Professional MBA
Hone your vast potential with a Professional Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree from Duquesne University. Gain the hands-on expertise and networks necessary to thrive in a competitive global environment with this flexible MBA for working professionals, accredited by AACSB and ranked in the top 3 programs in the region according to the U.S. News and World Report.
Balance your learning experience with your professional commitments through our convenient Professional MBA program structure:
- Complete the program fully online or with a mix of online and evening classes
- Start in a fall, spring or summer semester with the option to complete the program in as few as 4 semesters.
STEM-Designated Option
A STEM-designated MBA highlights your technical skills and competence in a data-driven business world.
Available On-Campus or 100% Online
This MBA for working professionals provides a variety of course plans to suit your demanding schedule. Each experience-focused course in the Professional MBA program can be taken online* or in the evening on the Duquesne University campus near downtown Pittsburgh.
Students who require or prefer a primarily in-person class schedule are advised to start in the fall semester.
* Most online courses can be completed asynchronously, but the capstone course includes multiple synchronous virtual events.
Program Information
Our Professional MBA program includes integrative coursework and experiential learning projects with industry professionals and world-renowned scholars to prepare you for a lifetime of success and advancement.
Program Type
Major
Degree
Master's
Duration
2-year
Required Credit Hours
36-42
More in this Program
"Being a mother, pharmacist, leader in professional organizations, and MBA graduate,
I aim to continue my journey of uniting individuals from various professions and backgrounds
and educating future leaders."
Within the Professional MBA program, you can expand your career-specific skills with
certificates.
Demonstrate your analytical skills and earn an in-demand credential.
Your entrepreneurial mindset will set you apart in the eyes of employers and investors.
Learn to lead with vision and a strategic-mindset.
Gain skills in financial analysis that will give you the knowledge to take the next
steps in your career.
Make a difference in your organization with a STEM MBA.
Specialize your degree with the courses that match your career aspirations. Use Duquesne's
opportunities for credit sharing between programs to pursue a joint degree alongside your MBA, such as a JD, PharmD or MA in Communication, to obtain two graduate
degrees at once. 1.5 credits Prerequisite: ACCT 501 1.5 credits As a part of an integrated professional MBA program students will come to understand
how law affects all aspects of business. This is not a standalone legal course. In
this course we will bring a legal sensitivity to the financial, managerial, organizational
and strategic dimensions of business. The larger goal of this course is to develop
a legally astute manager. Although we tend to think of the law as the exclusive province
of lawyers, the reality is that law is too important a matter to be entrusted to lawyers
alone. To do so is in effect an abdication of the business professional's responsibilities.
The legally astute manager understands that success in business requires, among other
things, the development of critical thinking skills. There is no better context in
which to develop those skills than in the study of business law. Critical thinking
skills honed in the study of law provide a foundation for business professionals who
must navigate across a wide range of disciplines in order to achieve business success.
Toward that end, MBA students will examine substantive concepts relative to such matters
as contract formation, risk management, intellectual property, environmental management,
employee relations and corporate form and governance. As we live in a time in which the law, business and society nexus is so significant,
it would be foolhardy to underestimate the importance of legal education in shaping
our business leaders. 3 credits Prerequisite: FINC 501, ACCT 515, STAT 510, and GRBU 503 1.5 credits Deliverables include presentations of mini training seminars to peer, analytical life
cycle assessment along with participation in class discussions while applying critical
thinking to identify productivity gains, cost savings, revenue increases, and profit
growth when implementing sustainable business practices. The course is taught as a
seminar where sharing learning, best practices and sustainability knowledge across
teams and individuals enables all to gain insight to emerging issues beyond the scope
of a single entity. Students work within an integrated curriculum to analyze internal/external
situations, drivers and risks; to identify problems and opportunities; to evaluate
return on investment from alternative courses of action; and to value both short-
and long-term prosperity. Students independently learn about, apply, and reflect on
proven models and methodologies while honing their skills as a researcher, analyst,
writer, and speaker.
Join our Difference Making MBA Program
From Our Alumni
Certificates
Analytics and Information Management Certificate
Entrepreneurship Certificate
Executive Leadership Certificate
Finance Certificate
Supply Chain Management Certificate
Joint Degrees
Course Descriptions
This course provides graduate business students with an introduction to fundamentals
of accounting for corporations. Topics will include the accounting cycle, an introduction
to the basic financial statements of a corporation and determinations of corporate
profitability and solvency.
This course provides the necessary foundation in probability and statistics necessary
for students looking to go on to study the application of statistics to business.
In this course, students will learn the rules of probability, how to identify and
use common probability distributions, and how to conduct basic hypothesis tests.
This course is a prerequisite for ECON 520 and covers introductory topics in both
microeconomics and macroeconomics.
Financial Management is about decisions firms make in two broad areas: the investments
it makes and how it pays for them. The first involves expenditures for physical capital,
human capital, technological capability, brand capital, and so forth. The second involves
raising money in financial markets. In business decision making, the objective is
to maximize shareholder wealth. Why the emphasis on shareholders? Among stakeholders
generally (i.e., customers, employees, suppliers, government, communities, etc.),
shareholders alone possess a uniquely comprehensive and long-term view of the firm's
viability as an ongoing enterprise. This perspective arises from the residual nature
of shareholders' claim to earnings and assets. Wealth is created when the return from
investing business resources exceeds their opportunity cost.
The primary responsibility of all managers is to make decisions in situations in which
there are multiple competing objectives. This course introduces students to a set
of tools that can be applied to scenarios in a variety of business environments. Specifically,
this set of tools will include data summarization, data visualization, optimization
methods, Monte Carlo simulation, multi-criteria decision analysis, and decision trees.
Subsequent courses in the program will utilize these analytical methods within their
specific decision environments.
Co/Prerequisite: STAT 501
This course examines the ways in which leaders, managers, and employees can improve
employee performance and commitment - key factors underlying competitive organizations.
Guided by an examination of contemporary research and real-world cases, students will
develop the knowledge and tools needed to help them navigate the opportunities and
challenges inherent in managing themselves and others to generate enduring social
and financial value, while incorporating long-term sustainable business objectives
into the vision for the firm.
In this course, students will learn how to apply statistical methods of inference,
produce and interpret statistics that attempt to answer typical business questions,
and use probability theory and statistical methods to draw conclusions. Students are
required to arrive having a working understanding of basic probability and statistics
up through and including hypothesis testing. This course places heavy emphasis on
the application of statistical techniques to business problems and the interpretation
of results for a non-technical audience.
Prerequisite: STAT 501
This course provides graduate business students with a deeper understanding of the
accounting cycle used in companies to produce both internal and external financial
information. Special emphasis is placed throughout the course on understanding, analyzing
and interpreting financial statements and related information. Additionally, students
will be introduced to decision making tools such as ratio analysis and challenged
to utilize them to critically evaluate financial information and make effective decisions.
The basics of corporate sustainability reporting will also be covered.
Prerequisite: ACCT 501
The course covers selected topics in microeconomics. It emphasizes the integration
of microeconomic theories and tools from a managerial perspective. The applied aspect
of the course comes from analyzing case studies and studying empirical evidence of
the theories. Topics include both traditional topics in microeconomics (quantitative
demand analysis, elasticities, production and costs, market structures and profit
maximization), in addition to advanced topics (game theory and pricing strategies).
Co/Prerequisite: STAT 510
The purpose of this course is to provide business professionals with the knowledge
needed to manage and utilize information systems and technology within a business
organization. As information systems have become critical to the success of modern
business organizations, knowledge of information systems has become a key success
factor for all business professionals within the organization. This course provides
comprehensive and integrative coverage of essential new technologies, information
system applications, and their impact on business models. Moreover, this course emphasizes
the conceptualization of information systems as structured technology configurations
working collectively to serve the information needs of an organization.
Supply Chain Management (SCM) is the business process that has evolved from the integration
of the traditional business disciplines of forecasting, demand planning, materials
planning, purchasing, production, operations management, transportation, inventory
management, warehousing, packaging, materials handling, customer service, and related
information systems. SCM focuses on efficient and effective customer satisfaction
from the exchange of goods, services and information to complete the business transaction
from supplier's supplier to customer's customer. This course provides insight into
the goals and best practices of each business discipline included in the SCM process,
and how these disciplines integrate to ensure a competitive advantage and corporate
success. Students will assess industry specific differences in managing the flow of
materials, goods, services, information and cash via the processes, technologies,
and facilities that link primary suppliers through to ultimate customers for both
service and product industries.
This course teaches graduate students essential qualitative decision-making skills
for analyzing business issues with an ethical dimension. Conflicting and complementary
conceptions of the ethical decision-making model are presented that demonstrate how
to critically reason through ethical dilemmas in business across all business functions.
These rational processes will enable students to effectively recognize, evaluate and
resolve ethical conflicts. Throughout the seminar, the analytical frameworks will
be applied to common ethical challenges to businesses. The purpose is for students
completing this module to be able to identify which ethical framework is most appropriate
for addressing a given real world issue and ultimately be able to apply that framework
to facilitate responsible decision making. Thus, the course begins with a detailed
description and application of each ethical decision-making framework to ensure students
understand how and in what contexts these tools are utilized. Then, attention is paid
to the various individual, organizational, and institutional factors that affect ethical
misconduct in the workplace. Personal cognitive influences, common intra-organizational
pressures, regulatory factors, and market forces are discussed in terms of how they
moderate ethical behavior in business. Once students learn the sources of ethical
indiscretions in organizations, methods for constructing and manipulating organizational
environments to increase the likelihood of ethical behavior among the firm's stakeholders
are offered.
This course is designed to develop the legal literacy of MBA students by raising their
conscious awareness of potential legal problems or challenges as they discharge their
professional responsibilities. Because business decisions have legal implications,
it is important that managers understand the legal environment in which they must
function. In fact, the significance of the law is so great it has been suggested that
modern organizations are immersed in a "sea of law."
Financial Management is about decisions firms make in two broad areas: the investments
it makes and how it pays for them. The first involves expenditures for physical capital,
human capital, technological capability, brand capital, and so forth. The second involves
raising money in financial markets. In business decision making, the objective is
to maximize shareholder wealth. Why the emphasis on shareholders? Among stakeholders
generally (i.e., customers, employees, suppliers, government, communities, etc.),
shareholders alone possess a uniquely comprehensive and long-term view of the firm's
viability as an ongoing enterprise. This perspective arises from the residual nature
of shareholders' claim to earnings and assets. Wealth is created when the return from
investing business resources exceeds their opportunity cost.
Co/Prerequisite: ECON 520
This course examines the role of marketing in creating exchanges that satisfy consumer
and organizational objectives thereby creating value for the firm. The course focuses
on formulating and evaluating marketing strategies. Students learn how marketing mix
decisions - product, place, promotion and price - are made as part of a cohesive strategy.
Contemporary concepts and theories will be presented with a focus on analytical and
financial models that will assist marketing managers in making better decisions. Emerging
perspectives on strategic sustainability, marketing management and the impact of digital
media are also emphasized.
Prerequisite: ECON 501
Strategic sustainability advances students' managerial skills for identifying, researching,
evaluating and communicating innovative opportunities involving the efficient and
effective management of financial, social, and environmental resources. Building on
our commitment to the Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME), this
course experience serves as a foundation for strategic sustainability, models and
tools across the curriculum. Students work individually, and in teams to frame problems,
research and develop training seminars, and manage resources for assigned topics.
The focus is inspiring innovation, and creating competitive advantage - both short
and long term - for organizations.
Prerequisite: GRBU 503
This course helps students acquire the knowledge and skills needed to interact and
manage effectively in a global business environment. Students will be exposed to international
aspects of organizational behavior, human resource management, labor relations, corporate
strategy, political risk and ethical issues. Overall, this course is designed to raise
students' international business acumen as well as their cultural intelligence. While
business is an increasingly global proposition, cultural differences impact everything
from how employees are hired to how they are led to how business strategies are formed.
This is a dynamic course that provides an overview of executive leadership and opportunities
to interact with senior managers. The course draws on the collective experience and
wisdom of distinguished business leaders who visit the class to provide students with
executive perspectives on the challenges associated with thinking entrepreneurially,
strategic leadership, developing a vision and motivating organizational change. Students
use a variety of conceptual frameworks in leadership and related areas to assess and
evaluate these "executive insights" (e.g., via papers and projects) with an eye toward
developing their own leadership skills, particularly their ability to seize opportunities
and create effective solutions for the contemporary challenges facing business leaders.
This course addresses the process of planning and implementing business strategies.
In order to develop a future direction for an organization, this class builds on the
formulation of a company's mission, industry analysis, an organization's internal
assessment, innovation, and strategic planning. This course emphasizes corporate governance,
sustainability, and ethics in strategic management.
The second half of our integrative capstone sequence, the Capstone Project involves
student teams working with a real company client to develop a set of strategic recommendations
for advancing the business. In this course, students will assess the firm's strategic
context and diagnose its internal operations as well as its products and/or services
as they relate to customer needs. In doing so, students will experience what it is
like to make high-stakes and impactful recommendations to top management under time
pressure and with high expectations for quality and analysis. Final deliverables for
each team include a detailed report that lays out specific action steps and metrics
(e.g., for productivity gains, cost savings, increased revenues/profit growth) as
well as a sophisticated presentation to company management that highlights the team's
analysis and recommendations.
Co/Prerequisite: MGMT 540Professional MBA FAQs