Maastricht University - School of Business and Economics

This course offers a study of knowledge management, defined as the systematic, explicit, and deliberate acquisition, storage, and application of organizational knowledge, aimed at maximizing organizations' return on knowledge assets. The course discusses topics including the acquisition, selection, generation, internalization, and externalization of knowledge; how knowledge can be used effectively in specific environments; the role of information technology; and the challenges associated with the implementation of knowledge management. The course focuses on a fundamental question, “how can we manage knowledge?” The course addresses this question through the use of academic and business press readings and a diverse set of company cases. Students are evaluated by their participation and a written exam.

The focus of the course is on the role of information in a wide spectrum of examples and contexts, ranging from individual decision-making to collective choice, to strategic interactions between asymmetrically informed parties, to markets under asymmetric information. The course launches with individual decision-making. It examines how new information is used to update decision-makers’ beliefs and revise their actions, culminating with the notion of the value of information. Next, the course turns to collective decision-making. It scrutinizes procedures for aggregating individual preferences and raises issues of efficiency, justice, strategic voting, and manipulations of private information. Finally, the course makes an excursion into the field of information economics. It looks at contract design to provide specific incentives: for instance, to the experts with superior knowledge to report their information faithfully, or to the employees to exert a certain level of effort. Finally, the course discusses the impact of asymmetric information on the insurance markets.

This course covers individual, team, and organizational perspectives on learning and, subsequently, how learning, training, and development can be managed. The emerging field of professional learning of individuals and teams in an organizational setting is introduced. The course is based on insights from cognitive and learning sciences as well as organizational studies and human resource development. It analyses learning needs within organizations and identifies key variables that play a role when employees learn in a training setting or informally. Critical factors are identified that stimulate or hinder learning in organizations. Theoretical insights are applied to the analysis of organizational cases about professional learning. Additionally, students take on the role of consultants where they interview and advise an existing organization on improving its learning and development policies. The final report contains a scientific reflection on this professional learning practice, which will also be communicated to the organization.

This course elaborates on the macroeconomic topics and theories that have been discussed in prior courses. A key concern is the coordination between the goods market, the labor market, and financial markets in a closed economy framework. Coordination failures play a central role in explaining macroeconomic fluctuations and providing roles for fiscal and monetary policy. The courses develops a new Keynesian view of macroeconomics, developing theories and models for the short- and medium-run. Using recent OECD Economic Outlooks, macroeconomic theory is applied to a wide variety of recent macroeconomic problems and policy dilemmas. The course also includes some critical reflections on the standard new Keynesian model.

The course deals with basic issues in finance, such as risk diversification and asset pricing, capital structure, investment valuation, market efficiency, dividend policy, and the use of derivatives.