From Predictive Modeling to Digital Regulation: Inside Tuck’s 2024–2025 MBA Electives

One of the newly introduced electives is Data, Models, and Decisions, taught by Raghav Singal, an assistant professor of business administration at Tuck and an expert in analytics, optimization, and modeling.

“The world is stochastic—uncertain—and that’s where analytics becomes critical. This course brings that uncertainty into focus. It’s about making good decisions in the face of probabilistic outcomes, by solving optimization problems that reflect the complexity of real-world systems,” says Singal. “You start with the data. Your ultimate goal is to make a good decision. To do that, you build a model—something that helps you make an objective, data-informed decision. That might be a predictive model. It might be a prescriptive model. This course builds directly on the core analytics sequence and pushes students further.”

This year also marks a notable uptick in AI-related courses, with several new offerings incorporating artificial intelligence into areas like analytics, marketing, and digital business. In recent years, Tuck has steadily expanded its AI curriculum. New courses introduced last year include Optimization Modeling for Prescriptive Analytics and the research-to-practice seminar AI-Driven Analytics and Society, both taught by Assistant Professor James Siderius, and AI and Consultative Decision-Making, a sprint course led by Clinical Professor Scott Anthony D’96. Additional offerings included Generative AI and the Future of Work and the marketing course AI for Managers.

Without further ado, here are the new MBA elective courses for the 2024–2025 academic year.

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NEW MBA ELECTIVE COURSES 2024–2025

Explore our full catalog of elective courses.

This course is highly relevant for anyone expecting to work with M&As. It shows how takeover transactions are structured (both legally and economically), how target deal resistance affects bid outcomes, and how public policy plays a role in affecting takeover activity. Deal structuring includes deal initiation by strategic v. financial (PE) buyers, target toehold acquisition, deal financing (cash v. bidder shares), and optimal bidding (markup pricing, bid jumps). We discuss examples where target resistance strategies are disproportional’ and violate director fiduciary duties. The class ends with public policy debates of relevance for aggregate takeover activity, including shortermism, antitrust, and the U.S. listing gap’. Class discussion typically opens with a brief presentation of a transaction of the day’ reported in the financial press and brought to class by a student team.

DMD builds on the core Analytics courses and explores a mix of advanced analytics topics. Each class is centered around a practical data-driven case. In addition to discussing a new application, each case introduces one or two new analytics tools. The overall course philosophy is ``data, models, and decisions,'' where models cover both predictive and prescriptive aspects of analytics. The primary software is Excel, and our focus is to build data-driven models for the purposes of (1) extracting business insights and (2) developing some fundamental understanding behind such models. Analytics tools used in the course include logistic regression, optimization, Monte Carlo simulation, and data visualization. Applications include revenue management of an auto lender's portfolio, managing readmissions to a hospital, workforce scheduling for a ride-hailing service, insurance management in aviation, and portfolio optimization for fantasy sports. The intended audience focuses on MBA students who wish to deepen their knowledge of analytics tools and their applications in business contexts, with a particular emphasis on data-driven decision-making to address complex business challenges.

Health Care Economics and Policy is meant to be a foundational course that introduces the key economic concepts necessary to understand why health care is different than other goods and services in the economy: asymmetry of information; consumption shocks; risk pooling; moral hazard; behavioral economics; and so on.

The course will explore how different health systems, in the U.S. and around the world, attempt to manage these unique challenges. It will probe the tradeoffs associated with different systems and explore innovations in health care delivery. The class will enumerate the various stakeholders involved in American health care and explore options for reform.

This course leverages insights from the modern science of expertise to explore how individuals striving for excellence can develop world-class expertise and attain mastery in their chosen profession.

The modern science of expertise has uncovered compelling evidence indicating that consistently high-performing individuals approach their professional growth in remarkably similar ways across various fields. Whether you're a musician, lawyer, doctor, or chess player, achieving mastery often involves adhering to disciplined practices with well-defined characteristics. This research tradition, originating decades ago with studies of chess masters by Nobel laureate Herbert Simon, has evolved into a contemporary body of work spearheaded by Simon's student Anders Ericsson. This research emphasizes the significance of "deliberate practice," challenging the conventional wisdom of the 10,000-hour rule and highlighting the strategic nature of practice efforts. It posits that what truly sets masters apart from average performers is not the sheer amount of time spent practicing (though extensive practice is essential for success) but rather how they direct their practice efforts.

This course does not aim to offer only theoretical knowledge on achieving mastery. Its objective is to influence students’ practice and learning habits in their professional endeavors. Altering habits, routines, or approaches requires a non-standard pedagogy, one that enables students to firsthand experience what the recommended shift in habit involves and why. Thus, the course is designed around experiential, action-based learning. This methodology involves initial engagement in concrete experiences, followed by reflection and the extraction of general concepts or principles, supplemented by relevant theoretical material.

By the course's conclusion, students will have developed a concrete "plan of action" outlining how to approach their expertise development in their chosen professional domain.

Integrated marketing communications (IMC), or marcom, is a strategic process that involves the use of coordinated, persuasive and measurable communications with the goal of generating short-term financial returns and long-term shareholder value. This course will provide an overview of IMC, its role in the marketing process, and the channels and tools through which companies communicate with a market, including traditional advertising, sales promotions, digital media, social media, and public relations. The course will simultaneously address consumer response to these coordinated communications and the ever-evolving landscape through which marketers must compete to reach their target market. Course content, classes and assignments will be guided by a framework that mimics the broad steps involved in marketing communications planning: 1) Identifying Your Customer, 2) Setting Clear Objectives, 3) Crafting Your Campaign, 4) Measuring Your Success, and 5) Refining and Repeating. In addition to readings and individual assignments, the course will culminate with a small group project in which students will apply course concepts by auditing and suggesting improvements to an existing company’s IMC program.

This course is designed to help students gain a deeper understanding of the unique challenges associated with leading, owning, or working with family businesses. Why do some family enterprises thrive across generations while others struggle or fail? How do certain families maintain both the health of their organizations and their family relationships over time? We will explore these questions and key principles that contribute to the long-term competitive advantage of family enterprises.

For students whose families own a business, we will delve into the career considerations and decision-making processes involved in joining the family enterprise, whether as an employee, board member, or steward of the family legacy. For those whose families do not own a business but who are pursuing careers that involve significant interactions with family enterprises—such as in consulting, investment banking, or private equity—we will explore key topics that will enhance their understanding and ability to effectively work with family businesses, equipping them with the tools to navigate the unique dynamics of these organizations.

This sprint seeks to expand and improve your understanding of how to write for a business audience. Unfortunately, most of you learned to write in an English class of some sort where the climax typically happens in Act 3. In business, we start with the idea that “the butler did it, here is why.” During the course, students will learn how to write more effectively in a business setting by focusing on composing efficiently, by using macrowriting (including document design and transitions) techniques, and microwriting (including brevity, style, and a bit of grammar) techniques.

Wine connoisseurship—knowing about, enjoying, and collecting wine—has long been seen as a marker of good taste and a sound investment practice. But the qualities that make wine valuable culturally and those that make it a valuable asset are rarely the same. More than this, they are often in contradiction: wine’s scarcity, longevity, and brand equity are often seen as the three key strategic drivers of financial performance, yet it is the ephemerality, variability, and conviviality derived from its consumption that make wine culturally compelling. This Sprint will examine what accounts for this unique product's deep cultural significance in communities around the world against the means by which it is appraised commercially, and interrogate how those two systems intersect in an effort to identify the contours of an asset class whose performance is profoundly influenced by the intangible.

This course will probe the boundaries between the public and private sectors and serve as an anchor class for students involved in the Center for Business, Government, and Society. The goal is to deepen students’ understanding of markets and explore how and why public policy creates institutions that support a robust private sector.

The class will explain why many contemporary public policy problems cannot be addressed by the private sector alone. At the same time, we will discuss how private firms can play a more creative and robust role in addressing social challenges. One throughline of the course will be an exploration of the interplay between business, policy, and politics. Much of the focus will be on the American system, though the concepts are broadly applicable and students will be urged to apply lessons to other countries.

All policy discussions in the class will be filtered through a political economy lens: Why does our political system produce the outcomes that it does? And what factors make a substantively attractive policy more or less politically viable. A handful of guests will share their experiences at the intersection of policy and politics.

This is a strategic sales management course set in a business-to-business (B2B) context. In B2B firms (technology, healthcare, investment banking, industrials, manufacturing, management consulting, retail, private equity, to name a few), direct personal selling is the predominant go-to-market channel.

This course will provide the fundamental tools to 1) apply personal selling tactics in pursuit of selling the firm’s products and/or services, 2) manage effectively key drivers in the firm's sales strategy and 3) execute sales plans aligned to the firm’s business strategies.

It will benefit those who will work in Business Development (either in direct sales or managing salespeople roles), Product Management, Brand Management, Product Marketing, and roles in the Professional Services sector (management consulting and most finance-related positions). Next, the course will be beneficial to students who see themselves running a business or managing an organization at some point in their career (General Manager). Finally, in a broad sense, being able to “sell your idea” is a critical skill component of all successful leaders.

Advances in technology, emergent social issues and pressing environment challenges are elevating the importance of corporate sustainability. Independent of the chosen designation (CSR, corporate responsibility, ESG…) an array of stakeholders (including NGOs, employees, consumers, communities, investors, and the planet) are pushing the boundaries of responsibility and elevating expectations for corporations. This course is designed to provide students with an understanding of the nomenclature, frameworks, and analytical tools needed to effectively integrate sustainability and responsibility into the management of a corporation.

This Sprint course analyzes the commercial, social, and legal mechanisms of the global art market, encompassing auction houses, private galleries, art fairs, and art advisors. We study how commercial value is produced and negotiated in these spheres, exploring the processes through which artworks are priced, authenticated, and marketed. Through case studies, critical readings, and guest speakers, the course examines key factors influencing the art market, including historical precedents, cultural trends, and the role of collectors, institutions, and investors. Special attention is given to the intersections of art, law, and business, addressing issues such as provenance, copyright, contracts, tax considerations, and the regulation of cross-border transactions.

Nobody is born instinctively knowing how to manage people. Regardless of the first-time leader’s natural gifts or professional experiences, it is unreasonable to expect them to know what to do with their first direct report, much less their first team.

This sprint course is designed for the executive who is transitioning from an individual contributor role into a manager of people. The course is intended to provide those who find themselves at this once-in-a-career inflection point with practical tools and skills to gracefully climb the managerial learning curve.

This Tuck Sprint course will examine how governments, increasingly aggressively, have adopted and applied regulations over digital activities of companies operating across international borders and how businesses can comply with a rapidly changing business environment. The course objective is to focus on the three main areas of growing regulatory activity – digital content, data and customer privacy, and anticompetitive behavior in digital markets. This is a highly dynamic and shifting area where governments, particularly the US and the EU, but also Brazil, China, India and Indonesia, are in effect playing regulatory catch-up over digital businesses including social media which have expanded in recent years in what has largely been an unregulated environment. The course will examine the differences among governments on policies and rules, what managers need to know about such differences and how management can comply with conflicting rules. Understanding the risks of non-compliance is critical for companies in the digital marketplace to safely operate internationally, for managers to make sound decisions and to avoid business-altering decisions by government and judicial authorities.

Much like the times when Dickens wrote of the French Revolution, today in America we live in a time where we are faced with great societal challenges and extreme contrasts and contradictions. These problems have new urgency. We have extreme poverty and extreme prosperity, leading to social injustice, environmental changes that are borne more heavily by some, human rights issues, bipartisan differences and the struggle against terrorism, to name just a few. As future leaders, you must not only understand such complex problems, but also be able to steer both your companies and communities through an ever changing and complicated landscape. They must understand the roots of wicked problems, the powerful ways their companies are impacted by these problems, and the ways their stakeholders are affected. For example, where individuals choose to work, where consumers choose to spend their money, and where investors choose to deploy their capital illustrate the interconnectedness between wicked challenges and everyday organizational life.

In organizational studies, these issues are often described as complex, messy, grand challenges, or wicked problems. They are multifaceted, long term and deeply rooted in history, requiring systemic, multi-pronged, and interdisciplinary approaches to address effectively. I chose the word 'wicked' to describe this course because it reflects the harm these issues inflict on society and highlights their morally troubling nature. Wicked problems share several commonalities. First, there is an interconnectedness between these problems -- they do not stand alone. These issues cross borders, ethnicities, races, genders, historical periods, and organizational boundaries, thus impacting the well-being of humankind. Second, there are no easy fixes for resolving wicked problems. Such problems act as chameleons changing and evolving over time, taking on new characteristics while creating deeper obstacles. Indeed, when it comes to wicked problems, change is a slow and drawn-out process.

This course will focus on three wicked problems all centered here in the United States, including: (1) Social Injustice and Inequity; (2) Aging; and (3) Climate Change.

Explore our full catalog of elective courses.