International Innovative Business Management Master’s Programme

General corporate communications and their effect on culture and performance. What is important for corporate communication? What models and tools are used for good communication? How to conduct a successful interview? What makes a successful public performance? How to prepare effective written messages? What is the effect of body language?

The mastery of communication and communication techniques as one of the most important soft skills; the course will offer an opportunity to test different communication techniques and to recognise the most effective forms of corporate communication.

The course Economic Policy in Media Interpretation starts from the position that in today's environment of unlimited information access it is processing of information that makes a difference. For companies of all kinds it is of utmost relevance to understand, what news in media on government attitude will mean for the business. The course bases on examples from media and brings better understanding on actual or future economic policy measures.

The students will differentiate instruments of economic policy. They will be able to relate the information in media to corresponding macroeconomic and economic policy concepts, which they will have to prove in their seminar work.

Globalisation and internationalisation of companies have resulted in marketing developing international aspects of its activity. Are you interested in how to study different environments for entering a foreign market, how to conduct an international market research, how to segment and differentiate, what are the most effective forms and types of entering foreign markets? How does the marketing mix work and how to strategically manage a brand in an international market? And ultimately, how to use the digital revolution (digital marketing) for better international and global marketing? The answers to all these questions will be explored and discovered in the International Marketing course.

Interest representation, lobbying and negotiation techniques are widely used terms.  We often hear or even use them, but do we truly understand what they mean? What is the purpose of lobbying? What is business lobbying? What is the difference between lobbying and communication with influential publics? What is the importance of negotiations for an organisation and how are they connected to communication and lobbying?

More often than we are aware, different circumstances force us to act as lobbyists or to represent our organisation in negotiations. If we cannot communicate well, we are unable to successfully present our organisation’s products, services or projects to business partners or government authorities. We will not be able to attract customers or investors and obtain the best possible position in our own work environment. As a minimum defence, we need to be familiar with lobbying and negotiation strategies and tactics that other stakeholders will often use when communicating with us. It is also important to be familiar with the criteria of ethics and legitimacy of their actions so as to be able to quickly decide how to act when faced with such challenges.

The course thus focuses on three main aspects: (1) communication with influential publics and networking, (2) interest representation and lobbying and (3) negotiation doctrines and techniques.

Today, companies are largely aware of the importance of social responsibility and ethics. Unfortunately, social responsibility is mostly introduced into a company due to following the existing trends but without an actual understanding of the issue. As companies do not have a comprehensive strategy, their social responsibility is implemented in the form of individual actions that are not necessarily related to the company’s mission. These individual actions often stop at financing local sports associations or cultural events.

The course will offer insight into what it means to develop a comprehensive social responsibility strategy and how it is connected to business ethics. You will learn to distinguish between legislation, morals and ethics. You will learn about good practice examples in social responsibility and business ethics both at home and at the global level.

Organisation and organisational dynamics are important factors that determine a company’s performance. They include organisational models as well as insight into management, motivation, organisational climate, teamwork, etc. Modern trends increasingly recognise the importance of a good organisational climate.

The course will help you find answers to questions what a company can change in its organisation in order to become more innovative and more successful, what are the weak points of organisation, how do management, motivation, communication, culture, etc. affect organisation. How does culture impede the innovation process; do managers facilitate innovations? What is the role of ethics in organisation?

Do you often come across terms such as balance of payments, exchange rate, parity conditions, investments, borrowing, GDP composition, risk hedging, how are exchange rates determined, etc.?

Finance, and especially business finance and within this framework even more so international business finance, already by definition, require a good measure of innovativeness. Financial innovations are born every day and especially different financial institutions offer them both to other financial and other institutions, the state and of course also to their various (legal and natural persons) clients. Users of financial instruments also have to be innovative, so as to be able to appropriately utilise the possibilities offered by (international) financial markets. The course itself is also designed so as to facilitate “financial” innovativeness; in the positive sense, of course.

The aspect of internationality is “automatically” met in this course, as we are talking about international business finance, with every individual, company, institution or state being directly and/or indirectly involved through concrete use of different financial instruments and/or the impact that international finance has on everyone and everything.

Would you like to recognise the norm or norms that have to be used for a concrete legal relationship with an international element, i.e. a relationship between entities, usually legal entities, which are not part of the same country according to specific criteria? In order to be able to use the law in practice, we have to be familiar with its systematisation in order to find one’s way in the multitude of rules and regulations that are adopted by different institutions but also autonomously shaped by entities within individual countries and also outside their borders.

The purpose of the course is for students to gain knowledge from the field of international business law and to apply this knowledge to practice, while also adopting the basic moral principles of international law or law in general and act accordingly in practice.

When concluding business in an international environment, the knowledge of other cultures and customs is essential. The course predominantly focuses on what is important when doing business with Asian countries and on the special characteristics that we have to be aware of in order for the agreements and contracts to be successful. An important advantage when negotiating cooperation with Asian countries is undoubtedly the knowledge of basic phrases and expressions in their language. China being the largest among the Asian countries, we thus learn about the basics of Chinese, mostly spoken Chinese, while a few basic words and meanings are also presented in Chinese characters. The main purpose of the course is to learn about the culture and basics of the language in order to facilitate business transactions. Therefore, a prior knowledge of Chinese is not required.

When concluding business in an international environment, the knowledge of other cultures and customs is essential. The course predominantly focuses on what is important when doing business with Slavic countries and on the special characteristics that we have to be aware of in order for the agreements and contracts to be successful. An important advantage when negotiating cooperation with Slavic countries is undoubtedly the knowledge of basic phrases and expressions in their language. Russia being the largest among the Slavic countries, we focus on the culture and characteristics of Russia while studying the basics of the Russian language. Emphasis is placed on spoken Russian, while we will also learn the Cyrillic alphabet and how to read and write the basic words and sentences in Cyrillic. The main objective of the course is to learn about the culture and basics of the language in order to facilitate business transactions. Therefore, a prior knowledge of Russian is not required.

In modern business, positive psychology is substantially gaining in importance. Positive psychology is an exciting and inspiring new branch of psychology. It builds on the positive in every individual – on their strengths and resources. The objective of positive psychology is to improve the subjective welfare (happiness) and functioning of individuals, organisations and the community and to enable them to flourish.

The course provides students with the opportunity to learn about the trends in positive psychology, to learn about and use mindfulness, to apply positive psychology to their work environment, to recognise their character strengths and to test the learned aspects during teamwork.

The knowledge of intellectual property rights is important for the development of innovations and in general business. How can an innovation be protected so that we gain exclusive rights of use for a specific period of time? How can we protect a patent, how a brand and how a service? How should we handle copyrights and moral rights? What is the situation with the current software? When should an innovation be protected as a patent and when should it be protected as a trade secret?

All these answers will be revealed during the Intellectual Property course, where good practice examples from national and international companies will allow students to prepare solutions for their work environments.

Today, technological inventions are considered the driving force of an economy. How can we develop them? What enables a company/organisation to create novelties? How to turn an invention into an innovation? What is important when protecting an innovation and what are the strategies of marketing an innovation or launching it on a new market?

These and similar questions will be answered in the Creative Management of Technological Inventions course. Students will also learn about good practice examples from companies both at home and abroad and try to develop their own idea into a technological invention through an applicative project.

Innovative services are just as important as technological innovations, as all technological innovations also comprise services (e.g. research, marketing, maintenance, etc.) and through development also their improvements. Technological innovations and innovative services intertwine. The course mostly focuses on answers as to how innovations happen in the most representative service sectors such as trade, tourism, utility services, IT programming, telecommunications, education, etc. We also observe the differences among the branches and among countries. We are interested in the current trends, how they create innovations, how the invention and innovation process runs in these branches, how these branches manage innovations, what are the bottle necks and the related possibilities of improvement. Students learn about theory and good practice examples and have the opportunity to study the innovation activity of their organisation and to propose improvements.