First year of International Business Administration

• Introduction to the main areas of Business Administration
• Organizations as open systems
• Technology, resources and people in work processes

This module focuses on the description, design and analysis of organizations, organizational problems and processes. You will go on company visits and interview company representatives to collect the information needed for a description of the company and its work processes by applying organizational theory to a real-life business situation.

On the basis of your information about the internal and external organizational context in which the firm operates, you will analyze the organization’s effectiveness and determine how best to use technology.

• Introduction to the main phases products (and services) pass through from development to delivery to the customer;
• Operations management, purchasing, supply chain management;
• Qualitative and quantitative approaches.

This module offers a broad overview of Operations Management. On the basis of assignments, a game, a simulation game (serious gaming) and case studies, you will get familiar with the main theories, tools and techniques applied by modern operations managers in practice. You will also learn how to approach practical problems quantitatively.

• Introduction to Finance, Accounting and Information Systems
• Decision making based on financial and non-financial information
• Application of internationally accepted methods and concepts for all three areas

The areas of Finance, Accounting and Information Systems are closely connected in everyday business. The focus of this integrated project is to develop and build an information system which will then be used for decision making based on both financial and non-financial information. Subsequently, you will analyse the information to prepare real-life (financial) management decisions based on internationally accepted concepts and methods, while taking the (international) context into account.

• Introductions to Business Law, Organizational Behaviour, Human Resource Management and Information Management.
• Integration of these disciplines in a business improvement project in which student teams have to procure at a company.
• As this is the final module of the first year, you will be challenged to apply insights from the previous modules where necessary and relevant.
• You will learn and apply several quantitative and qualitative research methods for the analysis of business problems in practice.

You will work in teams to experience how to develop high-quality recommendations for substantially improving a commercial work setting by applying academic insights to the satisfaction of a business client. You will systematically go through the stages of problem identification, development of a theoretical lens for the problem and selection of solutions based on the HOLI disciplines, and the integration of partial solutions into an integrated plan for an existing company.