Integrated Business & Humanities

Overview

The Integrated Business and Humanities (IBH) program seeks to develop graduates that will make both a personal and social impact through a combination of course and co-curricular work.
This interdisciplinary program will foster the growth of 21st century problem solvers that recognize both the needs of individuals and business to generate the most value for both. For example: A Business graduate may ask “What is the Return on Investment?” An IBH graduate asks the same questions, but also asks, “What is the Return to Society?”

A background in Humanities provides students with the skills and knowledge to recognize, understand and constructively engage with complex social needs and diverse perspectives. Through their background in Business, students will develop a way to solve those problems.

Why Integrated Business & Humanities at McMaster?

  • Limited entry program
  • Small class sizes and a more personal classroom experience means more personal interaction with professors and a close knit community that helps grow the best you.
  • Each senior student will be nominated to attend a conference on a global or community issue they are passionate about. This allows for the opportunity to demonstrate leadership and enhance personal learning.
  • Unique teaching style. This includes both blended learning and team taught classes, that offer an interdisciplinary perspective on societal issues.
  • All students will gain global perspective and experience through international exchanges, study trips and/or conferences.

AACSB Accredited

AACSB (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business) International accreditation represents the highest standard of achievement for business schools. Less than 15 percent of business schools worldwide have earned AACSB Accreditation – the hallmark of excellence in management education.

Commerce Internship Program

The Commerce Internship Program offers 12-16 months of paid work experience with an average salary of $39,804. Students have the opportunity to work with top employers. This allows Commerce students to apply classroom knowledge and gain important career skills.

 

Program Pillars

  • Leadership
  • Community engagement
  • Entrepreneurship

Web Links

Program Statistics

  • 60

    Target Enrolment

Admissions

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Integrated Business & Humanities

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Below is a list of some courses, including a brief description, that you may find yourself taking during your first year of this program. For formal policies governing mandatory courses and the order in which they have to be taken, please refer to McMaster’s Undergraduate Calendar.

Some Courses You May Take

This course will help students understand the purpose of accounting, its implementation, its usefulness for decision-making, its effect on behaviour and contracts, and its surrounding controversies over accounting methods.
Lectures (three hours)
Prerequisite(s): Registration in Level I of the Integrated Business and Humanities Program
Antirequisite(s): Not open to students with credit or enrolment in COMMERCE 1AA3
This course will examine how the business environment can affect Canadian
organizations and their stakeholders. Functional areas of business will be introduced in order to understand the basics of management. The course will introduce students to business principles, techniques, and terms within both the Canadian and global context. This will include a discussion on the business environment, management theory, and the introduction of functional areas of business. The overall objective is that upon completion, students will have a foundation for future business courses.
Prerequisite(s): Registration in Level 1 of the Integrated Business and Humanities Program
Lectures (three hours)
Antirequisite(s): Not open to students with credit or enrolment in LINGUIST 1ZZ3 or 2S03 
This course equips students with basic linguistic terminology and the necessary tools to examine the relationship between language and society. Topics covered include linguistic variation (regional, social, situational), language and gender, language and disadvantage/power, multilingualism, language change, pidgin and creole languages.
Lectures (three hours)
Prerequisite(s): Registration in Level 1 of the Integrated Business and Humanities Program
Antirequisite(s): Not open to students with credit or enrolment in LINGUIST 1ZZ3 or 2S03 
As community engagement is a key component of the IBH program, this course will introduce students to the politics, processes and functioning of communities and provides foundational knowledge and skills for effective and principled community engagement. As an IBH student, you will be a member of many communities - your workplace, your professional group, your neighborhood, your city, your country, the world. In the future, whether as a business professional, humanist or health /social services provider, you will be called upon to participate in community activities and community change.
Lectures (three hours), tutorial (one hour)
Prerequisite(s): Registration in Level 1 of the Integrated Business and Humanities Program
Antirequisite(s): Not open to students with credit or enrolment in CMTYENGA 2A03 
Description: This course provides the foundations for building the critical competencies in Managing (Doing things Right) to Leading (Doing the Right Things). Through in-class group coaching, students will develop and practice the successful thinking and associated behaviours required to grow Emotional Intelligence in the four primary components of Self-Awareness, Self- Management, Social Awareness, Social Management. The coaching model of What? (Understanding the critical theoretical foundations), So What? (Specific meaning/impacts for individual students), Now What? (action steps for application to self and other), provides the format for teaching and learning.
Lectures (three hours)
Prerequisite(s): Registration in Level 1 of the Integrated Business and Humanities Program
Antirequisite(s): Not open to students with credit or enrolment in COMMERCE 1BA3 or 4BN3 
Effective leaders are able to formulate creative questions, recognizing that how we ask a question determines the nature of the answers available to us. Working in the technology-enriched environment of an active learning classroom, students will focus on how to ask good questions about specific issues and how to use those questions to interrogate evidence in different ways.
Lectures (three hours)
Prerequisite(s): Registration in Level 1 of the Integrated Business and Humanities Program
Antirequisite(s): Not open to students with credit or enrolment in HUMAN 1QU3 
An introduction to ethical theory and to its application to contemporary moral problems. Topics covered may include the nature of morality and its relationship to culture, religion, and self-interest; the strengths and weaknesses of normative ethical theories, including utilitarianism, Kantianism, virtue ethics and social contract theory; and ethical issues raised by war, torture, world hunger, assisted dying, affirmative action, corporations, and the environment.
Lectures (three hours), tutorial (one hour)
Prerequisite(s): Registration in Level 1 of the Integrated Business and Humanities Program
Antirequisite(s): Not open to students with credit or enrolment in PHILOS 2YY3 
An introduction to the applications of peace research to business and the Triple Bottom Line (economics, ecology, ethics), focusing on the concepts of peace, war, security, conflict, violence and nonviolence, and examining opportunities for active peace-making and conflict transformation in daily life and in business.
Lectures (three hours), tutorial (one hour)
Prerequisite(s): Registration in Level 1 of the Integrated Business and Humanities Program
Antirequisite(s): Not open to students with credit or enrolment in PEACEST 1A03 
An introduction to the method and theory of microeconomics, and their application to the analysis of contemporary economic problems.
In-class and online; one term
Antirequisite(s): ARTSSCI 2E03
ECON 1B03 and ECON 1BB3 can be taken in either order or concurrently.
An introduction to the method and theory of macroeconomics, and their application to the analysis of contemporary economic problems.
In-class and online; one tutorial; one term
Antirequisite(s): ARTSSCI 2E03
ECON 1B03 and 1BB3 can be taken in either order or concurrently.
Integral calculus of polynomial, rational, exponential and logarithmic functions. Optimization problems. Applications in the Social Sciences and Business.
Three lectures, one tutorial; one term
Prerequisite(s): One of Grade 12 Calculus and Vectors U, MATH 1F03 or a grade of at least B- in MATH 1K03
Students considering upper year mathematics courses should take MATH 1A03. Not open to students with credit or registration in ARTSSCI 1D06 A/B, ISCI 1A24 A/B, MATH 1A03, 1LS3, 1N03, 1X03, 1Z04, 1ZA3.

Leadership Coaching

In first year, students go through a Transformative Learning Experience (TLE) which acts as a leadership development foundation. Throughout the four years of their program, students participate in leadership workshops and document their leadership journey. In fourth year, all students take “Leadership Coaching B” which builds upon the seven TLE Reports they have completed and informs individual action steps for their final term.

Community Engagement

Students complete field studies on a topic they are passionate about while interacting with businesses from the local community. Through a combination of experiential learning and research, students will gain an understanding of issues facing businesses today while also giving back to the community.

Social Enterprise

Students are introduced to the concept of social enterprise in their first year. In second year, students are required to participate in a mandatory social enterprise international field trip facilitated by the Canadian social enterprise and development organization, ME to WE. In third and fourth year, students will take courses on social entrepreneurship, strategic management for for-profit and nonprofit organizations, and a capstone on social enterprise.

Careers or Options Beyond This Program

  • Brand Manager (CPG)
  • Community based event organizations (i.e. Me to We)
  • Community NGO Manager
  • Entrepreneurial start-ups
  • Financial Analyst
  • Immigrant Settlement organizations
  • Integrated Marketing Manager
  • Marketing in a Not-For-Profit
  • Management Consulting
  • Management strategy at the World Bank or IMF
  • Organizational Change Management
  • Supply Chain Specialist
  • Sustainability Officer

Some Courses You May Take

This course introduces the conceptual underpinnings and operational facets of marketing with a primarily consumer (as opposed to an industrial) focus. During this course, students will learn about the 4Ps of marketing: product, price, promotion, and place.
Lectures (three hours)
Prerequisite(s): Registration in Level II of the Integrated Business and Humanities Program
This course prepares Integrated Business and Humanities students to leverage information systems effectively. The course focuses on the opportunities and pitfalls provided by information systems, how they are likely to affect the world, and what managers need to know to make effective use of information systems in business and society.
Prerequisite(s): IBH 1AA3 and registration in Level 2 of the Integrated Business and Humanities Program
This course provides knowledge of the key aspects of identifying, selecting, developing, and managing people in organizations, emphasizing the link between talent management and practices and organizational strategy. Topics include job design and job analysis, staffing, the legal environment, training and development, performance appraisal, compensation, health and safety, and labour relations.
Lectures (three hours)
Prerequisite(s): IBH 1BA3 and registration in Level II of the Integrated Business and Humanities Program.
Overwhelmed with big data, businesses are looking at ways of analysing this data to better understand their customers and develop innovative business models. Using several programming tools, this course will provide students with skills to build data models and perform common statistical analysis techniques.
Topics will include sampling techniques, common distributions, inference and hypothesis testing, regression, analysis of variance, categorical data analysis and nonparametric inference. The course will also address issues related to data security, confidentiality and ethics.
Lectures (three hours), tutorial (one hour)
Prerequisite(s): Registration in Level 2 of the Integrated Business and Humanities Program.
Critical thinking essentially distinguishes between the capacity and quality of human thought. That is, it essentially denies that thought is merely the ability to process information and to make judgments with respect to it. Rather, critical thinking attests that there are certain modes of thinking that we can cultivate
to clearly and carefully understand, evaluate, and communicate information. This course introduces students to such modes of thought. In order to facilitate such an introduction the course will be guided by four intellectual virtues that critical thinking fundamentally involves:
1) humility (the ability to admit limitations, ignorance, or confusion, etc.),
2) carefulness (the ability to identify and avoid mistakes and errors in reasoning),
3) thoroughness (the ability to think clearly and distinctly, providing sufficient justification for claims), and
4) open-mindedness (the ability judge fairly, empathetically, and with sensitivity to alternative beliefs).
Within these guidelines course topics will include the nature, limitations and justifications of knowledge, cognitive errors, formal and informal fallacies of reasoning, the structure of arguments, deductive and inductive reasoning, basic propositional and categorical logic, and sociocultural criticism.
Lectures (three hours), tutorial (one hour)
Prerequisite(s): Registration in Level II of the Integrated Business and Humanities Program.
An introduction to concepts underlying the use of cost accounting information for managerial planning and control and for inventory valuation. The nature and analysis of costs and the usefulness and limitations of accounting data for decision-making, including ethical considerations, will be discussed.
Lectures (three hours), tutorial (one hour)
Prerequisite(s): IBH 1AA3 and registration in Level II of the Integrated Business and Humanities Program.
This course provides an overview of financial management and the financial system. The goal is to equip students with the basic understanding of how financial decisions are made. Students will learn fundamental finance concepts and tools, and how they are applied in practice. The course will lay a foundation for more advanced finance courses that students will subsequently take. Topics include time value of money, capital budgeting, risk and return tradeoff, and security valuation.
Lectures (three hours)
Prerequisite(s): IBH 1AA3, ECON 1B03 and registration in Level II of the Integrated Business and Humanities Program.
Operations management (OM) is the science and art of creating and delivering goods and services to customers. Basic topics in operations management include goods and service design, facility design, locating facilities, quality management, project planning, supply chain management, lean operating systems, forecasting customer demand, process strategy, and inventory management. These days this field of study is subjected to changes and challenges. Maintaining a sustainable environment while efficiently converting resources into safe and quality outputs, coordinating between operations and other business functions, increasing profitability while providing a safe workplace and honouring stakeholder commitments are a few to mention. These topics will be discussed in this introductory operations management course.
Lectures (three hours), tutorial (one hour)
Prerequisite(s): Registration in Level II of the Integrated Business and Humanities Program.
An introduction to moral philosophy through a consideration of issues in professional ethics (e.g., health care and energy). Topics such as abortion, human experimentation, euthanasia, genetic screening, sustainability and pollution will be investigated.
Lectures (three hours), tutorial (one hour)
Prerequisite(s): Registration in Level 2 of the Integrated Business and Humanities Program.
Canadian business history has fallen out of favour among recent historians. While the field was extensively studied in previous decades, it became displaced by the growing popularity of social and cultural history. However, Canadian business history is deeply intertwined with broader questions about the economic, social and political climate of the country. Through examining key themes in business history in the last two centuries, this course will provide a broader perspective on the role and perception of Canadian business and industry in the countrys past. It will also question what these lessons can tell us about its present economic state and its potential futures. This course includes discussion sessions which, along with the assignments, are intended to help students develop their critical reading and communication skills. Students do not need a background in economic or business history to succeed in this course.
Lectures (three hours), tutorial (one hour)
Prerequisite(s): Registration in Level II of the Integrated Business and Humanities Program.

Students will have the option of completing a 12 or 16 month paid internships between their third and fourth years.

Preparation begins with a career development course, Commerce 3IN0. This workshop-based, non-credit course is mandatory for any student wishing to compete for internship opportunities and is designed to ensure that students are ready for the job selection process. Successful candidates (pre-requisites must be met) will elect to embark on a period of employment, after completion of third-year, for a period of 12 or 16 months.

Unlike traditional co-op programs, interns will be employed with the same company for the duration of their internship. The average salary for interns is approximately $39,000 per year. There is an impressive list of companies who have partnered with the DeGroote School of Business to offer internship opportunities for business students:

  • Canada Revenue Agency
  • Ford Canada
  • GE Canada
  • Hydro One
  • KPMG LLP
  • Loblaw
  • New Balance
  • TD Commercial Banking

Coming soon

Allen H. Gould Trading Floor

  • One of the first such facilities in North America, and one of only 30 in the world, the Allen H. Gould Trading Floor is a state-of-the-art educational facility that enables students to experience the relationships and interactions of the financial markets.
  • The Trading Floor is an essential component of the finance focus and represents an astounding opportunity for students who wish to pursue a career in the financial services industry, it features:
    • 21 computer terminals each with two flat screen monitors (served by Reuters’ latest Kobra information technology).
      three Trans-Lux display boards real-time data feeds from all Canadian exchanges, Chicago Board of Trade and the NYSE
    • two Bloomberg terminals
    • a unique Trader-in-Residence program offering mentors from the financial community

Profiles & Alumni

DeGroote School of Business: Education with Purpose