Sustainability underlies many of the complex global challenges we face today, carrying profound implications for business practices, economic development, and environmental stewardship. Businesses increasingly recognize the need to incorporate environmental risks and social objectives into their core strategy and operational decisions. The commitment to sustainable practices can take many forms, such as developing social enterprises, creating and distributing fair-trade products, reducing carbon footprints, ensuring a sustainable value chain, guiding social impact investments, and making frugal use of natural resources. Sustainability initiatives are motivated by a desire to manage risk, drive growth, improve returns on capital, and create value.
The Master of Business Administration, Impact Specialization, is a 44-credit, 3 semester, full-time Resident Instruction program. The program aims to provide business solutions that achieve positive economic, environmental, and social impact. The program educates and prepares future business leaders to take effective roles in organizations that integrate economic, social, and environmental sustainability into core strategy and operations. There are elective options to enable students to pursue either a venture-creation process or take up to 15 credits outside the College of Business in areas such as environmental sustainability, social impact, water resources, life cycle assessment, ethics and sustainability, and climate change.
Students interested in graduate work should refer to the Graduate and Professional Bulletin or visit the department website for more information.
Program Learning Objectives
Business Acumen and Integration Skills: Graduates demonstrate competency across business functions and integrate them into strategic decisions.
Practical Leadership and Management Skills: Graduates demonstrate individual, interpersonal, and organizational leadership skills necessary for professional development and organizational effectiveness.
Critical and Analytical Thinking: Graduates apply critical thinking and analytical skills for management decision-making.
External Environment – Ethical, Legal and Regulatory Framework: Graduates consider ethical, legal, and regulatory implications inherent in business situations and apply that knowledge to make responsible decisions.
Global Perspective: Graduates acquire a global and cross-cultural perspective in formulating decisions and implementing organizational strategy.
Enterprise Approaches to Global Challenges: Graduates of the Impact MBA program develop the skills to:
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Assess opportunities for enterprise approaches to address social and environmental challenges.
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Develop, implement, and manage initiatives or enterprises that address global social and environmental challenges.
Institutional Learning Objectives
The Impact MBA program has been a cornerstone of the mission of the College of Business since its inception in 2007, and similarly ties into CSU’s broader Institutional Learning Objectives (ILOs) in the following ways:
Creativity – the Impact MBA is fully focused on training the future business leaders who will be incorporating innovative solutions to social and environmental challenges into core operations. The creation of these novel solutions is at the heart of getting past an assumed incompatibility of profitability and sustainability. This type of creative problem solving has been at the core of our program since the very beginning. It is what sets our program apart from competition, and why students seek us out. To solidify the learning outcomes, students perform hands-on work in their summer Fellowships to study, assess, suggest, and implement these creative strategies in the workplace.
Reasoning - MBA programs include multidisciplinary content in topics such as accounting, finance, and quantitative decision making – all of which help teach students ways to analyze data to arrive at conclusions. Mastering how to collect and analyze data, as well as communicate the implications and learnings, is an important part of the program. The Impact MBA goes further to apply these skills directly to challenges facing our world as it relates to social and environmental challenges.
Communication – The Impact MBA program blends quantitative courses with more qualitative ones, and almost every course involves teamwork, presentations, and projects. All of these experiences occur within highly diverse cohorts that are addressing meaningful challenges and help students improve their communication skills including written and oral. Indeed, business managers and executives relay heavily on their ability to communicate their goals and plans, and mobilize teams to accomplish goals.
Responsibility – Recruiting a diverse cohort of students is an important pillar of the Impact MBA, and every year, the students learn numerous soft skills from collaborating in teams, study groups, and projects. Courses also delve into culture and diversity, but every course is enhanced by our students' lived experiences. In addition, Impact MBA students choose this program out of a sense of responsibility to care for our world and future generations, and are motivated to join their cohort of classmates from different backgrounds, but with similar motivations.
Collaboration – In addition to coursework on best practices in teamwork, by collaborating fully across campus (the Impact MBA has elective classes from multiple different Colleges and the School of Global Environmental Sustainability), we can truly connect with the world class expertise on campus. Our carefully curated list of electives helps arm students with skills to address some of the world’s most pressing challenges. In addition, our dual degree offering with the Master of Finance is further evidence of our approach to collaboration. Through engaging in these collaborations, students are exposed to the benefits of an expanded network, deeper discourse in new topics, and the importance of clear communication of purpose.
Effective Fall 2024
| Code | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| Core Classes: | ||
| ACT 605 | Accounting for Sustainable Enterprises | 3 |
| BUS 601 | Quantitative Business Analysis | 2 |
| BUS 620 | Leadership and Teams 1 | 2 |
| BUS 636 | Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity | 3 |
| CIS 600B | Project Management: Impact Enterprise | 2 |
| FIN 601 | Financial Management and Markets | 3 |
| MGT 612 | Managing in a Global Context | 3 |
| MGT 663 | Strategic Opportunities in Impact Enterprise | 3 |
| MGT 665 | Supply Chain Development and Management | 2 |
| MKT 601 | Marketing for Social Sustainable Enterprises | 3 |
| Select one course from the following: | 2 | |
| Financial Markets and Investments | ||
| Environmental, Social, Governance Investing | ||
| Select one course from the following: | 3 | |
| Practicum | ||
| Internship | ||
| Select 13 credits from the following electives: | 13 | |
| Sustainable Agriculture | ||
| Global Sourcing of Textiles and Apparel | ||
| Social Benefit Cost Analysis | ||
| Career Management | ||
| Building and Leading Exceptional Teams | ||
| Sustainability Ethics and Business Practice | ||
| Corp. Social and Sustainable Responsibility | ||
| Building Value Thru Creativity and Innovation | ||
| Entrepreneurship and New Venture Creation | ||
| Ethical, Legal, and Regulatory Issues 1 | ||
| Enterprise Computing and Systems Integration | ||
| Principles of Ecosystem Sustainability | ||
| International Climate Negotiations | ||
| Climate Justice and Policy | ||
| Foundations for Carbon/Greenhouse Gas Mgmt | ||
| Greenhouse Gas Policies | ||
| Global Climate Change | ||
| Life Cycle Assessment for Sustainability | ||
| Financial Modeling | ||
| Financial Management | ||
| Fundamentals of International Finance | ||
| Financial Institutions Management | ||
| Alternative Investments | ||
| Quantitative Methods in Finance | ||
| Behavioral Finance | ||
| Investments | ||
| Environmental, Social, Governance Investing | ||
| Sea Level Rise and a Sustainable Future | ||
| Analysis of Sustainable Energy Solutions | ||
| Global Sustainability and Health | ||
| Law and Sustainability | ||
| Sustainable Strategies for E-Waste Management | ||
| Issues in Global Environmental Sustainability | ||
| Water Resources Seminar | ||
| Negotiation and Conflict Management | ||
| Product Design | ||
| Strategic Selling for Business Customers | ||
| Design Thinking for Sustainable Enterprise | ||
| Climate Change Communication and Engagement | ||
| Climate Impacts and Risk Assessments | ||
| Seminar in Environmental Philosophy | ||
| Program Total Credits: | 44 | |
A minimum of 44 credits are required to complete this program.
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Students will need to obtain a prerequisite override from the department to enroll in this course.
For more information, please visit Requirements for All Graduate Degrees in the Graduate and Professional Bulletin.
Summary of Procedures for the Master's and Doctoral Degrees
NOTE: Each semester the Graduate School publishes a schedule of deadlines. Deadlines are available on the Graduate School website. Students should consult this schedule whenever they approach important steps in their careers.
Forms are available online.
| Step | Due Date |
|---|---|
| 1. Application for admission (online) | Six months before first registration |
| 2. Diagnostic examination when required | Before first registration |
| 3. Appointment of advisor | Before first registration |
| 4. Selection of graduate committee | Before the time of fourth regular semester registration |
| 5. Filing of program of study (GS Form 6) | Before the time of fourth regular semester registration |
| 6. Preliminary examination (Ph.D. and PD) | Two terms prior to final examination |
| 7. Report of preliminary examination (GS Form 16) - (Ph.D. and PD) | Within two working days after results are known |
| 8. Changes in committee (GS Form 9A) | When change is made |
| 9. Application for Graduation (GS Form 25) | Refer to published deadlines from the Graduate School Website |
| 9a. Reapplication for Graduation (online) | Failure to graduate requires Reapplication for Graduation (online) for the next time term for which you are applying |
| 10. Submit thesis or dissertation to committee | At least two weeks prior to the examination or at the discretion of the graduate committee |
| 11. Final examination | Refer to published deadlines from the Graduate School Website |
| 12. Report of final examination (GS Form 24) | Within two working days after results are known; refer to published deadlines from the Graduate School website |
| 13. Submit a signed Thesis/Dissertation Submission Form (GS Form 30) to the Graduate School and Submit the Survey of Earned Doctorates (Ph.D. only) prior to submitting the electronic thesis/dissertation | Refer to published deadlines from the Graduate School website. |
| 14. Submit the thesis/dissertation electronically | Refer to published deadlines from the Graduate School website |
| 15. Graduation | Ceremony information is available from the Graduate School website |