Business: Master of Business Administration, MBA


Master of Business Administration


About the Degree

The MBA offers a broad program of study in the major disciplines of business to provide students with an understanding of the scope of business operations as an integrated whole.  UA provides an applied approach to business education focusing on real-world experience.  Our flexible program provide offers evening, weekend and online classes to allow students to enroll on a full or part-time basis providing a blended class environment. Our Saturday MBA program is a cohort based program where students complete a full MBA by attending a full day of classes every other Saturday for two years. The MBA is open to students from any undergraduate discipline. 

Students already pursuing a master’s degree at UA may transfer up to nine credits from their current program into the MBA Interdisciplinary concentration. We also offer cooperative programs with the School of Law (JD/MBA, JD/MTax and JD/MSA), and Arts Administration.

The MBA program is 36 to 39 credits for students with Gateway courses waived. For those with a non-business background 12 additional credits of graduate level Gateway courses will be required for a total of 48-51. Students in the Finance concentration are required to take 3 additional finance credits.

  • The Finance concentration provides students with the skills needed to compete in a global economy where the timely interpretation of ever-changing financial information is critical to business success. Through this concentration, students gain in-depth financial knowledge and skills to help them make those interpretations. MBA Finance graduates work in finance and accounting, consulting, marketing and sales, project management, and many other disciplines.
  • The Global Technological Innovation concentration is designed for students who want to work on developing new technologies and innovations, and bringing them to market. This concentration provides knowledge and skills to navigate the process of creating new ventures and projects within global organizations and markets. Entrepreneurs and students from the fields of science, medicine, engineering and technology can benefit from emphasis in this area. MBA Global Technological Innovation graduates work in small, medium, and large enterprises in all industries that focus on product and service innovations.
  • The Interdisciplinary concentration allows students to customize their program with nine additional credits which can be in business or any other graduate area of interest.  Students must submit a plan for approval for the concentration prior to enrolling in the classes. Our two year Saturday MBA students and JD/MBA students are all enrolled in this concentration.  Many students already holding a Masters or Doctorate in other fields of study apply to this program and transfer courses form those programs to the concentration.  We have had Master’s Graduates from Mechanical Engineering, Polymer Engineering, English, Math, Computer Science and many other programs pursue this option.
  • The Management concentration allows students to take three courses and uniquely combine them to meet specific interests and needs. For example, this concentration is for those students interested in such diverse courses as entrepreneurship, project management, and managing organizational transformation.  Any number of course combinations can be selected.
  • The Strategic Marketing concentration offers an overview of critical marketing functions including research, branding and sales management. In addition, special attention is given to Direct Interactive Marketing, which focuses on one-to-one customer relationship building, direct response marketing and customer lifetime value. In these courses, students will be instructed on how to employ customer databases to create interactive communication campaigns, acquire customers and retain customers through customer relationship management programs. Students will become familiar with resources at the Taylor Institute for Direct Marketing. Additional resources supporting this concentration include the Fisher Institute for Professional Selling. Students may concentrate on Direct Interactive Marketing, traditional Strategic Marketing, or may combine any three of the six courses.
  • The Supply Chain Management concentration prepares students for the process of planning, implementing, and controlling the operations of the supply chain as efficiently as possible. Supply chain management professional duties may expand beyond the acquisition of materials, services, and equipment into such areas as planning and policy making, motivation, evaluation, product development, and control. Supply chain management careers include working as a buyer, contract negotiator, inventory manager, import/export goods manager or a logistics manager.

Broad overview 

The MBA provides a broad overview of major functional areas of business with a focus on strategic thinking.

Concentrations provide additional depth in a specific area of interest:

  • Students in the finance MBA program gain an in-depth understanding of financial structure, financial instruments, and capital market theory and capital budgeting, along with a conceptual understanding of how they apply to firm decision making.
  • The Management concentration provides study in a broad range of business concepts in order to prepare students for management positions in organizations.
  • Strategic Marketing students are exposed to the key decision-making frameworks for strategic marketing, brand management, sales management and/or research methods as they relate to marketing management.  Likewise, they become familiar with the major issues in digital marketing through ecommerce and interactive marketing, customer relationship management and cross media database management.  The former courses focus more on mainstream marketing from a strategic perspective, the latter on the innovations associated direct interactive marketing. 


Salary and Career Outlook

The MBA provides opportunities for students with any undergraduate field of study to gain business skills necessary for management in a wide range of organizations. 

The Interdisciplinary concentration allows flexibility for students to add specific skills for their field or industry of interest to increase their marketability in that field.  This is a relatively new concentration.  Most of our graduates are JD/MBA students who will pursue law or Saturday MBA students in diverse fields from Medicine to Manufacturing. 

Specialized concentrations add an emphasis on one field of business but do not limit employment to that area because of the broad nature of the degree. For instance, MBAs in finance are in demand from employers in a wide range of industries from industrial companies to banks and insurance companies.  MBA finance graduates are employed as financial analysts, financial managers, credit analysts, loan officers, brokers, financial traders, financial regulators and consultants.  The outlook for finance MBAs is strong with projected growth in demand and salaries for graduates. While the MBA Management graduates work in a wide array of positions and industries from project administration to risk analysis, to a Web as general managers, analysts, and other positions for global organizations.

The job categories for MBA graduates are enormous. Pay is determined by area of job specialization and work experience.

The average self-reported salary for UA MBA graduates for Year to Date 2017-2018 is $56,672 with a median salary of $50,236 and a range of $34,000 to $92,000.00.


Why Akron?

We provide top notch faculty that are experts in their fields and do a superior job of mixing theoretical/conceptual knowledge with practical application.

The analytic focus of the curriculum and application-focused instruction differentiate the MBA in finance from the University of Akron’s College of Business Administration from similar offerings at other Universities in Northeast Ohio.  

The interdisciplinary concentration is unique in the region. It allows the student more flexibility in building the concentration to meet career goals.

Our Saturday MBA program allows people working during the week to achieve a complete MBA every other Saturday over a two year period.

The Interdisciplinary concentration allows students the flexibility to customize their program and go outside of the CBA or UA to add courses to meet their goals.

Recent graduates of the program are in such jobs as:

  • FirstEnergy, Advanced Governmental Affairs Representative
  • Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., Human Resources Specialist
  • Progressive Insurance, IT Lead Analyst
  • Timken Steel, Senior Manufacturing Financial Analyst


Contact Information

For more information please contact:

Graduate Programs in Business

College of Business Administration

259 South Broadway

The University of Akron

Akron, Ohio 44325-4805

330-972-7043

gradcba@uakron.edu