Business Administration

Decision making is a central aspect of any business activity. The ability to understand how decisions are made, and to predict, guide, and improve those decisions is an invaluable part of every change maker's toolbox. In this course, students develop this ability, and they are introduced to insights from behavioral science and decision analytics and its application to management and policy making.

This course analyses the basic concepts associated with competing theoretical perspectives on the nature of the firm and analysis of market coordination. It develops an awareness of how recent advances in the theory of Industrial Organization relate to previously dominant perspectives in the field. Students develop an understanding of how different approaches to Industrial Organization have been applied at the level of specific firms, particular industries, and with regard to concrete policy initiatives. Students learn to outline, evaluate, and illustrate the contributions of transaction cost economics, resource-based theories of the firm, and evolutionary approaches to Industrial Organization; evaluate and illustrate accounts of the market order which highlight the role of social rules, relationships, and conventions in the functioning of competitive processes; and demonstrate the policy relevance of recent theoretical advances in Industrial Organization by evaluating the promotion of quasi-market structures in sectors such as broadcasting.

Students will participate in business plans writing and critiques and enjoy vivid interactions with entrepreneurs and guest speakers for experience sharing and collaboration potentials. What would it take to turn a business idea into a venture? What can we gain from a classroom setting, and link it to real-world practices? Through team projects, invited talks, role plays, and various kinds of activities, students find answers to these questions and learn to become successful entrepreneurs. The major deliverable from this class is your business plan and a small scale launch of your planned business.