Curriculum

Academic Writing (Adaptation Course)

Writing is a skill that is required in many contexts throughout life. However, academic writing does many of the things that personal writing does not: it has its own set of rules and practices. In contrast to personal writing contexts, academic writing is different because it deals with the underlying theories and causes governing processes and practices in everyday life, as well as exploring alternative explanations for these events.

Academic writing follows a particular ‘tone’ and adheres to traditional conventions of punctuation, grammar, and spelling. Thus any academic written work is organized around a formal order or structure in which to present ideas.

The course, being an “express” one deals with basic forms of academic writing, outlining the contexts in which these written works would be effective, and involves contrasting “academic” with “personal” for better comprehension of the differences in the writing process.

Aim of the course:

The course aims to introduce the students to the basic forms of academic writing which would be necessary for their future written communication within international programme of studies and onwards. The chosen types of writing involve business sphere as well as purely academic works (essays, for example). The mix of various purposes for writing enables students not only to enhance their writing skills but also to identify the similarities and differences between them, as well as get an insight into the international exams writing traditions like in IELTS, CAE, CPE and BEC Vantage and Higher.

Goals to achieve:

- To outline what academic writing is and identify its basic forms

- To clarify the universal standards for any academic written work and focus on the unique features of them

- To practice skills of task interpretation and the steps of the writing process

- To differentiate formal register from informal and understand in which context to use each

Finance (Adaptation Course)

This course is intended to provide a framework for analyzing the major types of financial decisions made by economic agents. It is devoted to the fundamental principles of valuation. Students will learn and apply the concepts of time value of money and risk to understand the major determinants of value creation. This course consists of both theory and real world examples to demonstrate how to value any asset.

Aim of the course:

The objective of this course is to introduce the student to the world of corporate finance. This course will introduce students to frameworks and tools to measure value; both for corporate and personal assets. It will also help students in decision-making, again at both the corporate and personal levels.

Goals to achieve:

- To teach and review the fundamental methods and skills of finance vital for understanding valuation of any asset, personal or corporate

- To prepare students to make sound personal and professional decisions

- To prepare students to take more advanced courses in finance

- To provide students with a base level of sophistication to enable them to better understand the role of finance in debates over corporate and public policy.

Research Methods in Management

The course is competence-oriented and designed to help students develop their own research style. It also helps plan, design, organize research and analyze data and presents the outputs of a research project in the International Management area.

During the course students should revise their own academic competencies and get familiar with European and USA research traditions. Seminars will be devoted to analyzing articles from top ten leading Management Journals (e.g. Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Organization Science, Strategic Management Journal), discussing research problems and methodology issues and data collection and analysis methods.

While the course mainly focuses on the research methodology, all the research phases will be considered: finding the idea, choosing the research paradigm, searching sources, designing research, data collection and analysis (quantitative and qualitative data), presenting the results, research standards and the best research practices. Special emphasis will be placed on research ethics, differences in intercultural perspectives in Management, cross-cultural research arrangement and research time management.

Aim of the course:

The course is primarily aimed at helping students master their academic competencies, which will allow them to plan, design, and conduct international research projects.

The course focuses on the following competencies: critical thinking, academic reading and writing, time management, data analysis, communication and presentation in science.

The course contains three main topics – Research Concepts, Research Design, and Data Analysis.

We will discuss the differences in methodological paradigms, primary trends in Management Research, and the role of Big Data and Data Mining in contemporary science.

Business Strategies in Global Environment

The course aims to prepare students for the strategic management of a global venture. It covers the numerous aspects of establishing and growing a company from a private local firm to a trans-national corporation, provides and outlook on the main theories and models of strategic management, their peculiarities in regards to the global market context. Students are expected to develop a strategy for an international company and apply the theoretical knowledge into practice.

Aim of the course:

- The students develop and foster their abilities to analyze business environment and recognize entrepreneurial opportunities.

- The students learn about the major strategies of global business development.

- The students will learn the specific methods and techniques to create and implement an efficient strategy.

Goals to achieve:

Reflection on global business development
Knowledge about global strategies and global management
Recognizing entrepreneurial opportunities to implement efficient global business strategies

International Marketing

The course is designed to help students understand global environment form marketing perspective and to sharpen marketing skills in execution and evaluating marketing activities in complex and constantly changing international context. Most companies now operate in an international environment where new challenges and opportunities arise and marketing managers have to deal with them effectively. The course integrates all marketing concepts and tools in accordance with requirements of international business environment. It covers theory and practical applications of international marketing including: international marketing strategy, international marketing research, global pricing issues, global product planning, global communications, and global distribution.

Course outcomes:

The main objective of the course is to provide students with contemporary marketing knowledge that allows them to make reasonable and appropriate marketing-related decisions in global business environment. Upon completion, students should be able to apply marketing tools and concepts to develop and deliver successful marketing strategies in international context.

Student Outcomes and Competencies

At the completion of the course requirements, the student will be able to:

- Define the basic vocabulary appropriate to the field of international marketing;

- Develop and deliver marketing strategies in global business environment;

- Apply appropriate marketing research methods for analyzing global markets;

- Develop integrated marketing communication campaign for global markets;

- Develop international marketing plan;

- Set appropriate price on products selling on global markets.

Advanced Finance

Financial and investment decisions have a substantial impact on firm performance and value. On the other hand, the mode of making such decisions is affected by specific business environment of a country where the firm is located. So, this course is aimed at the specific features of financial system in Russia, Austria and Italy.

The objective of this course is to provide students with a detailed examination of key theoretical and practical issues in finance as well as understanding of the motives that financial managers take into account when they are making financial decisions in Russia, Austria and Italy. Major topical areas include the measurement of risk and return, cost of capital, equity and corporate valuation, accounting for financial management, analysis of financial statements, financial control of corporations, and sources of finance. The objectives of the course are to develop the financial and analytical skills, logical thought processes and information literacy necessary to make and implement strategic corporate financial decisions in a global environment. Students will make acquaintance with Russian, Austrian and Italian financial markets, banking systems, principles and structure of financial activities regulation. They also would learn the mode of corporate governance in Russian, Austrian and Italian companies and its impact at financial architecture and financial decisions.

Students would apply their knowledge and practical skills to real cases of Russian, Austrian and Italian companies that act both at their domestic market and in an international environment.

Russian Business Context

The course aims to prepare students for planning and running a venture within Russian cultural and business environment, as well as familiarize students with the main issues of doing business in Russia. It covers the numerous aspects of business relations, specific business models and certain attitudes that are inherent to the Russians. The course contains of the topics covering cultural, economic and political issues in Russia and is divided in two parts: external analysis of Russian business context and internal analysis of Russian companies.

The course will not only provide students rules of thumb for doing business in Russia, but also will try to get them into Russian business reality, providing the tours in large foreign companies (to understand how to do business with Russians) and local organizations (to understand how to do business in Russia).

Aim of the course:

- The students develop and foster their abilities to understand the implications and non-evident issues of business practices in modern Russia.

- The students learn about the peculiarities of business relations in Russia.

- The students will learn the models and practical hints to establish and run efficient business in Russia.

Goals to achieve:

Cultural Reflection on Russian business context.

Knowledge about business models and relations in Russia.

Specific attitudes towards cooperation, competition, and conflict within Russian business context.

Recognizing cultural differences in establishing and running business and detecting their underlying meaning.

Business Context in Austria

Within the framework of Varieties of Capitalism (VoC), Austria is conceived as coordinated market economy where firms depend heavily on non-market relationships to coordinate their endeavours with other actors. These non-market modes of coordination include collaborative, as opposed to competitive, relationships with state actors and employees’ representatives at macro-political (social partnership), sector-related (wage bargaining) and firm level (co-determination rights). The course focuses on changes in the economic and institutional environments for business and labour in Austria since the 1980s with a particular emphasis on industrial relations actors and their strategies within and beyond national borders. In theoretical terms we draw on neo-corporatism and sociological Institutionalism to explain varieties in the economic performance and strategic behaviour of labour relations actors.

Aim of the course:

Students receive an insight into the economic and institutional (regulative, normative and cultural) context of Austrian firms and labour from a country comparative perspective. Besides changes at sector and national level, transnational and European supranational developments in the institutional environment will be taken into account.

Goals to achieve:

• to develop an understanding of the interrelationship of context, performance and strategic action in the field of industrial relations in Austria

• to gain knowledge about Austria’s business and labour market structures

• to be able to adopt distinct theoretical accounts to analyse industrial relations

• to understand different logics for collective action of business and labour

Italian Business Context

Aim of the course

The aim of this part of the course is to provide an overview of the main features of the Italian economy. Particular attention will be given to the decreasing competitiveness of our country, and to some peculiarities of the Italian labour markets and to the relationship between the manufacturing system, which is dominated by very small firms and very traditional sectors, and trade.

Main topics

• A general overview of the Italian economy: data analysis and basic concepts

• The Italian labour market: main features and main reforms

• International trade and firms’ characteristics.

Structure:

The course is structured in lectures and presentation:

• lectures concern the presentation of issues related to the Italian economy.

• Presentation by students of selected papers are an integral part of the course.

International Human Resource Management

The focus of this course is on the international dimensions of people’s behaviour at work. In the management disciplines, such topic is often considered through universalistic approaches based on the underlying assumption that cultural and institutional factors do not influence the behaviour of people and organizations. Especially in the field of human resource management, the Anglo-Saxon model is the typical approach adopted to provide participants with the essential tools of the discipline.

In this course we contrast such universalistic paradigm by adopting a contextual approach that focuses on the role of culture and institutions in determining the nature of the specific practices adoptable by firms embedded in international, complex, and ever-changing environments. Particular attention will be given to the critical issues in: the management of people in multinational companies, the transferability of human resource practices across the borders, the management of expatriates and the management of diversities between people and cultures.

Aim of the discipline:

The ultimate objective of the course is to transfer the main logics and methodologies of the principal human resource and diversity management tools in an international and multi-cultural context. The objective will be pursued through theory-grounded study, as well as through practical and micro-founded analysis of organizational practices. Critical issues and problems related are identified and examined in order to enhance a pragmatic approach.

Goals of the discipline:

By the end of the course, students will have gained an inside into:

- The universalistic and the contextual paradigms in the management of people in international contexts

- The impacts of cultural diversities and socio-economic institutions on designing effective human resource policies and practices in different countries

- The key challenges in human resource and employee relations facing MNCs and their employees

- The challenge of designing strategic management systems able to balance the global and local imperatives

Global Governance

Organizations are human inventions. They are both cultural products and a coordinated nexus of human practices and resources. Besides the intra-organizational density of simultaneous processes based on interests, conflicts, and human interaction, the societal context comprises a notwithstanding complex setting shaped by various institutional influences. Consequently, as organizations are deeply embedded within their environment, these institutions constrain as well as foster the organizational scope of action.

Hence, the course will address the question of how specific implementations of institutional settings vary from country to country, favoring specific organizational structures and strategies. The main focus evolves around societal and field level settings and their impact on organizational behavior and structure. This will be achieved by introducing institutional theories, such as “Business Systems Theory” and the “Varieties of Capitalism”.

Aim of the course:

The course aims to prepare the students for management decisions in the face of global challenges. In order to achieve that, the students will broaden their perspective and become aware of the relations and impacts of institutional differences between countries and continents. These insights will enrich the students` understanding of how various influences determine organizational realities, in which they operate in. It provides students with an intellectual toolkit to better grasp important conditions for organizational success, struggle or failure.

Goals to achieve:

To sensitize students to national or supra-national settings influencing organizational structure.

To introduce students into fine grained differences between national settings and their implications.

To better understand advantages and disadvantages concerning ownership dispersion.

To better grasp potential and hindering factors for radical and incremental innovation.

To develop a notion of gender inequalities in the context of institutional settings.

International Trade Law

In line with the course, International Trade Law is broadly conceived as a field of international law that encompasses both the conduct of sovereign states in international economic relations, and the conduct of private parties involved in cross-border economic and business transactions.

Additionally, the course must build up cohesion of international economic law with the following fields:

•Regional Economic Integration, such as the Eurasian Economic Union, the European Union, ASEAN and other regional trade organizations;

•International law and development;

•International commercial arbitration;

•International intellectual property law;

•International business regulation.

The course bases on analysis of legal documents and cases.

Aim of the course:

The course aims to prepare the students for management decisions in the context of globalizing legal rules and settings. The course must reveal the legal dimension of both bilateral intergovernmental cooperation and economic cross-border integration.

Goals to achieve:

To introduce students into the system of contemporary International Law and give differences between national and upper-national legal tools of regulations;

To give students guidance to key fields of up-to-date International Economic Law

To develop a notion of economic integration from the prospective of law

Negotiations

Negotiation is the art and science of securing an agreement between two or more independent parties. In this course students examine the theory and process of negotiation as it is practiced in a variety of settings. This is a highly interactive, experiential course that takes students from simple two-person negotiations through more complex multi-party multi-issue negotiations. While the focus is placed on business negotiations, the skills gained from the course are relevant to the broad spectrum of negotiation problems people face as professionals and as human beings. Emphasis is placed on negotiation exercises, role-playing, and extensive peer feedback.

Aim of the course:

The course aims to equip students with the necessary knowledge and skills to negotiate successfully and effectively in their home countries and abroad. In this course students examine negotiation theory, learn negotiation skills and gain experience by practice. They subject that practice to criticism and reflection. This helps students to better understand and further improve their personal negotiation styles.

Goals to achieve:

• develop an understanding of negotiation as a communicative process;

• become familiar with different forms of negotiations;

• understand how to guide the discussion and generate options for settlement;

• gain knowledge of barriers to negotiation success;

• experience the process of negotiation in a variety of settings.

Management Accounting

This course focuses on support role management accounting in marketing decision making in modern business environment. An important set of decisions made by managers, those of planning and control of operations, illustrate the decision-making process. The use of accounting in the process is highlighted in the examples from practice experience of lecture. Elements of management accounting systems in operations are described through the basic questions of where, why, what, how, when, and who. Within the answers to these questions, basic concepts key guidelines are presented.

Some key guidelines are consistent themes throughout the course: cost-benefit approach, budget variances and benchmarking, different costs for different purposes. Pricing Decisions, Customer-Profitability Analysis, and Sales-Variance Analysis topics are included to improve marketing emphasis of this course.

Aim of the course:
The goal of the course is to give students an understanding of integral role accounting systems in managerial decision making.

Goals to achieve:

1.Understand the specifics of financial and management accounting, how it fits into organization’s structure and its interdependence with strategic decisions.

2. Define and characterize costs in an organization.

3. Be able to conduct cost-volume-profit (CVP) analysis, understand how it is affected by income taxes and used in managerial decision making and planning.

4. Understand advantages of budget, be able to prepare and schedule operating budget.

Advertising strategy

Advertising affects our everyday decisions whether we want it or not. Advertising can make us laugh and cry. It can cause us to stop and watch, or even act. The practice of advertising faces new challenges in a digital age where consumers are actively selecting and designing their own media world and engaging with their friends in new forms of social media.

Marketers want to know if their ads and other marketing communication efforts work. Marketing communication costs money and marketers want proof that their advertising and marketing communication are both efficient and effective.

Aim of the course:

That’s why this course is dedicated not only to explaining advertising and other areas of brand communication – such as public relations, direct marketing, and sales promotion – but also to investigating what makes marketing communication effective.

The course combines the basic principles and best practices in an industry where old media are fading or shape-shifting and new media are emerging or merging with old media as well as developing entirely new functions. The course implies students to assume control not only of their media choices, but of their huge role as consumers of products, ideas, and media.

The course consists of lectures, team and individual assignments, case discussions and a course project. The course is relevant to students pursuing a business or academic career in fields of marketing and management.

Goals to achieve:

Explain the steps in traditional and contemporary advertising models.
Explain budgeting methods for advertising.
Identify marketing metrics used to measure integrated marketing communications (IMC) success.
Describe the steps in designing and executing an advertising campaign.
Identify the various types of media.
Identify agencies that regulate advertising.
Apply advertising toolkit for designing and implementing ad strategy

Master’s Programme 'Global Business'

Curriculum