Core Courses

• International Business Research

The goal of this course is to make students familiar with contemporary research methods and tools used in international business. The course contents represent a structured layout of the methods used for researching business internationalization and build a foundation for further more detailed and advanced courses on this subject.

The course views international business as a phenomenon and a process based on interaction between classical and contemporary international business models and the real-life practice and experience of global companies in a controlled international business environment. The course focuses on the empirical analysis on the macro-level, its elements and tendencies and their influence on the micro-level, as well as business internationalization on a micro-level.

The course provides a general description of international business and covers its theories, motives and tendencies.

• Strategic Management of International Companies

This course introduces the concept of strategic management through readings, discussion and case analyses, and considers the basic direction and goals of an organization, the environment (social, political, techno- logical, economic and global factors), industry and market structure, and organizational strengths and weaknesses. The emphasis is on the development and successful implementation of strategy in different types of firms across industries.

The course consists of three sections: Strategic Position/Analysis, Strategic Choices and Strategic Action. The course covers such topics as The Strategic Management Process, Environmental & Industry Analysis, Business-Level Strategy, Corporate-Level Strategy, International Strategy, Blue Ocean Strategy, Strategy Development and Implementation and others.

After course completion, among other things, students will be able to understand the nature of strategic competitiveness, develop the ability to analyze the competitive environment facing a firm, assess the attractiveness of the industry, isolate potential sources of competitive advantage and disadvantage, develop business level strategies by defining the type of advantage sought, scope of operations and activities required to deliver the chosen strategy, consider the actions of competitors and how that impacts your ability to reach your strategic goals, develop courses of actions that incorporate the actions of multiple players in the marketplace. 

• International Corporate Finance

This course is a corporate finance course of basic level. The aim of the course is to provide the student with sufficient knowledge to understand the logic of the modern financial analysis of strategic corporate decisions and it focuses mainly on financial decision- making process in corporations including investing, financing, payout policies. The course covers basic finance topics such as principles of equity and debt valuation, cost of capital, capital structure.

The course covers such topics as debt and equity valuation; estimating the risk and the cost of capital; modeling the cash flows; optimization of capital structure; payout policy; and investment decisions. 

• Economics: Foundations of Managerial Economics

This is the introductory course in Managerial Economics. The purpose of this course is to make the students familiar with economic analysis for business decisions. We will study economic theories, methods and tools as well as develop economic intuition which we apply in solving practical problems in business.

This course covers the topics, which are most important for economic analysis at the level of firm. They include consumer choice and demand for products, production, cost and supply of products, basic types of market structures, strategic behavior in the market, including pricing strategies and interactions, decisions under uncertainty and R&D decisions.

The course introduces the fundamental concepts and tools of economic theory necessary for understanding the basic driving forces and effects in economy - how the environment works. The course also prepares students for making well-founded economic decisions, such as optimal allocation of scarce resources at your disposal in order to maximize the resources you generate.

• Introduction to Financial and Managerial Accounting

The course develops background for understanding and reading companies’ financial reports and assessing company’s financial position and making managerial decisions. The Course covers basic concepts of modern financial reporting and techniques of management accounting. It provides basic knowledge in preparing, processing and interpreting the data about business transactions for different types of external as well as internal investors, management and other accounting information users.

The course is focused on developing skills required for preparing and analyzing companies’ financial statements and data for decision-making purposes. After completing the course students are expected to be able to apply a set of accounting concepts to understand annual financial reports of different corporations and calculate financial ratios to assess finance position. Students are expected to apply managerial accounting analytical tools for internal control, pricing and developing different budgets for financial planning purposes as well as to get essential skills in capital budgeting techniques.

Special attention is devoted to the conceptual basis of accounting, the basic accounting rules for recording business operations, assets and liabilities, the methodology of preparing accounting reports, and the requirements for their contents. 

• International Marketing

This course is concerned with the development, evaluation and implementation of marketing management in complex environments. The course deals with an introductory, yet in-depth analysis of a variety of concepts, theories, facts, analytical procedures, techniques and models.

After completing this course, students will understand the elements and the role of the marketing function within organizations. A broad overview of major aspects of marketing will be covered. This includes, but is not limited to, consumer behavior, marketing research, market segmentation, competitive analysis, product design, branding, pricing, and advertising/promotional strategy.

By the end of the course students should be able to demonstrate such international marketing and general business skills as applying standard marketing frameworks and tools to identify business opportunities, evaluate the market and competition, and formulate marketing and product launch recommendations, converting a market / consumer opportunity into a product or service offering idea, developing strategies and integrated marketing plans for a product launch or market / category entry etc.

• World’s Business Cultures

The course examines the business cultures of different parts of the world and their influence on business behavior and strategies in international business. The course covers the specific features of the business cultures of the West (USA, Great Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Sweden, and Finland), East and South-East Asia (Japan, China, India and others), the Middle East, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, as well as business cultures of Russia and CIS.

The course focuses on the forms of human resource management in multinational companies. The course also describes how the presence of members with different cultural background in a team influences teamwork and decision making.

Students will get knowledge about theoretical background of cross-cultural business, as well as interactions between corporate and national cultures, will study methodological tools of personnel selection in an international company and will be introduced to the features of the control group processes in multicultural teams.

• International Business Negotiations

The course provides thorough and professional look into business oriented negotiations. It teaches the theory of negotiation and the skills necessary to become an effective negotiator, learned in part through active exercises and simulations. The course introduces students to negotiation tactics and strategy. It teaches how to prepare, how to identify acceptable negotiated solutions and best alternatives, and how to deal with difficult negotiators. Much of the emphasis is on international and cross-cultural negotiations.

This course provides a framework to help students understand and analyze a wide range of negotiations in cross-cultural context. It also builds the strategic and tactical skills to negotiate more effectively in cross-cultural context as well as develops the rational and emotional intelligence competencies to enlarge a skillful negotiator's toolbox.