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Area Specializations and Majors

*Note: Majors and specializations are still valid for currently enrolled students but will be discontinued for cohorts beginning their program in Fall 2022 or later.

General Information

Many students find it helpful to select courses from a subset of courses offered in a functional area to enhance their skills and present potential employers with specific functional expertise (e.g. Marketing specialization), while others are interested in developing skills from a set of courses that are traditionally associated with a specific career path (e.g. Investment Banking major). All students are able to choose courses from either the core and/or recommended set of courses for a particular major or from any functional area.  There are no quotas associated with either functional specializations or majors. Access to all courses is dependent upon demand and available space (most elective courses have a maximum enrolment of 40 students per section). Courses with fewer than 15 students may be cancelled due to low enrolment.

Majors and specializations are optional and are not noted on either the U of T transcript or the MBA diploma. Upon completion of a major or specialization, students may request a letter of completion from the Registrar’s Office (RO).

Students may choose to add a major or specialization to their résumé to provide potential employers with an indication of suitability for a given employment opportunity. Majors or double majors are possible given that up to four courses in each functional area or major define a level of specialization. This will allow students maximum flexibility in terms of learning and positioning for future career opportunities.

Area Specializations

Students taking four or more electives in a given functional area should be well positioned to declare this a specialization to the external community. Please note that courses taken as EXTra may also count towards specializations. The term “area” refers to the academic divisions within the Rotman School. There are seven academic areas as follows:

  • Accounting
  • Economic Analysis & Policy
  • Finance
  • Marketing
  • Operations Management and Statistics
  • Organizational Behaviour / Human Resource Management
  • Strategic Management
  • Integrative Thinking (offered by the Desautels Centre for Integrative Thinking)

During the second year of the program, students enroll in elective courses.  The number of elective credits/courses required in the upper year(s) depends on the specific program of study.

All elective courses (2000-level) are 3 credit hours (0.50 credit weight). Unlike the first year of the program, the second digit of the course code implies the academic area rather than the credit value (e.g. RSM2309 wherein “3” indicates Finance).

Academic AreaArea Number(s)
Accounting2
Business Economics1
Finance3
Integrative Thinking9
Marketing5
Operations Management, Management Science & Statistics4
Organizational Behaviour & Human Resource Management6
Strategy0

Accounting

Area Coordinator: Partha Mohanram

  • RSM2204H – Taxation and Decision Making
  • RSM2209H – Financial Statement Analysis
  • RSM2210H – Financial Distress & Insolvency
  • RSM2211H – Business Law
  • RSM2212H – Business Analysis & Valuation
  • RSM2215H – Analytical Insight from Financial Accounting Data
  • RSM2216H – Analysis of Financial Institutions & Financial Instruments (not offered)

Economic Analysis & Policy

Area Coordinator: Heski Bar-Isaac

  • RSM2113H – The Practice of Model-Based Decision Making
  • RSM2122H – Clean Energy: Policy Context and Business Opportunities
  • RSM2123H – International Business in the World Economy
  • RSM2125H – Game Theory & Applications for Management
  • RSM2126H – Real Estate Development
  • RSM2127H – Economic Environment of International Business
  • RSM2128H – Real Estate Economics
  • RSM2129H – Forecasting Models & Econometric Methods
  • RSM2130H – Real Estate Investment
  • RSM2132H – Business and the City

Finance

Area Coordinator: David Golreich

  • RSM2300H – Corporate Financing
  • RSM2301H – Financial Management
  • RSM2302H – Security Analysis & Portfolio Management
  • RSM2303H – Risk Modeling & Financial Trading Strategies
  • RSM2304H – Financial Institutions & Capital Markets
  • RSM2305H – International Financial Management
  • RSM2306H – Options & Futures Markets
  • RSM2307H – Advanced Derivatives (not offered)
  • RSM2308H – Financial Risk Management
  • RSM2309H – Mergers & Acquisitions
  • RSM2310H – Analysis & Management of Fixed Income Securities
  • RSM2312H – Value Investing
  • RSM2314H – Private Equity & Entrepreneurial Finance
  • RSM2315H – The Management of Private Wealth
  • RSM2318H – Sustainable Finance
  • RSM2322H – Blockchain and Decentralized Finance
  • RSM2326H – How Banks Work: Management in a New Technological Age
  • RSM2328H – Machine Learning and Financial Innovation
  • RSM2706H – Impact Investing in an Early-Stage Enterprise

Marketing

Area Coordinator: Nitin Mehta

  • RSM2500H – Marketing Strategy
  • RSM2504H – Consumer Behavior
  • RSM2505H – Strategic Marketing Communication
  • RSM2506H – Marketing Research
  • RSM2508H – Sales Management
  • RSM2511H – Fintech Marketing: Innovation in the Marketing of Financial Services
  • RSM2512H – Branding
  • RSM2513H – Pricing
  • RSM2515H – BEAR Lab
  • RSM2516H – Design Research and Data Story Telling
  • RSM2518H – Service Design: Innovating Service-Based Organizations
  • RSM2519H – Managing Customer Value 2.0
  • RSM2520H – One to One Marketing
  • RSM2521H – Digital Marketing
  • RSM2522H – Marketing and Behavioural Economics
  • RSM2523H – Business Design Fundamentals
  • RSM2524H – Business Design Practicum
  • RSM2530H – Creativity and Business Innovation

Operations Management and Statistics

Area Coordinator: Philipp Afèche

  • RSM2401H – Data and Information Management for Business Analytics
  • RSM2405H – Supply Chain Management
  • RSM2406H – Operations Management Strategy
  • RSM2407H – Service Operations Management
  • RSM2408H – Modeling and Optimization for Decision Making
  • RSM2409H – Management Analytics
  • RSM2417H – Quality Management with Lean Six Sigma

Organizational Behaviour / Human Resource Management

Area Coordinator: Maria Rotundo

  • RSM2601H – Organization Design
  • RSM2603H – Advanced Negotiations & Conflict Management
  • RSM2604H – Managerial Negotiations
  • RSM2609H – Aligning People and Strategy
  • RSM2615H – Building Businesses for Sustainability
  • RSM2618H – The Socially Intelligent Manager
  • RSM2619H – Power & Influence in Organizations
  • RSM2620H – Leading Teams
  • RSM2621H – Effective Leadership
  • RSM2625H – Business Problem Solving: A Model-Based Approach
  • RSM2640H – Leading Social Innovation
  • RSM2760H – C-Suite: Living Out Leadership Day to Day for Organizational Impact

Strategic Management

Area Coordinator: Becky Reuber

  • RSM2008H – Creative Destruction Lab Intro
  • RSM2011H – International Strategy
  • RSM2012H – Entrepreneurship
  • RSM2013H – Creative Destruction Lab Advanced
  • RSM2017H – Pharmaceutical Strategy
  • RSM2018H – Strategy in Emerging Markets
  • RSM2019H – Corporation 360°
  • RSM2020H – Health Sector Strategy & Organizations
  • RSM2021H – Corporate Strategy
  • RSM2023H – Strategic Change and Implementation
  • RSM2030H – Canadian Business History
  • RSM2040H – Advanced Value Capture Strategies: Theory and Applications
  • RSM2052H – Management Consulting
  • RSM2054H – Technology Strategy
  • RSM2055H – Cooperative Strategy (not offered)
  • RSM2057H – Venture Capital Strategy
  • RSM2058H – Communicating Strategy
  • RSM2059H – Healthcare and Life Sciences Consulting: Field Application Project
  • RSM2061H – Strategic Networks
  • RSM2062H – Management Consulting Practicum
  • RSM2063H – Catastrophic Failure in Organizations
  • RSM2081H – Social Entrepreneurship
  • RSM2085H – Healthcare Innovation
  • RSM2099H – International Entrepreneurship

Integrative Thinking

Offered by the Desautels Centre for Integrative Thinking.

Area Coordinator: Mihnea Moldoveanu

RSM2913H – GettingItDone®
RSM2920H – Top Manager’s Perspective
RSM2923H – Business Problem Solving

Majors

In order to assist students in selecting appropriate courses for the upper year(s) of the program, the guidelines for the Majors have been developed by the Rotman School of Management: Please note that courses taken as EXTra may also count towards Majors.

Last Updated: 2023-02-24 @ 11:08 am