SPRING SEMESTER

* Please note that courses are subject to change.

Business Ethics

The course is designed to introduce the student to some basic moral problems connected with property and all property related activities such as work and trade. The course will initiate the student into the following set of ethical concepts: virtues as habits; right conduct incompatible with excess or deficiency in feelings and actions, the doctrine of the Mean; the right attitude towards money, distributive and rectificatory justice; friendship; continence and incontinence; duties and inclinations; categorical imperative; the nature of pleasure and pain; intentions and consequences of moral choice; and work and leisure.

Business Law

The course helps to understand elementary concepts of business law, taking as the example Polish law in a comparative European perspective. Different issues of Polish business law are to be discussed and compared to other legal orders during the classes. The legal framework of business activity is provided, and the course is focused on functions of law, not details, assuming that legal education, especially in business law, is a basic pre-condition for running a business. The course is highly recommended for people wishing to work in the business environment.

Economic Growth

This course has been designed to provide students with broad insight into some of the main theoretical and empirical components of economic growth. Instruction first deals with some of the earlier thought and perspectives on the subject area, from the classical period, before embarking on more recent schools of thought on growth, measurement and output variations in different countries. These earlier topics serve as a foundation from which we are then able to explore some of the key determinants and constraints of growth. A natural starting point for this is via the analysis and decomposition of GDP per capita into its constituent components, which then allows us to investigate labor productivity and some of the policies currently being suggested to raise its performance across OECD countries. The final component of this course takes a look at more recently suggested measures of well being connected with the human psyche. This course, while drawing on and presenting information based on international materials, also uses a number of examples and cases from Central & East European countries, which continue to represent an interesting laboratory in providing ideas for future research.    

Economic Integration

The course aims to give students insight into the economic dimensions of regional integration. The theoretical framework of the stages of economic integration will be introduced and illustrated using the example of the European Union. Beside economic aspects also the political dimension of integration will be analyzed. In the end of the course the European model of economic integration is going to be compared with the universal model of the WTO and other models of regional integration, like NAFTA and MERCOSUR.

Entrepreneurial Management

Entrepreneurial Management focuses on the development of knowledge, skills, and attitudes that enable entrepreneurs to pursue opportunities in spite of significant resource constraints and uncertainties. Students work in teams to refine basic business concepts, and then create strategic plans to support the creation of a new venture. Entrepreneurial Management is particularly relevant for students who plan to launch a new venture within the foreseeable future. The course focuses on start-ups, but is also appropriate for those interested in general management, project management, business development within a large company, and consulting services for the entrepreneurial community.

Financial Management

This course will review the basic concepts, techniques and practices of long and short-term financial decision-making, in particular: Risk/Return relationship (CAPM), TVM and capital budgeting, and corporate financing (cost of capital, leverage, capital structure). After completion of the course students should be able to: analayze and interpret information in financial statements, analyze investment projects, calculate the costs of capital, understand the basic sources of funds, compare the cots/benefits of short-term vs. long-term financing, and understand the basics of working capital management.

History of International Relations

The course focuses on the history of international relations in the second half of the 19th Century and until World War II. An overview of the main events of international politics will be provided. The stress of the course will be placed on the “Europeanization” of world politics during this age. Course reading, papers and lectures will stress the rising interdependence international relations; the forces behind changes in individual states’ power and influence over time, the causes of war and peace; and the rise of ideology leading two the devastating Second World War. Beside traditional aspects like political events and diplomacy, the role of economics and technological development will also be taken into account. Furthermore, an important aspect of the course will be the discussion of the historic background to current events of world politics.

Innovation and Action Lab

Students get involved in discovering the meaning of innovation, enabling them to develop a state of mind conducive to innovative thinking. By cooperating and learning with each other, students design a methodology in their search for innovation. Understanding that business management is an applied body of knowledge the students combine theory with practice to come up with an innovative business concept and then they build a prototype of their innovation and test it for the degree of market worth.

International Economics

The course looks at selected topics in both international trade and international finance. Topics will include preferential trading arrangements such as NAFTA and the European Union; analysis of barriers to trade and arguments for and against protectionism; the influence of exchange rates on capital flows; and issues in the current  international monetary system. The main objective of the course is to provide students with an understanding of: the fundamental approaches that economists use to analyze international trade and finance the implementation and impacts of government policies aimed at encouraging growth and improving a country’s international trade and financial “situation,” the current major events in the global economic system, and how changes in the (a) global economy, (b) individual economies, and (c) government policies are likely to impact the business environment.

International Management

The course focuses on strategies and methods of business development and penetration of international markets. Different business development methods, their advantages, disadvantages, restrictions and implications are discussed. In addition, some market selection and evaluation methods are presented. Written team project is concerned with designing the optimal entry strategy for a selected enterprise. In the project, students present an enterprise, choose a new foreign market, describe the market, and finally propose the market entry business plan.

International Marketing

The course is addressed to students having basic knowledge of marketing and international trade. The aim is to provide students with broader understanding of marketing issues, indispensable for international managers. The course contains the discussion of essential international marketing concepts in cultural, business, legal, ethical and political dimensions. Conclusions are formulated on the basis of practical cases drawn from international business environment. Particular value of the course lies in the international composition of participants, which allows for a comparison of different perspectives.

International Organizations

The course International Organizations is devoted to the issue of the contemporary world and the role of the IOs in it. There are both theoretical and practical issues such as: definitions, classification of IOs, structures, functions, decision-making processes and relations between IGOs and INGOs. The course aims to: 1) to familiarize students with international organizations, their structures and role in the world, 2) to show differences between IOs; structures, varieties of procedures, decision-making processes, 3) To understand relations between IOs and between states and IOs, and 4) to understand the complexity of the modern world and how contemporary problems may be resolved with IOs.

International Public Relations

Has the world since the end of the Cold War become more peaceful or not? Is it for its inhabitants a better place to live? Is the present world moving towards a “Clash of Civilizations” or to the “End of History”? These basic questions, which are relevant for you as students, citizens or future business people, will be discussed in this course. The driving forces of international politics today will be explored; these are classical political issues like diplomacy, security, war and peace, but also other aspects which are essential for the understanding of global politics, like economics, religion and human rights. The key questions of the course are: Who are the most important actors? What is the actors’ motivation? Where to do the trends in international politics lead? The course will be divided into a lecture and an exercise part. During the lectures students will become acquainted with the most important concepts and issues of International Relations. In the exercises specific events will be discussed and analyzed in detail.

Managerial Accounting

The course is designed for students who have already completed a basic course of financial accounting and are interested in accounting concepts in the field of management. The emphasis is led on uses of accounting data internally by managers in directing the affairs of business organizations. The main emphasis of the course is on uses of accounting data in the management process. Care is also taken to the student’s need for basic technical understanding. Topics are covered in enough depth to ensure full comprehension of basic concepts, so students will be armed with both conceptual and technical understanding of problems of managerial accounting.

Money and Banking

This course introduces students to the theoretical framework behind banking and tries to highlight in which ways and forms banks and financial institutions in general operate in different systemic environments. Students should get up-to-date insight into the structure, interdependencies and current problems of money and banking, being able to discuss and explain the contents covered in the course.

Statistics for International Studies

This course provides students with basic knowledge in probability and statistics.  Probability background covers important statistical distributions and parameter and theirs sample estimation. Core statistical tests are presented. Correlation and regression analysis is based on real data from international statistics. Computer lab gives students a possibility to solve real problems with help of STATISTICA software.