The Postgraduate Certificate in International Business Practice is structured around a group of three courses. These are: Managerial Accounting and Finance, Organizational Behavior and Leadership, and Global Business. Classes for each module are delivered via three full weekend teaching blocks (Saturday and Sunday), three evening seminars (3 hours each), and are supported by on-line learning. (Total of 150 in-class contact hours over the entire year).

Course Sequence:

Managerial Accounting and Finance
In addition to preparing financial statements, managers need to know how to analyze accounting and financial data to support and evaluate a company’s business goals and to develop appropriate financial strategy for its future. This module is designed to teach graduate students how to develop and analyze various and appropriate financial data, and to understand the important relationship between financial instruments, decision-making and business strategy.

Learning Outcomes

On completion of this module graduate students will be able to do the following:

• Understand, analyze and interpret financial statements.
• Describe how the concepts of recognition, valuation and classification apply to business transactions and why they are critical factors in ethical financial reporting.
• Prepare financial statements from an adjusted trial balance.
• Use financial statement to evaluate liquidity and profitability.
• Analyse the statements of cash flows and determine cash flows from investing and financing activities.
• Apply accounting principles and financial theory to strategic decision making.

Organizational Behavior and Leadership
This module will help graduate students understand the full relationship between individual behaviour, organizational structure and organizational processes. Students will also develop a more comprehensive perspective on organizational behaviour through a deeper understanding of the theory, research and practice of the varied disciplines that focus on organizations. These disciplines include psychology, sociology, political science, social systems theory, international human resource management and cultural anthropology. On completion of this module, students will be able to integrate various theoretical perspectives into a coherent view of organizational life. This comprehensive perspective will allow them to manage organizational behavior, lead organizational initiatives and increase organizational effectiveness.

Learning Outcomes

On completion of this module graduate students will be able to do the following:

• Understand how to manage complex change within the organization including the typical obstacles to change and how to overcome them.
• Examine the role of leadership in the organization including an exploration of the various types of leadership and the unique contribution that each type of leader makes to the effectiveness of the organization.
• Examine organizational theory as a tool for understanding behaviour in organizations, for identifying likely cause of organizational problems, and for working towards potential solutions to those problems.
• Analyze the impact of an organization’s culture on individual and team behavior and evaluate the ways in which national culture can influence individual and organizational behavior, management styles and practices.
• Analyze the links between rewards systems, job performance and organizational commitment and assess management’s role in enhancing workplace motivation and leadership.
• Recognize the increasingly dominant aspect of the role that group work and teams play in organizations, identify some of the problems inherent with working in groups and teams, an understand inter-group and intra-group conflict, and build and maintain effective teams.

Global Business
The world is increasingly becoming a single market place. Technology, the Internet, expanding international trade relations, improved transportation and communications have opened the doors to global trade but have also produced a new competitive landscape. More and more companies are conducting global business through globally dispersed value chains, taking advantage of the different business opportunities offered by regional trading blocs and other regional arrangements, as well the opening up of trade of particular countries as they seek to develop their economies.

The aim of this module is to provide graduate students with both theoretical and practical understanding of the complexity of the globalization process and its impact upon the activities of multinational enterprise. It also examines the importance of regional business for the development of global competitive advantage and regional integration.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the Module, students will be able to:

• Demonstrate an understanding of the main analytical and technical skills of evaluating international market opportunities, conducting international risk analysis and developing appropriate frameworks for managing international business operations.
• Select, evaluate and apply appropriate theoretical frameworks to operational and strategic problems facing international business operations.
• Evaluate the main regulatory frameworks, which shape and constrain the conduct of business within the Triad: European Union, USA and Asia Pacific and develop competitive strategies for doing business in the Triad.
• Analyze the macroeconomic, political and cultural environments of the emerging market economies and the forces for change within them and make strategic recommendations for firms wishing to enter emerging markets.