MSc Master in Management

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)