The core curriculum consists of a series of compulsory courses, covering essential managerial foundation skills, business fundamentals, and special topics in China management (see brief course descriptions below; click to see course outlines):
 

Managerial Skills

• Quantitative Methods for Management

• Effective Presentation Skills

• Leadership and Teamwork

Business Fundamentals

Economics and Decision Sciences

• Micro-Macro Economics
This course introduces the basic principles and analytical tools of economics for business analysis. It discusses how the market operates, how business strategies are determined, and how optimal decisions are made on product, price and organization. The course covers demand and supply analysis, production and cost analysis, market power, pricing, optimal operating decisions under different market structures, basic game theory, firm organization and incentive mechanisms, and government policy.

• Chinese Economic Reform
A review of the reform and development of the Chinese economy since 1979 by using tools of modern economics, in particular, comparative institutional analysis, to provide students an adequate understanding of the institutional change and economic performance during last two and half decades in China. It is expected that the students should consequently be able to analyze the current economic issues and to predict future trends of the Chinese economy.

• Statistics for Managerial Decision Making
Students obtain a thorough grounding in the use of statistics for managerial decision making. Strong emphasis is placed on graphical methods, and on the use of statistical methods for improvement of performance. Specific methods receiving detailed coverage include descriptive and graphical methods, control charts, tests and confidence intervals, simple and multiple regression analysis and forecasting.

• Operations Management
The management function which is responsible for ensuring the organization's ability to manage the resources necessary to provide goods and services: an introduction to the central concepts of capacity, standards, inventory, scheduling and control as the fundamental framework; a focus on process analysis of physical and informational flows.

Finance and Accounting

• Financial Accounting
This course in financial accounting covers some of the most fundamental and essential material in the business school curriculum. The knowledge you will gain in this course will enable you to read, interpret and analyze published accounting statements. You also will create your own balance sheets, income statements and cash flow statements from underlying transactions, and interpret your results. You will learn accounting terminology and the opportunities and limitations inherent in the basic accounting model. By examining the process by which accounting standard evolves, you will gain insights into the intense controversies surrounding the promulgation of accounting standards. You also will better understand how you may influence, and be influenced by, this essentially political process. In summary, you will be an informed and “savvy” producer and user of accounting information.

• Managerial Accounting
This course emphasizes the use of cost information of a company for managerial decision making, internal planning and control, and performance evaluation purposes, as opposed to the external disclosure focus of financial accounting. Topics might include cost terms, job costing, activity-based costing (ABC), cost allocation, variable costing and absorption costing, cost-volume-profit (CVP) analysis, estimation of cost behavior, decision making and relevant information, pricing, budgeting, variance analysis, balanced scorecard, transfer pricing, and performance measurement.

• Corporate Finance
The objective of this course is to provide students with a survey of the basic principles of financial management.  The course first introduces tools and techniques, including Time Value of Money, Net Present Value Analysis, and Risk and Return, CAPM, Option Pricing, and Capital Structure Theories. The rest of the course focuses on the applications of these tools and techniques on common, important issues in corporate finance, including capital budgeting, capital structure policy, dividend policy, cost of capital estimation, financial analysis and planning, and mergers and acquisitions.  Underpinning this entire course is the concept of creating market value.

Marketing

• Marketing Management
This course covers the planning and management of activities related to the marketing of products and services.  Overview of marketing strategy (market segmentation, targeting and positioning), customer and competitor analysis, product planning and management, advertising and promotion, channels of distribution, and pricing issues. 

Management

• Organizational Behavior
The course objective is to expose course participants to a variety of organizations and their specific problems, to increase participant understanding of the organization as a system, and to provide participants with tools and frameworks to improve their management and leadership of the human side of organizations.
The topics covered in the Individual section are: organizations as human systems, learning and preferences, perception, decision-making, emotional intelligence, motivation and job design. The group section explores the following topics: groups and teams, conflict and negotiation. Lastly, the organization area will cover the following topics: organization design, leadership, change management, managing performance, and managing across-cultures.

• Strategic Management
This course focuses on the strategic management of a firm, with a special emphasis on examining issues central to establishing the long and short-term competitive position of a firm or its divisions.  Participants will explore the managerial and analytical problems critical in developing and sustaining a competitive advantage with superior performance. 

Participants will examine the evolution of different industry trajectories, explore competitive analysis in different contexts, and extend competitive dynamics in international contexts. Participants will analyze the capabilities firms and the developments of competitive strategies. Corporate strategy, restructuring and mergers/acquisitions as well as how to implement strategic changes will also form key-elements of this course.

• Entrepreneurial Management

• Ethical Leadership  

• Sustainability

• Corporate Governance

China Management

• China within the World

• China HR

• China Discovery Week