Business Administration

This course covers the basic principles of corporate finance and accounting. The course covers the study of key financial concepts, like the time value of money and arbitrage, the valuation of major securities like bonds and stocks, the financial risk and portfolio theory and the CAPM, as well as the accounting principles and reporting and the financial statements, their nature, content, use, and analysis. The nature of the course is technical and quantitative and employs tutorials and the use of exercises and applications to practice the introduced topics. To make the course more hands-on, we stress the importance of using Excel in solving financial problems, which reflects its wide use in business life. Assumed previous knowledge: for students without an economics background this is an intensive and challenging course. To the extent students lack knowledge of Mathematics and Excel, students are expected to compensate for this on their own.

The course provides students with a theoretical and practical understanding of the relationship between business and society through the umbrella concept of corporate social responsibility. It focuses on three main aspects: understanding corporate social responsibility, applying corporate social responsibility, and managing corporate social responsibility. The course analyzes different perspectives to understand corporate social responsibility. It explores the relationship of the corporation and a variety of stakeholders such as employees, suppliers, investors, and the environment. 

The course enables students to develop knowledge in the management of people, processes, and product design in a global context through collaboration with Chung-Hwa Telecomm International (CHTI).

This course enables students to understand CHTI from the following perspectives:
People – Enhancing and developing competencies to manage people across national and cultural boundaries.
Processes – Integrating knowledge development, product procurement, manufacturing, and distribution for a global supply chain.
Product design – Managing internal and external environments such as globally-dispersed stakeholders, corporate vision, and cross-border regulations in targeted international market.

This course explores contemporary developments in marketing, in light of recent developments in socio-economic, technology, and regulatory trends in society and their influences on attitudes and behavior. It draws in several external expert guest speakers to help consider not only the drivers of change that have shaped marketing in our current era, but also stimulate thinking about the implications for lifestyles in the not-too-distant future and the practical and ethical issues that may arise for individuals and society. It adopts an active, collaborative, and inclusive style of teaching in tutorials. Many industry professionals come to class to provide real case studies, problems, and insights which mainly focus on equality and diversity, and sustainability issues. These guests provide the briefs for students' real-life authentic assessment task. 

Digital platforms, especially social media, help consumers garner information, network, socialize, and share opinions on their consumption decisions with friends and other like-minded consumers. Hence, to achieve their profitability objectives, business managers need a clear understanding of engaging with the new socially connected consumer through an effective marketing strategy.

This course teaches fundamental principles of how to manage networked customers. In addition, it provides a basic understanding of social media platforms and how to choose amongst the various platforms. Finally, students learn the foundations of developing a successful network marketing strategy  from industry stalwarts, sharing their experience and insights as guest speakers. 

Prior basic knowledge of marketing is preferred though not necessary.