Management

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The Lally Undergraduate Program

The undergraduate program at the Rensselaer Lally School of Management provides students with a solid education in the fundamental disciplines of management. It draws heavily on the strengths of Rensselaer in engineering, science, technology, and entrepreneurship. Within these programs, the Lally School provides a balance between theory and practice while insuring rigor and relevance. There is a strong emphasis on the application of knowledge through team-based projects and a focus on the intersection of entrepreneurship and innovation.

Goals for the baccalaureate program in Management include:

• preparing students for professional careers.
• core management practices and an in-depth understanding in a specialized area.
• theories, concepts, and techniques to solve problems and make effective decisions.
• critical-thinking skills and the ability to adapt to a rapidly changing technological world.
• a high standard of ethics and responsibility in personal affairs and professional life.
• competencies in utilizing information technology.
• global thinking and working in a multi-cultural setting.

Students are encouraged to select one or more areas of concentration: Accounting, Business Analytics, Entrepreneurship, Finance, International Management, Management Information Systems, Marketing, or Supply Chain Management.

The management core sequence emphasizes basic skills in the traditional business areas of finance, marketing, human behavior, computing, and organizational analysis and development. The math and science sequence provides a strong background in quantitative skills, while humanities and social sciences course work heightens the student’s appreciation for significant societal issues. Throughout the program, the topics introduced in the various courses are integrated.

Outcomes of the Undergraduate Curriculum
Students who successfully complete this program will be able to demonstrate:

• an ability to communicate effectively.
• an ability to examine ethical issues.
• an ability to work in functional management area of accounting.
• an ability to work in functional management area of finance.
• an ability to work in functional management area of operations management.
• an ability to work in functional management area of marketing.
• an ability to work in functional management area of organizational behavior and human resources.
• an ability to work in functional management area of strategy.
• an ability to work in functional management area of information systems.
• an ability to utilize analytical and technological skills.

Minor Programs

The Lally School also offers undergraduate minor programs for Management students and Rensselaer students majoring in other fields. Lally students may pursue a minor outside of the management school. Management majors typically use electives in their program for minor course work in complementary fields such as communications, computer science, economics, industrial and management engineering, or psychology. Students can elect to pursue interests in any Rensselaer school.

The minors offered by the Lally School are detailed in the Programs section of this catalog and require a minimum of 16 credit hours. Each student’s designated minor adviser can approve course substitutions to meet individual student needs.

Dual or Double Major Programs

To develop skills in other areas of interest or in preparation for careers related to specialized topics, students may pursue a dual or double major with other non-management curricula.

Such options can be arranged with the Schools of Engineering, Science, Architecture, or Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences.

Special Undergraduate Opportunities

The Lally School offers four additional programs to meet undergraduate needs in the areas of research, law, international business, and cooperative education.

Undergraduate Research Program (URP)
Through the URP, students have the opportunity to work with a faculty adviser on tangible research projects. Students are eligible for a Summer Research Fellowship stipend under a program sponsored by the Office of Undergraduate Education. The stipend is intended to cover 10 weeks of full-time research.

Accelerated Management-Law Program
In cooperation with Albany Law School and Columbia University Law School, Rensselaer offers a unique program leading to a B.S. and a Juris Doctor (J.D.) in six years rather than seven. Admission to this program is restricted, with most students admitted as incoming freshmen. Selected applicants must also meet the admission requirements of Albany Law School. Thus, a prospective management-law student may be able to assure admission to law school prior to beginning an undergraduate career at Rensselaer. Transfer into the management-law program from other Rensselaer curricula is limited to students who have demonstrated academic excellence. 

Although guaranteed admission to Albany Law School is available to selected incoming freshmen, conditional admission also is available to students accepted by Rensselaer who meet specified achievement levels in their undergraduate program. In addition, Rensselaer has established a working relationship with Columbia University Law School that allows a gifted management-law student to become a candidate for admission after his or her third year at Rensselaer, if a committee within the Lally School nominates the student. Rensselaer’s inclusion in Columbia’s Accelerated Interdisciplinary Legal Education Program (AILE) has made this opportunity possible.

International Management Exchange Program 
Rensselaer’s Lally School has agreements with more than 14 schools in 11 countries for the exchange of qualified students from and to the Rensselaer campus. This exchange occurs for one semester in the third or fourth year of undergraduate studies. The foreign schools chosen for the exchange program are renowned in the field of management education. Students interested must demonstrate superior academic records, maturity, and in some cases, the necessary language capabilities to be selected for the exchange program. This program is strongly recommended for all Management students. 

For more information about this program, contact the International Exchange Program Coordinator at (518) 276-2388 or e-mail maceyb2@rpi.edu.

Cooperative Education 
Rensselaer’s Cooperative Education Program and the Lally School offer pre-professional work experience for undergraduates. As part of the co-op program, students work one semester and one summer in industry, business, and government positions. The co-op assignment usually occurs during the junior or senior year and can sometimes be scheduled to permit the student to graduate with the class in which he or she matriculated. Typical job opportunities are in the fields of accounting, finance, management systems, and information systems. The co-op program is described in detail in the Student Life section of this catalog.

For more information on any aspect of the undergraduate management and technology program, contact mcderm3@rpi.edu.

The Lally Graduate Programs

Rensselaer’s Lally School offers seven graduate programs: a Master of Business Administration, a Master of Science in Business Analytics, a Master of Science in Quantitative Finance and Risk Analytics, a Master of Science in Management, a Master of Science in Supply Chain Management, a Master of Science in Technology, Commercialization, and Entrepreneurship , and a doctoral program in Management. 

The Lally MBA is a degree in general management with a focus on the themes of innovation and entrepreneurship. This program develops leaders who combine a passion for technology with the ability to apply it across business functions and to leverage it for competitive advantage.

The M.S. in Business Analytics provides students with the knowledge and essential skills needed to respond to the new challenges characteristic of the data intensive, decision-making environments in the world today. The program provides hands-on experience through real-world problem solving, academic partnerships with IBM and SAS, and real-world data sets.The M.S. in Quantitative Finance and Risk Analytics trains students for careers in analyzing and assessing risk.  These careers are expected to be in high demand given the current economic climate and corporate history of insufficient risk analysis.

The M.S. in Management builds around a specific focal area and is best suited for students with a clearly defined career goal. The degree allows students with technical expertise to develop broader career options that include project management and the ability to apply business methods in a specialized area.

The M.S. in Supply Chain Management adopts a systems approach to provide students the knowledge and skills needed for a career in supply chain management. Students develop the capability to model supply chain operations; develop optimal process designs; and develop strategies for supply chain coordination, strategic sourcing, and effective demand fulfillment.

The M.S. in Technology Commercialization and Entrepreneurship takes specially selected undergraduates from other universities and from the Rensselaer  Schools of Science (including ITWS), Architecture, Engineering, Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences and Management, then blends them together in a special Master’s level cohort to learn how to bring new technologies from lab to market.  This focus fits with Rensselaer Plan - to be part of “changing the world”.

The Lally Ph.D. in Management is a research-oriented academic program. Students develop a scholarly specialization in one of six core areas and graduates generally pursue a career path in either academia or research. 

The Lally School also provides an array of support services to students throughout their studies. The Graduate Student Services staff assists with orientation, academic advising, and career development. In particular, the office of MBA and M.S. Career Resources provides services and programs including: resume and cover letter writing, interview preparation, career advising, industry research tools, high-level networking, events with employers and alumni/ae, and customized career workshops and panels. Other resources include the Severino Center for Technological Entrepreneurship and the Graduate Management Student Association. These organizations provide activities throughout the year, such as the Rensselaer Business Model Competition, the Jerome S. Reinert ‘56 Visiting Executive Series, Start Up Tech Valley, the Rensselaer Entrepreneurship Interns Program, the RPI-Foundry, and alumni networking programs on and off campus. Additional information on these activities may be found at www.lallyschool.rpi.edu. 

All Lally graduate students are encouraged to work during the summer months in summer internship experiences that add value to their degree program and career goals. Part-time internships during the academic year are also an option for some students. Lally MBA and M.S. Career Resources and the Rensselaer Career and Professional Development Center (CDPC) support students in finding these internships. The academic adviser is also typically consulted to prevent academic or immigration issues. The Lally Graduate Student Services, the CDC, and the International Student Services office must approve internships for international students working on a visa prior to the student accepting the offer.

Graduate Credit by Transfer and Examination

Credit for graduate work completed at other accredited institutions may be offered in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a degree at the Lally school when the work is appropriate to the student’s program. As a rule, this work will have been earned prior to enrolling at Rensselaer, but no more than five years prior to matriculation. A student already enrolled in Lally who wishes to take courses elsewhere must obtain the prior approval of his or her adviser and the Dean of Graduate Education.

Because the residence requirement for the master’s is 24 credit hours, not more than 6 credit hours may be transferred toward the 30-credit master’s degree, and not more than 6 credit hours used for a master’s degree in one area can be applied to a second master’s degree of 30 credits. In no case can the result of transfer or waived credits reduce this general degree requirement below 24 earned credit hours in a master’s program at Rensselaer.

Application for the transfer of credit must be made to the student’s program director. The area is responsible for evaluating course work taken elsewhere and reporting allowable transfer credit to the registrar on the transfer credit approval form. Courses taken elsewhere and approved for transfer to Rensselaer must be taken at the graduate level and have a grade of “B” or better to be approved. They are not considered in computing the B average requirement.

A graduate student who has taken courses at Rensselaer as a special nondegree student may transfer to a degree program a maximum of 12 credits earned in that status. If a student has taken a graduate credit course while an undergraduate, received a grade of B or better, and did not use the credit to fulfill the requirements for the bachelor’s degree, he or she may request, through the faculty adviser, that the Office of Graduate Education count the credit toward the requirements for an advanced degree.

Note:  The minimum of a B grade to transfer a course in to Lally differs from Rensselaer policy as a whole, where a B- is accepted.

Doctoral Programs

The Ph.D. in Management is a research-based program concentrating on scholarship in the following core areas:

• Entrepreneurship
• Innovation management and new product development
• Information technology
• Finance
• International business

Students are expected to develop scholarship in one of Lally’s areas of interdisciplinary focus and be conversant in a traditional business discipline. The Ph.D. program emphasizes research methods and an appreciation of relevant theoretical and empirical literature in the student’s area of concentration. The program strives to balance theoretical approaches with empirical studies that can be applied to real-world challenges. Graduates of the doctoral program typically pursue academic and research positions at well-respected institutions in the United States and abroad.

Course Descriptions

Courses directly related to all Management curricula are described in the Course Description section of this catalog under the department code MGMT.

Troy Campus Faculty*

Professors

Begley, T.—Ph.D. (Cornell University); organizational change, cross-cultural management, global issues in human resource management.

Edirisinghe, C.—Ph.D. (University of British Columbia); finance, quantitative finance, management finance.

Francis, B.B.—Ph.D. (University of Toronto); corporate and international finance.

O’Connor, G.—Ph.D. (New York University); marketing, product management.

Paulson, A.S.—Ph.D. (Virginia Polytechnic Institute); operations research and statistics, risk management and investment analysis (Frank and Lillian Gilbreth Professor in the Technologies of Management).

Ravichandran, T.—Ph.D. (Southern Illinois University, Carbondale); management information systems.

Professors of Practice

Abetti, P.A.—P.E., Ph.D. (Illinois Institute of Technology); management of technology, international business development and strategic planning, entrepreneurship.

Triscari, Jr., T.—Ph.D. (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute); systems analysis, innovation management.

Associate Professors

Chari, M.—Ph.D. (Temple University); strategy and international business.

Durgee, J.F.—Ph.D. (University of Pittsburgh); marketing research and advertising (Associate Dean for Academic Affairs).

Golden, T.—Ph.D. (University of Connecticut); organizational behavior, human resource management.

Gupta, A.—Ph.D. (Stanford University); quantitative finance, risk management, financial decision support, optimization, and simulation.

Kumar, S.—Ph.D. (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign); joint ventures and alliances, diversification, theories of the firm.

Kuruzovich, J.—Ph.D. (University of Maryland); information systems, social media, entrepreneurship.

McDermott, C.—Ph.D. (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill); manufacturing strategy, operations management.

Nevo, D.—Ph.D. (University of British Columbia); management information systems, quantitative methods.

Peters, L.S.—Ph.D. (New York University); science and technology policy, innovation and R&D management, entrepreneurship, organization theory, international business.

Sanderson, S.—Ph.D. (University of Pittsburgh); international business, manufacturing policy, new product development.

Zhao, H.—Ph.D. (University of Illinois, Chicago); organizational behaviors, entrepreneurship, human resource management.

Assistant Professors

Clark, B.—Ph.D. (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute); banking, corporate finance, operational risk, risk management, stress testing.

Langer, N.—Ph.D. (Carnegie Mellon University); information systems.

Lu, Y.—Ph.D. (Carnegie Mellon University); social media and internet marketing.

Maharjan, J. Ph.D. (Washington University); corporate finance and corporate governance.

Markovitch, D.—Ph.D. (New York University); marketing.

Nam, S.—Ph.D. (New York University); finance, accounting.

Shofi, T.—Ph.D. (University of Pittsburgh); analyst behavior, corporate credit markets.

Tracy, W.—Ph.D. (UCLA); strategic management and organization.

Wu, Q.—Ph.D. (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute); accounting and finance.

Yayla-Kullu, H.M.—Ph.D. (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill); operations management.

Lecturers of Practice

Demertzoglou, P.—Ph.D. (State University of New York); transaction processing systems, decision support systems, e-business applications, commercial open source databases.

McDermott, P.—Ph.D. (University at Albany); strategic management.

Mistry, J.—D.B.A. (Boston University); management accounting, information and communications technology.

Wright, F.—M.S. (Naval Postgraduate School); general management, business policy and strategy, entrepreneurship, R&D management.

*Departmental faculty listings are accurate as of the date generated for inclusion in this catalog. For the most up-to-date listing of faculty positions, including end-of-year promotions, please refer to the Faculty Roster section of this catalog, which is current as of the May 2016 Board of Trustees meeting.

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