Masters in Financial Management Curriculum
The academic year for the Masters in Financial Management starts in early
September and ends in the first week of July. A wide range of finance concepts
are covered from September through April; the months of May through June are
devoted to in-company projects. Classes are scheduled between 9 am and 12.30 and
between 2 pm and 5.30 pm. All classes are conducted in English and are delivered
at our Ghent
Campus, in Belgium.
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The professors had a lot of experience, a great track record and experience in the private sector
Sven Vandewiele
,
Belgium
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Introduction Module (September)
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Opening Seminar (early October)
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The three-day opening seminar provides an excellent setting for developing
your communication and interaction skills and getting to know your fellow
students from a different perspective.
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Core Module (October - April)
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Financial Instruments
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Financial Instruments
The course explains how derivatives are valued and used. A derivative or a
contingent claim is an asset of which the price depends on the value of another
asset. Examples of contingent claims are forwards and futures contracts, swaps,
warrants, call and put options.
The outcome of many financial decisions is uncertain, for example, buying a
stock or an option has an uncertain return (hence ‘returns’ is a random
variable). An investor who buys an option will be interested to know how the
price of the option will change if the price of the underlying stock changes. In
mathematics one differentiates a function to calculate the response of one
variable (the option price) to a change in another variable (the stock price).
Because stock returns are random, deterministic calculus will fail to give the
proper result and a new set of tools, from stochastic calculus, is needed. We
will explain all mathematical concepts from scratch and focus on the intuition
behind the equations. Key concepts of probability theory, such as random
variables, stochastic processes and distributions will be discussed.
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Entrepreneurial Finance
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Entrepreneurial Finance
The objective of the course is to understand, analyze and make financial
decisions in entrepreneurial, unquoted companies. Given the uncertainty and
large information asymmetries, goal incongruence, leading to potential agency
problems between entrepreneurs and investors, traditional financing methods are
often inappropriate. The course will provide an in-depth understanding of the
financing process and the elements of deal making, both from the point of view
of the entrepreneur and from the financial intermediaries (venture capital,
private equity and informal investors).
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Investments
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Investments
The course of Investments aims for students to:
- acquire knowledge about portfolio construction and analysis;
- master techniques to evaluate the risk-return relationship of risky assets
and how to price stocks, bonds (and derivatives);
- have some practical experience regarding portfolio selection, valuation and
evaluation;
- be able to interpret and evaluate academic papers on investments and discuss
their practical relevance;
- have more experience in writing scientific reports;
- have learned more about the more advanced features of a spreadsheet program
like Excel.
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Cost Accounting
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Cost Accounting
This course introduces participants to the vital role of management
accounting information in today’s organisations.
The course considers the design of cost accounting systems and elaborates on
the differences between traditional and Activity Based Costing systems. In
addition, concepts like Customer Profitability Analysis, Total Cost of Ownership
and Target Costing are discussed.
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Strategic Management
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Strategic Management
Strategic management is concerned with managing the competitive position and
long-term development of the business enterprise to ensure its survival and
success.
To survive and prosper over the long term, a firm must create and sustain a
competitive advantage. This course will introduce you to the frameworks, tools,
and concepts you need to analyze and understand the sources of superior
performance. The course focuses on two areas of analysis: the external
environment of the firm and the internal environment of the firm. We use cases
and readings to explore a wide range of strategic problems, focusing
particularly on the sources of competitive advantage and the interaction between
industry structure and organizational capabilities.
The objectives of the course are that you will:
- Become familiar with the skills required by the chief strategist of a firm
from a general management perspective, and of how she makes decisions that cut
across functional and product boundaries of a business unit.
- Understand the fundamental concepts in strategic management, including
strategy identification and evaluation, the relationship between strategy and
organization, industry analysis, competitor analysis, firm and industry
evolution, strategic and organizational responses to external change, corporate
strategy (diversification strategy and managing the multi-business enterprise),
and international strategy.
- Develop an awareness of the impact of external environmental forces and of
strategic actions by the firm and its rivals on business and corporate strategy.
- Build a capability to bridge between financial analysis and strategic
analysis, both to diagnose the sources of high or low firm performance and so to
enhance your capacity to interpret performance data.
- Refine habits of orderly and analytical thinking and skill in reporting
conclusions effectively in oral and written form.
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Management Control
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Management Control
The aim of this course is to expose you to the managerial issues encountered
in the design and use of management control systems for monitoring strategy
execution and delivering stakeholder value. More specifically, we will focus on
the planning, measurement, reporting, and analytic tools that provide senior
executives with the comprehensive picture of both current and future performance
required to manage their businesses for enduring success. The course is designed
to enable you to gain both the necessary qualitative insights and analytical
skills, and to develop an appreciation of the importance of planning and control
in the successful management of organizations. Class sessions will be based on
case discussions, supplemented by guest lectures and a company visit.
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Corporate Taxation
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Corporate Taxation
This course focuses on the main income tax factors that a finance manager
will encounter in an international business environment. The principles
governing domestic corporate tax systems and international corporate tax will be
examined. A few aspects of executive taxation will be addressed. The course also
focuses on ethics and tax planning (including harmful tax competition and lawful
tax avoidance versus unlawful tax evasion).
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Business Ethics and CSR
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Business Ethics and CSR
Corporations are today functioning in a changing and complex system shaped by
globalisation, new modes of regulation, and technological changes. Managers are
increasingly confronted with calls for more sustainable forms of development,
stakeholder scrutiny but also corporate scandals, conflicts of cultures and
ideologies opening up new dimensions of risk and challenges for business. A
broad framework for understanding the role that companies play in society, and
the expanded role they are being asked to play, is indispensable for sorting out
the questions and challenges.
This course examines the changing role and expectations of the role of
business in society. It addresses the challenge of balancing economic, social
and environmental responsibilities to the variety of stakeholder groups with
which the company and managers interact.
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Career Skills
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Career Skills
The course includes a mixture of class sessions, coaching in small groups,
practical exercises and exchanges with practitioners and alumni. Throughout the
course, you will work on a personal development plan and a career portfolio, two
practical tools that will facilitate your job search.
It will build on the insights acquired during the social skills seminar and
will be the start of other events organised by Career Services.
During and after this course, students will have the opportunity to receive
individual feedback on their C.V. / application letter and to discuss their job
search process with a scientific staff member of the HRM Centre.
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Entrepreneurship
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Entrepreneurship
Most classes in the Master program focus on the major areas of expertise
required of a general manager: knowledge of the functions within a business,
mastery of analytic and negotiating techniques, the ability to understand the
external environment and formulate sound strategies, and the skills to make the
transition from individual contributor to a manager and then to a leader. In the
Entrepreneurship class we focus on the tasks and skills needed to be successful
as entrepreneur. With this in mind, the course aims to teach the approach
entrepreneurs use in identifying opportunity and creating new ventures; the
analytic skills that are needed to practice this approach; and the background
knowledge and managerial skills that are necessary for dealing with the
recurring issues involved in starting, growing, and harnessing the value of new
ventures
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Negotiation Skills
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Negotiation Skills
This course, based on best practice negotiation training developed at the
Program On Negotiation (PON) at Harvard University, has been designed
to assist current and future business leaders to:
- Understand the fundamental principles that underpin the different types of
negotiation;
- Appreciate the limitations of distributive, competitive bargaining and the
value-enhancing, relationship-building qualities of integrative, principled
negotiation;
- Understand how to distinguish between positions adopted at the outset of a
negotiation and the interests that underlie these positions;
- Understand the limitations premature thought closure poses with regard to
the joint opportunity finding that parties need to embark upon to envision
options for mutual gain that will not only meet, but exceed their initial
expectations;
- Become increasingly aware of the relative importance of verbal and
non-verbal communication in establishing a negotiation climate conducive to
establishing long-term, value-creating relationships;
- Use negotiation as an opportunity to work together to develop as many
creative and innovative solutions as possible in response to the ‘problem’ or
‘conflict’ that has brought them to the negotiation table, thereby ensuring that
they separate the ‘problem’ or ‘conflict’ form the persons involved in the
negotiation;
- Understand the tactics, ploys and gambits negotiators often use, and are
better equipped to counter these tactics, ploys and gambits in a constructive
manner;
- Be informed and become better equipped at applying the universal principles
of persuasion Robert Cialdini abstracted from the results of more than fifty
years of dedicated research by leading social scientists;
- Appreciate the importance and value of structured pre-negotiation,
engagement and post-negotiation planning;
- Understand the constructive deployment of power, and be able to deal
effectively with negative power deployment by other parties during a
negotiation; and
- Develop the willingness and confidence to apply principled, value-enhancing
negotiation in formal and informal business interactions inside and outside
their organisations.
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You are offered a combination of lectures, plant visits, sightseeing and
networking sessions with other students and Vlerick alumni abroad. The previous
destination of the study trip was London.
- Business Game IMEX
- Business Game Interbank
- Business Plan
- Investment Research Challenge (IRC)
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In-company project (May -
June)
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Specialisation subject in Finance
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Closing seminar (early
July)
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In the closing seminar, the entire class comes together one last time to
reflect on the past year and to forge bonds for the future.
