2)
Tools for Big Data: Business analytics are techniques that enterprises use to gain insight from their data and make better decisions. Many firms in a variety of industries use these techniques: Google, Amazon, Target, Coca-Cola, Wal-Mart. These techniques are applicable to the many functional areas of business, such as operations, marketing, accounting, finance, etc. In this course, we will employ quantitative tools and sophisticated software (Tableau and R) to learn analytics. The aim is to provide students with the competency to interact with and manage a team of analytics professionals. To focus on the application of analytics techniques to real business situations, with the aim of creating insight and value.
Digital Strategies & Systems (2)
Today’s consumer expects a cohesive, informed communications stream from companies with whom they consider doing business as well as from brands with whom they relate. Digital communications, however, are built on technology that is a series of stand-alone systems that require effort and knowledge to interconnect. This digital marketing class is designed to give you the framework for understanding how these systems work, how they connect, and what questions you should be asking to build the best program for your particular business objectives.
Sustainable Design of Global Supply Chains (2)
As firms seek to improve their global competitive positioning, they must consider a variety of factors in determining their supply chain strategies. These factors include proximity to relatively cheap inputs, the benefit of locating near major markets, the building of strategic alliances to acquire technological and competitive knowledge, etc. We will learn to make strategic and operational decisions to design and manage a global supply chain: where to locate facilities, where to source from, how to coordinate worldwide operations to enhance performance, how to manage risk, how to embrace sustainability challenges, and how to account for relevant legal and tax issues.
Product Management (2)
A high percentage of the sales and profits of any business organization are directly tied to the successful introduction of new products and services. Unfortunately, the failure rate of these introductions is high because of the lack of understanding of the process. This course will provide you with the framework, tools, techniques and perspectives to be effective in the development and product management as an organizational lifecycle function within a company. Topics include dealing with the planning, forecasting, and production, and marketing of a product or products at all stages of the product lifecycle.
Real Estate Finance (2)
Valuation of income-producing property is most commonly based on a property’s income-producing potential. As with stocks and bonds, investors really only care about the cash flows they expect to receive and the timing and risk associated with those cash flows. So, in this course, we ask: How do we determine those bottom-line cash flows and how do we incorporate time and risk to calculate our maximum willingness to pay for a property? We will examine two approaches to the “income method” of valuation — the “quick-and-dirty” direct capitalization method, and the rigorous, fully-flexible discounted cash flow technique.
**NOTE: Curriculum is subject to change.