GBUS 850 - Strategic Management of Financial Service Organizations

The course is intended primarily for those who are considering careers with financial service organizations that serve as competitive financial intermediaries, such as commercial banks, investment banks, money managers, and insurance companies. The name of the course accurately describes its contents: strategic management of organizations that create and deliver financial products. There are several reasons for studying the strategic management challenges of financial service organizations. First, this aspect of financial service organizations management has been the make-or-break decision for financial service organizations in recent years. Some segments of the financial service industry end up with capital needs, and others find themselves with surplus but expensive capital. Either problem can be fatal. Once the strategy has been selected, however, the implementation decisions, although not necessarily the implementation itself, are comparatively straightforward. Second, the strategic perspective permits the course much broader scope than would the alternative of concentrating in depth on a narrower set of institutions in order to cover all aspects of management. Broad perspective is also important for the course to make the maximum contribution to the career decisions of students considering jobs with financial service organizations, institutions that are not as closely examined in the corporate-finance focus of the first-year curriculum. (Y)

Credits: 1.5