International Business and Development Studies Courses

Core Courses Applicable to Both International Business and Development Studies

BD500 Mathematical Techniques in Business and Economics

Professor: ASANO Akihito
This course is one of two quantitative methods courses for students in the BD program in the GPGS. It is targeted to students who have inadequate background in economics/mathematics. The objective of this course is to ensure that all students have encountered the material that is assumed knowledge for subsequent economics courses in the BD program.

BD510 Business and Economic Statistic

Professor: HASEBE Takuya
This course is an introductory econometrics course that mainly covers linear regression models. Econometrics is a tool that identifies the causal relationships between variables that is indispensable to implement reliable quantitative evaluation of business, economic, or public policy. The use of econometrics is not limited to business and economics but also widely used in political science, sociology, education, and other social sciences. Thus this course is suitable for all those who are interested in the quantitative analysis in social sciences. I will introduce how the tools are applied to ”real problems” to motivate your study. The emphasis will be on practical application, and we will make extensive use of computer software. Basic knowledge of statistics and computer skills are assumed (although it will be reviewed).

International Business Core Courses

BD503 Corporate Strategy and Organizational Development

Professor: HAGHIRIAN Parissa
The course first introduces the general concept of strategy and why companies need to apply them. Implementation of strategy and its tools will be discussed. The course will mainly discuss business and corporate strategies. The questions discussed will be: How can corporations become and stay competitive? What decisions need to be made to do so?

BD504 International Information System and Management

Professor: SINGH Mahendra
International Information Systems are enhancing the pace of development and globalization. Information systems have been vital for any organization but with the expansion of Internet, Information Systems have extended their reach internationally to become huge inter-organizational systems that have become vital for the functioning of today’s modern society as well.

After learning the components that comprise an Information System and various applications, students would be exposed to the managerial challenges with these systems and also the researches happening in this area through the discussions/presentations on the research papers.

This course is discussion and presentation intensive. There are two consecutive classes every week. First class will be an interactive lecture and in second class there will be student presentations and discussion.

BD505 Financial Accounting

Professor: UENISHI Junko
The course develops the student’s understanding of the theory and practice of financial accounting. The accounting measurements and reporting practices will be presented with a primary focus on International Financial Reporting Standards(IFRS) with some reference to the Japanese accounting standards.

BD508 International Financial Management

Professor: ISAKA Naoto
The aim of this course is to provide students with knowledge of international financial management. Topics covered include net present value, the capital asset pricing model, cost of capital, and international investments. There will be computer exercises with financial data. Students are required to apply these concepts to real-world situations in the international context through quantitative analysis.

BD513 Marketing Management

Professor: DE MAEYER Peter
The course introduces Marketing as both a professional and an academic discipline. As a profession, marketers identify consumer needs, determine which target markets to serve, and develop an optimal product, pricing, promotion, and distribution strategy that best satisfies consumer needs, relative to competition. Marketers serve a vital role in the long-term success of all organizations, profit-oriented as well as not-for-profit, small as well as large. Academically, marketing is a multi-disciplinary field involving the concepts, theories and methods used to understand exchanges and long term relationships between buyers and sellers. Through a combination of lectures, discussions, videos, individual and group assignments and case analyses, the course is designed to cover the basic concepts and principles of this challenging field.

BD514 Applied Business Intelligence

Professor: MOUSAVI JAHAN ABADI Seyed Mohammad

Business intelligence (BI) is a technology-driven process for analyzing data and delivering actionable information that helps executives, managers and workers make informed business decisions. The ultimate goal of BI initiatives is to drive better business decisions that enable organizations to increase revenue, improve operational efficiency and gain competitive advantages over business rivals. BI refers to technologies, applications, and practices for the collection, integration, analysis, and presentation of business information.

This course is for students who want to have a look at how BI and data science can be used for supporting Data-Driven Decision Making in organizations and companies.
This course covers BI topics, like: Descriptive Analytics, Predictive Analytics, Prescriptive Analytics, Big Data, and Artificial Intelligence (AI). During this course, students will do following activities:

• Learning concepts and theories about BI
• Studying real and practical use cases of application of BI in organizations and companies
• Workshops for designing dashboards and metrics for BI
• Acquiring skills and abilities of BI by doing exercise and practice hands-on lab works

BD512 Managing Multinational Corporations

Professor: KOYAMA Kenta
This course focuses on cross-cultural management and diversity management in multinational corporations. Students are expected to develop theoretical perspectives so that they can apply theories in cross-cultural / diversity management to their theses, graduation projects, or future jobs.

Those theories are related to current issues of practical management. Therefore, students are highly expected to participate in class discussions so that they can connect the theories to practical knowledge on management.

Development Studies Core Courses

BD520 Development Theory and Policy

Professor: KAHY Hady
The course will concentrate on issues of growth and development for a variety of world economies. The issues covered will include topics such as scarcity of resources, interaction between market and government control, role of technology and human capital, institutions, globalization, health, education, infrastructure and inequality and poverty. Specific tools include the measurement of economic growth and standards of living, conduct of macroeconomic policy, models of international trade, poverty alleviation policies, and instruments of global capital markets.

One out of every seven people in the world lives on less than $1.25 a day. Average per capita incomes in developed countries are more than ten times as high as those in developing countries. Why is the income gap between developed and developing countries so huge? What promote or inhibit economic growth? What can be done to alleviate poverty around the world? Development economics is a branch of economics that aims to find answers to these questions.

BD521 International Economics

Professor: SAKANE Michiru
This course is designed to provide students with the basic theories of international finance with an emphasis on macroeconomic perspectives.
The course begins by examining the balance of payments to understand how different international transactions are measured. Next, we study how exchange rates are determined and how they interact with various macroeconomic variables in the short run and the long run. The roles of monetary and fiscal policies under different exchange rate regimes are also discussed. In the latter half of the semester, students will learn various recent policy debates, such as optimum currency areas and currency crises.

BD525 Supply Chain Management

Professor: KHOJASTEH Yakob
This course covers supply chain strategy and concepts and provides the student with a solid understanding of the analytical tools necessary to solve supply chain problems. Key drivers of supply chain performance such as facilities, inventory, transportation, information, sourcing, and pricing will be covered.

BD532 Economics of Development and Poverty

Professor: FUENTES CORDOBA Gabriel
This course deals with topics of economic development and aims to provide students with necessary tools to understand basic and advanced issues of economic development. This course will survey and examine empirical research on the main development economic theories.

Advanced Elective Courses

BD707 Topics in Business and Development 1

Professor: LIU Simon
Topics in Business and Development 1 is the graduate course with a focus on entrepreneurial finance about financing activities in venture business. The course introduces entrepreneurial funding activities, such as venture capital (VC) and private equity (PE). The concepts of VC and PE are introduced in classes along with the life cycle of venture business. The main topics include: (1) private equity fundraising and structuring, (2) investment origination, valuation, and value creation and management, (3) Investment exit. Besides, this course goes further to discuss strategies of venture business investment, such as leveraged buyout.
In this course, students are expected to obtain knowledge of major methods of entrepreneurial fundraising, such as PE and VC, as well as case studies of business practice.

BD708 Topics in Business and Development 2

Professor: LIU Simon
Topics in Business and Development 2 is focus on project management (PM). The contents are based on the concepts of PM pertaining to business development. In the first half of semester, this course introduces the business processes and the fundamental knowledge of PM, including WBS, PERT, CPM, scheduling, resource allocation, and earned value. In the second half of semester, this course discusses the main topics of business development related to PM issues, such as governance, partnership, risk, information management etc.
In this course, students will learn the essential knowledge of project management and build the skills of designing a business project. Based on theoretical learning, case studies are discussed to strengthen students’ managerial thinking in connecting knowledge with the real business world.