Business Administration

This course introduces concepts of business information systems. It examines what is meant by an information system, its basic components and their interrelationships, and why and how such a system is being used in businesses to achieve operational excellence and strategic advantage. There are five major themes covered: organizational and managerial foundations of information systems; fundamental and emerging infrastructure related to information systems; different types of information systems and their use and value; developing, implementing, and managing information systems; an social and ethical issues of information systems. 

Strategic management forms an integral part of everyday business life. The course focuses on concepts, theories, and frameworks that help us to identify, analyze, and make strategic decisions at the firm and the corporate level. This course offers a mixture of lectures and case discussion based on team presentations and individual participations. The lectures are designed to introduce the key theoretical concepts, frameworks, and empirical findings of strategic management. Topics include competitive advantage, external environment analysis, internal resources and activity analysis, business-level strategy, corporate-level strategy

This course provides a comprehensive introduction to marketing strategy and planning. It advances students’ knowledge of the marketing concept and its implementation, including how to serve customers better, create value, understand competitive advantage, limit competition, and the associated control and metrics. 

This course develops a comprehensive overview of modern globalization processes, their characteristics, and their implications for corporate performance. The ultimate objective of this course is to provide students with an interpretative framework to analyze how different companies –both transnational and domestic - can approach the risks and opportunities that globalization entails and deal with the strategic tradeoffs they face in a global context. This course is designed to develop an in-depth understanding of modern globalization processes and their implications for corporate strategies. The first part introduces modern globalization and its characteristics in light of the concurrent evolution of globalization and localization trends. It looks at the emerging geography of production and labor, introducing the concept of technological change as the key enabling process of the global economy. The second part of the course examines the key actors involved, namely companies confronting daily the opportunities and risks of doing (or not) business in the global market. The course addresses all major strategic options for business development in an interdependent and open economy, including location decisions, knowledge generation, and management strategies and human capital management practices. These different strategic options are analyzed through the lenses of conceptual arguments, empirical evidences, and evidences from real world experience. The course recommend students have a general background in international business and management at the undergraduate level as a prerequisite.

This course examines the strategic partnership between high growth start-ups and venture capital. It investigates how venture capitalists perceive the worthiness of an idea, and covers some of the best ideas from the top early-stage investment practices. The first part of the course covers analytic frameworks on the underlying logics in the startup and venture capital ecosystem. The second part is a series of thought experiments, wherein ideas are crafted and evaluated across different business possibilities. The course demystifies the real-world startup and venture capital practices, by thinking analytically on some of its key features. As an outcome, such frameworks are geared to help enable students to make insightful conversations with practitioners from startups or venture capital firms in the future.