Course Descriptions

Unless otherwise indicated, all courses carry three semester hours of credit. Please note that not all courses are offered every semester or every year. Students should consult with their Academic Advisors to determine the frequency with which courses are offered and preplan their programs accordingly.

Courses numbered 100-299 are freshman, sophomore, or other introductory level courses. Courses numbered 300-399 are junior or senior level courses, requiring background in the material. Courses numbered 400-499 are senior level courses. Students should ensure that they have completed the prerequisites listed at the end of many course descriptions.

Graduate course descriptions

The University reserves the right to cancel courses with insufficient enrollment, and the curriculum is subject to change as a result of ongoing curricular revisions and program development.

Honors Courses

Students who achieve high levels of academic excellence (minimum cumulative grade point average of 3.5) have the option of taking specially designated “Honors Courses.” Please see Course Schedules and Syllabi to see which Honors Courses are currently being offered. Click here to learn more about Honors Courses at John Cabot University

For-Credit Research Assistantships

Students undertaking a for-credit research assistantship have an opportunity to deepen their research skills, while sustaining a more advanced research project in a specific disciplinary area. Research assistants may earn one unit of academic credit (on a P/NP basis) for the completion of at least 45 hours of work. They must complete at least 90% of their work before the end of the semester in which they are registered in order to receive a passing grade. Learn more about For-Credit Research Assistantships

EXP One Credit Courses

These 1 credit courses are designed to provide students with opportunities to acquire useful technical or professional skills, or to engage in academic topics they may enjoy exploring. This particular set of courses aims at encouraging students to think out of the box and break intellectual boundaries. Read through our offerings – which will be updated regularly – and venture into unknown fields! EXP courses can be found in the drop down menu below, grouped under EXP One Credit Courses.

EXP 1 credit courses will normally be offered on four Fridays, designated for each semester. These courses cannot be used to fulfill general distribution requirements, or as Major Electives, or towards the fulfillment of Minor requirements; they can only be taken as general electives. Students can take a maximum of three 1 credit courses within the 120 credit graduation requirement.

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ACCT 201 Financial Accounting

This course is an introduction to the basic financial accounting concepts and standards. Relevant concepts will be analyzed in detail, including: preparation of principal financial statements, application of accounting principles to the main asset, liability, and owners’ equity accounts. The course emphasizes the construction of the basic financial accounting statements - the income statement, balance sheet - as well as their interpretation.

ACCT 202 Managerial Accounting (Pre-requisite: ACCT 201)

This course focuses on the role of accounting in the management process and where accounting can provide critical support to management decision making. Cost-volume relations are introduced, along with identification of costs relevant to management decisions. Process costing and job costing systems, the development of a master plan, preparation of flexible budgets and responsibility accounting are covered, and the influences of quantitative techniques on managerial accounting are introduced.

BUS 101 Introduction to Business

This course presents a general summary of all functions of a business enterprise, including management, finance, accounting, marketing, human resources, and production. The course gives emphasis to the structure of business organizations and the decision-making process that occurs at different levels of corporate management. Students will be exposed to basic business terminology and will establish an applicable business vocabulary. The course also touches upon current business practices (such as managing organizational relationships, managing human resources or planning and controlling resources) that are employed in different national markets to adjust their strategies to diverse consumers worldwide. The course will use reading materials, projects and assignments that will relate the subject to the real world and the possible professional avenues students of business can pursue; the course will also foster critical and analytical thinking, and develop decision-making skills. Successful completion of the course will equip students with a broad understanding of how the business environment works, as well as a lens through which to interpret the world they live in.

BUS 220 Business Communications (Prerequisite: EN 110 with a grade of C or above)

This course trains students in the best practices of effective Business Communication, both written and oral. Class work is conducted against the backdrop of the contemporary business world and the challenges faced by businesses to be environmentally and socially responsible as well as profitable. Environment, Social and Governance issues, and their relationship to business, are analyzed at length.

BUS 281/381 Independent Study in Business

BUS 305 Early Stage Entrepreneurship (Prerequisite: Sophomore Standing)

This course examines the entrepreneurial process, from recognizing opportunity to planning, organizing and growing a new venture. We will highlight innovation and its methods and applications on business opportunity analysis. Topics covered also include significance, status, problems, and requirements of entrepreneurial businesses. Students will have the opportunity to identify a business opportunity and develop the idea to the point of being start-up ready. This course will serve as a foundation for students who might want to own a business, and it is meant to be accessible also for non-business majors.

BUS 320 Public Relations (Prerequisites: Junior Standing, EN 110 with a grade of C or above)

This course introduces students to the importance of Public Relations and familiarizes them with effective PR tactics and strategies. Special attention is devoted to: trust & reputation, the media, and crisis management. Class work is conducted against the backdrop of real-world situations and the growing need for organizations to be both sustainable and profitable. Environment, Social and Governance issues, and their relationship to PR, are analyzed at length.

BUS 330 International Business (Prerequisites: Junior Standing, EC 202; Recommended: MKT 301)

The objective of this course is to introduce students to the fundamental elements of international business, including political, economic and social systems and barriers affecting international trade and investment, key aspects of global and regional economic integration models, and the global monetary system. The course covers in depth market entry strategies and international organizational structures, reviews key functions of international business and highlights contemporary internationalization problems.

BUS 331 China's Perspectives on Globalization and Business (Prerequisite: Junior Standing)

The course shall introduce the students with the political, economic, and innovation systems of the People’s Republic of China and its philosophical and cultural elements which are of importance for international business, international marketing, and international management disciplines. The course shall also cover main globalization and soft power initiatives of the People’s Republic of China currently reshaping international business environment.

BUS 335 International Entrepreneurship (Prerequisite: Junior Standing)

This course introduces students to issues related to international management and entrepreneurship, with particular attention being paid to formulating creative solutions that take into account differences in national cultures and the business environments. The course examines ways to leverage differences in cultures and leadership styles to achieve enhanced entrepreneurial performance in an international setting including the development of team and communication skills. The course is based on the case-study method.

BUS 340 International Business Negotiations (Prerequisite: Junior Standing)

This course aims to provide students with a theoretical and practical background to develop their personal skills to manage negotiations in multicultural environment. The course will explore leadership and communication approaches to effective negotiation management, and will highlight the role of innovation in achieving integrative, successful results. Students will have an opportunity to explore the meaning and practice of managing negotiations. During the course, they will review theory, analyze strategies, engage in practical exercises and acquaint themselves with the language, thought, and praxis of negotiations in the multicultural setting in which we live, learn and work. By studying the impact of the relations between their and others’ cultural narratives, the student will discover innovative paths, techniques, and strategies to lead negotiation processes in multicultural environments.

BUS 345 Innovation and Information Technology (Prerequisite: Junior Standing)

This course emphasizes the contextual and contingent nature of contemporary working-life and general social activities within the setting of business enterprises. Increasingly, highly skilled individuals, building and using information and communication technologies, can create new markets or take over existing ones by redefining the rules. The course aims to provide students with an understanding of how to use appropriate analytical tools in making decisions in respect to emerging business challenges and opportunities; to explore a series of contemporary business cases; to understand the main theories surrounding innovation, information systems, and new business models; to develop critical thinking in the area of business innovation through information systems and to learn how to research a topic in depth and develop a specialized understanding of a particular industry and/or business phenomenon.

BUS 398 Internship: Business Administration Field (Prerequisites: GPA of 3.0 or higher; Junior Standing; Internship in the field of Business obtained through the Career Services Center)

The For Credit (FC) Internship course combines academic learning with a short-term (part-time with a minimum of 150 hours) internship. Field experience allows participants to combine academic learning with hands-on work experience. For-Credit internships are unpaid. The organization or firm must be sponsored by the JCU Career Services Center (CSC). After being selected for an internship and having the CSC verify the course requirements are met, the intern may enroll in the Internship course corresponding to the academic discipline of interest. Course requirements include attending the internship class which will is scheduled for 20 in-class hours over the semester or summer session, verification of the minimum number of hours worked in the internship by the CSC; completion of a daily internship log; in-depth interview with the internship sponsor or organization; and a 2500 to 3500 word “White Paper” presenting a position or solution to a problem encountered by their employer. This course is graded on a “pass/no pass” basis. During the Fall and Spring semesters the course will begin the 3rd week of classes; in Summer it begins the 1st week of classes and ends at end of the Summer II Mini session. Students will determine with the Registrar’s Office or their Advisor which semester corresponds most closely with the timing of their internship. This course may be taken only once for academic credit.

BUS 399 Special Topics in Business (Prerequisite: Junior Standing)

An in-depth treatment of a current area of special concern within the field of Business Administration. Topics may vary.
May be taken more than once for credit with different topics.

BUS 410 Strategic Decisions in Entrepreneurship (Prerequisite: Junior Standing; Recommended: BUS 305)

This course considers management problems of founders, owners, managers, and investors in startups. Acquisitions, location, organization control, labor relations, finances, taxation, and other topics of interest to entrepreneurial business management will be analyzed.

BUS 481 Independent Research

BUS 498 International Business Seminar (Prerequisites: Senior Standing and completion of all core courses required for International Business)

This heavily case-based capstone course will enable students to integrate and consolidate previous learning and examine in-depth real-life issues of policy, competitive advantage and barriers to trade; regional and global strategy; the challenges and benefits of operating and managing internationally and cross-culturally; and the major ways in which international business is currently changing, with a consideration of the implications for future business graduates.

BUS/EC 336 Entrepreneurial Ecosystems (Prerequisite: Sophomore Standing)

This course considers some of the most important issues concerning contemporary challenges in the field of entrepreneurship. Students will be confronted with interdisciplinary perspectives to the study of entrepreneurship that stem from economics, psychology, geography, history, cultural studies, and policy making, to better understand the emergence and the determinants of entrepreneurial ecosystems.

BUS/ITS 260 Made in Italy: The Italian Business Environment

The course analyzes the Italian Business environment, the characteristics of its culture and its inner workings. Students will be able to understand the different types of Italian corporate cultures and the role of family businesses in Italy. The course allows students to assess some of the most popular Italian brands and learn why "made in Italy" is a leading brand in the world, despite recent influences and threats from foreign investors. Company cases and special guests will be an important part of this course and will allow students to relate theory to practice.

BUS/MKT 322 Multimedia Strategic Communications

This course introduces students to the art and craft of multimedia storytelling for strategic business communications in the profit sector. It provides background and analysis for how storytelling has evolved in the digital landscape, requiring communicators to rethink concepts of audience, engagement, use of trusted sources, and dynamic updating. In this context, students will take part in the hands-on, beginning-to-end creation of multimedia projects. Depending on each project’s concept, content, and goals, various techniques will be explored and utilized for content management and creative presentations. A key challenge to strategic communications—dissemination, making stories stand out in today’s sea of content—will be incorporated from the start into decision making and production.

CMS/BUS 385 Surveillance, Privacy and Social Identities: Practices and Representations

The course provides an in-depth analysis of the technical, social, cultural and political contexts and the implications of increasingly ubiquitous surveillance practices. The focus of the course will be in analyzing the deployment and implementation of specific surveillance practices within mediated digital environments and the other spaces of everyday life. Concepts such as privacy and secrecy will be analyzed as they relate to the general field of surveillance. The course will focus on the ways in which these practices circulate within the spaces of culture, cut through specific social formations and are disseminated in the global mediascape. Particular attention will be placed on the ways in which the concept and procedures of surveillance are imagined, represented and contained in popular culture.

ETH/BUS 301 Business Ethics (Prerequisite: One previous course in Philosophy or Junior Standing. Co-requisite: EN 110)

This course examines some of the most important ethical issues in business today, such as businesses’ responsibilities to workers, consumers, and investors, the pros and cons of “free markets,” the challenges posed by environmental damage and automation, the ideas of “social” responsibilities and “ethical” consumption, and the special dilemmas faced by multinational businesses. Issues will be studied through a selection of contemporary cases, issues, arguments, and approaches, along with much class discussion, with the aim of helping students to develop a familiarity with the issues and debates and their ability to discuss, reflect on, and defend their own ethical views.

ETH/BUS 301 Business Ethics (Prerequisite: Junior Standing)

FIN/ACCT 311 Financial Statement Analysis (Prerequisite: ACCT 201 with C or above)

This course is designed to prepare students to interpret and analyze financial statements in order to be able to assess the performance of the company, take investment decisions, financing decisions and other decisions that rely on financial data. The course focuses on how to interpret numbers of the financial statements included in the annual report. The course focuses on the evaluation of the performance of the company, investigating its profitability, liquidity and solidity analysis, to check the economic and financial conditions of the company. The course also investigates the intrinsic equity value of the firm, comparing it to its book value. The aim of this course is to provide the students with a framework for analyzing the company’s performance, estimating also its future possible outcome, and valuing its equity. The course combines topics that vary from accounting, finance, and business strategy and applies them to financial decision making.

INT 398 Internship

IT/BUS 303 Italian for Business (Prerequisite: IT 302, FIN 201 or permission of the instructor)

This course, which is open to students who have completed the equivalent of two years of college Italian, is designed for those interested in doing business with or in Italy. It focuses on the Italian language of business, aiming at developing students’ written and oral skills while providing them with the technical vocabulary and professional expressions that are most often used in a variety of business situations. Topics are confronted in several ways: through readings from textbooks used in business schools, the analysis of letters, office documents and newspaper articles about business, and targeted exercises and discussions. Attention is also given to culture, manners, and customs as they relate to business practices.

IT/BUS 303 Italian for Business (Prerequisites: IT 302 and FIN 201 or permission of the instructor)

This course, which is open to students who have completed the equivalent of two years of college Italian, is designed for those interested in doing business with or in Italy. It focuses on the Italian language of business, aiming at developing students’ written and oral skills while providing them with the technical vocabulary and professional expressions that are most often used in a variety of business situations. Topics are confronted in several ways: through readings from textbooks used in business schools, the analysis of letters, office documents, and newspaper articles about business, and targeted exercises and discussions. Attention is also given to culture, manners, and customs as they relate to business practices.

LAW/BUS 399 Special Topics in Law and Business (Prerequisite: EN 110 with a grade of C or above)

LDR 342 Leadership, Mindfulness, and Emotional Intelligence

This course aims at studying in depth the model of Resonant Leadership and its positive effects on the increase of efficacy, creativity, motivation, conflict resolution, decision-making, and stress reduction within the workplace.
Using the latest studies in the fields of Psychology, Neuroscience, Behavior, and Organization participants will learn the theory, research and experience of employing Mindfulness and Emotional Intelligence within the work environment.
The course will be divided in two parts:
a) a theoretical part in which the participants will be introduced to the model of Resonant Leadership informed by Mindfulness, Emotional Intelligence, Neuroscience, and the most recent cognitive research; b) a practical-experiential part in which Mindfulness techniques and the development of Emotional and Social Intelligence will be learned in order to promote resonance in leadership.

M-BUS/PL 325 NGO Consulting Lab

In this transdisciplinary course, students develop a project for a non governmental organization (NGO) and they learn how to mainstream the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) - including social, economic and environmental sustainability - into it. This learning-by-doing approach is accompanied by a sound theoretical framework in which the role NGOs play in the fragmented system of global governance is analyzed and the ways in which these non-State actors contribute to achieving the SDGs is examined. Moreover, students learn how to mainstream human rights, gender equity, diversity and environmental sustainability in NGOs’ work and to understand the challenges posed by managing projects and evaluating their impact.

M-BUS/PL 325 NGO Consulting Lab

M-BUS/PL 399 Special Topics in Business and Political Science

May be taken more than once for credit with different topics.

MGT/BUS 375 Entrepreneurship in Creative Industries (Prerequisites: Recommended MGT 301 or BUS 101 or BUS 301)

The course aims at investigating how the creation and exploitation of intellectual property in various product and service markets is the basis for the creation of wealth and employment in the creative industries, which are those industries that have their roots in individual creativity, skill, and talent. The course analyses the main forces behind the creation of new marketing and business models in these industries, considering also the introduction of new technologies as well as creative consumption patterns. As a result, the course will focus on one of the most dynamic battlegrounds which is the development of business models for the creative industries, which include, among the others, publishing, software, design, and the performing and visual arts. The creation and effective application of an innovative business model for these sectors may turn it into a respectable example of commercialization and a workable channel for the distribution of content. As a result, the objective of this course is to give the students a thorough analysis of the creative industries from a management perspective, as well as of the actors and activities that directly support the creation of creative content (origination, production, distribution, and consumption).

SOSC/BUS 302 Sociology of Work and Organizations

This course will provide an overview of the ways in which sociology can help us understand the role of work and business in people’s lives and in modern societies. Work and the business world—how they are organized and experienced—reflect cultural norms and also shape culture as a primary agent of socialization, setting standards for gender roles, leadership styles, power dynamics, and race- or ethnicity-based discrimination and equity. HR professionals, managers, business leaders and marketing professionals can benefit greatly from sociological insights about the personal dynamics of business environments; how marketing and advertisement harnesses sociological research; the power of corporations to influence cultural norms, attitudes, and behaviors; and how workplace technologies and social dynamics are always adapting to evolving social norms and pressures.