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This course addresses the topic of organization design and the related various management control approaches. The course aims to create an understanding of appropriate organizational design for different types of institutions, and build practical skills related to the principles and challenges of designing and implementing contemporary organizations. The latter includes the dynamics and processes of structuring organizations, and the specific ways organizations can set up and use their management control and performance measurement systems.
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Operations management is concerned with the production and delivery of goods and services. It encompasses the design of the products and processes, the planning and execution of production, and acquisition and deployment of resources. Efficient operations can provide a firm with major competitive advantages, since the ability to respond to consumer and market requirements quickly, at low coast, and with high quality, is vital for sustained profitability and growth.
The course aims to familiarize you with the problems and issues confronting operations managers and provide you with concepts, insights and tools to deal with these issues in order to gain competitive advantage through operations.
We will see how different business strategies require different business processes, and vice versa, how different operational capabilities allow and support different strategies to gain competitive advantage. A process view of operations will be used to analyze different key operational dimensions such as capacity management, cycle time management, supply chain and logistics management, and quality management. And, we will connect to recent development such as lean or world-class manufacturing, just-in-time operations, time-based competition and business re-engineering.
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The Marketing Management Module is focused on knowing and satisfying target customers with competitively superior offers, which is the key to profitable performance. This process takes place today in an increasingly global, technical, and competitive environment. Marketing is the organization function charged with defining customer targets and the best way to satisfy their needs and wants competitively and profitably.
Marketing management is the conscious effort to achieve desired exchange outcomes with target markets. The marketers basic skill lies in influencing the level, timing, and composition of demand for a product, service, organization, place, person, idea or some form of information.
The marketing concept moves toward a more enlightened view of the role of marketing. The understanding of marketing is about that the main task of the company is to determine the needs, wants, and preferences of a target group of customers and to deliver the desired satisfactions. The four principles of the marketing concept are: target market, customer needs, integrated marketing, and profitability. The marketing concept places primary focus on the needs and wants of customers who comprise the target market for a particular product.
Because many products can satisfy a given need, product choice is guided by the concepts of value, cost, and satisfaction. These products are obtainable in several ways: self-production, coercion, begging, and exchange. A market is a group of people who share a similar need. Marketing encompasses those activities that represent working with markets and attempting to actualize potential exchanges.
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Hundred thousands of people are involved in project work every day all over the globe. Involvement in project work in one way or the other has simply become commonplace. The reason is that project work has become one of the most versatile mechanisms for closing the gap between aspirations and reality. And new projects are starting up at an increasing pace. Project work is the recipe for combining new efforts, new knowledge and new capital in ways that make us better able to change our world and ourselves in directions we believe in and want to pursue.
The project management module addresses the considerable changes seen in recent years in areas where project work is used. From primarily being a tool for solving and managing technical problems, the term management by projects more precisely describes the way projects today are used as strategic and tactical tools for company development and success.
This is also the objective of this module; in the sense that it demonstrates the way modern project work enhances business by projects. The planning and organisation of projects as well as their management are discussed from a variety of angles. The managerial problems that may and most likely will crop up during project work are given broad consideration, both from a theoretical and, not least, a practical perspective.
The reason for this module to come early in the MBA program, is to give the students a tool for more practically mastering the multitude of areas the program subsequently contains. Varying from the very strategic projects developed for achieving strategic company purposes, to the creation of tactical projects within marketing, finance, product development and organisational change, and to the typical operational projects needed for the daily operations in areas such as production, logistics and personnel training.
In the module the students are taught how to regard project management in a holistic perspective, learning them to create projects that contribute to the all the different goals modern organisations have. The integration processes the students will be exposed to include the selection of projects that best support the organisation, the stakeholder and network attitude modern project managers must master, and the important project management processes needed in order to complete projects.
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In its essence management is about getting things done through people and human resources. This course addresses how organizations can and actually do manage human resources at strategic, tactical, and operational levels. The course will expose the participants to current trends in research and practice of human resource management by engaging them in both practice-oriented experiential learning as well as evidence-based approach towards HRM.
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The essence of corporate strategy is the creation of sustainable competitive advantage, i.e. creating products and services that the customers perceive as valuable and unique. The field of strategic management provides a range of models that is useful in the attempts to develop sustainable competitive advantage. In this module the students will get acquainted with several of these models, both through lectures and case applications. We will study environmental conditions, internal resources, markets and competitive arenas. Strategic expansion, alliances, mergers and acquisition will be given specific attention. We will also discuss firms operating across borders, and the specific challenges met by internationalisation. Finally we will look at some challenges related to strategy implementation.
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We will emphasize the importance of leadership as behaviors influencing employees, co-workers and other stakeholders towards commitment and co-operation towards busines objectives. The module focuses on fundamentals in leadership theories (particularly transformational leadership), assessment of leadership performance and potential, and on how leadership capacity in organizations may be developed. A particular emphasis is made on the relationship between leadership, leadership development and strategic business objectives. Additional emphasis is given to cross-cultural aspects of leadership, authority and interpersonal behaviors. First and foremost theories of leader traits, leader styles, and leadership effectiveness will be reviewed and the students are expected to acquire broad knowledge in this area. Cultural differences in personality and leadership behaviour will be discussed and the possible limitations in previous leadership research for the non - western cultures will be emphasized. Participants will also be assessed on tests of personality and leadership styles and feedback will be given. Thus, participants should acquire an expanded perspective on their own dispositions and preferences as regards their leadership behaviour.
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Managerial Economics is one of the core modules for MBA program. The theoretical background of the module is microeconomics, but managerial economics is much more focused on applications of the economic principles in practice and competition in doing business. This module will use a systematic framework from viewpoint of economics to analyze the decision making in doing business and to explain that how the economic principles and its applications are related. Based on the critical concepts in microeconomics, the module will focus on competitive strategies. Towards different industries and different markets, this module will analyze that how to select a better strategy in pricing, product differentiation, and output competition etc, and to explain the critical factors to reach better performance in business decision making.
It is essential for a business manager to understand the fundamentals of the market in which he/she operates. Most business decisions – be it in pricing, expansion, innovation or product differentiation etc. – will benefit from being evaluated with a firm grasp of the dynamic equilibrium process of the market and the nature and logic of dynamic competition in the market.
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The core of this module is a business simulation a management game.
First, it allows students to be a Global CEO for a day and to make decisions accordingly, to evaluate the results of their decisions, and to make new decisions, etc. Students can practice what they have learned during their Master in the lifelike, but safe and fast environment of the game.
Second, the theoretical framework for the module rests on three traditions: Global management, corporate governance and complexity theory.
Third, it is a practical way to introduce large groups of Chinese students to the Norwegian business life. The case to be simulated is a company operating cross-nationally in China, Germany, and Norway.
In this module, the students will learn how decisions in organizations have different short- and long-term consequences. They will learn why forecasting and systemic understanding is important for planning and the anticipation of future events and results. They will also learn to integrate concepts from corporate governance and global management, understanding how different organizational stakeholders and global perspectives on a company create complex and sometimes conflicting interests when making and carrying out decisions. Finally, they will learn about simulation as a way of training management in businesses so that they can later use these methods themselves.
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This course is to provide students with a conceptual framework and a set of technical tools for making corporate investment decisions. The focus will be maximizing the value of the firm. Various ethical issues will be highlighted throughout the course.
The objectives of corporate financial management and potential financial and ethical conflicts of stakeholders.
Financial metrics for evaluating corporate financial performance.
Basics of financial markets and instruments.
The tradeoff between financial risk and financial reward, and its implications for investment and financing decisions.
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The purpose of this course is to furnish students with a basic understanding of financial reporting. It will provide students with the ability to analyze and interpret company financial statements by making use of real financial statements and accounting disclosures, and exposing students to contemporary real world accounting issues. In addition, an emphasis will be placed on understanding the differences between accounting rules in use around the world (i.e. the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), the American Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (US GAAP) and the Chinese accounting standards).
Read and interpret financial statements
Understand how financial reporting choices and discretion affect financial information
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Recent economic growth in Asian countries (e.g. China, India) has forced companies to re-evaluate their strategies to take advantage of these opportunities. What are the current financial and human capital costs of doing business in Asia and globally? What might future challenges be? How do firms compete to capture emerging business opportunities? How should firms strategically position themselves today to take advantage of key developments in the Asian and Western economies to sustain high corporate growth? These fundamental concerns will be addressed by the proposed Asia EMBA Programme, specially designed for BI Norwegian Business School, to be conducted by the Nanyang Business School.
Gain insights into Asian perspectives on leadership and strategy, through reflection on lessons from Sun Zi Bingfa.
Gain insights into the tensions between stakeholders in multi-business corporations, and the implications for improving corporate governance.
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ICT (information and communications technology) has evolved extremely rapidly, and is now increasingly pervasive in all aspects of business or public administration. Many of the most difficult decisions (strategic or administrative) to be taken by managers involve information technology, both as medium and content; and many actions (both external and external to the organization) are carried out within a fully digital environment. Rapid communications networks, mobile computing and communications equipment, and vast storage capabilities means that many industries are facing changes in their business environment that deeply influences their strategic options and future profitability. Clearly, managers need to understand information technology - if nothing else, so that they can communicate effectively with the organizational units charged with its implementation.
The intent of this module is to give the student an understanding of the role of information technology in organizations, the impact of the rapid technology evolution for business environments, and the challenge of managing the technology (and the organizational units charged with its introduction and support). The discussions will be within three main areas:
Managing IT for competitive advantage: Understanding how IT can give the organization a competitive advantage, and how to sustain that advantage.
Understanding the role of IT in organizations: This part of the course will analyze organizations in terms of the chains, shops, networks framework, trying to understand how value is created in each of these strategic configurations, and how IT supports this value creation.
Managing the IT resource: Understanding the organizational challenges of IT management, the interface between IS and the business, governance models and organizational processes, systems development and delivery, outsourcing.
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The world is changing at an ever-faster rate. The 21st Century, as Newsweek editor Fareed Zakaria has remarked, will be the century of change. More things will change in more places in the next 10 years than in the previous 100. Indeed, in a world that is increasingly flat, with rapid and perpetual technological change, and massive social and environmental challenges, securing long-term competitive advantage is harder than ever. In this context, going global is no longer a choice for leading companies it is a necessity.
But operating globally and becoming a truly global enterprise is no easy undertaking. Economic realities and dynamics continue to differ among major markets. Add to that strongly diverging political, social, and regulatory conditions that impede the simple transplantation of a successful business model from one market to another. Finding the right balance between global integration and local responsiveness requires not only careful strategic planning but also meticulous, yet adaptable implementation. A particular challenge in this respect is the case of global brand building. To master these daunting challenges, companies need managers who understand cross-cultural differences and who can think outside the box in short, they need innovative cosmopolitan leaders.
The first objective of this tailor-made program is to familiarize participants with the various sets of issues and forces that executive encounter when their firms operate in the global arena. But familiarization is not enough.
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New businesses and related new wealth are created form scratch (entrepreneurship) as well as within existing organizations (intrapreneruship).
Most existing companies face new value creation possibilities on the basis of existing resources and capabilities. These new business opportunities can be captured by aggressive, innovative and visionary managers and exploited for the benefit of the firm. Going from tested products and well-known business models into novel offerings and innovative monetization possibilities is just as demanding and creative as starting a venture from scratch.
On the other hand, emerging technological possibilities can be captured by new start-up firms, which if successful in the market do generate tremendous returns for their founders as well as benefits to the economy and society at large.
In this module you will learn about both; new ventures and intrapreneurial projects. You will do so from a theoretical and a practical perspective. The practical part will consist of you forming venture teams and either (a) start your own firm or (b) create your own intrapreneurial project within an existing firm, ideally a real project at the firm where you work.
This module is meant to complete the other two modules on entrepreneurship and idea works by offering an organizational approach and novel techniques to exploiting new business ideas in an existing type of business, as well as in a startup setting. This course will in-depth review cases in emerging market contexts, touching upon the interaction between culture, institutions and new value creation opportunity. Lastly, the module will offer a mix of theories on creative destruction, entrepreneurship and 'control for innovation' models with a focus on renewing existing business for growth and new wealth creation in a Chinese environment.
Students have knowledge of theories of creative destruction, entrepreneurship and 'control for innovation’.
Students also develop and understanding of behavioral science as it affects decision-making in relation to starting a venture, pursing high-gorwth scalable project at a firm and terminating a venture or project.
Furthermore, students will understand teamwork as a condition for starting or renewing existing business for growth and new wealth creation in a Chinese environment.
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This course gives an overview of the opportunities and challenges facing firms involved in conducting cross-border business activities in an increasingly open and dynamic world.
The course aims to provide the students with managerial knowledge and analytical skills that are important when companies carry out international business activities.
The course combines corporate strategy theories with theories of economic organization and management.
Students will have acquired a good overview of key economic/geographic, institutional/legal, and political/cultural conditions for international business activities.
Students will learn how to identify and analyze adequate strategies for internationalization.
Students will learn about challenges in the organization and management of multinational corporations, and they should be able to evaluate appropriate structural solutions.
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This unique course provides participants with a framework for identifying, developing and executing the information-intensive strategies that will enable them to compete and win in smart markets. While most firms recognise that they are now competing in an information economy, few have developed a systematic strategic framework to leverage their information assets into sustainable advantage.
At the end of the Entrepreneurship session, participants will understand how Silicon Valley functions; how VS firms are organized and partners compensated; set deal flow, deal terms and valuation.
Learning goals include the following:
- Gain knowledge of the Cluster of Innovation structure:
- The 7 COI components
- The 5 COI behaviors
- Examples of the legal and cultural structures that bind the components and reflect the behaviors
- How all these elements interact to create the Global Network of Clusters of Silicon Valley
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The basic question in strategy is ‘why do some firms succeed and others fail?’ Our usual and traditional answer to this essential question has been explained by the fact that successful firms have developed a competitive advantage. A challenge with this expression, and with the basic strategy question, is that the unit of analysis is an individual firm. Yet, today we know that more and more firms depend on relationships to others; firms are interdependent, not independent.
Taking interdependence as the fundamental starting point for the understanding of business performance has a number of significant implications. Rather than focusing on individual firm competitive advantage, we need to acknowledge cooperative advantage in relationships and networks.
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The objective of this course is to provide students with an overall understanding of how firms should manage the global financial issues in a dynamic world. It explains why fundamental theories in international economics can be translated into the competitive edges for multinational firms in both the product market and the financial market, and thereby affect their global investment, financing and risk management decisions.
The course has a strong China background. It focuses on the RMB exchange rate reform and how multinational firms (both foreign-invested firms in China and Chinese overseas investments) should incorporate RMB foreign exchange risk management in investment decisions (which market to entry) and financing decisions (which market to borrow). Although students are required to have fundamental knowledge in Macroeconomics (GDP and inflation), Microeconomics (Opportunity cost, market competition) and Corporate Finance (NPV, discount rate, cost of capital, etc.), they are encouraged to present their analytical skills rather than quantitative calculations.
Knowledge of exchange rate regimes, the impossible triangle in international economics and the history of RMB exchange rate reform
Understanding of the Purchasing Power Parity and Interest Rate Parity and how they respectively affect multinational firms’ global competitiveness and cost of capital.
Being aware of the operational and investment arrangements for MNCs to reduce global tax.
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Digitalization creates high speed, high volume digital activity traces – Big Data. Using recent advances in machine learning, organizations can use these data to automatically build models that predict specific events in real-time. Managers can use machine learning-based analytics to improve a wide variety of tasks ranging from targeted marketing to preventative maintenance to fraud detection. The course emphasizes processes for approaching and defining problems assessable through machine learning. The class will function like a lab in which students get hands-on experience with cutting-edge analytics processes, tools, and techniques. This firsthand experience provides students with insight into how big data analytics can improve business processes and decision-making.
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Branding is still relatively new in China. In the last 20 years, Chinese consumers have seen a radical transformation of the consumption landscape from few products and practically no brands in 1998, to a proliferation of products and brands favored by the exceptional economic development of the last 20 years and by the impact of globalization. Strong in the early phase of this fast expansion path, the voice of the brands is now getting weaker due to the abundance of choices and the difficulty to stand out of the crowd. At the same time, the digital revolution empowered consumers with e-commerce, social media, online cross border and Chinese consumers today can access from their mobile phones all the products and brands they are interested in, even those which are not yet in China. Brands are also increasingly squeezed between these empowered consumers and powerful digital market places and integrated digital platforms. The development of local consumption continues to attract foreign brands but more and more Chinese brands also realize the huge opportunities they have to compete with western brands by leveraging on their understanding of Chinese consumers culture, aspirations and also digital consumption journeys. However, there is still a certain deficit of branding skills among many Chinese companies and the real "power of the brand" is still a relatively new concept, not fully understood. This course aims at developing a stronger branding culture and helping Chinese brands and businesses learn from the best practices of successful western brands, primarily in the premium and luxury sector, where we can often identify the best branding and marketing techniques. These best practices can be applied partially or totally to many brands and businesses in China, not only in the premium and luxury sector and help them upgrade their branding and marketing activities, increase their brand equity value, become more aspirational. Last but not least it should be reminded that Chinese luxury consumers will account for 40% of the global luxury consumption by 2025 from 34% today and that most of the growth will be driven by millennials and Gen Zers. This constitutes a huge opportunity for western premium and luxury brands but also for upcoming Chinese premium and luxury brands.
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Rapid and unpredictable change, emergence of ubiquitous intelligent technology, and the consistent decline of routine work render conventional static organizational designs inadequate and provide a vastly expanded repertoire of available ways to organize work. Participants will learn about the demands and opportunities facing leaders and organizational designers in a digital work environment. These developments will have consequences for internal processes such as the ways we organize and the way leaders understand their roles. Participants will learn about how the traditional role of leadership needs to adapt to the changing nature of work in the digital age, agile ways of organizing, how leadership relates to learning and innovation, and how digital technologies, as a value-creating resource, may affect leadership.
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Digital organizations excel at rapid-fire development of products and services adapted to user needs. Digital development requires new design methods. This module, provided in partnership with Hasso Plattner Institut in Potsdam, Germany, provides participants with an intense introduction to Design Thinking and the experience of hands-on team-based solution development within short time-frames. Teams will run through the complete Design Thinking process, working on a real-life project and coming up with solutions to an actual problem – including user research and digital prototyping. Upon completing this module, participants will be able to apply Design Thinking to digital development and creative problem-solving efforts, as well as critically asses how to apply Design Thinking in different organizational contexts.
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This course, conducted in Stockholm, focuses on how you can develop smart green ideas and make business models for innovations. We will visit leading Swedish entrepreneurial networks, such as Norrsken, the “Impact Unicorn Factory” and meet leading impact entrepreneurs, business angels as well as investors. We will also learn more about design thinking in practice, social entrepreneurship and impact investment, and how companies can tackle cultural and organisational inertia. We delve into entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship; how new green ventures go from seed to growth stage - and from start-ups to scale-ups.