Business & Management Courses in Japan

Graduate School of International Management, International University of Japan:
With the aim of developing global business leaders for the future, the program of the Graduate School of International Management (GSIM) is built upon an English-based curriculum which focuses on the comparative analysis of global issues from a Japan-Asia perspective, while also adhering to the high standards set for a global MBA education. Through this unique approach, the IUJ Business School has established itself as a leading graduate business school in Japan and Asia Pacific.

Common Mandatory Course

Introduction to Japanese History and Culture
This course is an introduction to the historical and cultural evolution of Japan, from ancient times to the contemporary world. The focus is on both domestic dynamics and Japan’s relations with the external world. The main questions that will be addressed are: what are the major transformations in Japanese history and culture? What factors explain change and continuity? How has Japan interacted with the world in the course of its history?

Core Required Courses (Basic)

Financial Accounting
This course introduces concepts and mechanics of financial accounting. It covers preparation, interpretation, and analysis of corporate financial reports. It will help you to identify how corporate value is created, and assess the value of a company or the contribution of managers. It also helps you learn how to take advantage of financial reporting to manage your organization effectively. By the time you complete this course, you must feel much more comfortable with dealing with financial reports.  This course is not intended to train you as a professional accountant or help you to pass a professional examination. Instead, it tries to lay a foundation for being a leader as a corporate executive, an entrepreneur, and a public officer.  

Given the quantity of core content, the course schedule will be very tight. It is important to focus on understanding the underlying implication of accounting rules and practice. Memorizing formulae and details might improve your test score but that won’t help you to go to a higher level of learning.  The course is based on U.S. GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles). It will discuss about merits, limitations of GAAP or an alternative to them. IFRS (international financial reporting system) will be also partially addressed in a few topics where there is rather clear contrast.  Again, what’s important is not a particular accounting rule, but a reasoning and an implication behind it.

Foundations of Web Technologies
The Internet, often referred to as the Web, has grown out of plain homepages in to the main domain providing all kinds of information and services. As organizations try to expand their reach to citizens and wide geographical areas, Internet has become the cheapest and main mode of reach in many countries.

From plain information sharing to cost cutting to full-blown e-Government, managing global supply chains, and managing employees to all kinds of dealings with customers or citizens, Internet has become the norm at present for companies and organizations of all sizes.  New tools as well had come up allowing developers to comfortably integrate various applications from third parties into their own websites; and Applications (APPs) via Smart Phones, like iPhone, is dynamically changing how people interact with each other and with businesses.  Thus knowing the fundamentals of the technologies, what we call “Foundation of Web Technologies”, is vital for any professional who needs to understand how to tap into the vast opportunities offered by Internet and the surrounding technologies.

Strategic Management
This course is an introduction on the fundamentals of strategic management. It introduces the basic tools, concepts and frameworks useful in conceiving a firm’s strategy as an irreducible whole. Throughout the course, the essential task of students is to develop the ability to take an integrative perspective when making a decision in a specific business situation.

Marketing Management
Most people define marketing as advertising or creating promotional offers to reach the  market,  it  is  true  that  these  activities  are  part  of  marketing,  but  the  role  of  Marketing entails a  number  of  other activities  crucial  to  stimulating  sales,  such as: Understanding  customers’  demands  and  segmentation,  analyzing  the  market  and competition,  contributing  to  the  design  of  products  and  services,  forecasting  and pricing,  branding  and  positioning, introducing  new  offerings  and most importantly creating, capturing and communicating value. Marketing, therefore, falls in the heart of  any  operating  business  and  is  integral  to  establishing  a  company’s  strategic direction. The main purpose  of  the marketing management course is  to prepare  students for  careers  in  marketing. 

It  will  also  help  students,  aiming  at  a  career  other  than marketing, to understand synergies between marketing and other business units.   General  careers  in  Marketing  Management  span  across  but  not  limited  to:  1. Marketing  Planning,  2.  Marketing  Intelligence  System  (Market,  Competitor  & Customer), 3. Marketing Research, 4. Market Segmentation, Targeting & Positioning, 5. Brand Management, 6.  Integrated Marketing Communications  (Advertising, PR & Sponsorship), 7. Marketing Channels management, 8. Pricing (Strategy, Methodology &  Financial  Implications)  and  9.  New  Product  development.  This  course  will  also help  students  lay  the  foundation  for  careers  in  specific  marketing  concentrations, such as: 1.Customer Relationship Management, 2. Internet/Digital Marketing (Social Media, E‐marketing).  Marketing Management serves as a capstone course to MBA students. This  course  focuses  on  the  marketing  management  aspects;  such  as:  Analyzing Consumer  and  Business  Markets  (B2C  and  B2B),  Market  Segmentation  and Targeting,  Understanding  Value  Capturing  and  Creation,  Writing  Value  Proposition and  expansion  to  global  markets  and  growth  strategies.  Students  who  pass  this course will also demonstrate knowledge of marketing strategies pertaining product, customer and competition.   

Applied Statistics
This course contributes to the achievement of two learning objectives of the Learning Goal 4 as mentioned below. For the purpose of accomplishment of these learning objectives, this course provides (i). the basic knowledge in probability theories, such as expected
values, variance, and probability distributions, which is essential in understanding other MBA or E-Biz courses; (ii). background in statistical principles in order for you to be a good user of statistical analysis. Students will learn how to describe data effectively, how to run
a simple regression using Excel, how to interpret the results, and how to do hypothesis testing.

Computer Based Decision Modeling
This course is designed to help ambitious students to enhance their professional skills with the help of latest computer and IT based tools. In almost all the business applications at the managerial level, Excel has become a pivotal tool; though its full power is not well used. Through this course students will learn to model decision making problems using Excel and use its hidden tools that hitherto had been known only to top professionals in large consulting companies.  The course is targeted to students looking for careers as consultants, general managers, financial analysts, government analysts, strategic planners, policy makers, and operational managers.  

Often, business involves dealing with numbers. Numbers are then strategically used to make business or managerial decisions. This course is about how to formulate the business and managerial problems involving numbers and how to solve them using latest computer tools built-in with Excel and Add-ins.  The course introduces modeling techniques for marketing, finance, resource allocation, operations management, and various other managerial problems, including some involving uncertainty in numbers. The course will make full use of computer tools (Excel, Add ins, and Macros) that integrate the knowledge and implementation skills to solve such managerial problems.

Managerial Economics
This course is primarily designed to provide, through theories and cases, basic macro- and microeconomics concepts and techniques such as regression model used in managerial decision making. Managers should be able to understand the macroeconomic indicators such as gross domestic products (GDP), inflation rate, stock indices so that managers should have appropriate perspectives about the economic situation. This kind of knowledge helps manager to make appropriate decision making such as new business investment and corporate restructuring.  Additionally, we will learn basic micro economic theories such as demand and supply, supply analysis, cost analysis, cost-volume-profit analysis, and utility theories. Demand and supply analysis help to understand how the price/quantity is determined by the market.

These help managers to set the price in order to maximize the profits of the organization. Also demand and supply analysis helps managers to estimate the demand function which reveal the consumer’s preference and what kind of aspects of products are priced. These demand theories help marketing managers to consider the target market segment of these products. Cost-volume-profit analysis helps treasurers to understand how many products or how much service should be sold in order to achieve the positive profit or positive net present value of the firm. Utility theories are vital to understand the asset pricing theory in finance. Managers in financial institutions could use utility theories in order to price the new financial products and make recommendations about investment portfolio for their clients.  Lastly, we will learn basic skills in order to implement the economic theories in the real world examples. Managerial Economics covers basics of linear regressions in order to forecast the macroeconomic factors, demand of the products and the factors affecting the price etc.  

Consequently, managerial economics helps students to take the more advanced courses such as accounting, finance, management strategy, marketing, operations management, and IT management by having the basic quantitative skills and knowledge of economic theories.  Career relevance Managerial Economics helps managers who will make decision including investments, expansion or withdrawal from the business by understanding the macroeconomic indicators. Also officers in financial institutions including fund managers might find managerial economics useful to have better idea of macroeconomics and rational asset pricing theory. Managers in marketing department might have benefit since they would acquire the knowledge how to estimate the demand and understand the factors affecting demand and price of  the products.  Course Context or Rationalization: Understanding the macroeconomic factors is vital for managerial decision making and investment decision making. Amount of sales is significantly correlated with macroeconomic factors.

Understanding the correlation between inflation rate and interest rate is also important for financing decision making. According to empirical asset pricing, macroeconomic factors affect the rate of return. Also having macroeconomic factor improves the explanatory power of default probability estimating model by logistic regression. Understanding the macroeconomic factors are vital for invest in securities.  Also as a core course of 2-year MBA program, this course aims to provide important theories and skills in order to understand more advanced courses including management strategy, marketing, finance, accounting, operations management, and IT management.

For instance, utility theory is vital to understand the asset pricing theory which is one of the most important areas in finance. Also linear regression analysis with demand and supply theory might help to understand the marketing strategy. That is, these skills help to understand what kinds of aspects are important to have higher price and/or demand as well as who are the target customers of these products.

Corporate Finance
The course is the introductory finance course. Topics to be covered include time value of money, valuation of bond and stock, efficient market hypothesis, capital asset pricing model (CAPM), capital budgeting, cost of capital, capital structure theory, payout policy, and merger and acquisition if time allowed. Students will have the opportunity to apply these concepts to a real world setting throughout the semester. Students will be responsible for group projects related to various topics covered in the course. The group projects emphasize the application of concepts learnt in the classroom, team work, as well as communication and writing skills.  The knowledge and skills acquired through this course will be helpful in jobs in corporate finance, investments, consulting, investment banking etc.
As the result of this course students should be able to (i) assess the impact of a financing choice on the value of a firm and the risk and value of equity holders, (ii) value equity, the overall firm value, and other assets using the discounted cash flow and multiples methods, (iii) evaluate the impact of the firm’s financing decision on firm value, (iv) determine the appropriate dividend and share repurchase policy for a company.

Organizational Behavior
This course contributes to the achievement of 3 learning goals (LG) mentioned below.  For the purpose of accomplishment of these objectives, this course provides basic understandings and skills in the Organizational Behavior (OB) field. We learn how we can effectively manage modern organizations and “people” inside. Organizations we deal with are profit-seeking corporations, public agencies, and all other forms of non-profit bodies, given they consider their activities as work, not hobby or mere socializing.  What kind of knowledge and skills are required to manage an organization, which is consisted of a few, or thousands, of people? First, we need to be able to explain behaviors of various individuals and groups—which are considered as complex of individuals—in orderly way. Next, we need to be able to analyze and predict the individual and group behaviors. Only after overcoming these challenges we will be capable of managing, or leading, the entire organization.  The terms such as management or leadership should be used carefully, since they evoke very diverse and heterogeneous implications among people. As we proceed with the classes, we will gradually clarify what we mean by managing and leading organization, under the context of modern society.

Entrepreneurship & Small Business Development
This course is particularly useful for students who are interested in starting their own business and want to learn on different aspects of business management. This course is also suited to those involved in corporate entrepreneurship or in improving competitive positioning and transforming corporations towards value-creation.  In this course the student will learn the essential skills needed to start and manage a successful new business venture.

Cross-Cultural Management
Qualities that make a manager successful in one culture may be the very reason for failure when leading across cultures. The course develops an understanding of cultural differences, the skills to manage internationally, and the knowledge to navigate the complexities of international organizations. The course is intended (1) to heighten the participant’s awareness of his or her own culture and (2) focuses on assumptions, values, and behaviors of different cultures.

Business Ethics
Business ethics almost always hits the headlines in the wake of scandals and dilemmas, but hardly ever when entrepreneurs and managers do good deeds.  Such cases are too difficult to be eradicated given the profit motive. The globalization of business along with greater advances in technology has increased the complexity of ethical decision-making in business. A sound understanding of  business ethics has thus become a crucial element in the organizational environment. This class seeks to help students who are already in business and those preparing to enter the business world grapple with the question of how ethical integrity can be properly applied in the workplace. Issues such as professional commitments; the rights and responsibilities of corporations; the social, ethical underpinnings of business as an activity; the importance of stakeholder relationships, corporate governance; and the development of ethics programs and an ethical culture in an organization will be discussed.

Operations Management

Managerial Accounting

Strategic Management

General Management

New Product Planning and Development

IT Strategy & Policy Planning

Core Required Courses (Capstone) (for 1-year MBA students)

Leadership Bootcamp

Strategy Simulation

International Career Development

Competing in Emerging Markets
Core Required Courses (Entrepreneur Practicum) (for E-biz students only)
Entrepreneurship and Technology Practicum

Elective Courses

Brand Management
Business Applications with iPhone/iOS Devices
Business Communication

Corporate Financial Reporting

Corporate Governance

Corporate Level Strategy

Corporate Restructuring and M&A
Corporate Social Responsibility
Cross-cultural Communication
Customer Relationship Management and Data Analysis

Database Design and Management Strategies

Debt Securities Markets

Derivatives Markets

Energy and Green Technology
Entrepreneurial Finance

Entrepreneurship & New Business Creation in Japan
Entrepreneurship Strategy
Essentials of Economics

Financial Statement Analysis

Human Resource and Global Talent Management
Infrastructure Planning and Management

Innovation and New Business Creation

International Finance
International Taxation
Investments
Leadership
Macroeconomics

Marketing Communications

Marketing Research
Marketing Strategy

Mobile Business Strategies

Money and Banking in Japan

Negotiation Strategy

Networking and Secure Data Transmission
Portfolio Management

Private Equity & Venture Capital

Project Financing

Project Management

Project Risk Management

Public Management Information Systems
Risk Management
Service Management

Social Media Marketing

Strategic Environmental Management

Strategies for Social Infrastructure Projects
Supply Chain Management
Transnational Management

Value-based Management for Japan