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33. Agribusiness Strategic Management |
3 |
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This course is integrative, requiring you to apply knowledge and skills acquired from both this course and previous studies to solve real-world problems in agribusiness strategies. Mere memorization or description is insufficient! You must develop skills used by professional managers: critical thinking, creativity, and a professional level of presentation. Significant changes are reshaping how businesses, industries, and nations compete for survival and development. This necessitates a different approach to strategy development, moving from competitive to collaborative models, guided by a culture of innovation as the cornerstone of sustainable uniqueness in the face of Industry 4.0 and the digital era. Strategies based on 'business as usual' or 'more of the same' are high-risk in today's rapidly evolving business environment, where technological revolutions emerge quickly, potentially rendering traditional approaches irrelevant. Strategic management is crucial for business survival. The commercial landscape is increasingly dynamic and complex. Managers must grasp the principles of business strategy to navigate global competition effectively across all management domains: production, sales, finance, and human resources. This course offers an opportunity to integrate disciplinary skills from specialized courses and analyze strategic management applications specific to agribusiness. |
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34. Agribusiness Project Appraisal |
3 |
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This course integrates principles of project appraisal, business planning, marketing planning, and the use of spreadsheets in agribusiness investment project appraisal. Key concepts covered include identifying relevant cash flows and forecasting them, determining appropriate discount rates, applying project evaluation criteria, and incorporating risk in project appraisal, including sensitivity analysis. The course begins with computer-based assignments for various agricultural projects to familiarize students with the steps in project investment appraisal. This includes identifying cash flows, developing cash flow patterns, preparing project parameters (such as price indexes, investment plans, depreciation schedules, financing plans, loan schedules, interest during construction stages, production and sales schedules, operating plans, income statements and tax considerations, working capital plans, and cash flow statements), discounting cash flows, and calculating project evaluation criteria. Additionally, students learn to prepare marketing and business plans for new projects. By the end of the course, students are capable of independently implementing a complete start-up project in the agricultural sector. In addition to textbook case studies, the course includes practical examples of successful high-tech agricultural projects undertaken by local companies. |
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35. Applied Research in Agricultural Markets |
3 |
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This course introduces students to the field of market research, emphasizing the importance for organizations to understand their current and potential customers and their values. Market research helps organizations gain insights into customer decision-making factors, particularly in the agri-food products sector. Throughout the course, students will critically explore principles, concepts, and models of marketing research from a practical perspective. Effective market research involves identifying the problem, developing a research approach and design, collecting data, analyzing and interpreting the data, and presenting information. By discussing and analyzing actual case studies, students will acquire the knowledge to evaluate and design effective market research strategies in the agribusiness industry. This course serves as a well-prepared step for those planning to pursue research-oriented internships in the upcoming semester. |
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36. Sustainable Food Supply Chains |
3 |
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This course will introduce students to the fundamental issues of managing food supply chains sustainably. The content includes the concepts and principles of supply chain management, supply chain optimization, trust, power, and equality in food supply chains, different actors in a food supply chain, types of food chains, factors influencing food supply chains, and local food systems. Students will learn about food production, focusing on the main entities in a food chain from farm to fork and the barriers to the development of the agri-industry. The course also covers food manufacturing, emphasizing the importance of food processing, changing market conditions, food packaging, inventory, and procurement management. In terms of food retailing, the course explores the retail environment, retail channels, online grocery retailing, and future challenges in food retailing. Food logistics topics include the logistics environment, packaging in logistics, and temperature-controlled supply chains. The course will examine technology trends in food supply chains, such as traceability, digital technology trends in agri-food logistics, and the role of technology in food chains. Collaboration and relationships in a food chain, shared values, food sourcing and procurement, risk management in food supply chains, food regulation, safety and quality, and food innovation and sustainability challenges will also be discussed. Students are required to have a fundamental understanding of the global supply chains of key agri-food products such as coffee, soybeans, sugar, milk, eggs, meat, fish, fruits, and vegetables. |
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37. Agribusiness Marketing |
3 |
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This course provides students with theoretical frameworks and real-life examples to apply modern approaches to the marketing activities of agri-food business companies. The aim is to equip students with sufficient knowledge to plan and implement effective marketing strategies and tactics in the agri-food business sector. Specifically, students will learn about markets for agricultural products and economic theories of agricultural marketing strategies, including supply and demand, market structures, and measurement of market concentration. The course will cover stages in agribusiness marketing development, such as developing a marketing plan, understanding consumer behavior, and gaining insights into the features of agricultural products. Topics will also include agribusiness marketing strategies, pricing strategies and price discrimination, product strategies and differentiation, new product development, packaging, labeling, brand development, advertising, promotion, distribution strategies, online selling, digital marketing, and its applications in agribusiness. Additionally, students will learn to evaluate agribusiness marketing programs and assess marketing effectiveness metrics. |
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- Elective courses: Select 1 out of 4 |
3 |
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38. Agri-Product Procurement Management |
3 |
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This course introduces students to fundamental topics related to purchasing decision-making in agri-food products and managing supplier relationships within agri-food value chains. The course covers concepts and principles of procurement management and supplier relationship management, purchasing functions and their relations with other departments within organizations, resource planning and purchasing demand forecasting, evaluation and selection of potential suppliers, price negotiation and purchasing contract management, local and global sourcing, inventory management and logistics, procurement risk management, and various social and environmental issues in purchasing agricultural products. Additionally, the course provides students with basic knowledge and skills in purchasing and supplier relationship management. |
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39. International Human Resource Management |
3 |
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Human Resource Management (HRM) is one of the important functions in corporate governance. This subject provides the knowledge and basic skills of HRM in companies in general and MNCs in particular. Its main content covers many important activities in the HRM management program including HRM and HRM strategy, Recruitment, Selection and allocation of resources, Planning, management and performance assessment, Training and development, Planning and management of payroll, employee benefits, services, employees’ relations and related matters. The content is combined with real-world situations in the management of MNCs in Vietnam. |
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40. Business Simulation |
3 |
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Business Simulation module requires students to apply combination of knowledge that they have learnt in International Business major core courses, such as: Strategic Management, Operations and Supply Chain Management, Marketing, Human Resources Management, and Financial Management into practice. Students will execute business strategic decisions, which are represented by data imported to a web-based system that mirrors the real-world characters of the digital camera industry. In this module, students shall approach the real business practices by directly involving và managing virtual international companies. They should employ various business strategies to compete with their rivals in the virtual competitive environment that have similar settings with the reality. |
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41. Applied Microeconomics |
3 |
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This course is a continuation of Principles of Microeconomics, which emphasizes the application of economic principles and approaches to critical management decision-making in organizations. The course helps learners to understand the principles to advance the organization's goals as well as a better understanding of the external business environment, the problems that managers face within the scope of the organization's functions. organizations as well as the strategies they must take into account. In addition, learners will also apply analytical techniques and quantitative tools to connect learned concepts to measurement and decision making. The main objective of the course is to develop tools that are useful for other disciplines that underlie a wide variety of disciplines such as finance, marketing, business strategy as well as MBA courses. In addition, this course is specially designed to help students apply economic concepts and theories into agricultural and food industries. Therefore, almost all case studies, illustrative examples, exercises and assignments will focus on farm enterprises, agribusiness companies and consumers of agri-food products. Besides, this couse also provides an analysis of digital applications on the market outcomes. |
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- Elective courses: Select 1 out of 4 |
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42. Sustainable Business Models |
3 |
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This course provides an overview of sustainable business model theory and innovation, discussing business models as essential tools in transitioning to more sustainable enterprises. Throughout the course, we will use the theory of sustainable business models and sustainable business model innovation as a foundation to better understand how companies, especially in the agrifood sector, can implement sustainable business practices. The course will offer students a rich opportunity to examine the efforts and achievements of many reputable companies worldwide and in Vietnam in implementing sustainable business models. Additionally, the course focuses on sustainable business models in agriculture, such as circular economy, organic, regenerative, clean energy, and many other models. These models not only help minimize negative environmental impacts but also create long-term economic value for businesses and communities. By the end of the course, students will have a clear understanding of some of the challenges and opportunities that companies face in creating more sustainable business models. Students will be able to explain, discuss, and critically use the theory and tools of sustainable business models |
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43. Business Models and Applications |
3 |
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This course is designed to provide students, primarily in the fields of business and economics, with a sound conceptual understanding of the role management science plays in the decision making process. This is an important course in developing decision models and their application to management problems. The emphasis is on models that are widely used in all industries and functional areas, including operations, supply chain management, finance, accounting, and marketing. |
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44. Business Communication |
3 |
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Effective business communication is not just reporting, in one form or another, but every situation or communication opportunity requires a new idea, or a way to make an impression and be highly effective. The module introduces students to the basics of business communication and how to practice effective communication skills as well as the applications of communication in specific work, including the following main contents: Overview of business communication and principles of business communication; Listening, speaking, reading and writing skills and non-verbal communication skills; How to use means of effective communication; Applications of business communication in intercultural communication, in negotiation and in recruitment. |
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45. Applied Macroeconomics |
3 |
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In this part of the application, students will be asked to practice practical situations, develop and discuss large class assignments. To do that, students will be required to collect, analyze and write reports on events and relationships of domestic and international macroeconomic variables. The most important goal is to help learners hear, read, understand and give personal opinions about economic information and policies of a country as well as the world. We will begin the course by studying four basic areas relationships including: (1) Manufacturing; (2) Budget; (3) Currency; and (4) Abroad through a more complete understanding of national income accounting and balance of payments. Thereby, the consistent links between goals, policy tools and the relationship between the overall indicators will be demonstrated through the impact of policy tools as well as exogenous changes. Manufacturing sector considers the determination of national accounting indicators, namely GDP, employment, inflation, aggregate supply and demand, …; the budget sector analyzes budget revenue and expenditure policies related to government revenues, expenditures, financing and borrowing; monetary sector discusses instruments of direct and indirect monetary control with the important role of central banks; and the foreign sector will analyze goods and services transactions, capital transactions, external debt and exchange rate policies. Besides, this course is specially designed to help students able to apply economic concepts and models into agricultural and agribusiness sectors. Therefore, case studies, illustrative examples, exercises and assignments will focus on the field of agriculture and food sectors. |
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- Elective courses: Select 1 out of 4 |
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46. Agricultural & Food Policy |
3 |
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This course applies basic economic principles and concepts to the analysis of agricultural and food policies. Specifically, it covers the following topics: the economic rationale of policy analysis, the policy design process, an analytical framework for agricultural and agribusiness policies, sustainable resource management regulations in agricultural practices, an overview of marketing and trade of agricultural and food commodities, access to agricultural credit and microfinance, and an overview of Vietnamese agricultural and food policies. These include price policy, food policy, marketing policy, land use policy, agricultural mechanization policy, agricultural R&D policy (with a focus on digital technologies), credit policy for agricultural investments, integration policy, and organic farming policy. Additionally, the course introduces typical agricultural and food policies from advanced agricultural economies and their applications to the Vietnamese agricultural sector. |
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47. International Business in Asia |
3 |
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The course introduces new issues in the management of international business activities of international business enterprises in Asia. The contents of the course include understanding globalization in Asia, understanding Asian market conditions, Asian market penetration strategies and regional integration. In addition, the course is also an introduction to family business administration in Asia. Finally, the course deals with ethics in international business, social responsibility of enterprises doing international business in Asia. |
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48. E-Business and Supply Chain (E-Commerce) |
3 |
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In this course, students will learn to strategically think about integrated supply-chain, procurement, and service management strategies for organizations that rely, at least partially, on Internet and information technology to transact with suppliers and end consumers. To accomplish this objective, fundamentals from business areas of supply chain management and information management will serve to establish the course’s theoretical underpinnings. Along with this foundation, applied concepts, and practical insights, students will develop the knowledge and necessary skills to plan, organize, operate, and control a variety of processes, resources, services, and relationships in supply chains via the Internet and information technology. Lectures, case-study reports and discussions, analytical investigations constitute the methods through which course content will be delivered. |
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49. Time Series Econometrics |
3 |
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This course is divided into two main components: (1) collection, management, and analysis of time series data; and (2) construction of econometric time series models for forecasting or testing economic hypotheses. The collection and management of time series data has been briefly introduced in the Macroeconomics course (regarding macroeconomic indicators, balance of payments, monetary systems, and government budgets) and the Statistics in Economics and Business course (regarding the calculation of statistical indices such as CPI, PPI). Therefore, in this course, we will only introduce accessible data sources for research and guide students on how to manage time series data using Stata or R. The analysis of time series data will focus on the following content: smoothing data, creating trend variables, creating seasonal dummy variables, and structural dummy variables; using time series graphs to detect movement trends, relationships between variables, and identifying structural breaks or thresholds in the data; understanding the significance of autocorrelation coefficients and correlograms; exploring the properties of stationary series, non-stationary series, random walks, differenced stationary series, trended stationary series, autoregressive (AR) series, and moving average (MA) series; conducting unit root tests and cointegration tests. Regarding the construction of econometric time series models, we will divide them into univariate and multivariate models. The univariate model group is divided into two subgroups: simple and advanced. The simple subgroup will focus on moving average models, Holt exponential smoothing, Winter smoothing, Holt-Winter smoothing, and ARIMA models to forecast individual indices such as sales, inventory, commodity prices, and some macroeconomic indicators like GDP, CPI, interest rates, and unemployment. The advanced subgroup includes ARCH, ARCH-M, GARCH, GARCH-M, and TGARCH models to forecast highly volatile time series such as oil prices, gold prices, exchange rates, and stock prices. The multivariate model group mainly focuses on the VAR model, error correction mechanism (ECM) models or vector ECM (VECM) models, and Granger causality tests to forecast the relationships between economic indicators and test economic hypotheses. Recently, many applied studies (especially in the fields of macroeconomics, financial development, and energy) have used non-stationary panel data, so we will introduce some unit root tests and cointegration tests for this type of data. Additionally, threshold regression models have been and are being widely used, so we will also provide an overview to give students a basic foundation for self-study later on. |
