Lawyers and managers, as well as entrepreneurs, need a solid understanding of how to manage organizations. This course discusses the theoretical foundations of business administration and its main practical challenges. Participants learn about important instruments and tools that help them to assess risk in making decisions and to fulfil their leadership roles in organizations.

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To equip students with the core concepts, frameworks, and techniques of strategic management, the course first lays the foundation of strategic management and defines what strategy is, what types of strategies exist and how competitive advantage can be obtained. Following a market-based approach, the course then explores the interrelationship between strategy and the environment. Finally, the course takes a resource-based view of the company and shows how organizations can create advantage by developing unique resources.

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The course introduces important, basic concepts of financial theory. First, decision rules for making investments are introduced by regarding investments under certainty and applying mathematical finance. Especially dynamic methods such as net present value, future value, annuity and the internal rate of return are discussed. Then portfolio theory is tackled. Next international finance is dealt with by explaining relevant concepts such as Fisher effect, purchasing power parity and covered and uncovered interest rate parity. Finally global asset allocation introduces methods for portfolio currency hedging. Problem sets provide exercises for a deeper understanding of the material.

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The course deals with the problems and strategies of decision making: normative decision theory, subjective decision theory and decision making using game theory. In particular, it examines individual as well as interdependent decision making. Core ideas and decision-making theoretic concepts are then applied to real-world problems.

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