Business Administration

The topics in this course are critical to people management in contemporary organizations, for example, leadership and team processes that enhance individual, team, and organizational performance. This course also seeks to understand atypical forms organizational phenomena. Alternative forms of organizations and unique individual circumstances have become more commonplace in recent years; however, theories about organizational behavior (OB)—designed to apply to “typical” workplace behavior and contexts—have not kept pace. The emphasis in this course is on critically evaluating existing OB theories as they relate to extreme forms of workplace behavior (e.g., workaholism, pro- and antisocial behavior) and contexts (e.g., poverty, military, hospital, and artist culture). Weekly topics include isolated and high-pressure work environments, passion work, and compliance and proactivity. In general, this course examines the central issues of organizational behavior by applying primarily sociological and social psychological theories and methods.

This course enables students to apply economic principles and models to understand the role of money and banking in the economy and to critically evaluate current debates on competition and regulation in the banking sector. The course studies the role of banking in the financial system and in the wider economy; the economic theory of bank intermediation; economic models of how banks make lending decisions in different market structures; strategies adopted by banks to address risk, with particularly reference to informational asymmetries; economic assessment of competition in banking, considering price and non-price strategies; banking regulation and government intervention in the banking sector; and current debates on the role of government and future of regulation for the sector.

This course examines the structure, operations, and functions of the financial system. The course starts with an introduction to financial markets’ role in the economy and the determination of interest rates and valuation of cash flows. The course then discusses various financial markets including money markets, bond markets, mortgage markets, stock markets, and derivatives markets. Financial institutions will be discussed with an emphasis on their major functions and operations. 

This course provides an in-depth understanding of the financial decision-making practice of corporations and enables students to apply financial theories to understanding issues and solving problems in real-world settings. The course examines the costs and benefits of various financing choices with an emphasis on issues of taxation, financial distress costs, agency conflicts, information problems, and managerial incentive problems. These issues are explored in the context of a firm’s capital structure choice, payout policy, security issues, and mergers and acquisitions.

The operations function of an organization is responsible for producing and delivering goods or services of value to customers of the organization. Operations managers make decisions to manage the transformation process that converts inputs into desired finished goods or services. This course covers the fundamentals of operations management, managerial insight and intuition, and business decisions. Specifically, it investigates the following topics: process strategy and analysis, quality management, constraint management, project management, and inventory management.

Taking the perspective of women and entrepreneurship, this course takes a different approach to the role of the individual in the entrepreneurial process.  This course acknowledges that there are differences between the way men and women go about being entrepreneurs by focusing on entrepreneurship with different gender, economic, and cultural contexts and exploring which lessons one may draw from these different contexts, both from an academic as well as from a practical perspective. Rooted in a strong academic base, the course considers entrepreneurial concepts in different contexts leading to context-rich learning and a better appreciation of diversified entrepreneurial solutions.

This course covers the international firm and its role in society. It explores both the firm’s obligation to conduct its business as profitably as possible and at the same time to act responsibly toward society at large. The first part of this course deals with the various aspects of conducting international business, including how firms expand internationally, how they conduct their business outside their home borders, and what determines the success and failure of firms around the globe. It provides an overview of the essential concepts, theories, and analytical frameworks in international business. The second part of the course utilizes case studies to explore how international business can assist in the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals, looking particularly at the goals of no poverty, zero hunger, decent work and economic growth, responsible consumption and production, and partnerships for the goals.  

This course provides a study of how housing markets work and the roles of policy in housing production, consumption, investment and governance. The course introduces basic housing economic concepts that can help to understand housing markets, cycles, and housing finance. It examines the roles of housing policies in delivering and governing a housing provision system, for example, the policies to promote homeownership and the roles of town councils in housing estate management. Cases and examples are drawn from the housing markets in both Singapore and other countries.