Institutional investors increasingly rank serving a social purpose as a factor garnering high regard. How people define serving a social purpose varies widely however. Corporations have a unique value add in terms of expertise, human resources, public influence, and unrestricted funds. But do corporations embrace a social purpose in ways that deliver quantifiable outcomes for a range of stakeholders, as well as economic performance? This course provides an expanded vision of competitive strategy and ethics by incorporating social purpose as a source of new business opportunities, improved productivity, and competitive differentiation and at the same time minds the gap between policy and practice.

The course approaches digital product and technology creation through the lens of user experience (UX) design: the practice of placing people and their needs in the center of research and design work. Such work includes everything from creating enjoyable user experiences to ethical and safe interactions between the user and the product. Students learn to apply the insights from their quantitative and qualitative user research to design.

Applies financial methods and practices to the development of early-stage companies. The goal of EF is to help managers make better investment and financing decisions in an entrepreneurial setting. The course covers the stages of a venture's life from raising startup financing to arranging an exit. The course also provides an overview of the private equity industry and the institutional structure for raising early-stage financing.

Corporations, industries, and their associations all rely on advocacy to help improve policy and regulatory conditions that affect their business. Effective lobbying requires business insight and includes an enterprise risk management approach to ensure all business processes, strategies, and actions comply with relevant laws. This course is interested in the strategic importance of regulatory engagement and advocacy to a company¿s bottom line.

This course focuses on the process of acquisition of a business entity. Students will be shown the tools they need and the process to follow to successfully acquire a business of their own. Among the major topics covered will be the search process, assessing and valuing the business, financing consideration, negotiating, and closing the deal. The course may be of interest to those MBA students who are interested in leveraged buyouts, investment banking, venture capital, and other related careers. Prerequisites: Restricted to Darden students.

Data visualizations weave information and visual storytelling into insights that add business-relevant value through compelling arguments that inspire people to action. This course will explore how to construct data visualizations by employing storytelling, visuals, color schemes, key verbs, call outs, BLUFs, and other related data visualization elements. Students will learn how to use data visualization tools and become better presenters.

This action-oriented course takes students through the key steps involved in developing a new product or service. The learning process will be highly experiential as students work in groups to develop a viable new product or service via a hands-on team project. Each team of students will identify market (user) needs, develop alternative product or service concepts to meet those needs, flesh out the concepts through a process of iterative design.

This course focuses on the human need to recover and restore energy on an ongoing basis. After all, when you feel overwhelmed or depleted, it's hard to communicate and lead at your best. The course begins by taking inventory of your resilience, communication and leadership practices, then encourages you to build on your strengths as you sample new methods designed to build resilience of body, mood, mind and spirit.

The course is designed to help students increase their media literacy, deepen their knowledge about media and entertainment industries, gain critical analytical skills specific to analyzing media data, and design media and business strategies for media and entertainment emerging business models and dynamic customer bases.

The course will provide insights and techniques into drafting informative and inspiring team- and organization-wide email broadcasts, executive briefs, business and funding proposals, and strategic planning documents. Additionally, students will be exposed to best practices in creating internal and external web content, infographics and design elements, speeches, investor communication documents, and company mission statements.