Elective Courses

This course aims to provide an overview of the entrepreneurship process by focusing on new venture creation from idea generation, building a compelling business model and opportunity recognition to managing new business start-ups and dealing with venture capitalists. Students will learn how to develop business models that create new value for customers in a start-up venture and will also learn about the values, management, marketing, and financial skills that are most often associated with successful entrepreneurial activity. Students then discover and evaluate opportunities, develop possible business models and prepare a venture plan.

This course provides an overview of financial instruments and activities that are critical for sustainable, climate-resilient worldwide economic development. It covers topics such as green bonds and sustainability-linked bonds, which are important constituents of the green and sustainable finance markets. Environmental, social and governance (ESG) ratings are discussed through cases and examples. Active ownership and impact investing through which institutional investors engage corporations to achieve positive ESG outcomes consistent with Paris Agreement are explained. Government regulations and industry best practices for ESG disclosures and reporting are elaborated.

This course equips students with the knowledge to appreciate and navigate the transformative impact of fintech. Students will gain a foundational understanding of underlying technologies (e.g., artificial intelligence, blockchain, etc.) and explore their real-world applications, business models, and potential opportunities to drive innovation across industries. A unique aspect of the course are the in-class guest speakers that will share their experiences as entrepreneurs and leaders. Learning from such speakers and about the business applications of new technologies, students will also develop additional insights about their own respective career paths.

This course introduces the economic, corporate and cultural environment of major innovation cities in China. It also helps students understand industrial ecosystems in China’s economic hubs, analyze the impact of national policies, examine innovation in technology and traditional industries, and develop cultural intelligence for business in major innovation cities in China.

A “hit product” refers to a product that enjoys immediate and substantial popularity. This course dives deep into the phenomenal success of hit business. We will explore the factors contributing to the success of hit products, including effective marketing, a unique selling proposition, and psychology of consuming hit products. More importantly, we will reveal the blockbuster strategy that have been widely used in creative industries (e.g. music, sports, and films), discuss in depth how the technology and innovations have shaped and challenged the hit business, and generalize the insights into other industries, such as retailing and social media.

This multidisciplinary course provides an overview of the evolution, structure and current issues in the health care sector, and the innovation challenges created by system complexity, technology advancement, and growing diverse needs. It examines the unique features of health care as a product, and the changing relationships between patients, providers, insurers, bioscience, employers, and government. Moreover, this course will explore new ecosystem at the crossroad of biotechnology digital technology, fintech, and new health care delivery model. This course will offer useful introduction to students interested in health insurance, hospital, pharmaceutical, medical device, investment in health care, or starting a new venture in health care.

The course instructor was a CEO who has transformed four major organizations in Hong Kong, namely, Dragonair, Ocean Park, Cathay Pacific Airways and Hang Lung Properties. This course highlights the practical lessons and experiences accumulated in his 42-year career. Students will share the experiences and obtain a better understanding of the top-level business and strategy issues.

Designed as a transformative elective for MBA students, this course deepens understanding of Integrated Marketing Strategy: Social Media, Content, and Brand within an AI-driven digital landscape. While social media marketing, content creation, and brand leadership each encompass vast domains, this course empowers participants to synthesize these disciplines into a cohesive, strategic framework, with a focus on the Asia-Pacific region. Through a dynamic blend of interactive case studies, hands-on workshops, ideation exercises, and strategic group presentations, students will dissect real-world successes and failures, harness marketing tools for innovation, and craft integrated marketing strategies that amplify engagement, strengthen brand equity, and deliver measurable impact. This elective equips future leaders with the critical insights and actionable skills to navigate the complexities of modern marketing, empowering them to drive innovation and excel in a globally competitive environment.

This course offers an in-depth exploration of integrated wealth planning, with a specialized focus on family office operations and global asset allocation strategies. It delves into the theoretical foundations of portfolio management and risk assessment across diverse asset classes, while emphasizing practical approaches to constructing and optimizing portfolios for high-net-worth individuals and family offices.

The curriculum also highlights the central role of asset management in family office operations, particularly its unique significance for family succession planning—encompassing wealth preservation, intergenerational transfer, and alignment of family values with investment strategies. It contrasts family office asset management with institutional approaches, addressing key differences in risk tolerance, investment horizons, and non-financial objectives such as legacy building.

New content on alternative investment classes—including private equity (PE), digital assets (e.g., cryptocurrencies, NFTs), and art collections—is integrated to reflect the diverse portfolios of high-net-worth families. This equips students to analyze and manage complex wealth structures in global markets, with a focus on the specialized needs of family offices of all sizes.

With shifting global economic patterns, the knowledge and field experience in different countries and economic regions is inevitable to be successful on an international and local scale. The international field project is a practical course, which proceeds by visiting companies and institutions to learn about businesses and public services and collect data which serves as a basis for course work. It also gives a cultural perspective and encourages observing international differences in markets, objectives, and operations. Classroom teaching, prereading literature and reviewing current events lay the foundation, but the main pedagogic concept is to analyse companies and institutions visited and extract lessons learned. This can mean the application of best practices back home, the assessment of opportunities for Chinese companies in the visited counties, and how to build closer professional and personal ties. Ideally, students already have a sound knowledge of professional practices and some core MBA curriculum subjects, so they can apply and calibrate this in a new context and realities outside the classroom. Further, global contexts will be discussed and the relation to trade agreements and initiatives such as the “One Belt, One Road Initiative”.

*International Field Project is an elective course for Part-time students

This course will empower students with all the fundamentals to understand the digital assets ecosystem including Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, stable coins, utility tokens (e.g. Ethereum) decentralized finance (DeFi), central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), non-fungible tokens (NFTs), security tokens, the metaverse, web 3.0 and many others.

The above will be covered via class lectures by Henri Arslanian, practical case studies (e.g. Harvard Business School and other case studies on the digital assets ecosystem) and guest speakers.

Please see the course content for more details.
This course will ultimately help you learn:

•The basics of Bitcoin, from its mysterious origins to the different sets of use cases it can be applied to
•The fundamentals of blockchain and how the technology makes cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin possible
•The rise of Ethereum and some of the next generation blockchains, including how they compare and contrast with Bitcoin
•The unique features and characteristics of stablecoins, utility tokens, security tokens, and non-fungible tokens (NFTs)
•Why central banks around the globe are experimenting with central bank digital currencies (CBDCs)
•The impact of decentralized finance (DeFi) and why traditional financial institutions, banks, asset managers, and hedge funds are beginning to seriously explore crypto-related opportunities
•The impact of developments like the metaverse and web 3.0

After building up a basic level of knowledge of this rapidly developing world, we will cover the latest developments of each vertical of the digital assets ecosystem.

What you’ll learn

•Explore the evolution of the crypto ecosystem, beginning with Bitcoin and blockchain and continuing through smart contracts, DeFi, NFTs, and CBDCs.
•Learn the key concepts and terminology surrounding blockchain, Bitcoin, and digital assets.
•Gain a deeper understanding of where Bitcoin and other crypto-assets fit in the broader history of money and finance.
•Understand what Bitcoin is, what it can be used for, the problems it solves, and how it compares and differs from other crypto-assets like Ethereum.

Are there any course requirements or prerequisites?

•No prior knowledge in crypto is required to participate in this course. All you need is an interest in the history of money and a burning passion for all of the exciting trends emerging from the advent of digital assets.

Who this course is for:

•Students who are interested in Bitcoin and other crypto-assets looking to understand how blockchain and crypto will impact legacy finance.
Students looking to leverage a foundational understanding of these concepts into further personal and professional development.

This course aspires to dive back into ancient wisdoms within the Chinese classics to examine the fundamental guidelines for developing leadership skills. It aims to compare 1) the leadership now and where it will go in the future, 2) the basic qualities we are looking for, 3) the need to face a multifaceted and pluralistic world. These wisdom and values may be perceived as “old” fashion, however, exploring Chineseness incorporated within “China in the World” will bring to light leadership behaviours currently being practiced to be aligned with values within the Chinese classics.

This course will provide each student with a solid legal foundation, especially in an Asian context. It is an international business law course specifically designed for students who are or hope to become managers and executives in Asia. We will discuss broad legal principles and how they affect business today, analysing several cross-border business transactions and court cases. The format of the course is similar to a graduate seminar, requiring students to be well prepared and participate actively in class.

This course introduces students to the modern management consulting industry, its methods, and develops the skills and competencies needed to succeed professionally. It first covers an overview of the consulting industry from both perspectives: the one of a service provider, as well as the buyer of such service who wants to make best use of consulting input.

Currently, the management consulting industry is undergoing fundamental shifts, which change the competitive landscape, project scopes, business models, staffing, careers as well as skills and competences needed to succeed professionally. With the introduction of AI tools, consulting companies move from pyramid shape to diamond shape HR and project staffing structures. This results in a smaller base of junior consultants being required faster to develop “control tower skills”, “human judgement” and “client engagement competencies” to create value in senior positions. At the same time, coordinating and leading mixed teams of consultants and AI agents fundamentally changes the elements of the consulting project value chain. Furthermore, the research backbone, which gave large consulting firms an advantage, is becoming largely automated and opens opportunities for smaller and specialized consulting companies to compete on larger scale projects. And finally whole categories of consulting projects are disappearing, because corporations can integrate these tasks without outsourcing them to a vendor such a service.

The course plot is organized along the typical phases of a project from the pitch and proposal stage at the beginning to the delivery of finial project documents and their presentation. The lay out is very practical with the target of combining the whole range of business disciplines to train delivering high impact advisory and consulting work, or alternatively to achieve such results inhouse with a management team.

The course is strictly focusing on how consulting work can provide real value to a client and solve problems professionally. It is NOT (!) about populating “consulting frameworks”, mere presentation skills, or how to crack a “case interview”, but to give genuine and valuable advice. With the cases used, the course has a global coverage in terms of geographies, markets and functional areas. The industries covered, represent a wide range, from Automotive, Aerospace, Teleco, Defense, over Materials & Mining, Food and Beverages to Creative Industries, Culture and Music.