First Semester

SUS6195: Effective Management, Communication & Action (3 units)
This course will take a strengths-based approach to fostering the essential individual leadership and communication capabilities needed for managers in business and public administration. These capacities are necessary for collaborating, influencing and acting as an effective change agent for sustainability in any type of business, organization or community. We will explore various aspects of the human dimension of sustainability including social justice, work/life balance, emotionally intelligent team building and the personal aspects of learning, change, commitment, and courage. We will practice communication skills and strengthen our personal effectiveness through self assessment, feedback, and practice in a reflective, supportive environment. We will work in teams to develop our abilities to observe and respond to team challenges and prepare to work in Service Learning Teams in future Presidio courses.
Pre-requisites: none

SUS6000: Managerial Accounting (4 units)
This course integrates the principles of financial and managerial accounting to prepare the manager to use accounting to assess and manage the health of the organization. Topics include financial statements and their interpretation; the bookkeeping process and transaction analysis; accounting for assets, liabilities, and owners’ equity; cost-volume-profit relationships; budgeting; and internal analysis techniques. The class will also explore environmental, social, and ethical accounting issues, which challenge students to apply existing accounting systems to new settings and critically analyze existing and proposed accounting systems. The goal is to equip students to become managers and/or designers of accounting systems that produce relevant information to facilitate organizational decision-making and to assure that appropriate information is tracked so managers can make more successful and sustainable decisions.
Pre-requisites: none

SUS6010: Principles of Sustainable Management (4 units)
The primary objective of this course is to impart a basic understanding of the social and environmental sustainability challenges facing managers in today’s world. The course seeks to develop students’ critical capacities for self-reflection and action in relation to these concepts. Course graduates will possess the understanding and experience to integrate environmental and social sustainability with commercial and economic success. Lectures and readings provide an overview of the critical literacies in environmental and social issues, the history of the sustainability movement, including the various social and economic movements from which the current practices of sustainability in business and society grew, and the key actors and basic literature in the field. The course also addresses the global issues surrounding sustainable management and reviews the major frameworks of sustainability that provide the scientific foundations and economic principles of how sustainability can help managers to achieve natural competitive advantage.
Pre-requisites: none

SUS6020: Managerial Economics (4 units)
This course is a one-semester introduction to the fundamentals of managerial economics, focusing on microeconomics. The course has three primary objectives: to provide an understanding of the standard or neoclassical microeconomic model and how this model relates to, and is useful for, business decision-making; to provide a critique of this model and present a more heterodox view of economics; and to provide a variety of quantitative skills that are useful for economic analysis and other aspects of managerial decision-making. The course will cover basic economic relationships, focusing on analysis at the margin, supply and demand theory, production theory, capital theory, profit maximization and cost minimization, firm structure, and types of markets. The critical aspect of the class will both consider how the neoclassical model is unrealistic, and therefore of limited value, and how this model is problematic in terms of sustainability. Quantitative skills developed include linear algebra, statistics, graphing, linear programming, and game theory.
Pre-requisites: none

Second Semester

SUS6210: Leadership for Sustainable Management (4 units)
This course is a learning journey through which we invite you to engage with us in the fundamental quest to answer, “Who am I? — in relation to myself, to others, and to my environment” — so that we may best serve as leaders and collaborators in creating a sustainable world. We begin by making explicit the emerging and evolving worldview that challenges the current status quo and allows for visions of possibility to emerge: the systems and evolutionary perspective. We explore the meaning of leadership as it has changed over time and the new roles required to facilitate organizational and social transformation toward sustainability. Collaborative processes, as the core of the transformational work at the human level required to bring about sustainability, will be seen as a complement to the overemphasis on individual capacity and competition prevailing in the business world. These perspectives will be grounded in self-knowing as the portal to diversity, collective wisdom and creativity to respond to the increased complexity of our shared socio-ecological predicament.
Pre-requisites: SUS6195: Effective Management, Communication & Action

SUS6110: Operations and Production (4 units)
This course provides an overview of strategic, tactical, and operational decision making environments in service and manufacturing companies. Major topics are process analysis, supply chain management, quality management, service systems management, and operations strategy. These areas are explored through lectures, case studies, assigned readings, and class discussions. The course utilizes concepts of probability, statistics, and optimization commonly applied in operations management tools. It includes a special focus on companies implementing sustainability initiatives in their operations and introduces the new field of industrial ecology, which deals with tools and processes for sustainable operations management.
Pre-requisites: SUS6000: Managerial Accounting

SUS6015: Business, Government and Civil Society (3 units)
This course provides an overview of definitions, frameworks and perspectives regarding the role of business in society. The goal is to understand the history and the theoretical perspectives that underpin arguments for responsible business. This course will aid students in: 1) analyzing the relationships between various stakeholders; 2) better understanding the policy and governance context; 3) identifying appropriate programs; and 4) exploring and building the business case for sustainability and social justice.
Pre-requisites: none

SUS6200: Ecological Economics and Macroeconomics (4 units)
This course is a continuation of managerial economics, that focuses on two additional realms of economics: macroeconomics and ecological economics. Macroeconomics is concerned with the economic aspects associated with national level economic policy and international economic issues, rather than the behavior of households and firms (the realm of microeconomics). Ecological economics is an evolving branch of, or approach to, economics that understands markets in a far more complex, evolving and interrelated manner than traditional economics. It parallels ecology in that it sees elements of the economy as part of an ecosystem rather than as isolated components. This course has two primary objectives: to provide an understanding of the central elements of the macroeconomic model and how these elements relate to managerial decision making, and to provide an overview of the field of ecological economics and how this field views and illuminates the issue of sustainability.
Pre-requisites: SUS6020: Managerial Economics

Third Semester

SUS6050: Strategic Management (4 units)
This course presents cutting-edge ideas on how strategy is evolving and the implications for socially- and environmentally-engaged management. Through considering classical approaches to strategy (such as resource-based views of the firm that capture capability logic), modern approaches (such as hyper-competition and high-velocity perspectives that embody guerrilla logic), and emerging approaches (such as eco-systemic and chaos theory-based views that incorporate a complexity logic), the course covers traditional, mainstream and progressive perspectives on strategic management. As a whole, it provides conceptual tools and practical methodologies for catalyzing organizational transformation based on a strategic, systemic and sustainable appreciation of change. The knowledge, skills and attitudes developed throughout the course focus on consideration of the emerging trends and new areas of opportunity to be taken into account in developing strategies and designing processes and structures in sustainable organizations of the 21st century.
Pre-requisites: none

SUS6040: Managerial Finance (4 units)
This course begins with a survey of the finance area, including financial ratios; management of current assets and liabilities; liquidity; long-term capital; rate of return; and net present value. The focus then moves to developing the necessary skills to be an effective financial manager. These skills include analysis of cash flow; financial planning and forecasting; and risk assessment and management. Students will explore decision-making through the capital asset pricing model, as well as construct and utilize pro forma financial statements, and assess the feasibility of projects and capital budgeting. The course will address the skills needed to be a persuasive oral and written communicator of corporate financial information. Socially responsible investment (SRI) models and the relationship between human, natural and financial capital will be examined.
Pre-requisites: SUS6110: Operations & Production

SUS6090: Sustainable Products and Services (3 units)
The evolving principles of sustainable management will be leveraged to explore the creation and development of sustainable products and services. The course merges theory and practice; investigates the linkages between products and services; examines historic, current, and future examples of sustainable products, and services; and guides students toward practical tools of inquiry and application that will serve them in their careers in sustainable management. The final course outcomes are professional-quality group projects to be published (or deemed publishable by Presidio faculty) in a major trade or academic journal.
Pre-requisites: none

SUS6060: Managerial Marketing (4 units)
The purpose of this course is to introduce a framework for marketing management. It provides a survey of trends and an overview of concepts and techniques as they relate to marketing opportunities, marketing strategies and communicating effective marketing programs within the context of sustainable management. Students will engage in an exploration of the implications of sustainability and be challenged to critically analyze marketing strategies, plans and decisions. Most importantly, students will gain the mindset of a marketer — the ability to inquire into real needs, of the individual and society.
Pre-requisites: none

Fourth Semester

SUS6105: Culture, Values & Ethics (4 units)
This course addresses the business world of increasing globalization, the cross cultural and organizational situations in which managers are challenged to develop solutions between their own culture and the values and ethics of people and organizations in their extended markets. The intent is to develop the managerial skills to lead from a value-based, ethical orientation to resolve workplace dilemmas while also equipping the manager to guide the change of a business, a government entity or a civil society organization. The purpose is to develop the cultural intelligence and change management competencies of students to equip them in implementing ethical and values-based interventions supportive of sustainable organizations and relationships.
Pre-requisites: none

SUS6175: Capital Markets (4 units)
Building upon the fundamentals of finance and economics, this course is an overview of capital markets, including the financial instruments and institutions that comprise the global financial system. This course will offer an in-depth study of the marketplaces that play central roles in the global - down to the local – economies. Topics include: financing enterprises through venture capital and private equity funding, initial public offerings (IPOs), fixed income securities offerings, commercial paper, and angel investing. Financial instruments in a global market will be examined through a review of spot exchange, currency forwards, hedging, options, swaps, as well as international bonds and equities. Fundraising in the non-profit sector will likewise be considered. Basics of macroeconomics will also be presented as a background to financial decision-making. Topics include monetary and fiscal policy, aggregate demand and supply, exchange rates and inflation. When time permits, the course also surveys the legal aspects of organizing, financing and operating a business enterprise. This course focuses on contracts, government regulation, intellectual property rights, corporate governance and shareholder rights, national and international finance, and investment systems, including a sustainability critique and reorientation.
Pre-requisites: none

SUS6130: Implementation of Sustainable Business Practices (3 units)
To integrate the skills and knowledge accumulated over the two years of the Sustainable Management MBA, students examine and use the Natural Capitalism Group taxonomy for guiding organizations to a more sustainable future. Calling on the four strands of coursework — numbers, markets, people and sustainability — students explore the step-by-step process for transforming a company, both internally and externally.
Pre-requisites: none
Co-requisites: SUS6145: Integrative Capstone Venture Plan

SUS6145: Integrative Capstone Venture Plan (4 units)
The purpose of the integrative capstone course is to plan, start or build an ethical, sustainable and profitable venture for an existing or new business, NGO or governmental organization. Students may work individually or in a group to complete a strategic business plan that will include a management plan, financial statements, risk analysis, an operations and marketing plan, and an action plan to implement the venture. Course instruction will center around a series of integrated modules that will focus on the practical implementation of all aspects of the curriculum. Students will explore the interconnections between the strategic foundation of the venture and the cultural, sustainable and spiritual aspects of their values, core purpose and goals within a global business context. The result will be evidence of mastering the core MBA competencies and fulfilling the students’ reason for attending Presidio Graduate School: to define and implement their calling.
Pre-requisites: SUS6060: Managerial Marketing
Co-requisites: SUS6130: Implementation of Sustainable Business Practices