MBA Online

Marketing Research

Informed decisions require the analysis of data regarding the environment and its interaction with company decisions. Marketing Research is designed to give students knowledge of the variety of research techniques available, along with their strengths, weaknesses and primary applications. Techniques include gathering secondary data, qualitative research techniques, sampling procedures, survey design, experimental design, basic descriptive statistics, regression, factor analysis, conjoint analysis and other advanced data analysis techniques. For many of these techniques, students gather and analyze data, thus moving beyond simple knowledge of marketing research to a true appreciation of its capabilities and limitations.

ICS , Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy
[Term 3] Business Architecture (K. Kusunoki) (2009/Term 3&4 (Spring&Summer))

Business Architecture is positioned as an advanced course on strategy with the assumption that students who take this elective course already have some knowledge of Competitive Strategy and Organizational Capability.

Business Architecture is about “system consistency” as a source of sustainable competitive advantage. Both perspectives on strategy (the SP-based view and the OC-based view) assume that the essential source of sustainable advantage lies in the consistency of a “system” of activities (SP) or resources (OC). In the SP-based view, if a company can establish a consistent system of activities, it is difficult for competitors to imitate that system because of the existence of trade-offs. The idea of the system-based sustainability of competitive advantage is more salient in the OC-based view. Fundamental concepts concerning costly-to-imitate capability, such as interconnectedness, social complexity, causal ambiguity, and path dependency, are all related to the idea that what is truly difficult to imitate is not each individual element of capability, but the way in which elements are combined to create a whole system of capability. In a modern competitive environment, a consistent system of activities and capabilities often lies at the heart of sustainable advantage.

For instance, Dell has outperformed its competitors, not because it has excelled in two or three particular elements, but because it has created a unique system (Dell Direct Model) that contains and combines dozens of elements. Thus, the business system as a whole shapes Dell’s competitive advantage. In many other industries and companies, the real competitive dimension has been shifting from element-level to system-level advantage. That is the reason why the “business models” has come into fashion in the business world. Although it is popular and easy to say that achieving consistency across activities, capabilities, and other boundaries is a linchpin of sustained advantage, business architecture and the architectural aspect of competitive advantage are poorly understood, underdeveloped subjects.

Shaping such system consistency needs deep insight and knowledge about the interdependence, interaction, and integration of individual activities and capabilities. This course, Business Architecture, focuses on these three aspects of system consistency (interdependence, interaction, and integration), which result in sustainable advantage.
Course Structure

This course is divided into three parts:
• Architectural perspective of strategy
• Modularity of business models
• Evolution of business models

It is quite difficult to characterize and analyze business models because they shape a complicated pattern, including many activities and capabilities with interdependence and interactions. Based on recent developments in these studies, the third part of this course uses the concept of “modularity,” i.e., the dimension ranging from modular architecture to integral architecture, as a key dimension of analyzing business models. Both modular and integral architecture have strengths and weaknesses, depending on the competitive environment and product/industry characteristics. Using this dimension as a key to understanding system-based advantage, this course will provide students with perspective on the integration of a firm’s strategic parts into a harmonious whole.

As an emerging arena of strategy thinking, this course is not about clearly defined tools and techniques to achieve architectural consistency of strategy. Instead, the primary objective of this course is to give a heuristic perspective and logic to view strategies in a holistic way.
Teaching Method

Business Architecture is primarily case-based. Most cases will be discussed in the traditional manner of case discussion, but some will be used for case-based lectures. There is no textbook for this course, but we will use some articles and book chapters. This course will include a couple of presentation sessions by student groups on assigned topics.

Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST)
Information Systems

The Department of Information Systems, Business Statistics and Operations Management (ISOM) consists of two divisions: Information Systems and Operations Management. The Department was ranked 12th in research productivity worldwide based on publications in the top Information Systems and Operations Management journals by INFORMS.

Faculty members of the Information Systems (IS) division are on the editorial boards of the top IS journals and hold prominent positions on the Councils of the Association for Information Systems and the International Telecommunications Society. Our students have gone on to academic positions in Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, UK, and the USA.

The research foci of the IS division are:

Behavioral Research: The primary interest is in studying the management of information technology (IT) and the use of IT for managerial and organizational purposes. The research examines more than just the technological system or just the social system; it investigates the phenomena that emerge when the two interact. Examples include human-computer interaction, user acceptance of IT innovations, IT strategy, electronic communities, e-government, e-commerce, and telecommunications policy. The methodologies employed are surveys, experiments, and field studies. PhD students will need to take courses in psychology, organizational behavior, survey design, experimental design, multivariate statistics, etc. Prospective students with excellent analytical ability and good proficiency in English are preferred.

Analytical and Empirical Modeling: Economics has contributed to the theoretical richness and methodological rigor of IS research. Examples include information economics, the economics of electronic commerce, economic models for the impact of IT on organizations and markets, and supply and demand of IT. This interdisciplinary collaboration will help resolve many difficult IS issues. The research methodologies are analytical and empirical modeling. PhD students interested in the area need to take courses in game theory, industrial organization, price theory, econometrics, etc. Prospective students with a strong quantitative academic background are preferred.

Economics Theory and Macroeconomics Analysis

Studies national and global economic activity. The course focuses on the interaction of fiscal and monetary policies with private sector and international forces, and their effects on GNP, interest rates, unemployment and inflation.