General MBA

​​​​​​General: The Alfaisal University College of Business MBA degree provides students with the theoretical knowledge and practical skills needed to take advantage of career opportunities and to deal effectively and responsibly with complex business challenges. Global and regional organizations require their managers and leaders to have a variety of technical, analytical, critical thinking, management, and interpersonal skills. The Alfaisal University MBA will equip students with the skills and qualification needed to realize these objectives and better serve your organization, your community, and your nation.

Classes

MBA 510: Financial Accounting

At the end of this course, students will be able to analyse and interpret financial data and information and appreciate the consequences of their financial decisions. Students will study the assumptions and concepts underlying financial reporting, using the basic accounting equation, accounting adjustments and interpretations of the income statement, balance sheet, and statement of cash flow. The students will also explore topics such as earnings management and various other issues that permeates business operations.

MBA 511: Quantitative Analysis

At the end of this course, students will be able to explain quantitative and optimization methods and their applications in businesses. Emphasis will be put on demonstrating the uses, capabilities, and limitations of various mathematical models and statistical procedures for the purposes of exploring, summarizing and presenting data, as well as interpreting the results of statistical procedures and tests to make informed business decisions.

MBA 512: Marketing Management

At the end of this course, students will be able to demonstrate the application, analysis and synthesis of marketing management concepts and strategies. Students will demonstrate and evaluate current approaches in marketing, consumer decision making, the marketing environment, product management, pricing decisions, distribution systems, integrated marketing communications, and managing the marketing effort. Key strategic concepts and processes are emphasized using lectures, case studies, client presentations, and through the development of marketing plans.

MBA 513: Managerial Economics

At the end of this course, students will be able to explain the relationship between the economic environment and business operations, apply microeconomic principles, including supply and demand, elasticity and their implication for product pricing strategies, analyse a range of macroeconomic variables including inflation, unemployment and economic growth, as well as fiscal and monetary policy tools.

MBA 514: Organisational Behaviour

At the end of this course, students will be able to synthesise relevant knowledge to explain and evaluate solutions to various challenges facing a modern organization. The focus will be upon translating management and organizational behaviour theory to practices that result in organizational effectiveness, efficiency, and human resource development. In addition, students will be able to apply and analyse material to interpret, justify, and evaluate behaviour in simulated or live organisational applications.

MBA 515: Business Analytics

The objective of this course is to deepen students’ understanding of basic tools, concepts, and methodologies related to business analysis and also to enhance students’ critical thinking and analytical skills. Students will learn to use computer tools including Excel, STATA, SPSS, COGNOS and/or TABLEAU in applying statistical methodologies related to applied problems commonly encountered in today’s business environment. In addition, the course will enhance students’ abilities to present complex business topics to diverse audiences and help integrate quantitative business analytics into their decision-making.

MBA 516: Managerial Finance

At the end of this course, students will understand the language and tools of finance as they relate to a modern business environment. The course will provide students with the capacity to understand relevant theories, as well as applying the tools and techniques to real world situations. Students will be able to value bonds and stocks, estimate asset returns according to their risk characteristics, and choose projects that maximize share- and stakeholder wealth. They will also develop a good understanding of firm valuation and how firms finance their capital expenditures.

MBA 517: Communication & Writing for Accountants

Emphasizes analysing business situations and preparing written and oral reports including informational reports, problem-solving reports, and formal analytical reports. Students will analyse accounting situations to identify problems and factors relevant to understanding and make a recommendation to propose a course of action.

MBA 518: Human Resource Management

At the end of this course, students will be able to explain and appraise key principles and practices for line managers and HRM practitioners in managing people and performance across organisations. They will also be able to evaluate HRM principles and practices for competitive relevance and strategic coherence. Topics covered include strategic HRM, HR planning, talent management, training & development, rewards & motivation, workplace effectiveness and commitment.

MBA 519: Strategic Management

At the end of this course, students will be able to understand and evaluate key concepts, tools, and principles of strategy formulation as they relate to internal firm characteristics and external competitive environment. This course serves as an integrative capstone course that seeks to provide a comprehensive examination of organizations using tools such as environmental scanning, corporate response to environmental change and sustainability, strategic and ethical behaviour, and industry analysis. The course is structured to foster analytical, reflective, and verbal skills, and to expose students to the intricacies of organizational decision-making within a global context.

MBA 520: Internal Controls, Audit & Fraud Prevention & Detection

Students learn about the auditing function and how to conduct an audit, including evaluation of internal controls, analytical testing, substantive testing and other methods to help minimize exposure to misstatements, irregularities, losses, and risk. The course is structured to enhance the student’s ability to understand, find and correct misstatements, irregularities, losses and to assess risks that may exist in the firm’s operating environment.

MBA 521: Advanced Topics in Financial Reporting

Utilization of strategic, analytical, and critical thinking skills to investigate financial accounting issues. Through the analysis of intra-disciplinary cases, students show that they have the relevant research skills and technological sophistication to access, evaluate and interpret relevant information needed for decision making.

MBA 522: Operations Strategy

At the end of this course, students will be able to organize people and resources to gain a competitive advantage in the delivery of goods and services. Emphasis in this course includes capacity and location planning, layout planning, resource planning, scheduling, supply chain, forecasting, inventory control, and quality assurance.

MBA 523: Taxation of Business Entities

A comprehensive study of Corporate income taxation and also their major shareholders. Emphasis placed on reading and interpreting tax laws to determine the tax consequences of completed transactions and generate tax planning strategies for future taxations. Emphasis is placed on understanding how taxes relate to business decisions and planning.

MBA 524: International Taxation

Explores the application of international tax law relevant to entities conducting international transactions, as well as foreign individuals and entities conducting domestic transactions. Topics include the distinction between domestic and foreign-source income, taxation of foreign corporations, international tax treaties, taxation of cross-border acquisitions, and transfer pricing.

MBA 525: Zakat

This course includes studying the major characteristics of Zakat and taxation, including the estimation process of Zakat and taxation according to the Saudi Law. Additional topics include settlement of cases related to zakat disputes. The course emphasizes the link between theory and practice.

MBA 527: Marketing Intelligence

This course demonstrates the benefits of using a systematic and analytical approach to marketing decision making. An analytical perspective will enable students to understand how firms can systematically evaluate their strategies for managing the specific opportunities and challenges posed by analytics-driven decision making in today’s data era. It will further prepare them to use and execute data analytic techniques on real-life company data and case studies to understand how to solve marketing analytics problems in a scientific and process-driven manner. More specifically, the course will provide a gentle introduction to analytic techniques such as customer choice analysis, conjoint analysis, customer lifetime value analysis, segmentation analysis, and structural equation modelling. After successful completion of this course, students will be well equipped to make return on investment cases for marketing expenditures, which companies are increasingly requesting from their executives.

MBA 528: Managerial Accounting

At the end of this course, students will be able to understand the role of accounting information systems in managerial decision-making and strategy execution. Students will learn how business managers use cost behaviour and cost analysis to enhance profitability of their products, services and customers. Students will also learn how managers use financial and non-financial information to improve processes and develop strategies and value drivers to attain sustainable competitive advantages.

MBA 529: Marketing Strategy

This upper-level marketing course is one of the capstones for MBA Digital Marketing students. It builds on the “first principles” of marketing strategy approach which unites concepts discussed in previous marketing courses and concentrates on the development and application of value-enhancing strategies. More precisely, it argues that marketing strategies should be designed considering four principles: All customers are different, all customers change, competitors will react to a firm’s strategic changes, and every firm must allocate their budget to implement efficient and effective strategies. Students will learn the components and construction of a strategic marketing plan and gain considerable experience in making complex marketing decisions.

MBA 530: Managing Strategic Business Projects

At the end of this course, students will be able to apply project management principles and processes to effectively manage the implementation of business initiatives and projects and their alignment with organizational performance improvements and strategic objectives. The students will also be able to evaluate the impact of interrelated processes on project management, such as stakeholder management, leadership, triple constraints, and earned value management.

MBA 531: Marketing Research Project

Students in this course will conduct a marketing research project individually or in small groups. The project will aim to answer a marketing-related research question using qualitative or quantitative empirical methods. Further, they learn how to document, present, and discuss their findings. By providing an independent contribution to a complex research project, students will link theory and practice while also acquiring additional social skills through group work. The project includes reviewing literature, devising causal relationship hypotheses, collecting data, and testing hypotheses. Through this practical course, students will gain experience in using empirical methods, particularly data collection and evaluation (e.g., using multivariate analysis methods). The students will have discussions in milestone meetings with the supervisor and a final presentation of their results and implications.

MBA 532: Supply Chain Management

At the end of this course, students will not only be able to address the activities involved in managing the chain of supplies, but also to obtain the necessary skills to assess and evaluate supply chain performance and make recommendations to increase supply chain competitiveness. The course will provide students with the knowledge and tools necessary to develop, implement, and sustain strategies for the purpose of managing supply chain issues. Topics include building a strategic framework to analyse supply chains, designing supply chain networks, planning demand and supply, managing inventories, sourcing, transporting, pricing, and revenue management.

MBA 534: Leading Organisational Change

At the end of this course, students will be able to analyse the role that organisational cultures play to facilitate or impede organisational change and renewal. Students will also apply and evaluate the application of principles and processes of change management in contemporary business organisations.

MBA 535: Applied Business Research Project

At the end of this course, students will be able to apply relevant research skills to meet the requirements of a systematic research plan, which has been agreed by the student and supervisory faculty & approved by the MBA Office. Applied Business Research Projects relate to the following fields of MBA study: Economics, Finance, Management, Accounting, Project Management, Operations Management, Human Resource Management, Strategy, E-business, Health Management, Entrepreneurship, & Marketing.

MBA 536: Digital & Social Media Marketing

This core course aims to build a thorough understanding of the digital and social media marketing instruments that serve to achieve an organization’s marketing objectives by providing a coherent customer experience along the customer decision journey. The course covers the contemporary methods and approaches of marketing to connected customers with outbound and inbound digital and social media marketing instruments. State of the art methods for measuring the performance and return on investment of these instruments are also discussed.

MBA 537: Global Marketing

The course provides a comprehensive understanding of the issues and challenges inherent in the formulation and implementation of global marketing programs. Such programs must account for international differences among the needs and preferences of customers with varying levels of purchasing power as well as disparate cultures, languages, and climates. Therefore, key emphasis is placed on the various forces affecting international marketing decisions, such as whether a company should internationalize and, if so, which markets it should enter and how. These topics are discussed through the lens of an increasingly global consumer culture.

MBA 538: Entrepreneurship and Innovation

At the end of this course, students will be able to develop an entrepreneurial orientation towards sustainable business growth. Students will also be provided with an integrated and practical approach to bringing innovation to market. In addition, they will be able to examine and evaluate the creative processes of innovation and introduce techniques that effectively solve problems and promote inventive solutions.

MBA 540: Islamic Finance

This course introduces and explains the basic pillars of Shari'ah Law as applied to finance and explores its various dimensions and interpretations, highlighting best practice. The course emphasizes the functions of the Islamic Financial System, including products and services such as Murabaha, Mudarabah, Musharakah, Bai Salam, Istisna, Ijarah, Sukuk and other instruments.

MBA 541: HR Planning, Recruitment & Selection

At the end of this course, students will be able to analyse and evaluate the principles and models of strategic HR planning, recruitment and selection. Students will also be able to develop action plans for managerial applications of effective strategic HR planning, recruitment and selection in the workplace, appropriate for maximizing stakeholder value.

MBA 542: Contemporary Economic & Financial Issues

At the end of this course, students will be able to demonstrate an awareness and understanding of current economic issues while applying advanced economic theory and knowledge to a selection of current economic and financial issues within a local and global context.

MBA 543: Internet Marketing Strategy

At the end of this course, students will be able to demonstrate the implementation and synthesis of marketing techniques that are particular to the Internet. Students will demonstrate and explore the marketing mix over the Internet, online consumer behaviour, online marketing research, website developments, legal and ethical issues, and social media marketing.

MBA 544: Financial Statement Analysis & Security Valuation

At the end of this course, students will be able to comprehensively understand financial statement analysis. Student will learn how to evaluate a firm’s past performance, make judgment about its earnings quality, determine its current financial position, examine the underlying accounting assumptions of its major assets and liabilities, forecast its future prospect and estimate its fundamental value. The core emphasis of this course is on using financial statement analysis for equity valuation purposes. Students will apply methods of fundamental analysis and equity valuation in a series of assignments and projects using financial data of publicly traded Saudi and non-Saudi companies.

MBA 545: Independent Study

At the end of this course, students will be able to demonstrate relevant learning outcomes to meet the requirements of a learning plan, which has been agreed by the student and supervisory faculty member and approved by the MBA Office and the Dean. The following fields of MBA study are applied in Independent Study: Economics, Finance, Management, Accounting, Project Management, Operations Management, Human Resource Management, Strategy, E-business, Health Management, Entrepreneurship, and Marketing.

MBA 546: Comparative Management

At the end of this course, students will be able to analyse, compare, and evaluate the contextually appropriate application of management approaches in a variety of international settings. Students will also be able to design and apply a comparative benchmarking processes to differentiate and reconstruct relevant management responses for local applications.

MBA 547: Contemporary International Management Issues

At the end of this course, students will be able to demonstrate their ability to responsibly gather intelligence about specific contemporary international business and/or managerial topics. Students will also analyse and evaluate the opportunities and threats posed by these topics and respond with locally relevant recommendations and strategies.

MBA 549: Corporate Finance

This course analyses theoretical issues and practical applications in corporate finance. Topics include capital structure, liquidations preferences as suggested by agency models, pecking order theory, timing models, dividend policy, two fund separation theorem, convertible securities, initial public offerings, mergers and acquisition, and capital budgeting.

MBA 550: Service Marketing

At the end of this course, students will be able to demonstrate how they use the relevant body of marketing knowledge to develop, implement, and evaluate the effectiveness of the design of marketing programs in the service sector, such as bank/financial intuitions, healthcare, education, tourism, consultancy/training, insurance and telecommunications.

MBA 551: Derivative Securities

This course is designed to expand students' understanding of derivative-related financial instruments & their use in investment & corporate finance situations. The course focuses on the practical applications of these instruments for speculation & tactical asset allocation strategies. Valuation models are explored and used within an arbitrage framework. The course develops basic mathematical tools necessary for analysis and pricing and covers forwards, futures, options, swap contracts, hedging, and derivatives-pricing models.

MBA 553: Bank Management

This course is designed to provide techniques for the financial management of commercial banks. Topics include risk management strategies based on industry structure, interest-rate risk, duration, lending practices, and international banking rules and regulations. It also covers capital management and financial gap analysis. The purpose and functions of central banking are also studied with attention to monetary targets and policies.

MBA 555: Corporate Governance, Business Ethics, & Corporate Social Responsibility

The course aims to develop an understanding of the underlying concepts of corporate governance, business ethics and CSR which are relevant to the contemporary business environment. It is designed to foster students’ understanding of the ethical influences on economic, financial, managerial, and environmental aspects of business. The course further aims to develop students’ ability to critically analyse ethical issues in business. This course reviews different regulatory processes essential to the understanding of the principles of corporate governance in Saudi Arabia, the region and Europe.

MBA 558: Value Innovation Strategy

At the end of this course, students will be able to explain challenges and shortcomings of conventional strategy and develop a foundation for competing using value innovation strategy. Students will also be able to explain key concepts, frameworks and tools of value innovation strategy. The application of fundamental methodology for creating and capturing new market space is of paramount importance, as is the logic and methods commonly used for strategic business moves.

MBA 560: Healthcare Management

At the end of this course, students will be able to explain the foundations of healthcare management - as a discipline and as a management process. Students will analyse and evaluate the ethical and legal considerations of healthcare decisions. In addition, they will be able to demonstrate an understanding of the healthcare system, policies, healthcare quality, patient safety and decision-making in hospitals and healthcare organisations.

MBA 561: Investment & Portfolio Theory

This course provides a comprehensive coverage of portfolio management and covers both theoretical and practical asset pricing models and management techniques for the purpose of evaluating the results of financial portfolios. It also explores topics related to market efficiency and evaluation of portfolio managers.

MBA 562: Health Informatics

Health Informatics provides an overview of health information management systems (HIMS), including the data within these systems and the translation of the data into interpretable information and subsequent knowledge. Students are introduced to information systems infrastructure and how information is incorporated into the operational process, clinical environments and medical research. At the end of the course, students will be able to analyse data, data flow and other pertinent information related to healthcare organizations.

MBA 563: Management Control & Performance Measurement

The objective of this course is to show how to design, implement and use management control and performance tools, techniques and systems to achieve business objectives both tactically and strategically. This includes analysing the impact of control and performance management on organizational governance how management can measure and evaluate performance of the firm at various levels and what types of management incentives and rewards can be used to achieve proper performance and decision making.

MBA 565: HR Development and Performance

At the end of this course, students will be able to explain, assess, and leverage training and development to maximize workforce performance, improve organizational effectiveness, and increase the attractiveness of the organization by offering the benefits of skill acquisition and intellectual capital development.

MBA 567: Practicum & Seminar

The aim of this course is to develop student skills and to demonstrate the application of classroom knowledge and theory through a practice experience relevant to their areas of interest. The students will have the opportunity to provide evidence of application to potential employers. The practicum will be supervised and evaluated by a qualified preceptor/academic advisor and must be framed and carried out within a public health practice context with an established organization or agency and apply public health skills and competencies.

MBA 568: Financial Econometrics

This course introduces basic principles and tools of econometrics using finance theories and relevant empirical applications. Students conduct applied financial research using appropriate statistical software such as SPSS and E-Views while covering essential theoretical concepts and statistical tools. The course will cover the fundamentals of probability, statistics, and regression analysis, as well as ARCH and GARCH models and other techniques appropriate for financial modelling.

MBA 569: Sales & Value-Added Tax

This course explores a variety of topics in indirect taxation, including value-added taxes, sales and use and goods and services taxes and other indirect taxation methods frequently used by authorities. Import and export taxes are also covered.

MBA 570: Risk Management

This course is designed to be an introduction to the concepts, theories and practical applications associated with the measurement and management of financial, interest rate, and exchange rate risks. The course introduces students to forward, future and option markets as a means of reducing financial risk.

MBA 571: Integrated Marketing Communications

This course offers an in-depth exploration of all promotional activities that help businesses produce an integrated, market-focused brand message, including direct marketing, advertising, sales promotion, personal selling, public relations, social media, and publicity. While marketing is calculated and planned, this course will also highlight the role of creativity and how brands can appeal to consumers through memorable messaging.

MBA 573: Applied Econometrics

At the end of this course, students will be able to analyse economic data using real-world examples and applying statistical and mathematical methods for the purpose of giving empirical content to economic theory – either verifying it or refuting it. Students will also be able to evaluate economic / financial theories and their empirical applications.

MBA 574: Global Economics

At the end of this course, students will be able to demonstrate their comprehension of macroeconomic theories, models, tools of analysis and applications to help assess the impact of the dynamic global business environment on their business decisions. Students will also be able to analyse the global effects of monetary and fiscal policies using real-life macroeconomic data. Analytical tools will be applied to analyse global economic data for informed business decisions.

MBA 575: Negotiations

At the end of this course, students will be able to apply a variety of negotiation practices, using role-playing simulations that address distributive, integrative, team-based, and multi-party negotiations. Students will also evaluate conflict, ethics, and dispute resolution from the perspectives of a negotiator and as a third party.

MBA 580: Consumer Behaviour and Insights

This course examines behavioural theories and research findings, emphasising consumer evaluation of purchasing alternatives and decision making, and the marketing organization’s role in influencing those decisions. Students will analyse, review and evaluate advanced readings from the consumer behaviour literature, develop an empirical study examining a specific topic in consumer research, and present it to their fellow students.

MBA 581: Managerial Decision Making

This course is designed to help students make better managerial decisions. It helps students recognize decision-oriented problems; how to represent and model the core structure, and how to analyse the problem using both formal and informal tools grounded in decision theory. It provides students with the skill to think effectively about the inputs into a decision analysis, whether to trust the analysis, and how to use the outputs to guide actions.

MBA 582: Total Quality Management

The many factors that affect the quality of products and services comprise the broad subject called total quality management (TQM). The goal of this course is to familiarize students with all aspects of TQM and to provide them with the knowledge they need to become designers of, and participants in, TQM programs. The topics covered in this course include strategic quality planning, organization structure for quality, quality in design and processes, statistical tools for quality assurance and process management.

MBA 584: Organizational Theory

This course examines different perspectives on organization theory and their relevance for management of organizations, both for-profit and non-profit. We will discuss how organization theory conceptualizes organizational environment, social structure, technology, culture, power, and conflict and how these subjects are reflected in real-life situations encountered in organizational practices. While examining various organizational theories, we will also be reading and discussing numerous cases so that difficult to understand, abstract concepts and theories become easier to grasp and apply in practice.

MBA 585: Leadership in Organizations: Principles & Practice

This course examines the theory and practice of leadership in different settings, from small groups to large, multinational corporations. We will study different types of leadership, such as authentic leadership, servant leadership, transformational leadership and adaptive leadership, and their relevance and adjustments in different cultures, business climates and practical situations. Based on lectures and business cases, students will learn to act as good leaders, engage in effective problem solving and prepare for their leadership roles and managerial responsibilities for the purpose of exercising a positive, beneficial impact on organizations, communities and society.

MBA 590: Real Estate Analysis

At the end of this course, students will be able to gain a broad overview of real property concepts and characteristics, legal considerations, influences on real estate values, economic principles, market area analysis, investment and financing issues, and brokerage and management. Special emphasis will be given to the methods of creating economic and social value and the dynamics of emerging markets and trends.

MBA 591: Insurance

This course will present risk exposures with respect to individuals and firms. A wide variety of risk reduction techniques will be studied including life, property and casualty insurance. Students will explore topics related to liability insurance, health insurance, employee benefits, social insurance, legal principles, and functional and financial operations of insurers. In addition, the course will examine the problems faced by insurers, such as reinsurance and investment policies.

MBA 592: Digital strategy

This course examines the strategic use of digital technologies to create value and adapt to the rapidly evolving business landscape. By analyzing past digital revolutions and current trends like the Internet of Things, 5G networks, and the Fourth Industrial Revolution, we will explore how to effectively develop and strategically manage digital capabilities. The course will focus on aligning business and IT strategies, mitigating risks, and adhering to regulatory standards to ensure the successful implementation of digital strategies to advance organizational objectives.