Business Administration

This is a special studies course involving an internship with a corporate, public, governmental, or private organization, arranged with the Study Center Director or Liaison Officer. Specific internships vary each term and are described on a special study project form for each student. A substantial paper or series of reports is required. Units vary depending on the contact hours and method of assessment. The internship may be taken during one or more terms but the units cannot exceed a total of 12.0 for the year.

This course examines a multinational corporation and the ways it formulates, implements, evaluates, and conducts its international and global business in the most cost-effective and efficient way. Students explore how an organization must effectively coordinate all business units (human resources, finance, accounting, sales and marketing, R&D, logistics, corporate social responsibility, etc.) across national boundaries, extending them to places where the environment can be challenging and, at times, even hostile. This course equips students with the necessary tools and concepts to analyze and understand the formulation, implementation and evaluation of a company. 

This course provides students with an overview of the dynamics of the global financial and international monetary systems. Students develop knowledge of the fundamental concepts needed to understand foreign direct investment, financial flows, international trade and investment deals. As political risk and economic exposure to global events have become more immediate, special attention is given to the 2007-2012 world banking crisis, the role of central banks in the stabilization of national economies, national debts, and the specific economic challenges to which individual countries have been exposed in varying ways. Alternative views and policy measures to help struggling economies overcome the economic and financial crisis like contracting (or expanding) government spending are assessed and critically analyzed.

This course expands on what constitutes real estate business in the modern society. The course provides knowledge and skills relevant to the multidimensional real estate business field, which includes asset management, property management, facility management, and real estate development. Focus is on different financing and management models, from the perspective of a business. A central theme is corporate governance, including corporate real estate management (CREM), and corporate social responsibility (CSR). The course also introduces futures studies and gives insight into managing and financing innovation in real estate.

This course seeks to immerse students in a professional work environment. Students have the opportunity to observe and interact with co-workers, and learn how to recognize and respond to cultural differences. Students compare concepts of teamwork and interpersonal interactions in different cultures as experienced on the job. Seminar work helps students apply academic knowledge in a business setting and identify opportunities to create value within the company. Students research a specific topic related to their work placement and present their findings in a final research report.

This course focuses on designing strategies from the market back to create, deliver, and sustain customer value in competitive and dynamic markets. To do so, a comprehensive investigation and analysis of all major components of marketing strategy and their integration. This course takes a business-oriented setup by focusing on real-life examples/cases, allowing participation in a market simulation game. The objective of the simulation is to put into practice the concepts related to marketing strategy and the marketing mix in a risk-free environment. Prerequisites: A basic marketing course at the level of Management of Organizations and Marketing and Marketing Management, and/or knowledge of the basic concepts of marketing

This course focuses on designing strategies from the market back to create, deliver, and sustain customer value in an industrial setting. To do so, this course views marketing as both a general management responsibility (building capabilities and firm processes) and an organizational orientation (culture and structure). The course pays attention to tactical decisions (e.g. sales, advertising, pricing) or formal models of marketing decision-making (e.g. forecasting or product diffusion models). The level of analysis is on the business unit and its network of channels, customer relationships, and alliances. Participants learn about the nature and value of market orientation vs. other firm orientations; the development of marketing capabilities and assets, and understand principles such as market learning, customer relationships, alliances, and dynamic distribution channel strategies.

This service-learning course combines a structured curriculum and extensive partnership with a local community-based organization to offer tangible community service. Here, student community service includes direct
engagement as well as a research-based action plan addressing a specific challenge or goal identified by a community-based organization. Students begin by exploring key community-based organizations: examining their
mission, vision and goals, and the place of the organization in the local community. Each student then works with an assigned partner organization and invests at least 90 hours partnering with the organization, working with them
and investigating ways to solve a challenge or issue the organization has identified. Student service-learning includes exploring the proximate and ultimate drivers of the organization's chosen challenge, and the organization's
infrastructure, resources, limitations and possibilities for reducing barriers to achieving the organization's self-identified goals. In concert, coursework probes the role of community-based organizations in both local and global
contexts, common challenges of community-based organizations in defining and implementing their goals, the role of service-learning in addressing these issues, and effective ways for students to help them achieve their mission,
vision, and goals. Coursework also guides the student's service-learning experience by helping students develop sound international service ethics, provide tools to investigate solutions to common development issues, aid in
data analysis and presentation, and provide best practices to illustrate findings and deliver approved joint recommendations orally and in writing. Throughout, students use service-learning as a means to expand their global awareness and understanding, explore shared aspirations for social justice, and develop skills to work with others to effect positive change.

The extensive independent study field research paper produced by the student is both the centerpiece of the intern's professional engagement and the culmination of the academic achievements of the semester. During the preparatory session, IFE teaches the methodological guidelines and principles to which students are expected to adhere in the development of their written research. Students work individually with a research advisor from their field. The first task is to identify a topic, following guidelines established by IFE for research topic choice. The subject must be tied in a useful and complementary way to the student-intern's responsibilities, as well as to the core concerns of the host organization. The research question should be designed to draw as much as possible on resources available to the intern via the internship (data, documents, interviews, observations, seminars and the like). Students begin to focus on this project after the first 2-3 weeks on the internship. Each internship agreement signed with an organization makes explicit mention of this program requirement, and this is the culminating element of their semester. Once the topic is identified, students meet individually, as regularly as they wish, with their IFE research advisor to generate a research question from the topic, develop an outline, identify sources and research methods, and discuss drafts submitted by the student. The research advisor also helps students prepare for the oral defense of their work which takes place a month before the end of the program and the due date of the paper. The purpose of this exercise is to help students evaluate their progress and diagnose the weak points in their outline and arguments. Rather than an extraneous burden added to the intern's other duties, the field research project grows out of the internship through a useful and rewarding synergy of internship and research. The Field Study and Internship model results in well-trained student-interns fully engaged in mission-driven internships in their field, while exploring a critical problem guided by an experienced research advisor.