English-taught Courses
for Postgraduates
School of Management
ZhejiangUniversity
List of 15 English-taught Courses for Postgraduates
Course / Credits / Lecturers / TermManagerial Economics / 2 / Longbao WEI, Xudong CHEN / fall-winter
Organizational Behavior / 2 / Zhongyuan ZHANG / Fall-winter
Research Methods / 3 / Zhongming WANG, Fan ZHOU / Spring-summer
Managerial Statistics / 3 / Nan LIU, Lei WANG / Fall-winter
Organization and Management Studies / 2 / Gang ZHANG / Fall-winter
Strategic Management / 2 / Xiaobo WU, Chunguo YU / Fall-winter
Human Resource Management / 2 / Zhongming WANG / Spring-summer
Operations Management / 2 / Yongyi SHOU / Fall-winter
Marketing / 2 / Hongxin CHEN / Spring-summer
Information System Research / 2 / Xi CHEN, Wenguang QU, Manlu LIU / Spring-summer
Operations Research (II) / 2 / Weihua ZHOU, Yongyi SHOU / Fall-winter
Empirical Accounting Research / 2 / Yanheng SONG / Spring-summer
Innovation Management / 2 / Bin GUO / Spring-summer
Topics in Family Business Management / 2 / Ling CHEN / Spring-summer
Macroeconomics / 2 / Hongyun HAN / Spring-summer
COURSE CURRICULUM – 2010
Managerial Economics
I. Objectives
Managerial economics provides a systematic, logical way of analyzing business decisions that focus on the economic forces that shape both day-to-day decisions and long-run planning decisions. Although profit maximization framework will be primarily employed in our lectures, our objective is to cultivate the capability of thinking in an economic way about real-world business decision making, which will provide all attendees with a powerful set of tools and insights for their future managerial careers. Intuition rather than rigorous will be emphasized during the course.
In this course we will learn how to apply microeconomic theory in analyzing real-world business decisions. The focus will be on how to make profitable business decisions in front of the current market forces that create both opportunities and constraints for business enterprises. We will try to hit a balance between theoretical rigor and intuition. The topics covered in the lecture will be grouped as four parts, namely, econ-analysis basics, understanding consumer behaviour, production and cost analysis, and profit maximization in various market structures.
II. Content
Topic I: Preliminaries for Managerial Economic Analysis
Chapter 1 Managers, Profits, and Markets
Chapter 2 Demand, Supply, & Market Equilibrium
Topic II: Demand Analysis in Theory and Practice
Chapter 6 Elasticity and Demand
Chapter 7 Demand Estimation & Forecasting
Topic III: Applied Production and Cost Analysis
Chapter 8 Production and Cost in the Short Run
Chapter 9 Production and Cost in the Long Run
Chapter 10 Production and Cost Estimation
Topic IV: Profit-Maximization in Various Market Structures
Chapter 11 Managerial Decisions in Competitive Markets
Chapter 12 Managerial Decisions for Firms with Market Power
Chapter 13 Strategic Decision Making in Oligopoly Markets
Organizational Behavior
I. Objectives
This course is designed to introduce both approaches – the mainstream psychological approach as well as the critical social approach – to students of organizational behavior. It intends to lend students a multiplicity of theoretical perspectives, so that when confronted with practical managerial problems, students not only know what theories they could apply to, but also why they choose to use those particular theories, and how the theories of their choice are (always) open to rather different questionings and hence may not be regarded as final or definite. To put it figuratively, this course aims to help students with the construction of their own cognitive maps of basic debates in the area of organizational behavior: a sort of mental bookshelf where theories – even seemingly contradictory ones – are not heaped upon one another, but categorized with logical orders. The ability to evoke such ‘bookshelves’ in reflexive thinking is important in students’ ways towards their future academic careers.
II. Content
Session 1: introducing organizational behavior
Session 2: motivation, self and personality
Session 3: leadership
Session 4: group dynamics
Session 5: learning and innovation
Session 6: culture
Session 7: power and conflict
Session 8: bureaucracy and post-bureaucracy
Research Methods
I. Objectives
The objective of this course is to create awareness and skills about business and management methodology, to master the most frequently used empirical methods on business research, and to better understand evolution of methodology and the tendency of the development.
II. Content
In this course we will study the importance of business research methods in scientific problem-solving. The focus is on business research proposal, design, measurement, quantitative analysis and reporting. The course will prove valuable framework and techniques for a wide range of business and management research questions and areas.
The main topics include research in business, research process, research proposal building, ethics in business research, design strategies, sampling, measurement, experimentation, data analysis, and result reports. Students are required to read papers beforehand and actively participate in class discussion. The papers are selected from both methodological issues in business research and sample empirical research reports relevant the topic.
There are eight topics in this course:
Topic 1: Empirical Management Research Methods.
Topic 2: ResearchProposalBuilding
Topic 3: Research by Archival Data
Topic 4: Measurement and Survey Methods
Topic 5: Experiment and Quasi-experiment
Topic 6: Case Studies
Topic 7: Strategy on Data Analyses
Topic 8: Issues on Publication: to Choose a Journal, to Deal with Reviewers
Managerial Statistics
I. Objectives
This course develops ideas for helping to make decisions using four fundamental statistical methods: Regression analysis, the analysis of variance, logistic regression, and time series. Students beginning the course should be familiar with the key ideas covered in Statistics 101: data displays (including boxplots, histograms, the normal distribution, scatterplots), summary statistics (including mean, standard deviation), and basic properties of statistical estimates and tests (including standard error, confidence intervals, p-values).
II. Content
The course covers the following subjects: Data Collection, Descriptive Statistics, Probability and Its Distributions, Sampling and Its Distributions, Interval Estimation, Hypothesis Testing, Analysis of Variance, and Regression Analysis. In order to enable students to master techniques and tools for solving real statistical problems, the course also teaches students some popular statistical software including MS-Excel and SPSS (Statistical Software for Social Sciences) .
Introduction and Data Collection
General introduction to statistics
Data Collection
Descriptive Statistics
Population, Sample
Descriptive statistics, Inferential statistics
Probability and Its Distributions
The normal distribution
The standardized normal distribution
Evaluating the normality assumption
The exponential distribution
Sampling and Its Distributions
Introduction to sampling distribution
Sampling distribution of the mean
Sampling distribution of proportion
Interval Estimation
Estimation process
Point estimates
Interval estimates
Confidence interval estimation for the mean ( known)
Determining sample size
Confidence interval estimation for the mean ( unknown)
Confidence interval estimation for proportion
Hypothesis Testing
Hypothesis testing methodology
Z test for the mean (known)
P-value approach to hypothesis testing
Connection to confidence interval estimation
One-tail tests
T test for the mean (unknown)
Z test for the proportion
Analysis of Variance
Comparing two independent samples
a) Independent samples Z test for the difference in two means
b) Pooled variance t test for the difference in two means
F test for the difference in two variances
The completely randomized design: one-factor analysis of variance
a) ANOVA assumptions
b) F test for difference in c means
Regression Analysis
Types of regression models
Determining the simple linear regression equation
Measures of variation
Assumptions of regression and correlation
Residual analysis
Measuring autocorrelation
Inferences about the slope
Correlation - measuring the strength of the association
Estimation of mean values and prediction of individual values
Multiple regression
Organization and Management Studies
I. Objectives
This research-oriented course is designed primarily for graduate students majoring in management, and builds around a series of class sessions organized to offer an opportunity for students to understand organizational and managerial behavior through different theoretical perspectives. Each perspective draws attention to significant aspects of the organizing process, and provides a distinctive means of understanding and managing organizational situations. This course will help you learn about how to use these perspectives as tools for observing and analyzing organization in the real world.
This course has two objectives. First, to provide students with a systematic and critical understanding of organizational and managerial theory and research, and the factors involved in the functioning and analysis of complex organizations. Second, to show how these ideas can serve as useful tools for the analysis and management of organizational situations.
II. Content
Session 1:Course introduction and overview of theoretical perspectives in management and organization studies
Session 2: Mechanical model for organization and management studies
Session 3: Open system and contingency theory
Session 4: Organizational ecology
Session 5: Institutional theory
Session 6: Cultural analysis of organization
Session 7: Organizational economics
Session 8: Managerial and organizational cognition
Session 9: Network and organization
Strategic Management
I. Objectives
This course aims to build up the students’ theoretical foundations in strategic management research and to train them to become informed researchers who are able to make contributions to this literature. The materials developed in this course would be a foundation for other extended research topics in this field such as entrepreneurship, innovation, market entry strategies, strategic alliance, competitive dynamics, product & geographic diversification, mergers, acquisitions, and corporate restructuring, organizational learning and knowledge management, corporate governance, and corporate social responsibility.
II. Content
This course focuses on the four most fundamental questions in strategic management: Why are firms different? How do firms behave? What determines the boundary of the firm? What determines the success and failure of firms? To answer these questions, students are required to read all selected readings under each of the following topics and submit the critique reports to the instructors ahead of time.
Session 1: Strategy and Research
Session 2: Industrial Organization and Strategic Group Research
Session 3: Transaction Cost Economics
Session 4: Resource-Based View and Corporate Diversification
Session 5: Dynamic Aspects of Strategy and Dynamic Capabilities
Session 6: Organizational Learning and Knowledge Management
Session 7: Behavioral Theory of the Firm and Prospect Theory
Session 8: Agency Theory and Governance Structure
Session 9: Stakeholder Theory
Session 10: Institution-Based View
Session 11: Relational View, Network, and Social Capital
Session 12: Real Options
Human Resource Management
I. Objectives
In this course we will study the challenges of globalization and entrepreneurship in strategically managing human resources, from the perspective of person-organization fit. The focus is on strategic human resource management using a Chinese approach. The course will prove valuable framework, models and techniques for global human resources competitiveness. Both Chinese and global cases are used and developed for teaching, learning and course projects. Experience from different countries and regions will be discussed and shared
II. Content
This course uses organizational behavior as theoretical base, economic reform, innovation and entrepreneurship as background, research findings from at home and abroad as evidence, human resources development as objectives. Topics of this course include human resource management evolution, global business/entrepreneurship environment, competence-modelling and recruitment, training and development, performance model and appraisal systems, motivation and compensation, career development and cross-cultural HRM, and high-performance systems under the Chinese context. The course requires students to relate the lectures with own experience and local cases. Through lectures, discussions, assignments, case study, literature review, the students will be able to deeply understand the strategic approach to HRM, its cultural implications and management techniques. They will be able to systematically obtain HRM knowledge, methods and research progresses and gain a good foundation for further learning, studies and applications.
Operations Management
I. Objectives
The purpose of Operations Management is to effectively integrate and utilize the scarce resources available for production or services, to plan, organize and control the value creating processes. It covers the topics of operations strategy, demand forecasting, operations system design, quality management, inventory management, enterprise resource planning, supply chain management, service operations management, and etc.
The students are required to master the fundamentals of operations management, including its core concepts, methods, and tools. They are also encouraged to understand the trends and frontiers of this research area.
II. Content
There are eight sessions in this course:
Session 1: Introduction of Operations Management (Chapters 1 and 2 inJay Heizer, Barry Render. 2006. Principles of Operations Management, 6th edition. PekingUniversity Press)
Session 2: Product Design and Innovation (Chapter 5 inJay Heizer, Barry Render. 2006. Principles of Operations Management, 6th edition. PekingUniversity Press)
Session 3: Process Design and Improvement (Chapter 7 inJay Heizer, Barry Render. 2006. Principles of Operations Management, 6th edition. PekingUniversity Press)
Session 4: Location and Layout Strategy (Chapter 8 and 9 inJay Heizer, Barry Render. 2006. Principles of Operations Management, 6th edition. PekingUniversity Press)
Session 5: Process Control and Quality Management (Chapter 6 and Supplement 6 inJay Heizer, Barry Render. 2006. Principles of Operations Management, 6th edition. PekingUniversity Press)
Session 6: Inventory Control (Chapter 12 inJay Heizer, Barry Render. 2006. Principles of Operations Management, 6th edition. PekingUniversity Press)
Session 7: Material Requirement Planning & Just-in-Time (Chapter 14 and 16 inJay Heizer, Barry Render. 2006. Principles of Operations Management, 6th edition. PekingUniversity Press)
Session 8: Supply Chain Management (Chapter 11 inJay Heizer, Barry Render. 2006. Principles of Operations Management, 6th edition. PekingUniversity Press)
Marketing
I. Objectives
This course is aimed to advance professional knowledge, higher level research methodology, and the ability of knowledge integration and contribution.
Students are required to get familiar with key literature from the award-wining papers in the top one marketing journal in the world, the Journal of Marketing. Students are also required to be familiar with important scholars and their background in the field. Most importantly, students should be able to make constructive critiques to those award-wining papers according to current relevant literatures, and make constructive comments for the future research directions toward research proposal building.
II. Content
The Journal of Marketing has been recognized as the top one journal by marketing academicians in the world. Each year, the leading professional marketing society, American Marketing Association, announces 3 awards for best marketing papers, including Journal of Marketing (JM) Harold H. Maynard Award, Journal of Marketing (JM) Marketing Science Institute/H. Paul Root Award, and Journal of Marketing (JM) Sheth Foundation/Journal of Marketing Award.
Topics including marketing strategy, consumer behavior, product management, pricing strategy, channel management, and marketing communications. All major branches in marketing management theories have been included.
Students are required to read through these articles in great details, to get familiar with those leading authors in the field, and to appreciate the landmarks behind their award-wining theoretical contribution.
Most importantly, guided by lecturing professor who is an experienced reviewer for several international journals, students are required to learn how to make effective theoretical critiques, and make constructive suggestions toward a modified research model, and propose a research proposal with theoretical contribution. So far, only handful Chinese scholars have published their studies in the Journal of Marketing. Through systematic training, students are expected to be confident enough to challenge those award-wining articles. Finally, students are required to study an important editorial letters chosen by lecturing professor each week. By doing so, students should have better understanding on editors’ preference, criteria, and priority. Important research directions in the near future are often indicated clearly by these leading scholars in the editorial letters.
Information System Research
I. Objectives
This graduate course addresses IT issues by assessing the research conducted on IT and its effects on individuals, organizations, and societies. By the end of this course, students will have an understanding of the classical theories, current trends and main methodologies in information systems (IS) research and should be able to evaluate the quality of different studies and assess their respective contributions. To achieve this, related research on IS conducted over the last 30 years will be introduced to students and assessed in the course.
This course favors the in-depth analysis and understanding of topics rather than an overview of a large number of subjects. Students will be invited to actively participate in discussions and to present their thoughts on different topics. Although this course relies essentially on the information systems literature, it is open to students of all fields who are interested in understanding how the essential role of IT in today’s world.
II. Content
Session 1: Introduction to IS Research
Session 2: The Theoretical Methodological Background of IS research
Session 3: IS Classical Theories (I)
Session 4: IS Classical Theories (II)
Session 5: IS Research: Current Trends
Session 6: IS Research Methodologies
Session 7: IS Research: Design Science and Economics
Session 8: Publication: Writing, Submission, and Revision
Operations Research
I. Objectives
The objective of this course is designed to give students the insight and the analytical skills of operations research; develop the capability to do independent studies; enables the PhD to a) apply knowledge of math and engineering, b) identify, formulate, and solve engineering problems, and c) use techniques, skills, and modern engineering tools necessary for engineering practice.