Strategic Management Major

Build the Strategic Mindset to Make an Impact

Notre Dame’s undergraduate Strategic Management major prepares you to manage people and processes in organizations large and small, with a foundation in moral decision-making. You’ll develop the strategic thinking and business judgment to approach organizational challenges and guide decisions responsibly.

Whether you aspire to become a business manager, innovator or consultant, you’ll build skills you can apply across industries and career paths. Whatever direction you choose, you’ll be prepared to help organizations succeed while considering the people and communities affected by your decisions.

Strategic Management Highlights

Notre Dame is a place born of vision and defined by its Catholic character. Being able to lead in today’s complex and ever-changing business world is critical to our students’ success. At the Mendoza College of Business, we aim to Ask More of Business.

Be a Better Leader

Our mission is to prepare students to manage people and processes in both large and small organizations, to identify and address business challenges, and to serve as business managers, innovators, and consultants. We provide teaching and research in areas critical to business leadership, centered on moral decision-making, organizational effectiveness, and societal impact.

Doing Business Right

Conduct research or attend a guest lecture through the Notre Dame Deloitte Center for Ethical Leadership, which strives to understand how ethical behavior is generated in work contexts. By connecting academic and business thought leaders to explore character ethics, we create and disseminate content that is forward-looking, pragmatic, and provocative.

Notre Dame Deloitte Center for Ethical Leadership

Change The World

Engage with the IDEA Center at Innovation Park, where aspiring entrepreneurs, faculty, students, and industry experts collaborate. It is designed to bring the best ideas and innovations from Notre Dame faculty, staff, and students to market.

IDEA Center

Strategic Management Major Curriculum

All Strategic Management students must complete the following three-credit-hour courses.

*M&O Broadening Courses

WRIT indicates the course satisfies the University Writing Intensive Requirement

Required Strategic Management Courses (9 Credit Hours)

Values-Driven Leadership*
MGTO 40720

What is leadership? Which types of leadership are more effective? How do you get entire business units, and the people in them, motivated to do what needs to be done? Can leadership make a difference? We’ll ask and answer these questions while seeking to understand the process by which a person who holds responsibility is able to facilitate unit performance.

Business Problem Solving*
MGTO 30300

Just days before Christmas in 1999, Toysrus.com realized that it was not going to be able to fulfill tens of thousands of toy orders that it had promised would arrive before Christmas – even though the inventory was on the shelf! Two days before Christmas, top management decided to issue “We’re Sorry” emails to everyone whose package was not shipped. Is this the business decision you would have made? This class will help develop your “corporate street smarts” to leverage your creative and problem-solving skills. Through hands-on techniques and exercises, you’ll learn how to ask the right questions, gather the right data, and use it to improve your judgment and make better decisions.

Choose one of the following:

Communicating for Impact* [WRIT]
MGTO 30620

Communicating for Impact emphasizes effective self-expression: making you better as a writer and speaker so that you can influence others and improve business outcomes. This course will examine your current writing and speaking abilities, provide you with a clear sense of marketplace standards, and give you the tools to improve your writing and speaking. To achieve these objectives, you will read (and we will discuss) textbook chapters about management communication, case studies about authentic business problems, and other current readings. You will write a number of typical business documents, researching business issues. You will work alone, as well as with others on a writing team, and deliver business presentations. Finally, to achieve the goal of becoming a better writer, you will be tested on the communication process through exams based on textbook readings and other materials presented in class.

Data Storytelling*
MGTO 30633

A principal challenge for anyone working with ubiquitous data is communicating results of an analysis to stakeholders. This course teaches students the art of clear, effective, and engaging data presentation with attention to the business necessity of translating complex technical subjects into actionable insights for a lay audience. Students will harness the power of storytelling for the strategic benefit of an organization by turning a raw set of data into a compelling message that resonates with an intended audience.

Required ITAO Broadening Course (3 Credit Hours)

Analytics Workflows with Power BI
ITAO 30100

Business Analytics allows us to make sense of what we see in the real world by using data and a systematic approach to solve real problems and make business decisions. This course provides the fundamental concepts and methods needed to understand the emerging role of business analytics in organizations. You will learn how to properly plan an analytics strategy, collect data, analyze the data and report findings through visualizations and storytelling. Having a strong understanding of concepts in this course will give you a strong foundation in all the areas that support analytics and will help you to better position yourself for success in the remainder of the Business Analytics major and beyond.

Course Electives

All Strategic Management students must complete 4 Strategic Management Major Electives. Additional electives are optional.

WKIN indicates the course satisfies the University Ways of Knowing (Integration) Requirement

Strategic Management Electives

Students must complete 4 of the following courses (12 total credit hours) from the list below to satisfy their major requirement. All courses listed below are 3 credit hours:

Futuring: Anticipating Change and Envisioning Strategic Opportunities* (MGTO 30110/40110 [Regular/Honors])
Management Competencies* (MGTO 30200)
Innovation and Design Thinking* (MGTO 30310)
Strategic Human Resources Management* (MGTO 30410)
Introduction To Entrepreneurship* (MGTO 30500)
Social Entrepreneurship* (MGTO 30510)
Crisis Communication* [WRIT] (MGTO 30670)
Current Topics in Leadership* (MGTO 30703)
Sustainable Communities and Global Business* [WRIT] (MGTO 30715)
Designing Your Life* (MGTO 30317)
International Management* (MGTO 40320)
Undergraduate Research Seminar in Organizational Behavior* (MGTO 43000)
Undergraduate Research Seminar in Strategic Management* (MGTO 43005)

Check Course Availability on ClassSearch

Additional Electives

These courses do not count towards the major, but offer great opportunities to broaden your skill set or fulfill general graduation credits.

Ten Years Hence (BAUG 30210; 1.0 Credit Hours)
Sports Leadership (MGTO 20210; 1.5 Credit Hours)
Sustainable Development: The Role of Business (MGTO 30730; 3 Credit Hours)
Spirituality of Work (MGTO 30740; 3 Credit Hours)
NDDCEL Fellows in Ethical Leadership Colloquium (MGTO 30707; 1.5 Credit Hours))
Climate, Econ, and Business Ethics [WKIN] (MGTO 30880; 3 Credit Hours)
Sports Management Experiential Learning (MGTO 40490; 3 Credit Hours)

Strategic Management News and Stories

Faculty in the Media

AI is transforming business. Now it's transforming the MBA classroom.

Nick Berente, senior associate dean for academic programs, was featured in a Bloomberg story about AI's disruptive effect on the MBA program.

Bloomberg

Close up shot of Stayer Center's entrance with the top of the door, arch, name and windows in the shot under blue sky.

Mendoza News

Supporting students’ future: Meet Mendoza’s new external engagement team

The External Engagement Team focuses on expanded internship pipelines, high-impact employer partnerships and lifelong alumni engagement.

Mendoza News

CHRONICLE - COLLEGE NEWS 2025

Mendoza College of Business is undergoing significant renovations with the construction of three major projects aimed at enhancing both research and student experience, including the North Addition, the Trading Room, and the Mendoza Behavioral Lab. As part of its commitment to "Building the Good in Business," the College is also introducing online courses for military spouses in partnership with the Military Spouse Advocacy Network. In addition, NBA president Byron Spruell shared valuable career insights during a recent Dean's Speaker Series event, emphasizing the importance of hard work, service to others, and building a supportive network.

Career Development

Your career preparation begins long before graduation. From your first year at Notre Dame, you’ll have access to career resources, employer connections and a powerful alumni network to help you explore where a Finance major can take you.

Through Notre Dame’s career development resources, you can prepare for your next step with résumé and interview support, career fairs, employer engagement and opportunities to connect with professionals across industries. You’ll also build relationships with alumni, corporate representatives and other members of the Notre Dame community as you explore internships and full-time opportunities.

Explore a range of career paths

Strategic Management graduates pursue careers in consulting, financial services, technology, healthcare and other industries. Recent graduates have secured roles such as associate consultant, business analyst, advisory analyst and business development representative, applying their skills to help organizations solve problems and move forward.

Top hiring companies of Strategic Management graduates:

Accenture
Bain & Company
Deloitte
ESPN
General Mills
IBM
JP Morgan Chase
PwC
Under Armour

Student Experience

There are many different ways to lead at Notre Dame. Whether you’re leading a group project in the classroom, a service trip abroad, or your intramural team to victory, Notre Dame provides you with a wide range of opportunities to hone your leadership skills. For example, you might:

Assume a leadership position in one of our 12 management-related student organizations:
- Beta Gamma Sigma (Honor Society)
- Business Action in Social Entrepreneurship
- Design for America
- Entrepreneurship Society
- Global Business Brigades
- Notre Dame Venture Capital and Entrepreneurship Group
- Unleashed (Impact Investing Initiative)
Serve through the Institute for Social Concerns (more than 80 percent of undergrads serve)
Participate in one of the most extensive and storied intramural sports programs in the country

Department Administration

The Notre Dame Department of Management and Organization administers the Strategic Management Major. The faculty also conduct cutting-edge research in the field.

Department of Management & Organization

Ann Tenbrunsel

David E. Gallo Professor of Business Ethics; Department Chair of Management & Organization

Jennifer Cronin

Associate Teaching Professor; Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Management Consulting Major and Assistant Department Chair

Ashley Heberling

Sr. Administrative Assistant

Department of Management & Organization

An undergraduate student with her bike beside the reflection pool outside the Hesburgh Library.

Explore the Undergraduate Business Program

Interested in the Strategic Management Major and want to know more about the Mendoza College of Business?

Undergraduate Curriculum Signature Experiences Undergraduate Advising