MBA Online

Faculty of Business and Accountancy University of Malaya

Faculty : Business and Accountancy
Department : Finance and Banking
Programme of Study : Bachelor of Business Administration
Bachelor of Accounting
Course Code : CBEB1108
Course Title : Managerial Economics II
Credit Hours : 3
Course Pre-requisite(s) /
Minimum Requirement(s) : None
Learning Outcomes : At the end this course, students should be able to:
1. Identify the discipline of macroeconomics and, using an approach
combining theory, graphs and practical applications
2. Identify the basic principles of macroeconomics such as the
relationship between economic sectors and the workings of the overall
economy using Malaysian examples
3. Explain how the government uses various policies such fiscal or
monetary in solving economic problems of the nation
4. Apply basic models of income determination for an open and closed
economy, and theories explaining the relationship between government
expenditure and taxes
5. Analyze macroeconomics concepts such as growth, unemployment,
inflation, and be able to explain the ways in which the federal
government and the central bank can influence the economy and the
markets through fiscal and monetary policies.
6. Determine the factors that affect government’s fiscal and monetary
policies as well as the differences between Classical and Keynesian
approaches
Synopsis of Course Contents : This course will expose students to macroeconomic issues and problems
and concepts of basic measurements and calculation of a country’s
economic progress. Students will also be exposed to basic models of
income determination for an open and closed economy, and theories
explaining the relationship between government expenditure and taxes.
Assessment : Continuous Assessment: 50%
Final Examination : 50%

Product Development Strategy
Product development is vital to ongoing business growth. Students will learn to develop strategies to respond to the changing needs of consumers, new technology, product lifecycles, and intensified competition at both domestic and international levels. The processes of concept development, product creation and market testing will be examined, and product development will be examined within a comprehensive business strategy approach.

Faculty of Economic at The University of Tokyo

4156: Advanced Topics on Macroeconomcis
Summer Esteban-Pretel
This is an advanced topics on macroeconomics course, where we will study and reproduce some papers in the macroeconomics literature. Topics from growth, to empirical analysis of the labor market will be covered in the course. The course will alternate lectures on the basic theory of the topics, lectures analyzing the specific papers and recitations with student presentations on the homeworks assigned on the papers. Homeworks will include the reproduction of theoretical and empirical results of the papers.
The three main objectives of the course are that the student learns some advance topics in the field of macroeconomics through the analysis of some important papers, that he/she learns how to reproduce some of the results of these papers and that he/she acquires presentation skills. This is an advance topics course and knowledge of basic econometrics is required, hence students planning to take this course are required to have taken at least one econometrics course. Students are also required to have a good knowledge of English, since the classes ,the papers assigned in the course and the students presentation will be in English.

ICS , Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy

[Term 4] Design & Creativity (T. Kamegai) (2009/Term 3&4 (Spring&Summer))

Learning how to be creative is one of the great managerial challenges in the Knowledge Economy. What was once central to companies – price, quality, and much of the left-brain, digitized, analytical work associated with explicit knowledge – is being shipped off to developing countries. The new core competence is increasingly becoming the right brain that smart companies are harnessing to generate top-line growth. The challenge is no longer just making assembly lines run more efficiently, but creating consumer experiences, not just products, and reconceiving entire brand categories, not just adding a few more colors.

Companies are beginning to realize that design is often the path to innovation as well as the source of competitive advantage. Apple and Samsung are recent cases in point. In these creative companies, design is starting to play a key role in connecting with their customers’ emotions, linking R&D labs to consumer needs, recalibrating employee incentives to emphasize creativity, and constructing maps that show the path to innovation. These creative companies mastered a new design thinking and created products that address consumers’ unmet, and often unarticulated, desires. They built an innovation DNA and culture that bring about high success rates, routinely beating competitors.
Course Structure

The course is structured to empower your creative mind by learning the following:
(1) Strategic approaches to create great design
(2) Synergy of visual images and touch/feel
(3) Building creative relationships with others
Teaching Method

The course will be based on “learning by doing.” We will engage in projects and activities that will make use of both your mind and body.

ICS , Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy

[Term 3] Service Management (Y. Fujikawa) (2009/Term 3&4 (Spring&Summer))

This course is designed for future business leaders who seek opportunities in the fastest-growing sector in the world economies. Today, the service sector accounts for 60-80% of the GDP among many developed countries, and services’ role is ever growing in many of the emerging economies in Asia and beyond. This global trend toward a service economy is driven not only by the growth of the service industries (including, but not limited to, education, entertainment, finance, health care, hospitality, IT-based, and retail) but also the expansion of service’s importance within non-service businesses (e.g., manufacturing, agriculture, forestry, fishing, etc.).

Services are different from goods in many aspects: among others, they are intangible (i.e., it is difficult to assess their qualities); perishable (i.e., they cannot be produced in advance and stored on inventory); simultaneously produced and consumed (i.e., buyers and sellers create value jointly); and heterogeneous (i.e., it is difficult to control qualities). Such unique properties pose distinct challenges and opportunities in managing service businesses. Using case materials, related readings, and individual/team assignments, this course intends to aid students in the following:
• Gaining an in-depth understanding of the unique challenges involved in managing service organizations
• Acquiring analytical skills for effective planning and execution of service businesses
• Fostering an active, constructively critical posture as customers of service businesses, with an aim to stimulate real-world service providers to improve service quality
Course Structure

Three management disciplines—Marketing Management (MM), Human Resource Management (HRM), and Operations Management (OM)—play central and interrelated roles in meeting customer needs in service businesses. Reflecting this interdependency among the three key functions, the course is structured as follows:

Module 1 introduces a few overarching frameworks of the course, such as the 7Ps of service management, strategic service vision, service profit chain, and gaps model of service quality. Module 2 lays out basic elements of service marketing by extending the 4Ps of marketing and CRM issues to service settings. Module 3 focuses on an additional P—people—by delving into HRM issues in service businesses. Module 4 moves on to two more Ps—process and physical environment—by examining process fundamentals of service operations. Throughout the course we will repeatedly visit the importance of aligning the three key disciplines of service management (MM, HRM, and OM).
Teaching Method

The primary teaching approach is the case method. In addition, there will be individual and team assignments.

Cases. Cases will be selected from a diverse set of business contexts: B2C and B2B, high-tech and low-tech, entrepreneurial and established, and East and West. Throughout the semester we will explore cutting-edge examples of service breakthroughs, many of which employ unique business models and technologies for innovative ways of addressing customers’ unmet needs. We will also discuss issues in the globalization of services, with particular emphasis on service businesses that attempt to expand from Asia to the world (and vice versa).

Individual Assignments (Letter Writing Campaign and POA Memo). Taking an active stance on the issue of service quality, you will be writing (and actually mailing) two letters to two different service organizations with which you have recently interacted as a customer: one letter is for complaining about a service failure, the other for extending congratulations on a service excellence. The purpose of this individual assignment includes providing you with an opportunity to apply your analytical skills in a practical situation, supplying valuable feedback to the service organizations, and learning from real-life examples about how organizations address customer complaints and act on letters of praise. More details will be provided on the first day of the course. In addition, you will be writing a POA memo for one of the cases to be discussed in class.

Team Assignments (To Be Determined). In order to facilitate the collective learning process among yourselves, you will be assigned to a team project. The details are still being explored at this moment (it also depends on how many of you are taking this course), but possibilities include running a service company in an electronic simulation program, conducting a short field project on a real-world example of service innovation or service globalization, and/or presenting a team analysis to lead a case discussion.

ICS , Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy

[Term 2] Corporate Restructuring (R. Yasuda) (2008/Term 1&2 (Fall&Winter))

The objective of this course is to enable students to grasp the essence of success and failure in corporate restructuring, master the basic skills required for corporate restructuring, familiarize them with the key players and their activities including private equity firms and turnaround managers, and apply what they learn to real case examples.

Although the crisis created by NPLs (non-performing loans) seems to have peaked, there are still many corporations that need urgent turnaround. Furthermore, in order to respond to the recent economic recovery, survival alone is not enough for true corporate restructuring. Value creation after restructuring becomes more and more important. Corporate restructuring should change the old corporate culture and establish the business platform for future growth.

On the other hand, private equity funds have become increasingly active in investing in troubled companies and capturing value created through a series of corporate restructuring measures. As such, corporate restructuring is now one of the key issues of corporate executives and investors.
Course Structure

This course will be offered each Wednesday throughout the spring semester. The course will examine key issues of corporate restructuring in the current economy.

First we will cover the five steps of turnaround management:
(1) Quick diagnosis and assessment of the crisis
(2) Short-term cash flow generation and balance sheet restructuring
(3) Business portfolio restructuring
(4) Recovery from bankruptcy
(5) Rehabilitation for future growth

For each step, the basic concept and required financial and operational skills will be discussed.

Then we will review how private equity funds (PEFs) identify turnaround opportunities and enhance value through various types of restructuring of the acquired company. We will cover how PEFs assess the hidden value of troubled companies, how they structure financial schemes, how they enhance corporate value, and how they exit successfully.
Teaching Method

The course will comprise three elements: (1) lectures on basic concepts and methodology, (2) class discussions with students, and (3) application of theory to two types of cases. For each theme, a lecture will be given first, followed by analysis of the first case, which will give students an opportunity to apply basic methodology to the case. Many of these analyses will be conducted in the form of homework assignments. The second case, which focuses on an actual company’s case, will be used in the class discussion. This will give the students a chance to get a more comprehensive picture of turnaround management, including interactions with banks, human and organizational issues, as well as financial and strategic issues.

The pattern of “lecture/application of methodology to cases/discussion of actual cases” will be repeated in each theme. Guest speakers will also be invited to share their turnaround experiences.

Finally, students are encouraged to choose a real case at the beginning of the course and apply what they have learned to design their own restructuring plans in groups.

ICS , Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy

[Term 2] Leadership (K. Ichijo) (2008/Term 1&2 (Fall&Winter))

This course is designed to prepare students for the challenges of leadership in a rapidly changing global business environment.

The course also helps students develop an understanding of what it takes to be a real transformational leader who can deliver the result promised. Students will learn the importance of leaders being deeply and passionately engaged in an organization and why their robust dialogues about people, strategy, and operations result in businesses based on intellectual honesty and realism. By studying the leader’s role in facilitating and executing change, students themselves are encouraged to become real transformational leaders who can enable their organizations to accomplish sustainable growth. During the course, students will learn the conceptual framework of leadership and improve their key conceptual business knowledge, especially about leadership, strategy, human relationships, and working in a competitive environment. Students are encouraged to enhance their personal leadership competencies through case discussions and lectures about how to initiate change.
Course Structure

This course will be divided into distinct two modules. The first module will be about the fundamentals about leadership. The main contents covered in this first module will be: (a) the function of leadership, and (b) leadership competency for making change really happen in an organization. The second module will be about creating the foundation of an organization with excellent ability to make change happen. The main contents covered will be: (a) the social architecture of an organization, and (b) how to develop leaders at every organizational level. By having leaders at every organizational level, an organization successfully and effectively can solve various problems that might be caused by environmental changes. Developing leaders at every organizational level is a crucial foundation for an organization good at execution.
Teaching Method

This course will be taught using the Harvard Business School type of case method. Students will be asked to prepare a case and discuss questions designated by the instructor for each session. Most learning will take place in class primarily from comments made by fellow students. The role of the instructor will be to facilitate stimulating discussion.

ECON6042
Mathematical Economics
General Information
This course presents both static and dynamic general equilibrium based on optimization to study interrelated macroeconomic issues. In particular, Pontryagin optimal control theory and Bellman certainty and stochastic dynamic programming models will be covered. Such control theory and recursive multi-stage optimization methodology will be applied to important macro topics such as economic growth and employment.
ECON6052
Selected Topics in Macroeconomics
Ngai, Rachel
General Information
This is a special course that deals with various topics of macroeconomics. Topics covered may vary form year to year, depending on the research interests of the instructor.

ECON6010
Monetary Policy: Theory and Practice
General Information
This course traces the evolution of central banks over the last 200 years from primitive financial clearing-houses to promoters of macroeconomic stability and growth as a natural progression as policy-makers sought to combat various challenges to macroeconomic stability, such as inflation and systemic financial risk. The course will discuss different monetary policy regimes, including currency boards and inflation targeting, and the inherent trade-offs between them, focusing especially on the importance of credibility and expectations. Optimal monetary policy design and the monetary transmission mechanism will also be covered.

ECON6021
Microeconomic Analysis
General Information
This course provides an advanced treatment of standard tools and frameworks in microeconomics that are used in other courses of the programme. Topics include: constrained and unconstrained optimization, consumer theory, uncertainty and information, cost and production, and market structure and equilibrium.
Extra Information
This course is not open to students who have taken or are taking ECON6011.
ECON6022
Macroeconomic Analysis
General Information
This course is an advanced treatment of the theory of the determination of national income and aggregate economic behaviour. Topics include: national income accounting, employment theory, inflation and deflation, monetary and fiscal policy for economic stabilisation, economic growth, and international economic issues. Applications to contemporary economic issues are emphasized.
Extra Information
This course is not open to students who have taken or are taking ECON6012.