Business Management Certificate Curriculum

In this course, you’ll develop the necessary skills to ensure your success in the program. You’ll learn how you can improve your study skills so you’re able to use a number of tools that will help you to be successful. You’ll also learn about the similarities between personal financial goals and business goals and how to determine personal financial goals. You’ll cover setting up a budget and researching, planning, starting up, and maintaining a business.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:

• Identify skills needed to be a confident and independent online learner
• Analyze the interdependent goals of life and business and the steps needed to achieve them

This course outlines the elements of business and the challenges businesses face in a global environment, such as competition and economic factors. You’ll learn why accounting, technology and information systems, marketing, and management are essential to starting and growing a business. You’ll also learn the basics of managing financial and human resources and the ethical and social responsibilities required of a successful manager.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:

• Identify different elements that distinguish capitalism, socialism, communism, and mixed economies
• Define the role of small business in the free enterprise system
• Assess elements of the global economy, such as labor, capital, trade, and natural resources, and how they influence business
• Analyze the functions of business, such as management, organization, human relations, marketing, financing, and ethics
• Identify the purpose of business policy and strategy

This course familiarizes the student with both the business environment and the manager’s role within it. It covers decision making, planning, organizing, leading, and controlling, as well as developing an ethical perspective.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:

• Summarize the functions of management and the basic steps in various planning processes
• Explain how to make effective decisions as a manager and a leader
• Describe the fundamental elements of an organization’s structure and the components of a competitive environment
• Explain principles for setting goals that motivate employees, why companies develop control systems, and why teamwork is beneficial
• Analyze why diversity is a critical organizational and managerial issue, and describe the criteria for technology decisions and managing change

This course will provide the student with a foundation in basic mathematical operations. Topics covered include percentages, discounts, interest, present worth, sinking funds, installment buying, pricing, depreciation, investments, insurance, use of symbols and their applications, equations and formulas, and the importance of statistics.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:

• Analyze functions of whole numbers, fractions, decimals, and percents
• Show calculations involved in simple interest, compound interest, and time value of money
• Prepare various business math applications involving financial reports, installment buying, and depreciation
• Analyze various financial concepts related to taxes, insurance, financial investments, and basic business statistics

Microsoft® Office allows people to create documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and databases. This course will teach you how to use three popular tools from the Microsoft® Office Suite — Word™, Excel®, and PowerPoint®. In this course, you'll learn how to use Word™ to create and edit text documents, insert figures and tables, and format pages for a variety of uses. You'll then learn how to use Excel® to organize and format data, including charts, formulas, and more complex tables. Next, you'll learn how to use PowerPoint® to create and deliver slide shows. Finally, you'll complete a graded project, which will test the skills acquired in Word™, Excel®, and PowerPoint®.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:

• Create various Microsoft® Word™ documents.
• Produce a thorough Microsoft® Excel® spreadsheet.
• Identify the basic skills needed to use Microsoft® PowerPoint®.
• Synthesize what you’ve learned by integrating Word™, Excel®, and PowerPoint®.

This course will provide students with a basic understanding of the principles of Financial Accounting. Topics covered include analyzing transactions, completing the accounting cycle, merchandising businesses, inventories, assets, and liabilities, and corporations, stocks, bonds, and cash flow.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:

• Solve important accounting principles and concepts by creating four types of financial statements: balance sheet, income statement, statement of retained earnings, and statement of cash flows
• Explain inventory systems, the inventory process, and the role of ethics in accounting
• Explain cash and receivables, assets, current liabilities, and debt
• Analyze stocks and the statement of cash flows and financial statements that are used to assess the value of a business
• Solve accounting problems using knowledge of accounting forms and functions

This course will cover the topic of macroeconomics, which is the study of the economy as a whole. It analyzes economywide phenomena, including inflation, unemployment, and trade deficits. Macroeconomic information shows up daily in news articles and broadcasts because its implications are important to the quality of our lives. For instance, why is income high in some countries and very low in others? Why do production and employment expand in some years and contract in others? These questions and many others can be addressed by macroeconomic analysis. Studying macroeconomics can help you better understand how the condition of the overall economy affects us all. You often hear about things like average prices rising at a particular rate (inflation) and the imbalance of trade between the United States and the rest of the world (the trade deficit). This information and several other statistics are compiled and monitored by the economists who study the macro economy.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:

• Explain economic systems and the economic perspective
• Identify the key factors in macroeconomics and how economists use them to study the economy as a whole
• Explain the macroeconomic models and fiscal policies
• Explain money, banking, and financial policy
• Explain the extending analysis of aggregate supply, current issues in theory and policy, and international economics
• Analyze foreign exchange and investment and the effects each nation’s economy has on another nation’s economy

This course covers transactions, calculations and financial statements, and analysis and interpretation of results. You’ll also need to keep your eye on the goal of sound decision-making. Understanding how to apply what you learn in this Managerial Accounting course to everyday business situations can help make you a more effective decision maker.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:

• Analyze the various concepts related to managerial accounting and cost accounting
• Explain the different tools of management used for the decision-making process
• Identify the various budget analysis processes and the performance measurements for decision-making
• Analyze the various components of capital budgeting, cash flow statements, and ratio analysis
• Solve examples of real-world accounting problems using knowledge of accounting forms and equations

This course is designed to introduce you to the field of human resource management. Your textbook’s learning objectives, found at the outset of each chapter, are meant to introduce you to basic concepts, theories, and perspectives related to effective human resource management. Further, your text includes a wealth of case studies and features that will help you understand practical problems and applications of human resource management principles. If you’re seriously thinking about a career in human resource management, you should take advantage of these extra features, even when they aren’t assigned.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:

• Describe the elements of human resource management, including labor considerations, regulation, and management of workflow
• Explain how companies should prepare for and implement HRM to hire new employees and create training programs
• Identify the aspects of employee, career, and turnover management
• Summarize how employees are paid, including legal requirements, performance-based pay, commissions, salaries, and benefits
• Describe other HRM functions, including collective bargaining, labor relations, global HRM, and building a high-performance organization
• Explain key aspects of the field of human resource management

In this course, you’ll learn about the various methods of organizing material for a professional setting. You’ll also compose business documents using the ABC method such as memos, emails, outlines, reports, proposals, descriptions, and organizing materials, and you’ll discover how to improve your grammar skills.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:

• Recognize how to use words correctly and effectively
• Produce a well-constructed interoffice memo, workplace email, and business letter
• Produce a brief business report based on findings obtained using research techniques and methods of documentation
• Produce an informal report that lists findings of an investigation and provides recommendation for issues raised in the findings
• Describe procedures for creating proposals, descriptions, instructions, and manuals for the workplace
• Create a detailed proposal designed to solve an internal human resource issue

This course is an introduction to the legal environment of business. Topics covered include American court practice and procedure, torts, employment law, international law, environmental law, and contract law.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:

• Categorize the various sources of law in the U.S. legal system
• Analyze the formations and characteristics of sole proprietorships, partnerships, and the corporation forms of business entities
• Point out the various constituents of the contract law
• Show the rules of a written contract with the rights and breaching of a contract
• Report the contract laws that govern principal-agent relationships, law of agency, and labor-management relationships