Commerce

The course utilizes several active learning activities when considering classical rhetorical elements, audience analysis, speech organization, and strategies for improvement in the structure and delivery of extemporaneous and impromptu speeches. Students work with conceptual methods, observe exemplary models of good speech making, explore personal communication apprehension, and hone individual rhetorical style.

COMM 4643 increases students' comfort with public speaking. In a safe environment students work to cultivate individual speaking styles by engaging in daily public speaking. Students deliver a wide variety of speeches, engage in activities designed to refine speaking styles, receive weekly feedback, and review their own recorded speeches. The most successful students participate fully, have a sense of fun, and help each other to improve.

Your effectiveness as a leader depends on your ability to influence and persuade others. From the ancient art of rhetoric to cutting-edge social science, this course asks you to implement time-tested communication techniques to persuade colleagues at every level, even when you lack formal authority. With power comes responsibility, and so you also will consider the ethics of persuasion and how to influence interpersonal and team dynamics positively.

This course is designed to provide a broad overview of management consulting and other related advisory services professions and help students develop skills that are broadly applicable in these professions as well as in other fields (business, politics, not-for-profits, etc). Students will gain experience in key skills including problem identification and structuring, data collection, problem solving, client presentations and client management.

Explores the entrepreneurship process as well as basic concepts and analytical tools that facilitate new-venture success with a focus on a start-up's ability to make money and its ability to generate attractive financial and personal returns for the entrepreneur compared to alternative career options. Examines various considerations for generating, screening, and evaluating new venture ideas, creating and presenting compelling business plans, acquiring early-stage funding and other required resources, as well as measuring value. Prerequisite: Fourth-year Commerce standing or instructor permission.

In the capstone course, approximately five teams comprising five students each attempt to commercialize business concepts (of their design and with faculty approval) through the "pre-money" stage of development. The course culminates in a New Venture Competition, the winners of which, as judged by Entrepreneurship Track professors and program donors, will receive modest seed money to continue exploration of their business concept. Prerequisites: Open only to students in the Entrepreneurship Track.

Explores the strong influence of culture on business practices and cultivates skills for developing and implementing strategies in multicultural environments. Topics include culture and its implications, interpersonal effectiveness, organizational systems, political and economic environments, and corporate social responsibility. Prerequisite: Fourth-year Commerce standing or instructor permission.

Provides an understanding of contemporary cash and derivative equity securities and markets. Both investment theory and its practical applications are considered. The primary perspective for most discussions is that of an institutional investor, although applications to personal finance are included. Both U.S. and international equity and fixed-income markets are discussed. Topics include asset allocation, portfolio theory, market efficiency, models of asset pricing, program trading, and equity options and financial futures. Prerequisite: Fourth-year Commerce standing or instructor permission.

This course covers corporate valuation and the restructuring of both non-distressed firms (for example, leveraged buyout transactions) and distressed firms. Prerequisite: fourth-year Commerce.

Foundations of Global Commerce examines the global context of business, the evolution of that context, and the many business implications. The course covers the global macro-economy, application of an analytical framework, and important future trends. In addition to mastering a defined body of knowledge, the course emphasizes conceptual thinking and a commitment to curiosity, critical analysis, active participation and intellectual risk-taking.

In this class you will apply quantitative tools to deconstruct each of the main asset classes, developing a more nuanced understanding of the risks one owns, and to evaluate a managers' returns for delivering those risks. You will also learn how to design and evaluate strategic asset allocations for specific goals through a case evaluating the portfolio of the University of Virginia Endowment.

Introductory course forms the background of concepts, tools and techniques. This course details the study and practice of real estate as it draws from a multitude of disciplines including architecture, urban and regional planning, building construction, urban economics, law, and finance. Prerequisites: Fourth-year Commerce standing.

This course provides instruction in the foundations of sustainable commerce, that is, business activities designed for a finite and equitable planet. The course begins with a review of our pressing sustainability challenges, then describes how the fundamental business disciplines (strategy, accounting, marketing, operations, finance and management) are innovating, operating and facilitating commercial solutions to these issues.

Students admitted to the GCS program will meet periodically with their advisor & other students & faculty members involved in the program. Over the course of the semester, students will first produce a literature review & then a research proposal that will serve as the roadmap for the thesis to be completed during the spring semester (Comm 4841). The proposal will be presented at the end of the semester before student & faculty of the program.Prerequisite: Must be admitted into the Global Commerce Scholar Program

Cross Cultural Experience

This course provides an understanding of financial reporting issues related to business combinations, inter-corporate investments, consolidated financial statements, corporate restructurings, and international transactions and operations. Understanding the economic substance and impact these issues have upon the financial statements are important for professional accountants and financial analysts. Prerequisite: COMM 3110.

How do managers use financial information to help deliver their organization's value proposition? This course will help you actively learn how to prepare and use financial information that can be used by managers when making critical business decisions. This course is designed specifically for accounting, management, marketing and finance majors.

This course provides the opportunity to offer new topics in the subject of Commerce.

This course examines the nature and influence of trading on financial market prices. Particular attention is directed to the role of noise in financial markets; the psychology of participants in financial markets; the identification of potential profitable trading opportunities; back office processing of trades; the management of the trading function; and artificial neural networks and AI expert trading systems. Mock pit trading sessions are held to give firsthand experience in simulated pit trading environments and illustrate some of the skills necessary for successful trading. Prerequisite: Fourth-year Commerce or graduate standing, or instructor permission.