Small Business Management in the 21st Century offers a unique perspective and set of capabilities for instructors. The authors designed this book with a “less can be more” approach, and by treating small business management as a practical human activity rather than as an abstract theoretical concept.

The text has a format and structure that will be familiar to you if you use other books on small business management. Yet it brings a fresh perspective by incorporating three distinctive and unique themes and an important new feature (Disaster Watch) which is embedded throughout the entire text. These themes assure that students see the material in an integrated context rather than a stream of separate and distinct topics.

First, the authors incorporate the use of technology and e-business as a way to gain competitive advantage over larger rivals. Technology is omnipresent in today’s business world. Small business must use it to its advantage. We provide practical discussions and examples of how a small business can use these technologies without having extensive expertise or expenditures.

Second, they explicitly acknowledge the constant need to examine how decisions affect cash flow by incorporating cash flow impact content in several chapters. As the life blood of all organizations, cash flow implications must be a factor in all business decision-making.

Third, they recognize the need to clearly identify sources of customer value and bring that understanding to every decision. Decisions that do not add to customer value should be seriously reconsidered.

Small Business Management in 21st Century boasts a new feature called Disaster Watch scenarios. Few texts cover, in any detail, some of the major hazards that small business managers face. Disaster Watch scenarios, included in most chapters, cover topics that include financing, bankers, creditors, employees, customers who don’t pay, economic downturns, and marketing mistakes.

Are you interested in Solar Energy? Solar Resource Assessment and Economics explores the methods, economic criteria, and meteorological background for assessing the solar resource with respect to project development of solar energy conversion systems for stakeholders in a given locale. It provides students with an in-depth exploration of the physical qualities of the solar resource, estimation of the fractional contributions of irradiance to total demand, and economic assessment of the solar resource. The course utilizes real data sets and resources to provide students context for the drivers, frameworks, and requirements of solar energy evaluation.

A spatial database is the backbone of a successful organization or website that depends upon maintaining and using data pertinent to locations on Earth. In GEOG 868, Spatial Database Management, capabilities specific to Relational Database Management Systems (RDBMS) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are combined to teach students to create, maintain, and query spatial databases in both desktop and enterprise environments. Learn the basics of Standard Query Language (SQL) and database design/normalization, the specifics of managing spatial data in an open-source technologies context (Postgres/PostGIS) and in the context of the Esri geodatabase. Along the way, you will become familiar with spatial functions and versioning, the latter in a server environment hosted by Amazon Web Services.

Subject provides a conceptual framework for thinking about taxes. Applications covered include mergers and acquisitions, tax arbitrage strategies, business entity choice, executive compensation, multi-national tax planning, and others. Aimed at investment bankers and consultants who need to understand how taxes affect the structure of deals; managers and analysts who need to understand how firms strategically respond to taxes; and entrepreneurs who want to structure their finances in a tax-advantaged manner.

This lecture introduces the time value of money concept. It discusses the present value of a cash flow and how to discount it, the future value of a cash flow and how to compound it. Finally, it discusses three rules for valuing cash flows.

Management methods of relevance to public transportation systems. Topics: strategic planning management; labor relations; maintenance planning and administration; financing; marketing and fare policy; and management information and decision support systems. Shows how these general management tasks are dealt with in the transit industry and presents alternative strategies. Identifies alternative arrangements for service provision, including different ways of involving the private sector in public transportation.

A survey subject of current concepts, theories, and issues in strategic management of transportation organizations. Provides transportation logistics and engineering systems students with an overview of the operating context, leadership challenges, strategies, and management tools that are used in today's public and private transportation organizations. The following concepts, tools, and issues are presented in both public and private sector cases: alternative models of decision-making, strategic planning (e.g., use of SWOT analysis and scenario development), stakeholder valuation and analysis, government-based regulation and cooperation within the transportation enterprise, disaster communications, change management, and the impact of globalization.

The main objective of this course is to give broad insight into the different facets of transportation systems, while providing a solid introduction to transportation demand and cost analyses. As part of the core in the Master of Science in Transportation program, the course will not focus on a specific transportation mode but will use the various modes to apply the theoretical and analytical concepts presented in the lectures and readings. Introduces transportation systems analysis, stressing demand and economic aspects. Covers the key principles governing transportation planning, investment, operations and maintenance. Introduces the microeconomic concepts central to transportation systems. Topics covered include economic theories of the firm, the consumer, and the market, demand models, discrete choice analysis, cost models and production functions, and pricing theory. Application to transportation systems include congestion pricing, technological change, resource allocation, market structure and regulation, revenue forecasting, public and private transportation finance, and project evaluation; covering urban passenger transportation, freight, aviation and intelligent transportation systems."

For many years, Cambridge, MA, as host to two major research universities, has been the scene of debates as to how best to meet the competing expectations of different stakeholders. Where there has been success, it has frequently been the result, at least in part, of inventive urban design proposals and the design and implementation of new institutional arrangements to accomplish those proposals. Where there has been failure it has often been explained by the inability - or unwillingness - of one stakeholder to accept and accommodate the expectations of another. The two most recent fall Urban Design Studios have examined these issues at a larger scale. In 2001 we looked at the possible patterns for growth and change in Cambridge, UK, as triggered by the plans of Cambridge University. And in 2002 we looked at these same issues along the length of the MIT 'frontier' in Cambridge, MA as they related to the development of MIT and the biotech research industry. In the fall 2003 Urban Design Studio we propose to focus in on an area adjacent to Cambridgeport and the western end of the MIT campus, roughly centered on Fort Washington. Our goal is to discover the ways in which good urban form, an apt mix of activities, and effective institutional mechanisms might all be brought together in ways that respect shared expectations and reconcile competing expectations - perhaps in unexpected and adroit ways.

The design of urban environments. Strategies for change in large areas of cities, to be developed over time, involving different actors. Fitting forms into natural, man-made, historical, and cultural contexts; enabling desirable activity patterns; conceptualizing built form; providing infrastructure and service systems; guiding the sensory character of development. Involves architecture and planning students in joint work; requires individual designs or design and planning guidelines.

This readings-based course analyzes the structure and operation of government systems in developing countries, with particular emphasis on regional and local governments. Major topics include: the role of decentralization in national economic reform programs; the potential impact of decentralized governments on local economic development; determination of optimal arrangements for sharing fiscal responsibilities among levels of government; evaluation of local revenue and expenditure decisions; and assessment of prospects and options for intergovernmental fiscal reform. Emphasis is on basic economic concerns, with consideration given to political, institutional, and cultural factors.

This lecture discusses how to value a series of cash flows such as perpetuities, annuities, growing perpetuities and growing annuities. Additionally, it discusses how to solve for variables other than present value or future value of cash flows.

This video gives an overview of the five components of a debt and the corresponding keys of each of the components on a TI BA II Plus financial calculator.

The course will provide students with an overview of key concepts in corporate credit risk through the lens of a commercial banking risk analyst. Students will be assigned a company to follow throughout the semester and will be required to use the tools of the course to build their own credit rating analysis in a term paper due at the end of the semester. Topics including country risk, industry risk, market risk, business risk (financial and management), and structure risk will be explored through lectures, industry publications, and access to industry analysis and tools. Upon completion of this course, students will have an understanding of the main components of corporate credit risk scoring, industry terminology, and the capability to develop their own credit rating view on a company.