Graduate Certificate in Business:
Critical Success Factors in Business Leadership

Building a strategic management system is crucial if companies want to stay competitive and enjoy financial success. Recognizing the needs of area organizations and their management teams, Penn State Great Valley has created a graduate certificate in business and management: Critical Success Factors for Business Leadership. This program helps managers achieve success in four key performance areas valued by top organizations:

  • long and short-term financial performance
  • learning and growth of the organization's human assets
  • customer knowledge
  • internal business practices

This series of courses is based on key performance areas and addresses the problems companies have linking long-term strategy with short-term action. This program helps managers clarify strategic objectives, identify critical drivers, and create a framework for managing an organization's various change programs, thus building a strategic management system.

In this 15-credit certificate program, participants can gain state-of-the-art knowledge, skills, and abilities in our technologically advanced learning center. Small classes offer students individualized attention through innovative, challenging, and intellectually stimulating learning experiences in highly interactive classes. Penn State Great Valley's management faculty has established national and international reputations as scholars, consultants, practitioners, and researchers. They combine top academic credentials with a firm grasp of real-world issues, helping students sharpen a variety of business skills critical to career success.

This certificate program was created for

  • business professionals who wish to update their knowledge, skills, and abilities
  • managers in science, technology, or engineering who seek a business background
  • individuals making a transition into a managerial position
  • individuals returning to the workforce, or considering a career change
  • those who do not have an undergraduate degree in business and are considering an MBA

The Program

Pre-Program Requirements

Course #

Course Name

Schedule

Schedule
B A 517 Communication Skills for Management Fall 2009  Spring 2010 
BUSAD 501 Statistical Analysis for Managerial Decision Making Fall 2009  Spring 2010 

Certificate Program Courses
 

Performance area

Course Name and Description

Schedule

Schedule
Financial Performance - 3 credits ACCTG 512 - Financial Accounting: Theory and Reporting Problems Fall 2009  Spring 2010 
Learning and Growth - 3 credits MGMT 501 - Behavioral Science in Business Fall 2009 Spring 2010 
Customer Knowledge - 6 credits BUSAD 523 - Prices and Markets AND
MKTG 500 - Marketing Management
Fall 2009
Fall 2009   
Spring 2010 
Spring 2010  
Internal Business Practices - 3 credits OPMGT 510 - Operations Management OR
BUSAD 537 - Management Information Systems
Fall 2009
Fall 2009 
Spring 2010 
Spring 2010 

 

"It's a rare pleasure to enroll in a course that turns out to be as meaningful and enlightening as this one was - a course in which the real world and the theoretical world collided...and, on a daily basis, yielded a higher understanding of both."

Robert Beideman
Lockheed Martin Corp. Management & Data Systems