Course Syllabus

---

Instructor: Bill Megginson

Bill Megginson is Professor and Price Chair in Finance at the University of Oklahoma’s Michael F. Price College of Business. He is also the Saudi Aramco Chair Professor in Finance at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. From 2002 to 2007, he was a voting member of the Italian Ministry of Economics and Finance’s Global Advisory Committee on Privatization. During spring 2008, he was the Fulbright Tocqueville Distinguished Chair in American Studies and Visiting Professor at the Université-Paris Dauphine. He received the University of Oklahoma’s top research prize, a George Lynn Cross Research Professorship, in April 2010. Professor Megginson's research interest has focused in recent years on the privatization of state-owned enterprises, sovereign wealth fund investments, and investment banking principles and practices. He has published refereed articles in several top academic journals, including the Journal of Economic Literature, the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial Economics, the Review of Financial Studies, the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, and Foreign Policy. His co-authored study documenting significant performance improvements in recently privatized companies received one of two Smith Breeden Distinguished Paper Awards for outstanding research published in the Journal of Finance (1994). He is author or co-author of nine textbooks. Phone: (405) 325-2058 Email: wmegginson@ou.edu  Live Session on Zoom: Thursdays, 7:00-9:00 pm (Central) Live Session Link: https://zoom.us/j/4184057178

Download Syllabus 

Credits: 2

PreRequisites: N/A

Course Materials

• Jonathan Berk, Peter DeMarzo, Jarrad Harford, Fundamentals of Corporate Finance, 4th Edition (Pearson; 2018).
• Three Harvard Business School Publishing cases will be used in the course, and these can be found in your online classroom.

Course Communication

Your best bet for contacting me is by email, so please send any messages to me at wmegginson@ou.edu. I will contact you by e-mail whenever necessary.  Note:  I will only send e-mail messages to your ‘name@ou.edu’ e-mail address. 

If you use another e-mail address it is your responsibility to either check your ‘ou.edu’ e-mail account daily or to have any messages sent to that account forwarded to the address you use on a regular basis.

If you miss messages that I send out because you have not set things up to forward your messages or because you do not check your university e-mail account daily then you bear the sole responsibility for missing whatever information is included in the message.  

Course Grades

Graded Item	Description	% of Final Grade	Date Due
Quizzes	Short quizzes to help you gauge your understanding of the weekly lecture and reading materials.	10	Due by Sunday, 11:59 pm CT each week
Live Sessions	The class participation grade (10 points per week) is based on the quality and quantity of your contributions to discussions of course cases, quality of questions and responses to me, and your peers. Students who cannot attend live will earn participation points by reviewing the lecture recording and writing a brief response.	10	Live Sessions will take place Thursday evenings, beginning at 7:00pm CT
Case Study Analysis	Three Case Study Write Ups (40 points each) Class discussion and analysis of Cases (18 points each)	25  5	Due by 7:00pm CT (before class begins) Thursday of Week 3, 6, 8 Due by Sun, 11:59 pm of Week 3, 6, 8
Exams 1 & 2	2 non-comprehensive exams worth 125 points each	50	Exam 1 – Due by Sun 11:59 pm (CT) of Wk 4 Exam 2 - Due by Sun 11:59 pm Wk 8

I will provide feedback through rubrics with detailed comments. The rubrics are detail the criteria that you will need to include.  

 A 100-point grading scale will be used to assign course grades (90-100=A, 80-89=B, 70-79=C, 60-69=D, below 60-F).

 Case Assignments

The following three cases will be covered and can be found in your course modules.

1. Flash Memory, Inc. William E. Fruhan and Craig Stephenson. Harvard Business School Brief Case 4230 (Published August 20, 2010). This case also has a spreadsheet.
2. Toyota’s Innovative Share Issue (2015). Joshua Coval, Robin Greenwood, and Peter Tufano. Harvard Business School case 9-203-068 (Published: December 19, 2002; revised February 7, 2006).
3. Williams, 2002. Emir Hrnjic. Ivey Publishing case W16373-PDF-ENG (Published: June 27, 2016; revised July 25, 2016).

Guidelines for Team Case Write Ups 

For each case you will be provided with a list of questions designed to help guide and focus your analysis. The questions are not intended to be a complete list of the relevant issues in the case and, therefore, should not be used to define the limits of your analysis. The following are some general guidelines in preparing your write-ups.

Determine the major problems and/or opportunities in the case. Critically evaluate the information provided in the case. Having identified the relevant issues, list the alternative courses of action. If needed, consult general texts and references pertinent to the problem. If business conditions, the legal environment, or other events at the date of the case affect the solution, find the appropriate facts. Critically evaluate the data and legal issues provided in the case. Confine your analysis to facts known at the time of the case.

 Case Submission

All teams must prepare a typed case report of at most 5 pages of text (double spaced, font size 11 pt), excluding the cover sheet and at most 5 pages of exhibits, tables and figures. Reports should outline the main issues, address the assigned case questions, and suggest specific recommendations supported by a thorough analysis.  The report must clearly state the assumptions and the justifications for making these assumptions, and specify any additional data needed to arrive at conclusions. The case reports will be graded based on both form and content.

Your team’s case analysis should be turned into the Team Submission area by 7:00pm CT on Thursday (before online class) of each case study submission week. Individual class members should then select another team’s submission and review it, and post questions, additional support, or other comments. Team members should continue to monitor the class case study discussion area through the end of the week to respond to questions from peers.  Failure to submit the team case analysis or respond to peer questions in the class discussion in a timely manner may result in a grading penalty. 

Weekly Live Lecture Participation

The class participation grade will be based on the quality and quantity of your contributions to our live discussions of course topics and cases.

The class participation grade (10 points per week) will be based on the quality and quantity of your contributions to in-class discussions of course topics and cases.  Students who cannot attend live will earn participation points by reviewing the lecture recording and writing a brief reaction paper to be submitted in the weekly Live Lecture Dropbox prior to Midnight CT on the last day of the week.

NOTE:  As graduate learners, you should be prepared prior to each Live Session, which means that I expect you to have read the material assigned prior to each meeting. I encourage you to ask questions about the material we are discussing. Learners who attend these sessions will have the opportunity for Q&A after each lecture. 

Exams 1 & 2

You will complete two non-comprehensive exams. The exams will be based on the material covered in class plus the required readings.

Late Work or Extenuating Circumstances Policy

If you have extenuating circumstances, please contact me immediately to discuss options.

 

UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA & PRICE COLLEGE OF BUSINESS

ACADEMIC POLICIES & STUDENT SUPPORT

Catalog

Please familiarize yourself with the student catalog: http://catalog.ou.edu/courses/courses.htm

Online Library

All online students can use the University of Oklahoma library by visiting: http://libraries.ou.edu/

Academic Misconduct

In addition to the course conduct policies outlined by your professor in the Course Syllabus in the online classroom, please review the Graduate Student Handbook. 

It is the responsibility of each student to be familiar with the definitions, policies and procedures concerning academic misconduct. The Student Code is available from the Office of the Vice President for Student Affairs and is contained in the Student’s Guide to Academic Integrity, available at http://integrity.ou.edu/students_guide.html This site also defines misconduct, provides examples of prohibited conduct, and explains the sanctions available for those found guilty of misconduct.

Plagiarism 

Plagiarism is the most common form of academic misconduct at OU. There is basically no college-level assignment that can be satisfactorily completed by copying. OU's basic assumption about writing is that all written assignments show the student's own understanding in the student's own words. That means all writing assignments, in class or out, are assumed to be composed entirely of words generated (not simply found) by the student, except where words written by someone else are specifically marked as such with proper citation. Including other people's words in your paper is helpful when you do it honestly and correctly. When you don't, it's plagiarism. 

Go to http://integrity.ou.edu/students_guide.html to learn more about the rules for avoiding plagiarism. Test your skills in avoiding plagiarism by taking the library’s plagiarism tutorial, available at https://libraries.ou.edu/content/academic-integrity-tutorial

Reasonable Accommodation for Disabilities

The University of Oklahoma is committed to providing reasonable accommodation for all students with disabilities. Students with disabilities who require accommodations in this course should contact their professor as early in the semester as possible.

Students with disabilities must be registered with the Disability Resource Center prior to receiving accommodations in this course.

If you have a disability and you would like to make a request for reasonable accommodation, please see the Graduate Student Handbook or visit the Disability Resource Center and other disability services at OU at: http://drc.ou.edu/

Adjustments for Pregnancy/Childbirth Related Issues

Should you need modifications or adjustments to your course requirements because of documented pregnancy-related or childbirth-related issues, please contact me as soon as possible to discuss. Generally, modifications will be made where medically necessary and similar in scope to accommodations based on temporary disability. Please see www.ou.edu/content/eoo/faqs/pregnancy-faqs.htmlfor commonly asked questions.  

Title IX Resources  

For any concerns regarding gender-based discrimination, sexual harassment, sexual misconduct, stalking, or intimate partner violence, the University offers a variety of resources, including advocates on-call 24.7, counseling services, mutual no contact orders, scheduling adjustments and disciplinary sanctions against the perpetrator. Please contact the Sexual Misconduct Office 405-325-2215 (8-5, M-F) or OU Advocates 405-615-0013 (24.7) to learn more or to report an incident. 

Religious Holidays

It is the policy of the University to excuse absences of students that result from religious observances and to provide for the rescheduling of examinations and additional required classwork that may fall on religious holidays without penalty. It is the responsibility of the student to make alternate arrangements with the instructor at least one week prior to the actual date of the religious holiday.

Copyright Policy

It is illegal to download, upload, reproduce, or distribute any copyrighted material, in any form and in any fashion, without permission from the copyright holder or his/her authorized agent.  The University of Oklahoma expects all members of its community to comply fully with federal copyright laws. If such laws appear to have been violated by any user, the university reserves the right (1) to terminate that user’s access to some or all of the university’s computer systems and information resources and (2) to take additional disciplinary actions as deemed necessary or appropriate. Repeat offenders will be sanctioned and their privileges terminated.

Registration and Withdrawal

If you choose to withdraw from this course, you must complete the appropriate University form and turn the form in before the deadline. If you stop attending the course and doing the course work without doing the required paperwork your grade will be calculated with missed homework and examination grades entered as zero. This could result in receiving a grade of F in the course.  Deadlines are shown in the Academic Calendar, which is available from the Office of Admissions and Records or online at http://www.ou.edu/admissions/home/academic_calendar.html

Student Grievances

In addition to any policies outlined related to submitting an informal or formal grievance by your professor in the Course Syllabus in the online classroom, please review the Graduate Student Handbook for more information about the process of submitting a formal grievance.