The overall objectives of this course are twofold. This course first examines the development, management, and improvement of service delivery systems used by service organizations (i.e., hotels, restaurants, travel agencies, and health care) on the supply side through the lens of quality management. Secondly, the course examines customer requirements on the demand side by focusing upon how customer experience design shapes customers’ thoughts, actions, and decision processes. Students will learn techniques used for diagnosis, measurement, and continuous improvement of successful customer experience. There are three major sections in this course. Section 1 focuses on understanding the paradigm of customer experience, identifying the drivers of customer satisfaction, formulating strategies to optimize the customer experience, and managing service operations through the development of a service blueprint. Section 2 focuses on the role of exponential technologies, such as artificial intelligence, robotics, augmented reality, virtual reality, and data analytics, in creating exceptional customer experiences. Section 3 discusses the creation of exceptional luxury customer experiences, incorporating technology, and describing how brands go beyond traditional branding frameworks to create luxury experiences.

Meetings, incentives, conventions and events (MICE) industry continues to grow. Organizations stage events, hold conventions, celebrate achievements and motivate people. To respond to this complex demand, contemporary event planners must know how to plan, execute and evaluate any type of event. To be effective, they must go beyond traditional event production (design, catering, promotion, etc.) and understand broad skillsets such as service personalization, social media platforms, chatbots, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, augmented reality, etc. This course provides students the knowledge and skills required to plan, develop, and execute an event. This includes market research and financial planning.

This is an innovative course not currently in the approved curriculum. When the topic and course outline are approved by the department chair, the course will be available to students for registration. The course may be taken more than once since many topics can be offered under this course number and title.

This is the first of a two-course sequence, 4 credit year long experience, comprising the freshman-integrated experience. In Business 1, students will be introduced to the key functional areas of business, discuss current factors, events, and trends that impact business, build professional, personal leadership, communication, and teamwork skills, and evaluate business decisions, and the business plan process. By understanding the key functions of business and analyzing business decisions in Business 1, students will be able to then develop their own business ideas in Business 2.

Taught in an experiential, team-based format, this class focuses on leading cross cultural and virtual teams, with an emphasis on developing strong team dynamics for effective performance in a global environment. Thus, class topics will center around understanding team development and leading teams, while considering varying relevant factors such as cultural differences, virtual communication, managing conflict, and team climate/trust, among others. The course will provide hands-on experience in leading and participating in teams as students will be assigned to a team and will take on different roles, including team leader. When possible, the class includes a virtual team project with students at RIT’s global campuses.

This course applies concepts of ethics to business at the macro level and at the micro level. At the macro level the course examines competing business ideologies exploring the ethical concerns of capitalism as well as the role of business in society. At the micro level the course examines the role of the manager in establishing an ethical climate with an emphasis on the development of ethical leadership in business organizations. The following topics are typically discussed: the stakeholder theory of the firm, corporate governance, marketing and advertising ethics, the rights and responsibilities of employees, product safety, ethical reasoning, business's responsibility to the environment, moving from a culture of compliance to a culture of integrity, and ethical leadership.