MSc Master in Management

The course Entrepreneurial Challenge is an intensive module. You will explore and experience what it entails to start a new and ambitious company. You will come to understand that not only existing businesses, but also new businesses require management. As you are enrolled in the Master in Management program, it is important to understand that without businesses there is nothing to manage, and without entrepreneurs there would be (and will be) no businesses. Furthermore, many RSM graduates will – at some stage in their career – consider entrepreneurship as a serious career opportunity. 
In line with RSM’s mission statement we will focus on social entrepreneurship, supporting one of the SDG’s which will be introduced elaborately. The course contains a concise introduction to the domain of social entrepreneurship theory and research. To apply the key concepts and tools in a real-life setting, teams will develop and revise their own start-up opportunities and explore viable business models in the field of social entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is about turning unmet needs and unsolved problems into viable economic activity. The essence of entrepreneurship has been described as ‘the pursuit of opportunity without regard to the resources currently controlled.’ Entrepreneurship starts with the discovery of promising opportunities. Understanding the origins of such opportunities is key for start-up entrepreneurs and existing companies alike to develop business models that will effectively create and capture value from the identified opportunities. Entrepreneurship is not just a process, but also a mindset. In this module you develop that mindset by exploring the first stages of the process: the identification and evaluation of opportunities and the search for viable business models.
The course requires that all students actively participate in the classes. In addition, we expect the students to spend additional time per day on class preparation by reading the literature and doing project work. This course is a crash course into the (theoretical) foundations of entrepreneurship and a pressure cooker module for developing a business case and presenting it in front of a jury; both of them require your full dedication.

Instructor: Dr F. Jaspers

Why do some firms perform better than others? How can some companies manage to adapt to new innovations, while others can`t? Strategic management aims to provide explanations to these questions by investigating how firms can organize their internal resources and capabilities to align them with the environment to achieve competitive advantage. This course focuses on theories of competitive advantage, and analytical tools that managers can use to devise strategies for their businesses. We will discuss corporate- and business-level strategies and their role in creation a competitive advantage. We will also explore how new innovations can disrupt competition dynamics and how firms can respond to emergence of new technologies and new competitors who capitalize on these technologies. At each step there will be a healthy mix of theory and its application in real-life situations. 

The course contains six sessions. Each session will consist of three parts. In the first part, we will cover the theoretical foundations of the session`s theme. In the second part, you will do an assignment in teams based on the session`s case and readings. In the third part, we will jointly discuss the case based on your answers to assignment questions. You will be randomly assigned to teams of 5 students to work on in-class assignments and the team project. Team compositions will be announced on Canvas before the first session. 

Instructor: Dr K. Kavusan

The goal of this course is to introduce students to the marketing domain. Key questions that will be addressed during this course are: “What is marketing and the marketing concept?” and “How do companies create value?” Each session will consist of a blend of lecturing and (case) discussions. Students are expected to come well-prepared to classes and actively participate in the discussions.

Instructor: Prof. G. van Bruggen

The business analytics course is about statistical and machine learning methods and techniques and the application of these techniques in research situations. The course has a theoretical part, which explains the background of these methods and techniques, and an applied part, which builds the skills for using them in research situations. The lectures address the theoretical background of measurement and analysis techniques and give examples of survey development and the application of data processing techniques. The weekly assignments train the programming skills to apply the techniques in practice. The group assignments embed these techniques in a relatively unstructured task to address a self-selected topic in the sustainability domain, specifically the sharing economy. The course contributes to independent evaluation and application of quantitative empirical research. 

Specifically, the following topics will be covered: 

• General methodological topics related with causal inference, hypothesis formulation, conceptual frameworks, and measurement scales 

• Correlation and multivariate regression analysis 

• Classification methods using logistic regression, decision trees, random forests,  gradient boosting, and naive Bayes 

• Clustering by means of k-means and hierarchical methods 

• Assessing the performance of estimated models, both regression models and classification techniques 

• Explanatory versus predictive modeling 

• Elementary text mining and sentiment analysis, using Tweets, news articles, and possibly other online sources

Instructor: Dr J. van Dalen

In this course, we will explore core psychological principles that affect and shape the behaviour and decisions of actors in organizations. We start with a consideration of what guides independent individual choices and behaviour before gradually exploring how the social context and interdependence with other actors shape these factors. In the final part of the course, we consider settings in which teams work cooperatively to solve problems.

To explore these topics, this course relies on a series of interactive plenary sessions paired with a team project and a survey-based personal reflection assignment. During the plenary sessions we will discuss and analyse selected readings, cases, and research findings as well as engage in a variety of in-class exercises. For the team project, you will be tasked with tackling a practical challenge in individuals’ behaviour. And finally, based on peer feedback, you will reflect on your own behaviour in teams and develop concrete ideas to improve your own functioning in future teams.

Taught by M. Rishani, MSc and Dr G. Paolacci.

Accounting is referred to as the language of business because it is widely used to describe all types of business activities. This course provides an introduction to the fundamentals of accounting. We discuss the various ways in which financial and non-financial information can be collected, and how this information is communicated to those making decisions. In general, we distinguish between financial accounting and management accounting. 

Financial accounting deals with the primary financial statements – balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow statement – and is designed primarily to assist investors and creditors in deciding where to invest their money. How financial statements are prepared and what laws and regulations financial reporting has to comply with is discussed in this part of the course. The determination of needs for information, the design of an accounting information system, and the provision of (financial and non-financial) information are important steps.  

Management accounting emphasizes the use of accounting information for internal planning and control purposes. Any organization’s long-term competitive success is critically dependent on (1) the quality of accounting information about its products, services, processes, suppliers, and customers, (2) its ability to act rationally on that information, and (3) its ability to motivate its employees and control its performance consistent with that information. Topics in this part of the course include cost accounting terminology, activity-based costing, value-based management, cost-volume-profit analysis, budgeting, responsibility accounting, and decision making. 

Taught by Dr M. Margolin.

Building my Career runs across block 1-5 and consists of various (digital) questionnaires, exercises, lectures, and other formats to prepare you for the labour market and your future career. As this preparation is not a straightforward, easy process we invite you first to start with an internal journey and learn more about yourself – in terms of personal drivers, interests and values and then find a fit with the external side – the industries.

See this page for more details.

During the second part of this course you work on your personal career narrative and practice building up a personal professional network effectively in a series of workshops and assignments. 

The diverse tools as used in this course will include not only job search and acquisition techniques, but also the tools for personal career development that provide the best insight into tactical decision-making; identifying and choosing from options with the goal of optimal career fulfilment now and in the future. 

Using both a theoretical and practical approach, the goal of the lectures, workshops, exercises digital tools and between-class assignments is to produce competitive job candidates who enter the market well prepared to make informed career decisions. 

This course is overseen and guided by Dr Maciej Szymanowski and Lisanne Keir

Finance deals with topics that are particularly relevant for business decision-making such as whether or not to invest in a project, how to finance an investment, and how to deal with uncertainty.

This course deals with the modern fundamentals of finance and describes how investment opportunities are valued in financial markets. The most important concepts in this course are the net present value, capital budgeting, the risk-return relationship, and the efficient market hypothesis. We will use these concepts to address one central question: How should a manager of a firm make investment decisions?

Taught by Dr G. Xu.

The research clinic (BMRSCMiM) supports the first steps of the thesis trajectory where the students develop their research proposals. It helps students see what it takes to go from an interesting research topic, to specifying a concrete research problem, decide on a research question, research strategy and method. Lectures and workshops during the research clinic will help to craft a research question, conduct the literature review, craft the introductory chapter and discuss methodological topics. Furthermore, the research clinic introduces the students to the specific possibilities of either qualitative research or specific quantitative methods for research in finance, depending on the students’ choice of research profile. It builds on the course Business Analytics.

This course is worth 1 EC

Instructors: Dr L. He, Dr I. Bogenrieder, Prof. J. Dul.

The first part of the course examines effective decision making. Important decisions cannot be left to intuition alone. We need to communicate the structure of our reasoning, defend it to adversarial challenges and make presentations that show we have done a thorough analysis. We also need to make sense out of various sources of data, organize the inputs of experts and colleagues, and use state-of-the-art business software to provide analytical support to our reasoning. To equip you to be more effective in these tasks is the overall objective of the first part. The emphasis is not on the quantitative aspects, but on the qualitative insights that come from using models to aid managerial thinking and decision making. The course is multi-disciplinary in nature and links to several other areas, including finance, operations management, marketing and accounting, through the choice of cases, thus adding an analytical dimension to the teaching of these areas.

The second part is on Operations and Supply Chain Management, which is concerned with designing, delivering, and improving services and products upon which we all depend. Everything we wear, eat, sit on, use, and read comes from operations processes – the value-adding transformation process. Operations and its nature succor - Supply Chain Management have emerged as one of the major areas for companies to gain a competitive edge. When a new vision and competitive strategy are specified, their success depends on having the appropriate operations in place to deliver and attain these goals. This is a complex and challenging process given the current business trends of expanding product variety, short product life cycles, increasing globalization and pressure to be socially responsible. This part aims to introduce you to the concepts, theories and methods of operations management. We will explore the issues and variables that govern operations management decisions, and present tools and methods for understanding and managing costs, speed, flexibility, dependability, and sustainability.

Instructors: Dr I. Fragkos and Dr C. (Qingxia) Kong

To bring business closer to your academic education and enhance your understanding of the business world in practice the consultancy project is part of the program. In the consultancy project you are challenged to analyse a real-life problem coming from a business-client and understand the specific needs in and of a client organization. In a group of approximately 6 students you will be asked to help a client solving a problem by developing new and sustainable recommendations. This process takes place in a project-like work setting in intensive contact with the client. You are expected to understand the clients’ needs, scope and narrow down the problem into a researchable question, develop and use a suitable theoretical framework, collect data and explore potential solutions and make recommendations. The projects often take place within a context with various stakeholders. Hence, dealing with a variety of different stakeholder is part of the project.

Next to problem-solving skills necessary in this project team cooperation and leadership in and of a team are relevant aspects in this project. To reflect on the team process and improve on your team behaviour various challenge and reflection moments are built into this 4 month process. The project team is invited to assess their members’ behaviour and critically reflect on possible improvements.

Instructor: Dr I. Bogenrieder and diverse others

Content: Corporate Governance is about ‘the rules of the game’ within which firms develop and exploit their resources and undertake business activities to create and appropriate value. These ‘rules of the game’ are shaped both at the country level (e.g. markets, laws, culture) and at the level of the firm (e.g. ownership, the board, alliances, etc.), at which level they are most flexible. At the firm level, these rules of the game include the ownership of the firm, its basic decision-making structures and practices, as well as the accountability structures and practices through which those who make and/or execute decisions can be held accountable by those bearing residual risk from those decisions. In publicly listed firms, for example, executives make the bulk of everyday decisions, while dispersed and therefore mostly uninvolved shareholders (as well as other stakeholders) bear the risks that result from them. This has traditionally made the question how dispersed, and uninvolved shareholders can secure maximal returns from the firm a central corporate governance challenge for publicly listed firms.

A striking fact about economic reality, however, is that there do not just exist publicly listed firms but many different forms of ownership, such as: founder owned start-ups, partnerships, cooperatives, family firms, state-owned firms, and non-profit organizations, for example, that each dominate specific industries, such as Fintech, accounting, agriculture, defense, higher education, and healthcare, for eaxmple. Firms with different types of ownership face their own distinctive corporate governance challenges and will therefore need to develop an equally distinctive set of corporate governance structures and practices to meet these challenges. As a result, there does not exist any single corporate governance model that is suitable for all firms.

Overarching aim of the course: Given that is there exists no single best solution to questions of corporate ownership and governance, the overarching aim of this course is to develop a strategic understanding of corporate ownership and governance. In this view, the ultimate aim of corporate ownership and governance is to align the firm’s ownership, decision-making, and accountability structures and practices, on the one hand, with its strategy, core activities, key resources, and critical resource dependencies, on the other, to unleash value creation and value appropriation for the firm and its owners and stakeholders.

To develop a strategic understanding of corporate ownership and governance, we will discuss various forms of ownership, such as publicly listed firms, (professional) partnerships, family firms, and founder owned start-ups, for example, in order to explore a variety of corporate governance structures and practices that can be implemented to meet these challenges. Because the ownership of the firm generally is the most foundational ‘governance choice’ to be made, we will often begin our analysis by discussing the costs and benefits of different forms of ownership and the specific governance challenges that arise from these. We will also discuss the corporate governance role of the firm’s stakeholders, however, and explore the governance strategies and practices that firms can develop and implement to secure stakeholders’ continued involvement in, or support for, the firm. Finally, we will explore how firms can secure their societal license to operate, because as institutions of private ordering, firms can only exist and function within an institutional context comprised of public ordering (e.g. the state, the law, society, etc).

Instructor: Prof. H. van Oosterhout.

The Master thesis - including the thesis proposal – constitutes an important piece of academic work you engage with during the spring semester of the MScBA - Master in Management. The Master thesis requires students to conduct independent, individual research in one of the functional domains (‘profile’) in business administration addressing key managerial issues. The thesis is perceived as a proof of academic level thinking and intellectual and analytical craftsmanship. During the thesis trajectory MiM students study a field in business administration in more depth.

The thesis provides students with an opportunity to deepen their understanding of an area of interest, as they need to critically explore a concrete managerial problem in the chosen domain and come to well-argued and managerially relevant conclusions. It allows them to improve their skills in practical scientific business and management research, and also to develop a personal profile.

While following the regular structure of an academic thesis at RSM, MiM students pay special attention to the impact of their results for business and their managerial relevance. The thesis topics cover the main domains in business administration, e.g., marketing, strategy, finance, supply chain etc. but the research objective must be put in the bigger context of business administration. The title of the thesis will be mentioned on your grade list. Therefore, it is recommended to choose a title clearly indicating the business relevance.

The thesis counts for 16 EC.

Instructors: Individual & Dr B. Koene (plenary)