Business

Accounting identifies, measures, and communicates economic information to external groups such as investors, and to internal groups, such as managers. You will take accounting courses in the core degree program as well as courses in tax, auditing, and advanced accounting. Some accounting courses may count toward the professional designations of the Chartered Professional Accountants program (CPA).

Do you know how to translate your vision into a business plan and make it grow? Studying entrepreneurship will show you how to identify market opportunities, get the funding you need, find and keep employees, deliver quality goods and services at a cost effective price, and much more. Courses include Project Management, New Venture Planning, New Product Development and Design, Leadership, New Venture Finance and more.

In the long term, a firm must change if it is to survive. Driven by new and often disruptive technologies, this requirement for change has evolved into a more immediate imperative. Studying Innovation will show you how to manage projects, steer the innovation process, understand and leverage the behavioural dynamics of change, and provide leadership in a rapidly changing environment.

The financial services sector is a significant component of the BC and Canadian economy and is likely to be a growth industry in the future. You will learn about securities and their markets, investment portfolios, and long-term investment in real assets and more, in the context of both personal and corporate financial decision-making.

The Human Resource Management (HRM) introductory courses help students in all business fields to understand, predict, and manage behavior in organizations. You may then choose to take courses focused on two professional career streams: the Personnel Specialist option covers recruitment, training, negotiation skills and performance management while the Managing People option includes design of employment systems, change and organizational leadership. HRM students are prepared for entry-level positions in human resource management and consulting firms.

The International Business (IB) concentration deals with aspects of competition across national boundaries. You will learn how firms can successfully compete in the global arena, and you will assess structures, systems, and processes that contribute to efficient, effective international business activities.

Management Information Systems (MIS) applies our understanding of business processes and business strategy to creating value from digital technologies. MIS focuses on understanding how digital technologies can make organizations more agile, effective, and efficient, can disrupt traditional industries, and create positive societal change. Students learn to manage project teams, to design and build systems to support business processes and use digitized information for decision-making. This is an excellent concentration for those interested in business analysis, managing change through projects, and software system implementation. MIS is also a good complement and catalyst to other concentrations.

The study of marketing encourages students to become problem solvers. Marketers are in the middle – they present the face of the company to its customers and, in turn, bring the voice of the customer into the organization. The Marketing concentration takes an analytical approach to marketing management, consumer behaviour, market research, and analysis.

This specialization focuses on the use of quantitative methods in solving management problems. Students encounter a wide variety of quantitative models, study how these methods are formulated and solved, and learn how they are used to help managers attack real problems. Students from Operations Management have gone on to careers that involve designing systems to reduce wait times at YVR, enhancing security systems, developing retail store layouts, creating inventory management systems, and determining best positioning for emergency facilities such as fire or ambulance stations.

Build strong analytical, critical thinking, and decision-making skills necessary in complex organizational contexts to pursue a career in Strategic Management. We recommend students combine this with a second concentration.