The Rutgers Stackable Business Innovation (rSBI) program allows students to design their own cutting-edge curriculum without having to commit to a degree program. The term ‘stackable’ means students can earn course credits at their own discretion and apply them toward a non-degree certificate.
Under the Management and Global Business Certificate, we now offer two concentrations.
Corporate Social Innovation Concentration
The Corporate Social Innovation concentration prepares the leaders of today and tomorrow to create profitable and sustainable business opportunities, motivating and equipping them to innovate, disrupt, and reinvent their businesses to serve all their stakeholders, and society at large.
Courses:
Introduction to Corporate Social Innovation: The course provides an overview of "mission-driven" and responsibility-centered business practices. Using case studies, guest speakers, group projects, and course readings, students will gain a broad understanding of the many ways they can pursue positive, innovative, and sustainable change, while developing the skills, knowledge, and practices for building innovative organizations that contribute to solving complex social, ecological, and economic problems.
Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation: In this course, students will learn about entrepreneurial approaches to addressing society’s grand challenges. These approaches can be used to create new ventures (social entrepreneurship) or within existing organizations (intrapreneurship) to discover opportunities and direct resources to make a positive social impact. The new social ventures and business initiatives result in harness social innovation for the greater good. This course uses case studies, guest speakers, and a team project to help the key concepts come to life.
or Management of Innovation & Technology: This course provides an introduction to the strategic management of technology and innovation. The course has three broad goals: to understand the strategic dynamics of technology markets, to examine how firms - both in the technology sector and outside - can leverage new emerging technologies, and to discuss how organizations can structure and manage the process of innovation.
or Managing Growing Ventures: In this course, students will work with early-stage businesses to address challenges and develop a strategic plan for growth. Students will learn the basics of entrepreneurship from both a theoretical and practical perspective and in the context of both for-profit and nonprofit enterprises. Issues of business resilience and sustainability (social, economic, & environmental) will be addressed.
Reporting and Measuring Corporate Social Performance and Innovation: In this course, students will be introduced to the different dimensions of ESG performance, learn to navigate the multiple channels of mandatory and voluntary disclosures available on these topics, evaluate the quality of the disclosures, understand the accounting and reporting standards and frameworks governing the disclosures, and become informed users of third-party ratings of ESG performance. The goal of the course is to make students confident users of ESG information.
Social Entrepreneurship Concentration
This joint RBS/SPAA Certificate prepares the leaders of today and tomorrow to start for-profit or nonprofit enterprises to develop, fund, and implement solutions to a wide range of social, cultural, or environmental issues, and to lead broader social changes in areas such as poverty alleviation, health care, and community development.
Students in this three-course program must take two RBS courses:
Introduction to Corporate Social Innovation (Mandatory): The course provides an overview of "mission-driven" and responsibility-centered business practices. Using case studies, guest speakers, group projects, and course readings, students will gain a broad understanding of the many ways they can pursue positive, innovative, and sustainable change, while developing the skills, knowledge, and practices for building innovative organizations that contribute to solving complex social, ecological, and economic problems.
And one of the following:
Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation: In this course, students will learn about entrepreneurial approaches to addressing society’s grand challenges. These approaches can be used to create new ventures (social entrepreneurship) or within existing organizations (intrapreneurship) to discover opportunities and direct resources to make a positive social impact. The new social ventures and business initiatives result in harness social innovation for the greater good. This course uses case studies, guest speakers, and a team project to help the key concepts come to life.
Management of Innovation & Technology: This course provides an introduction to the strategic management of technology and innovation. The course has three broad goals: to understand the strategic dynamics of technology markets, to examine how firms - both in the technology sector and outside - can leverage new emerging technologies, and to discuss how organizations can structure and manage the process of innovation.
Managing Growing Ventures: In this course, students will work with early-stage businesses to address challenges and develop a strategic plan for growth. Students will learn the basics of entrepreneurship from both a theoretical and practical perspective and in the context of both for-profit and nonprofit enterprises. Issues of business resilience and sustainability (social, economic, & environmental) will be addressed.
And choose one of the following SPAA courses:
Grant Writing and Grants Management: In this course, students will learn how to seek, solicit, and manage grant awards from foundation and government sources to support public and nonprofit programs and projects. The course focuses on the strategies and process of writing effective grant proposals, and students are guided through the development of a grant proposal and will explore topics such as searching funding sources, writing compelling need statements, establishing goals for funding, developing SMART objectives for evaluation, and creating budget documents to support grant seeking.
Collaborative Governance: This course addresses intergovernmental relations (the interaction among federal, state, and more than 80,000 state-created county, municipal, and special district government), and intersectoral collaboration (bringing partners together from different sectors to work collectively on a common issue). This complex intersectoral network is characterized by cooperation and conflict in managing the delivery of public services such as education, public safety and health care. Students will understand the unique roles of federal, state and local governments, and how to manage the provision of public goods and services by private for-profit and nonprofit organizations.
Performance Measurement and Reporting for Public & Nonprofit Organizations: This course introduces students to performance measurement and management in the public and nonprofit sectors. It covers theories of public and nonprofit performance as well as the history of performance measurement in society. Students learn tools for performance measurement, such as index construction, benchmarking, trend analysis, dashboards, and data visualization. The role of technology and big data are also considered. Students learn how to align performance metrics with strategic goals and objectives in order to facilitate organizational learning and improvement. But consideration is also given to problems of gaming, goal displacement, and other unintended consequences of performance measurement.
Special Topics in Nonprofit Management: Philanthropy in Action: This course explores the evolving role of philanthropy in addressing social challenges, with a focus on Newark’s dynamic ecosystem of foundations, corporate social responsibility (CSR) teams, nonprofits, and government initiatives. Students will examine philanthropic strategies, equity-centered giving, and community engagement through academic study and hands-on experience. Students will also learn about careers in the social impact sector and will be able to build their networks with leaders in the filed. The course includes guest speakers, site visits, and a capstone project that allows students to design and present a philanthropic initiative.
Strategic Management for Public & Nonprofit Organizations: This course examines strategic management as a central leadership function in public and nonprofit organizations, with a focus on how organizations define, create, and sustain public value. Students learn how mission-driven organizations assess their environments, set strategic direction, align resources, implement priorities, and evaluate performance in politically and institutionally complex settings. The course emphasizes strategic thinking, public value creation, cross-sector governance, performance alignment, and adaptive leadership. Through applied exercises and case analysis, students develop practical tools to guide public and nonprofit organizations in dynamic policy environments.
Program Evaluation: This course provides students with the knowledge and skills needed to evaluate public and nonprofit programs. It surveys the background and accountability demands for evaluation in the public and nonprofit sectors. Important topics and techniques of evaluation are explored, including needs assessment, program theory, assessing implementation (process evaluation), assessing impact (summative evaluation), analyzing cost effectiveness, and communicating evaluation findings. The role of evaluation in management and the policy process is also discussed. Students apply concepts from the course by reviewing current examples of evaluation studies and by designing their own evaluation of a program or initiative of interest.