Concentrations

Azusa Pacific’s master’s in management students are able to tailor their program by choosing from among the following seven concentrations:

Entrepreneurship

From ideas and inspiration through the feasibility-and-evaluation process, this concentration provides a framework for the application of practical business knowledge and tactics in transforming entrepreneurial vision into winning business strategies and thriving entrepreneurial ventures. Personal assessment and involvement exercises, team activities, new venture simulation, and case studies are utilized to provide knowledge and expertise as students analyze factors affecting consumer purchase decisions in the marketplace, apply behavioral and social science concepts, and study methods that organizations use for negotiating, marketing, and communicating with customers and prospects.

Government Financial Management

This concentration focuses on managing the finances of government agencies at the federal, state, and local levels. Students learn about the unique challenges of managing government finances, including the need to balance competing priorities and the importance of transparency and accountability. Students also gain an understanding of the laws and regulations that govern government finances, such as the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (FASAB). Graduates of a government financial management concentration are well-prepared for careers in public finance, government accounting, and budget analysis.

Healthcare Management

This concentration is focuses on the unique challenges of managing healthcare organizations, including hospitals, clinics, and other healthcare facilities. Students learn about the healthcare business, including healthcare operations management, healthcare marketing, and healthcare quality and safety. Graduates of the healthcare management concentration are well-equipped to take on leadership roles in healthcare organizations, including healthcare administrators, healthcare consultants, and healthcare policy analysts.

Human Resource Management

Personnel and human resource professionals, as well as managers and supervisors, have myriad responsibilities associated with hiring and firing, staying on top of evolving legal issues, preventing sexual harassment, understanding personnel law, keeping proper records, administering compensation and benefits, ensuring workplace safety, and much more. In this concentration, approved by the Society for Human Resource Management, students learn to integrate human resource strategies and practices and gain experience in designing strategies that result in value-added HR agendas and practices. Students acquire a comprehensive framework for effective HR strategic development, and tools for managing strategic change through the human resource function.

International Business

This concentration prepares students for the global marketplace, challenging them to understand the macroeconomic and microeconomic environments in which global businesses function. The international dimensions of managing in different cultures, marketing to different societies, dealing with the financial complications of multiple currencies, and making ethical decisions in diverse contexts are explored and developed. Students also acquire increased awareness through study-away opportunities.

Marketing

With the rise of social media and an increasing number of direct touch points with consumers, companies require marketing specialists with the skills to ensure that their organizations are cutting edge while maintaining high ethical standards to deliver a solid value proposition to customers and stakeholders. In this concentration, students learn about strategic marketing, which utilizes environmental turbulence levels, industry forces, and organizational change. Students also engage in hands-on research, planning, and analysis as they learn how to build market-centric organizations via digital marketing, integrated marketing communications, social media analytics, case study analysis, and decision making.

Organizational Development and Change

This concentration combines practical tools, best practices, powerful frameworks, and current research to teach students how to design and integrate strategies to solve existing workplace challenges and take advantage of potential opportunities. Students acquire a comprehensive framework for designing effective change systems, and learn multiple perspectives and strategies for successful change at the individual, group, and organizational levels. The curriculum introduces students to foundational terminology, theories, and methodologies following guidelines for professional competency development from the American Society for Training and Development and the International Society for Performance and Instruction.

Organizational Science

This concentration is one way the School of Business and Management (SBM) serves the unique education and training needs of professionals with specific career objectives not captured by any other concentration. Each student designs this concentration according to his or her interests and career goals, proposing specific SBM courses and select courses from other graduate programs within the APU community. All organizational science proposal forms must be submitted to the SBM Graduate Program Committee for review and approval prior to beginning the concentration.

Public Administration

This concentration focuses on the management and administration of public organizations, including government agencies, non-profit organizations, and international organizations. Students learn about the unique challenges of managing public organizations, including budget constraints, political pressures, and the need to balance the interests of multiple stakeholders. They also gain an understanding of public policy analysis, the policy process, and economic development. Graduates of a public administration concentration are well-prepared for careers in government, non-profit management, and international development, as well as consulting and advocacy roles in the public sector.

Sport Management

This concentration equips managers and leaders to diagnose the organizational culture of various youth, collegiate, and professional sport and athletic enterprises and influence organizational development toward greater performance and productivity. Students learn to solve organizational problems and influence the actions of individuals, groups, and organizations from an ethical Christian perspective. The program also prepares students to be managers who understand how to best organize and motivate human capital, manage social networks and alliances, and execute strategic change in a rapidly changing, highly diversified field.