Business Administration

This course introduces students to and explores the purpose, nature, and operation of the financial accounting function within businesses, particularly limited liability companies in the UK. It reveals, illustrates and explores how the financial accounting systems operate when tasked with measuring and recording the financial value of the transactions, events, and activities of a business. In so doing, it examines the nature and scope of financial accounting and the underlying conceptual framework of accounting conventions and standards. It further looks at the ratio analysis and associated interpretation of published financial statements from the perspectives of a range of differing users of financial accounting information. Accordingly, the course seeks to equip students with the knowledge, understanding, and skills to enable them to identify and record the financial value of business transactions, events and activities, and to generate financial information through the construction of balance sheets, income statements (profit statements) and cash flow statements, and through the use of financial ratios.

In this course, students learn to develop and present a business plan for a commercial or social enterprise within the creative economy. The course equips students with the tools and entrepreneurial skill to rigorously plan, resource, and deliver their own proposal or product launch, as well as articulate and communicate its relevance in a rapidly changing landscape. Students gain a range of sought-after hard and soft skills, across five key areas: market analysis, product or service design, branding, assessing resources, and an in-depth financial forecasting. Regular group and project-based activities help to foster an inclusive and entrepreneurial learning environment. Lectures, seminars, and panels led by specialists and leaders drawn from the commercial art, finance, and startup sectors also help students to generate entrepreneurial sparks to resolve some of the issues facing the contemporary art world. This course culminates in a “shark tank” event, where students present a unique idea to a panel of experts, offering opportunities for networking, advice, and potential investment.

This course covers the fundamentals of innovation and entrepreneurship and how they can help students become more future proof in their careers. It focuses on how innovation can be developed and enhanced and then looks at the world of entrepreneurship and how it can be relevant for each and every one of the participants. Throughout, the course introduces and practices the Lean Startup Model, focusing on how to identify real problems for people and then finding solutions for those problems. As an online course, students watch short videos, use interactive applications, answer online quizzes, and develop an idea for a venture (business, social, or design). The course ends with a project that presents a model for a real world venture.

This course presents financial statement analysis from the point of view of the primary users of financial statements: company managers, creditors, and investors. The course provides students with tools to enable them to analyze financial statements and draw inferences about the performance and the value of a firm. The course is structured in two broad parts. Financial analysis forms the first part, focusing on past and present performance evaluation to generate expectations about future performance (prospective analysis), credit rating and distress prediction. The second part, security valuation, focuses on market- and accounting-based models to derive the value of a firm. All analyses are conducted within the context of a firm’s industry and strategy. This is an applied and practical course. 

A decision support system (DSS) is a model-based or knowledge-based system intended to support managerial decision-making in semi-structured or unstructured situations. A DSS is not meant to replace a decision-maker, but to extend his/her decision-making capabilities. It uses data, provides a clear user interface, and can incorporate the decision-maker’s own insights. This course reviews decision support systems, their use, and important components which leads to a group designed and developed DSS that facilitates decision-making through specific selection criteria and constraints.  Students learn how to code in the programming language Excel VBA, develop and improve skills in algorithmic thinking, create userforms, and use tools provided by the toolbox. Essential programming techniques and constructs such as loops, subs, functions and macros are taught. Prerequisites for the course include a basic mastery of Excel, or an alternative spreadsheet application: cell referencing, building formulas, and use of logical functions. This does not require mastery of VBA for Excel, training in VBA programming is part of the course.

In this course, students gain an in-depth understanding of what makes consumers buy some products and not others, how various psychological characteristics influence our consumer behaviors, how companies can best try to meet consumers' wants and needs, among other topics. Building on a general understanding of marketing, this course develops a useful, conceptual understanding of psychological theories relevant to the study of consumer behavior.

Topics in this marketing and sales management course include: today's client; contemporary sales; CRM, sales technology and analysis; market research and messaging; negotiation and closing; territory organization; recruitment, selection, and training; motivation of sellers; remuneration and evaluation of sales; international sales prospects.

Business administration studies economic problems within the firm and relates to problems in the fields of marketing and logistics, finance, accounting, information management, and organization and strategy. Business administration aims to provide an integrated view of all the various (sub) disciplines. This course introduces basic topics that are related to business administration. The course centers around a real-life management simulation: Market Place live.

This course addresses human resource topics from a strategic perspective, considering how human resource management might aid in developing competitive advantage and what can be done to fulfill this potential. 

This course provides students with a thorough understanding of major topical areas in financial management, including an overview of the most recent developments and the ways they are integrated into corporate practice. Students learn how to evaluate major strategic corporate and investment decisions and to understand capital markets and institutions from a financial perspective.  Topic coverage includes asset valuation, real options, capital structure, cost of capital, Hybrid Financing, corporate liabilities, Initial Public Offerings (IPOs), Mergers and Acquisitions (M&As), and Sustainable Finance. Throughout the course, practical applications of financial concepts and techniques are carried out with the use of cases. Building on earlier, more fundamental courses in corporate finance and investments, the scope of the Sustainable Financial Management and Policy course drifts away from the simple technical analysis of corporate financial decisions to a high-level discussion of their strategic implications for the profitability and sustainability of the company. Prerequisites include a second-year course in finance.