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Elective Courses

  • Global Political Economy and Interaction Between Business and Politics

This course will introduce students to the broad questions motivating the academic field of international political economy: Whose interests are served by the liberalization of trade and finance? What impact can multilateral organizations like the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organization have on the economic policies of member states and the functioning of the global economy? What determines the policies or rules promoted by these organizations? What motivates foreign aid policies? What is “globalization”? How can we assess its impacts on different countries and populations?

 

The course is designed to provide a general introduction to central issues treated by International Political Economy, to survey existing interpretations of social, political and economic developments in the world with a focus on Russia’s interests and participation, and to examine these developments within the framework of the contemporary literature in international political economy. 

  • Political Aspects of International Business

The course studies building political strategies of international companies and their implementation: the interaction of political and market strategies in a historical context, building political strategies within specific institutions and limited resources and the examples of successful political strategies. It also covers the correlation of foreign direct investment and a political strategy, the company's social responsibility, and the examples of political strategies aimed at strengthening the company’s reputation.

Special attention is given to the management of political and economic risks in international business. Students become familiar with such analytical risk assessment tools as using indices of political risk, working with different scenarios and models of political behavior and forecasting. The course offers multiple country case studies to show the practical application of these approaches and to address such global issues as energy security and terrorism. 

  • Legal Aspects of International Business

This course covers a variety of legal aspects of international business. Those include the general international legal framework of international business; trade and trade finance issues; intellectual property and licensing issues; transnational investment issues; international civil litigation and arbitration issues; some international taxation issues; and selected public law issues.


The course is intended to be relatively down-to-earth rather than purely theoretical. About a half of the class time is devoted to lecturing. During the other half students discuss case studies and court cases from various jurisdictions, mostly from the U.S., England, and Russia. 

  • International Operational and Supply Chain Management

This course provides students with basic understanding of the contemporary supply chain organization on local and international levels. Students are introduced to existing operational management practices and supply chain strategies. To better understand and develop an efficient supply chain strategy students will engage in practical modelling tasks in the following areas: stock management, warehouse layout and operations planning, transport scheduling and routing, operational processes description, inter-company and international cooperation within the supply chains.

At the end of this course students will be able to identify operations optimization opportunities within one or multiple supply chains, develop practical operational management soluitions targeted at supply chain optimization and develop modelling and alalysis tools and approaches that they will be able to apply in pactice in their future managerial activities.

  • International Entrepreneurship

The goal of this course is to facilitate the development of skills and a knowledge base that will enhance student’s ability to more effectively understand, interpret and engage in entrepreneurial acts and new venture creation in the international environment.


The course consists of three parts. The first part gives theoretical backgrounds of entrepreneurship and international entrepreneurship. Issues to be considered are theories of entrepreneurship and international entrepreneurship, important definitional attributes of entrepreneurship and international entrepreneurship as new venture creation and development, entrepreneurial vision, entrepreneurship ideas and their sources, global opportunities and their identification.


The second part provides main dimensions of international entrepreneurship. The questions to be answered in this section are: why do we go global, what are we going to internationalize, where are we looking for opportunities, how are we planning to enter a foreign market? This part also covers various forces of the international business environment and their features.

The third part describes the process on a new venture creation in a global context and guides through the stages of development of an opportunity analysis plan and a global business plan for the new venture. Examined questions include most important problems of assembling the international entrepreneurial venture and purpose, main aspects, typical structure, do’s and don’ts of the global business plan.

  • International Business Transactions

The course allows to examine the nature and content of international commercial transactions, organizational and legal regulation of international commercial practices. Special attention is dedicated to the organization of international commercial transactions of goods, services, including intellectual ones and works: the preparation and conclusion of international trade deals; purchase and sales contracts content; transactions carried out through commercial intermediaries; operations carried out in the international commodity exchanges, auctions, tenders, international exhibitions and fairs.

The discipline allows to study in detail the exchange of R&D expertise, technical services, lease. Particular attention is dedicated to companies’ commercial activities related to the implementation of agreements on international industrial and technical cooperation. 

  • International Financial Management

This course is a corporate finance course of an advanced level. The key goal is to provide the student with sufficient knowledge to understand the logic of the modern financial analysis of strategic decisions in multinational corporations including investment and financing policies. The course is focused on the specific features of decision-making process in multinational corporations. The first part of the course constitutes the introduction to the analysis of operating, sovereign and institutional risks of multinational corporation. The second part of the course reviews specific tools and techniques applicable to the investment valuation of multinational company. The third part is devoted to the diversity of instruments available for emerging market company in global capital markets. Every lecture in this course is followed up with the in-class case studies.


The course covers such topics as types of risks of multinational corporation; currency risk in international projects; global asset pricing models; specific features of investment valuation for international projects; capital structure with the focus on particularities of raising capital in global capital markets. 

  • Global Brand Management

This course provides students with understanding of the role brands play in creating significant and lasting value for both the consumer and the business, as well as an overview and appreciation of the key issues of planning, executing and evaluating international brand strategies to effectively build and manage a strong global brand. The course provides a foundation skill set of applying the appropriate concepts, principles, frameworks and tools related to planning, execution, and evaluation of an effective international brand strategy to drive sustainable profitable growth of a business;  reinforces students’ strategic thinking capabilities, including thinking critically and creatively about the challenges, key considerations, strategies and execution involved in building, growing and leveraging global brands in today’s increasingly competitive and highly complex business environment; reinforces students’ practical skill sets of business analysis, critical thinking, organizational leadership, working in teams, project management and business communication.On completion of the course, students will develop fluency in concepts that can be used in careers in marketing, sales, brand management, and other business functions which involve consumer behaviour, brands, and business planning – in virtually any type of organizations.

  • International Marketing Strategies

This course gives a broad overview of common business practices in product launch and specifics of working with multiple markets. The course also focuses on practical operational skills required for independent launch of a multinational brand on a new market.

The course consists of two parts. The first part «Basics» covers such topics as business strategy and marketing role in it, core marketing strategies, difference between international and domestic marketing strategies, market entry planning and modeling best practices. The second part «Best practices in market entrance» is dedicated to market selection and sizing, understanding consumer, selecting or designing product for launch, go-to-market strategy, communication mix and financial decision making.

  • International Market Research and Analysis

The aim of this course is to arm students with the skills and knowledge necessary to give effective information support of marketing decisions facing companies expanding to foreign markets. The areas of study include: global market segmentation, selecting the target segment, management of the portfolio of product offerings and building brand identity, pricing policy, product placement, distribution, advertising and promotion. Students become familiar with the existing general principles of international marketing research, and with the possibilities and constraints of different methods and research tools. Special attention is paid to the analytical treatment of information in marketing research.

  • Corporate Governance in International Companies

The course is focused on developing knowledge, skills and expertise relating to governance, internal control, compliance and management of risk within an organization in the context of an overall ethical framework. Special attention is devoted to the conceptual bases of corporate governance, internal controls and risk management, the role of Director and the Board within an international company.

The course begins by examining the whole area of governance within organizations in the broad context. The course covers the role and responsibilities of directors and organizational officers as well as officers of accounting and auditing as support and control functions. The course then explores internal review, control, and feedback to implement and support effective governance, including compliance issues related to decision-making and decision-support functions. The course also examines the whole area of identifying, assessing, and controlling risk as a key aspect of responsible management. 

  • International Advertising

The course provides a comprehensive survey of basic principles and practices of advertising that emphasize creative/media strategy decision processes and approaches to access performance of advertising campaign.


Chronologically the course is going to be structured along the advertising development and advertising campaign results assessment phases. It starts with reviewing the basics of International Advertising and learning from industry veterans’ common business practices and challenges. The meetings run in a series of interactive discussions with the instructor and guest speakers. In the second half of the course students work in groups of 4-6 people imitating advertising development team. Teams select an existing product and a target country and run a mini project designing, aligning and defending advertising campaign before a board. 

  • Doing Business in EU

The goal of this course is to give students a perspective on the special features and key elements of starting and doing business in the countries of the European Union, and on the system and methods of representation and protection of private interests in the European Union.

  • Doing Business in North America

Students become familiar with the North American business model and with the economic, legal and cultural patterns of starting and doing business in the USA and Canada. We will focus on taxation, government support, anti-monopoly and labor legislation, and the characteristics of the main forms of business.

  • Doing Business in Asia

This course is designed to provide an overview of various aspects of doing business in China, South Korea and Japan. The course is broadly divided into three parts. The first part of the course is devoted to defining globalization and international business. The second parts deals with business context and business management. These two parts provide the overview the macro environment economies of China, South Korea and Japan, including the economy and culture that affect business and management practices in each country. Such overview equips students with a firm basis to be able to analyze the key environmental factors that affect how business is conducted in those economies. The third part emphasizes on the practical aspects of doing business in China, South Korea and Japan - business opportunities and challenges facing foreign companies and business and management practices so students will gain an in-depth understanding of how to do business in those countries. 

  • Doing Business in Russia

Students are introduced to the distinctive features and benefits of doing business in Russia. The focus is on the overall business climate, specifics of the legal system and corporate taxation, and the effective channels of attracting capital.

  • Elective Course from any programme

Students may take one elective course of their choice offered by any master’s programme at HSE (subject to department's approval).