Curriculum

Through systematic world-standard MBA education, PKU-Vlerick MBA programme aims to nurture a group of executives with a mastery of the theories and practices of international business and build a group of leaders with knowledge, vision and entrepreneurship. The curriculum focuses on developing students’ core management skills, application of advanced management theory in Chinese practices and a wider range of skills related to different areas. Internationally used MBA textbooks are employed and English is set as the teaching language, except the courses holding Chinese cases.

Curriculum for 2023-2024 academic year

 

 

Type	Courses
Required	Business Statistics This course introduces the basic statistical concepts essential to economic and business research and decision making. These include business survey methods, descriptive statistics, probability distributions, parameter estimation, hypothesis tests, and fundamentals of regression analysis. Students will be able to analyze real-world problems related to business management.
	Financial Accounting This course is designed primarily for users, rather than preparers, of accounting information, aims to provide students with a basic understanding of the content and interpretation of financial statements. It gives students insights into how accounting information can be used to measure the results of business operations. The topics covered include transaction analysis, accounting principles, revenue and expense recognition, receivables, operation assets, and debt and equity securities.
	Managerial Economics This course introduces basic concepts and techniques of economics and discusses their implications for business and management. The course employs the economic theory and methodology to study the decision rules behind the management practices by firms and other organizations and examines the economic environments as the background for the management operations in the modern market economy with special reference to the context of the Chinese economy.
	China’s Economic Development This course provides students with a theoretical framework for analyzing fundamental economic problems and opportunities in China's reform and development. China is engaged in a remarkable and often puzzling process of transition – a simultaneous industrial, social and economic reform. This course covers some issues, such as historical perspectives, the late 1970's economic reform, current problems, further reforms and future business opportunities.
	Corporate Finance This course introduces the theory, methods, concepts, and issues of financial analysis with a particular emphasis on the applications of these principles to the operations management and decision-making of the firm. Students learn how to diagnose corporate financial health and to measure financial returns about risk. Topics to be covered include present value analysis, valuation of the investment, capital budgeting, risk and return, capital structure, option pricing, mergers, risk management using derivatives, and working capital management.
	Managing Organizational Behaviour This course introduces key concepts, theories and practices of management and organizational behavior. It is aimed to help students better understand the foundations of market-based management theories, concepts, philosophies, skills and practices under different cultural, economic and social conditions. Students are expected to critically study key management concepts and utilize these ideas in analyzing burning management issues and cases under the current Chinese social, cultural, economic, legal and institutional environments. Students will also acquire necessary managerial skills to work more effectively in business firms across cultures.
	Operations Management This course is an overview of manufacturing and service operation, mainly how an organization can plan and execute the acquisition and deployment of resources, to effectively align supply and demand for its products and services. Students will obtain conceptual intuitions and analytical tools for structuring OM decisions. A unifying theme is an emphasis on a systematic analysis of business processes, a detail-attentive mindset whose utility transcends departmental boundaries.
	Marketing Management This course allows students to apply strategic marketing concepts and frameworks to real business situations. Students are required to immediately apply the frameworks and tools discussed in individual and team assignments during the semester. The pedagogical approach includes interactive lectures, when the basic concepts and frameworks for each module are introduced, and case discussions. Topics include Segmentation, Targeting, Positioning, Marketing research, Competitor Strategy (The dynamics of competitive attacks, launching new products, and price strategy), and Customer Strategy (Customer equity and customer value tools).
	Strategic Management As the capstone course of the MBA program, this course integrates the knowledge and skills developed throughout the curriculum. It requires students to creatively apply what they have learned to the understanding and analysis of strategic management issues. The focus of this course is on designing the organization's mission, determining objectives, constructing effective organization, and assuring the implementation and continual updating of long term plans. The course also investigates techniques of external and internal analysis, which will be employed to assess the relative position of firms within industries and to help formulate effective firm-level strategies.
	Decision Making This course attempts to systematically analyze the various issues and concerns in, perspectives on, and techniques for decision making in complex organizations, covering multiple levels including organization, group, as well as personal. It surveys conceptual frameworks and analytical tools as well as their application in the contemporary business world. The course aims to help students nurture the habit of critical thinking, enhance analytical skills and interpersonal skills, and foster awareness of the social, political and behavioral context in which business organizations operate.
	Human Resources Management This course has the objective to provide to its participants a thorough understanding on different functional areas within human resource management (HRM). Starting from an integrated perspective on the strategic meaning of the HRM-function within the organization, extensive attention will be given to the most important pillars of a modern HRM: recruitment & selection; job-analysis and -evaluation; career-management; competence management; performance appraisal, HR-development; compensation & benefits and managing industrial relations. A central theme of this course is the integration of HRM-practices within the organization as a whole. The course will comprise theoretical sessions, case studies and testimonials.
	Management Integration The goal of the exercise is to emphasize the integration between the management of the different functional domains on both the operational, tactical and strategic level. IMEx allows applying the techniques and concepts already taught in different courses into the context of a real company and in a competitive and interactive environment.
Required	Capstone Assignment A final project in which the student combines, integrates and applies the knowledge and insights learned in and over the different courses offered in the MBA programme. In doing so the student tries to solve a concrete problem he/she is confronted with in his/her organisation, or he/she comes up with a concrete ‘insight’ that is based on what he/she has learned during the course of the MBA programme. making a business plan for a new product , service or business could also be the topic of a CSA
	Business Methodology 1: Problem-Solving and Critical Thinking Problem-solving skills can benefit MBA students who are 1) not able to identify or articulate real problems, 2) using wrong or inappropriate business analytic tools and frameworks, and 3) more likely to offer solutions that are holistic and superficial rather than analytic and insightful. Besides, critical-thinking skills can benefit MBA students who 1) understand theoretical frameworks without delving into their boundary conditions, 2) chase after management fashions and success stories without evaluating their credibility, and 3) throw the baby out with the bathwater while learning from cases.
Elective	Business Methodology 2: Analytical Tools in Practice* The broad objective of this course is to provide a fundamental understanding of analytic tools employed by well-managed firms. The course is aimed at the manager who is the ultimate user of these research tools and is thus responsible for determining the scope and direction of the research conducted. In the course, we will cover different types of analytical tools, techniques of data collection, and data analysis. Emphasis will be on the appropriate use of tools and the interpretation of results rather than on mathematical derivations. These analytical tools will be taught within the context of case studies and interspersed with theory in behavioral research. The course focuses on helping managers recognize the role of systematic information gathering and analysis in making decisions, in addition to developing an appreciation for the potential contributions and limitations of analytical tools.
	Business Methodology 3: Big Data and Neuroscience* OBJECTIVES Understand the difference between big data and small data Learn how to utilize both big data and small data to solve business problems Understand what data science is and the tools and techniques you should acquire being a data scientist Recognize challenges facing the current ways that businesses make decisions Learn tools and techniques from neuroscience that can offer a potential solution Understand the benefits and hurdles facing the development of these solutions The course will combine traditional lectures and some academic concepts, with very rich illustrations, case studies, and best and worse practices from the industry. The professor will place a strong emphasis on business and real-life situations and case studies.
	Entrepreneurship Study Trip to Europe* This course will take the students to Brussels, in the heart of Europe. Here, they will learn more about entrepreneurship in a European context by having lectures from professors, testimonials by entrepreneurs, and visits to various businesses ranging from startups to family businesses. During the lectures, students will get an overview of all forms of entrepreneurship and the different steps involved in starting and running a business. Comprehensive insights will be given in the process of ideation, the concepts of problem-solution fit and product-market fit, and, lastly, in the process of scaling up a venture. During the trip, we will put the theory into practice by inviting several entrepreneurs in class and by visiting several innovative scaleups and established (family) firms.
	Global Leadership**  This course is an introduction to the key concepts, theories and practices of global and international leadership. The main objective of the course is to help students better understand the foundations, contemporary leadership theories, philosophies and skills under mostly western and market-based economies. Students are expected to critically study key leadership concepts and utilize, as much as possible, these leadership ideas and concepts in analyzing burning issues in today's organizations.
	Competition Strategy - A Field Study* (in Chinese) More than 2000 years ago, Sun Tzu summarized the essence of winning strategy in The Art of War, based on his study of ancient warfare and his own military experience. Why has this 7000-word book still been considered to be the sound fundamental text on strategy today? This workshop will bring participants to the ancient battlefield to demonstrate the wisdom of famous strategists. Then the battle of Menglinag Mountain in China’s Civil War will be analyzed to explore the execution of a winning strategy. Lectures will be incorporated with applications, group discussion and field study. Through the course, participants will learn to conduct a thorough investigation in a competitive environment, make judgment and decision under pressure within a limited time, overcome difficulties with no excuse and apply rules according to real situations to get things done.
	Leadership in Chinese Traditional Culture: Zeng Guofan Management Strategy* (in Chinese) This course intends to answer a question that is on every leader’s mind: under China’s social and cultural environments, what is the leadership that can ultimately take a leader to success? Zeng Guofan, can undoubtedly provide us with some very useful inspirations in this regard. Zeng Guofan was highly appreciated by some renowned figures like Chairman Mao Zedong, and Chiang Kai-Shek, and was widely regarded as a person of great virtues, achievements, and insights. Zeng Guofan possessed various key elements that made him a great Chinese leader, who grew his leadership out of Chinese culture, and in return displayed the wisdom and spirit of Chinese culture. This course is designed as a case study of Zeng Guofan’s leadership. Through an analysis of Zeng Guofan’s personal and career life, particularly his self-improvements, employment of talents, management of national affairs, education of children, etc., the course construes the key qualities that constitute a real leader under China’s social and cultural environments. Moreover in a competitive and interactive environment.
	Marketing in China*(in Chinese) This course will present systematically a framework of Marketing Management, and examine methods and approaches in product and brand marketing and planning. The course will emphasize the systematic and scientific nature of marketing management, and the importance of innovation and attention to details. The course will cover some cases that relate to Chinese companies and go through their success and failure experience in the marketing practices in China. It will also investigate the problems that need to be paid attention to and the reasons behind them in a context of social, economic and cultural traditions and status quo.
	Value Creation and Customer Centricity in the Digital Age* This course is an intensive, multi-disciplinary and interactive experience aiming to broaden participants’ understanding of the digital disruptions and effectively bridge strategy and technology to create customer value. Strengthen their familiarity with novel frameworks and tools to successfully lead and implement digital transformation with a focus on operational/practical effectiveness. To achieve these objectives, the journey rests on three distinct moments.
	Luxury Brand Management and Luxury Service* This course provides the participant with tools and concepts that will enable them to understand why is branding so strategic and what it takes to create, position, grow, extend a brand, what it takes to manage a global brand portfolio, how brand architecture can help a brand achieve successful brand extensions and how to adapt to new markets and/or market changes while preserving the brand integrity. It analyzes specifically what constitutes the art of luxury branding and how western luxury brands leverage their cultural heritage to create strong dream factors and how they manage their dream and desirability factors throughout evolving consumer cultures. It also analyzes and explains how luxury brands and premium brands can create high value for their shareholders by convincing consumers to pay a higher premium in exchange for a unique mix of tangibles and intangibles benefits. Finally, the course investigates what are the specific marketing tactics that prevail in the management of luxury and premium brands, business models, brand architecture and how these brands differ in terms of product, price, communication and distribution from mass-market brands or FMCG brands.
	Brand Strategy* This course enables students to experience the role of senior business executives in creating and implementing brand strategies for a spectrum of products and services. The course is designed to help students understand how to develop winning brand strategies, how to effectively implement brand strategies, and how to attain sustainable brand success.
	Managerial Accounting* This course introduces managerial accounting topics and the methodologies employed in the preparation and interpretation of financial information and nonfinancial tools for internal decision-makers. It is to acquaint students with internal accounting information topics that help managers plan, control, make decisions, and evaluate performance effectively. Topics include cost behavior, relevant costs and benefits, transfer pricing, etc. It focuses on product and service cost determination and is orientated toward the manager as a user and interpreter of accounting information.
	Digital Finance in China* Digital finance, which relies on big-tech platform, big data and cloud computing to provide solutions for financial transactions, is possibly one of the greatest financial innovations at the current time. China is at the forefront of this innovation, especially in mobile payment, big-tech lending, online insurance and central bank digital currency. The purpose of this course is to introduce to the students some of the latest digital financial development in China. While China generally lags in financial development, why does it lead in many digital financial businesses? How do these digital financial business models work? Why some businesses achieved extraordinary successes, while others failed spectacularly? Will digital finance completely change the traditional financial landscape? What are the implications of this latest development for financial inclusion and stability?
	National Development Lecture Series*(in English or Chinese) This course is aimed at setting up a platform for participants to interact with distinguished professors at the National School of Development, helping them develop a better comprehension of the current economic and social developments in China. The series will cover a wide range of topics, pooling the academic specialities of prominent scholars in their respective areas, such as economic restructuring, medical reform, monetary policy, etc. The lecture series is expected to enhance students’ insights, expand their horizon and inspire their independent thinking.

 

1. Courses with * are elective courses. 

2. Students must complete the 36 ECTS points of required courses, the 15 ECTS points of the Capstone Assignment and 9 ECTS points of elective courses to meet the MBA degree requirements.

3. Students will register for the elective courses in the first term. Courses with a registration number of less than 25 will not be offered. Students who have registered for courses with a registration number less than 25 can register for other elective courses to meet the degree requirements.

4. The curriculum is subject to change.