BTM Specific Courses

BTM Unique Courses

View a schedule of courses offered in the BTM curriculum (.pdf file).

Required Courses

BTM 5000: BusinessTurnaround Management (also offered as MBA 564). This is a gateway course that introduces the concepts, theories, models, strategies and cases relevant to business turnaround and transformation management; and offers an overview of strategies such as cash flow management, downsizing, outsourcing, mergers, acquisitions, liquidation and Chapter 7 and 11 Bankruptcy Law provisions, marketing/finance interface, sustainable competitive advantage and corporate strategic alliances. (3 Credit Hours)

BTM 5500: Ethical and Critical Thinking: General topics include: major ethical theories, responsibility ethics, virtue ethics, justice ethics, and ethics of trust for BTM professionals. Special topics include: Ethics of rapid cash recovery management, downsizing, plant closings and massive layoffs, offshore outsourcing, relocating, merging, acquisitions, joint ventures, liquidating, and seeking Chapter 7 and 11 Bankruptcy Law protections. The course also addresses the concept and practice of critical thinking as it applies to analyzing turnaround situations and developing responses. (3 Credit Hours)

BTM 5960: Practicum: This course is comprised of a field project conducted in collaboration with major turnaround companies in Michigan. Teams of students will be involved during one or two semesters in actual experiences of turning around at least one major or two minor distressed situations. (3 Credit Hours)

BTM 5990: Master's Thesis: In-depth research, study and defense of a topic related to Business Turnaround Management, chosen with the assistance of the Student's Thesis Advisor. The student is required to enroll in BTM 599 for three hours of credit in each of two successive semesters. (6 Credit Hours)

Elective Courses

BTM 5150: Strategic and Legal Bankruptcy: This course deals with legal and strategic aspects of bankruptcy management for business turnarounds. It covers the legal environment of running business; formation, execution and defense of contracts; contract remedies, claims and damages with turnaround applications. Strategic bankruptcy and Chapter 7 and Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Law protection is included: debtor versus creditor rights, preference transactions, fraudulent convergences and leases in bankruptcy and bankers' versus Lawyers' views of bankruptcy protection. (3 Credit Hours)

BTM 5350: Organizational Change Management: In this course, students will examine organizational change models and processes such as action research, dialogue, and transformational change. They will practice related skills such as learning how to learn, understanding resistance to change, and creating a culture of organizational change. Ethical implications of organizational change and development will be considered. (3 Credit Hours)

BTM 5400: Crisis Cash and Accounting Management: This course addresses: crisis accounting; forensic accounting; critique of current fraudulent accounting practices; bankruptcy filings; and controllership. Also included are short-term financial strategies; innovative and rapid cash management; cash collection strategies; cash budgeting; cash flow forecasting; optimal cash management models; refinancing via debt restructure and asset management. (3 Credit Hours)

BTM 5420: Corporate Fraud Detection and Prevention Management: Specific corporate frauds investigated include: creative cash flow reporting, fraudulent financial reporting, recognizing premature or fictitious revenue, aggressive cost capitalization and extended amortization policies, misreported assets and liabilities, creative income statement classifications and recasting pro-forma earnings measures. (3 Credit Hours)

BTM 5450: Corporate Restructuring for Business Turnaround: This course covers issues of mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, takeovers, joint ventures and strategic alliances, the implications of business reorganizing via downsizing, facility closings or relocation and off-shoring. Corporate restructuring includes tax implications of restructuring and the issues of restructuring various constituencies' claims. (3 Credit Hours)

BTM 5550: Lean Management: Lean principles are most often associated with manufacturing and automotive manufacturing in particular. But lean principles can be applied to any process that can be described. This course will give an introduction to the lean mindset, establish basic principles of lean processes and provide an introduction to various tools useful to improving the efficiency, cost, quality and customer service of a process. (3 Credit Hours)

BTM 5650: Supply Chain Management for Turnarounds: This course is about strategic management of the flow of products and services from origin through transformation (i.e., procurement, production and distribution) delivery and distribution to ultimate users. Supply chain management (SCM) will be studied especially in relation to turnaround applications. Other topics include: quantitative methods in SCM, decision-making, selection and evaluation of vendors, inventory management, resource planning for production, selection and evaluation of distribution channels, and managing long-term relationships up and down the supply chain. (3 Credit Hours)

BTM 5850: Debt, Equity and Venture Capital Restructuring: This course examines debt restructuring as a rescue strategy for firms in distress and equity or venture capital as a transformation strategy for healthy firms. Debt restructuring will explore capital from banks, government and commercial bonds with emphasis on callable high yield bonds. Equity will examine various stock alternative, convertible bonds and private equity buy-outs. Venture capital will explore angel financing, venture capital, valuations and due diligence. (3 Credit Hours)

BTM 5950: Directed Study and Research: Readings and research in a pertinent fields of study chosen by the student and supervised by a faculty member. Conferences, oral reports or papers provided to the supervising faculty are required as evidence of work progress and project completion. (3 Credit Hours)