The MSc in Management programme is a one year full-time programme and students are required to complete 10 courses (40 Units) by NUS Business School over two semesters.
Each semester, choose 5 electives from 15-20 courses—ranging from advanced, cutting-edge topics for students with a business background to foundational courses that build essential skills for those new to the field.
This programme structure applies to the January 2026 intake and beyond. Students without a relevant background in the areas listed below may be required to take selected foundational courses. These courses form part of the programme workload and must be completed to meet graduation requirements.
CEMS Double Degree Program: The above structure applies to students enrolled in the single degree MSc in Management programme. For more information about our double degree MSc in Management programme with CEMS MIM, please click here.
Please click here for the NUS Academic Calendar.
Select from a wide range of courses offered by our seven esteemed departments.
This course will provide a strong conceptual foundation in corporate finance.
Main topics include risk and return of individual securities and portfolios, cost of capital, capital budgeting, valuations of bonds, stocks and firms, efficient market hypothesis, behavioural finance, and FinTech. Finance theory will be used to solve practical problems faced by financial managers.
This course blends traditional financial analysis with ESG factors.
It covers the fundamentals of financial statement analysis, including business and accounting analysis, and analysing investing and operating activities. Students will explore financial and prospective analysis, including valuation using the residual income model, and understand the quality of earnings and earnings management.
The course also delves into ESG risks, information disclosure according to the ISSB Standards, and the essentials of carbon accounting using the GHG Protocol.
By the end of the course, students will proficiently combine financial analysis with ESG factors, equipping them to make informed and sustainable investment decisions.
Entrepreneurs who recently are more commonly referred to as founders identify new opportunities, bring together different pieces, and introduce a new product and service that brings together the change in the society. Often that is done with the help of external capital or finance.
In financing their early -stage ventures, founders have to evaluate the potential of business growth, its risk, liquidity needs, information environment and how much of decision-making control they are willing to give up to the potential investors. Importantly, the capital markets that founders face – and private equity investing more generally – differ fundamentally from capital markets considered in standard corporate finance.
Founder ventures are young, often unprofitable companies, with short operating histories and little capital. These ventures face exceptionally higher degrees of uncertainty, constraining financing and creating difficult decisions about financial contracting, keeping in mind that today’s financial decisions may have implications for future opportunities and choices.
Further, available capital markets for privately held companies are predominantly “deal markets” where terms and valuations are negotiated on a case-by-case basis, where investors can add value and are actively involved with the companies they finance.
Throughout this Financing Founders course, we will emphasise financial opportunities and decisions of founders and private equity investors investing in these founders. We will attempt to take the perspectives of both founders and investors as some students may want to start their own businesses or be part of emerging businesses, while others would be interested in participating directly in the growth of venture capital and private equity. How would they agree on the valuation, deal terms, control, and eventually exit?
The objective of this course is to give participants a comprehensive introduction to key aspects of FinTech paradigm and practice. Starting from theory and concepts, students will be taught the ongoing developments in the field and how they can integrate paradigms into practice and how practice drives paradigms.
The course will integrate various categories of FinTech development areas into a core wealth and investment platform which will be used as a framework for project work. The varied nature of the project is designed to stimulate either the entrepreneurship spirit or the technological aspirations of the student.
The course is targeted at students looking to better understand the business (and societal) effects of technological change in the financial sector, and is particularly well suited for those students seeking to pursue and enhance their careers in the financial, banking and insurance sectors by enlarging their knowledge base and skill set.
This course aims to provide students an overview on the field of real estate investment and financing. It introduces the market structure, institutions, and financial instruments.
It will help student develop an analytical framework to make and evaluate real estate investment and financing decisions in residential properties, commercial properties, and real estate developments.
Financial accounting deals with the measurement and disclosure of economic and business activities. We cover basic and fundamental aspects of financial accounting for corporate-level decision-making and explore the capital markets implications of accounting.
The tools and ideas from this course will help us appreciate accounting and understand their valuation roles in the equity and debt market.
*These courses are not offered in both semesters. Our courses offerings are periodically reviewed and are subject to changes.
This course uses the “Models, Data, Decisions” framework to develop an analytical mindset and prepare participants to tackle business problems in a data-rich era.
The focus is on sound model development and practical problem solving rather than software technicalities.
Problem solving is an essential skill for managers and leaders who frequently face complex challenges in a fast-changing world. These challenges are often ill-structured, lack sufficient information, and involve high levels of uncertainty and complexity.
To become effective problem solvers, it is crucial for students to develop a problem-solving mindset and master a set of versatile tools. This course introduces a systematic approach to identifying, structuring, and analyzing complex problems in business contexts.
The course provides students with practical skills to influence and successfully lead AI transformations at large organisations and entire industries. Students will develop critical thinking grounded on AI disrupting businesses and society.
Technology is a minor part of AI disruption which is anchored on economics and mechanism design fundamentals combined with new org design principles. Students will learn use cases and playbooks to apply in mature organisations or startups and new ventures.
This course explores organisational (re)design at its most cutting-edge. As a result, Organisation Analytics’ innovative ideas represent a significant departure from conventional management practices and organizational structure design—those that emphasise incentive compensation and reporting; those that rely on long-standing traditions and hearsay; and those that emphasise a “copy best practice” approach to building organizational charts’ boxes and arrows.
The new approaches apply scientific knowledge and methods (e.g., machine learning) to the improvement of organisational design and are enabled by a combination of theoretical breakthroughs and increasing processing power and data availability as a result of digitalisation.
This course aims to raise the understanding of the significance of Design Thinking, Business Modelling & Lean LaunchPad; and its innovative applications to businesses.
This course is designed to help students develop a deeper understanding of the issues that confront global managers today, and to prepare them for leadership roles in international organisations. The course is organised around six themes:
The course strives to provide students with an understanding of the key principles by which leaders influence other people, and to gain insights on their personal journey as a leader.
This course addresses the foundations for decision-making in modern organisations, where the requirements of speed, global reach and change that our organisations face also create conditions for unsafe and unethical business practices to persist.
Reports of insider trading, graft and cronyism, unsafe products, unfair trade practices, and environmental waste are commonplace in the media. Thus, our concern is with anchors for morally decent or ethical decision-making.
The challenge of managing successfully, self, and others, in an increasingly complex and global environment is the focus of this course.
The course leads students to develop a deeper understanding of how management practices and processes can often differ across national and regional boundaries, and why.
Students are also led to consider the social identities that they and cultural others bring to cross-cultural interactions.
Leveraging on such understanding, managers will learn to explore strategies and tactics for navigating these differences to develop global management capabilities.
This course aims at improving students’ analytical and interpersonal skills in negotiation and conflict management and make sure they do first things first.
They will learn how to utilize their own negotiation strengths and focus on key areas of improvement. Combining lectures, interactive discussions and hands-on activities, it will enable students to develop cutting-edge negotiation/ conflict management strategies and be equipped with powerful influencing, persuasion and conflict resolution skills.
Moreover, since globalization created today’s world, a future business professional must also have the skills and knowledge to make deals and resolve conflicts in a cross-cultural context.
Therefore, the instructor will also introduce the concepts and skills of cross-cultural negotiation, apply them to business reality and teach students the techniques of making deals and managing conflicts in different cultures, to help them become truly global negotiators in the future.
The course will highlight the components of an effective negotiation and teach students to analyse their own behaviour in negotiations.
The course will be largely experiential, providing students with the opportunity to develop their skills by participating in negotiations and integrating their experiences with the principles presented in the assigned readings and course discussions.
This course examines how work influences employees’ psychological well-being, both positively and negatively, and what individuals and organisations can do to preserve and enhance human sustainability.
Students will learn major conceptual models that explain how work factors shape employee behaviour and well-being (e.g., job satisfaction, work-life balance, stress and strain). The course also covers evidence-based strategies for protecting human sustainability, including managing stress, designing healthier work systems, and fostering supportive practices.
By the end of the course, students will be equipped not only to manage their own human sustainability but also to understand how organisations can cultivate practices that strengthen the long-term vitality of their workforce.
This course critically examines evolving roles of leadership and critical elements for organisational effectiveness in the digital era.
Emerging technologies, data analytics, and shifting workforce expectations have redefined how organizations operate, how new behaviors emerge, and how leaders must be equipped with both the strategic vision and human-centric skills to navigate this evolution.
This course aims to equip students with a strong conceptual foundation for managing technological innovation. Students will be introduced to the importance of technological innovation as a driver for value creation and economic growth.
The dynamics of technological change will be analysed through concepts such as technology lifecycles, dominant design, network externalities, and first-mover advantage. This course has its foundations in theory and research but is practice oriented.
This means that students will be exposed to the challenges in managing technological innovation through case studies of – real world companies.
Customer Centricity With hyper-competitiveness, companies must be customer-centric and leverage technology to deliver meaningful customer experiences across offline and online channels.
Companies must integrate corporate social responsibility and sustainability into their value proposition to build financial and social capital. Brand Alignment Organisations need to strategically invest in brand alignment to build passionate, high-performing cultures and to achieve sustainable profitability. External alignment triangulates the pursuit of market share, brand leadership and customer intimacy to achieve sustainable market leadership.
Internal alignment weds the values of the organisation with the brand, such that employees live by these values and consistently deliver great customer experiences.
Marketing has been going through a rapid and significant evolvement, most of which happens in the digital arena. The technological changes enable marketers to communicate with consumers in novel ways and provide marketers access to consumer behavior data at a granular level.
Managers, however, are grappling with this transformative change, finding it challenging to be understood at a strategic and systematic level. In this course, we will develop a systematic understanding of digital marketing by learning concepts and tools whose applicability will endure even as specific technologies and implementation procedures change.
We will discuss topics including search advertising, display advertising, and social media marketing, facilitated by real-world examples and cases. We will learn in-depth the theory and quantitative metrics for outcome and effectiveness measurement and campaign effectiveness evaluation. Towards the end of the course, we will discuss a host of varied topics such as budget allocation and privacy regulations.
Data visualisation is crucial for managers and business leaders in today’s business world. This course provides students with the necessary tools and techniques to understand business data, effectively communicate their findings, and tell compelling data-driven stories using visual graphics.
Through this course, students will learn how to evaluate data visualisations based on principles of analytic design, create compelling visualisations using Tableau (with Python/R integration), and explore various visual methods for presenting data, including dashboards, infographics, and interactive visualisations.
By the end of the course, students will have a solid understanding of the key principles of data visualization and how to apply them effectively in a business context. Students will gain the skills and knowledge necessary to explore, analyze, and present data visually, and communicate critical insights clearly and effectively to stakeholders at all levels of the organization.
Successful pricing strategy is a key to successful business. This course is designed to introduce the concepts, techniques, and latest thinking on pricing issues.
The overall emphasis is not about the theory but the practice of pricing, although theoretical foundations will not be overlooked.
This course is less about the mechanics of setting a price – it is more about understanding the process of formulating pricing strategies and making pricing decisions. In line with the current trend in pricing practice, we focus on pricing-related data analytics methods and cases.
This course examines product management beginning with the process of new brand/product development.
It is designed to give students in-depth exposure to the development and management of products using theories and concepts, case analyses, problem sets, class debates and project assignments so that students are prepared for the customer-driven marketing challenges of a product/brand manager.
This course examines product management beginning with the process of new brand/product development. It is designed to give students in-depth exposure to the development and management of products using theories and concepts, case analyses, problem sets, class debates and project assignments so that students are prepared for the customer-driven marketing challenges of a product/brand manager.
Marketing research is the systematic and objective identification, collection, analysis, dissemination, and use of information for the purpose of generating insights to improve decision making related to marketing problems and opportunities.
Research for marketing insights serves as a central basis for marketing decision making; therefore, it is critical for a manager to understand marketing research and be able to specify what needs to be studied, how to study it, and how to interpret the results.
The goal is to familiarise students with the fundamentals of research for marketing insights and enhance their abilities to define and solve marketing problems.
Services form an essential component of many consumer societies around the world, and service experiences are an integral part of our lives. In this course, we will examine the development, distribution, pricing and promotion of services and how excellence in these areas results in offerings that are of value to consumers.
We will also explore the human factor in services marketing (e.g., managing service staff, leadership, building loyal customers) and how processes, people and policies are managed to achieve and deliver exceptional service quality.
DISRUPTION IS THE NEW NORMAL
We live in an era of disruption: it is no longer a question of “if”, but a determination of “when” long-held business beliefs, processes or technology are replaced by innovative new approaches that threaten incumbent industry leaders.
In this course, students will learn about why disruption happens, how disruptors become disrupted and what steps managers and leaders can take to guard against becoming disrupted in the future.
This course provides a comprehensive introduction to the fundamental principles and concepts of modern marketing strategy.
Marketing is not just advertising; it is a discipline of deeply understanding customer needs, creating value, and building profitable relationships. The course will move beyond basic marketing definitions to focus on the strategic decision-making process.
Key areas of focus include analyzing markets, understanding customer behavior, segmenting and targeting high-potential audiences, and developing the core elements of a competitive marketing mix (product, price, place, and promotion).
True insight into how consumers feel, think, and behave is the foundation of many organizations’ success. This course provides a comprehensive coverage of concepts, tools, and techniques with an emphasis on uncovering, generating, and interpreting business-relevant consumer insights.
Topics include consumer needs analysis, consumer learning and information search, consumer decision-making, and social influence.
The course is targeted at intellectually motivated students interested in pursuing careers in general management, marketing, entrepreneurship, business consulting, as well as not-for-profit marketing.
The format will be action-learning-oriented with many individual exercises and a group project, in addition to more traditional lectures, readings, and case analyses.
This course focuses on economic growth, politics, culture, and institutions in Asian countries. The first half of the course examines relationships between economic growth, institutions, culture, and management practices. The second half of the course covers industrial policy, trade, and global financial flows.
This course explores digital transformation through the lens of AI and other technologies. Students will learn to assess legacy systems, lead organisational change, and adopt AI-driven innovation strategies to maintain competitiveness.
The course emphasises lean experimentation, platform thinking, and the ethical implications of deploying AI at scale. Through real-world case studies, strategic frameworks, and hands-on exercises, students will gain practical insights into how AI is reshaping the business landscape.
The course prepares future leaders to drive and respond to digital transformation, whether within established corporations or as innovators building the next wave of disruptive ventures.
This course gives an insight into the processes and varietals of entrepreneurship, fund-raising and management. The course draws heavily from theory and research but is at its core, practice oriented.
C-Suites are recognising the competitive advantage of ethical leadership and values based decision making. This course provides a practical foundation for how to achieve a triple bottom line through a strategy that embraces business sustainability i.e. economic success through Environment, Social (Labour/Human Rights) and Governance (“ESG”) actions and decisions that current and future leaders can drive and embed within their organisations – established corporations, start-up ventures, family owned businesses, consulting firms, for profit, not for profit, SMEs etc.
This MSc elective course provides a rigorous non-cooperative game theoretic view for managers to analyse rational decision makings under various conjectural behaviours in such strategic interactions together with strategic moves to possibly influence the outcome for one’s own or mutual gains. We will start by introducing the elements of games that are fundamental in representing interdependent strategic situations in rigorous game forms, and then we will discuss the equilibrium concepts and behavioural algorithms together with managerial/economic and daily life applications. The former applications include bargaining, oligopolistic market competition, predatory and pre-emptive conducts, strategic trade policy, entry and entry-deterring actions, signalling/screening/incentive scheme to get around the incomplete information matters, and the latter include sports, dating, parenting, politics, strategic diet and negotiations. In-classroom game experiments will be conducted as well. Students are expected to develop insights behind each concept together with the rigorous logics to formalize it and, more importantly, reshape their learning to apply to the practice.
This course introduces students to the strategic framework, and provides opportunities to apply this framework in a global setting. Students will be given the opportunity to apply theoretical knowledge using strategic frameworks while considering different perspectives when applying firm strategy at a global level. Effectively, students should enhance their process/dynamic capabilities in order to deal effectively with key management issues and challenges facing companies with worldwide operations as seen by the managers themselves.
All companies operating in emerging markets face two major hurdles: low purchasing power and many institutional voids (e.g. poor infrastructure, limited access to health and education, pollution, lack of transparency and a weak regulatory framework). This course drives graduates to develop an intuitive, innovative and deep understanding to resolve and rise to challenge these obstacles.
Entrepreneurs must know the business structure which best suits their business plans. Similarly, Managers must understand the decision-making mechanisms in the business structure they manage, to avoid potential personal liability. This course will equip entrepreneurs and managers with the legal fundamentals to propel them in their start-up journeys or new management roles. Through case studies, participants will gain insights into real-life corporate tussles, and acquire skills to navigate their way effectively through different stakeholder relationships.
This course aims to provide students with an understanding of the business/economic environments in Asia. Overview on globalisation, economic development and growth, as well as business strategies on doing business in Asia will be covered.
The course will also examine how the political, cultural and ethical differences shape the Asian business environment. In depth discussions on region or country specific issues will be conducted through case studies and/or team project.
With the accelerated usage of AI in all businesses, it is worthwhile to understand how to leverage AI as a growing tool within ethical business practices. This class is hands-on learning to teach students to build their own AI based venture or acquiring one using AI from a governance, responsibility and risk management perspective.
Students will learn about AI risks and failures and leverage those to ensure a successful AI based venture which is in full compliance from a corporate governance and regulatory perspective as well. There will be real life learning from the instructor’s experience in restructuring a US-based AI venture.
This course examines the unique challenges and opportunities of family-owned businesses, which dominate the Asia-Pacific economy and face an unprecedented wave of intergenerational wealth transfer.
Participants explore how family, ownership, and business systems interact to shape decision-making, governance, and long-term performance. Through case-based learning, the course addresses succession, conflict, professionalisation, and strategic renewal.
Designed for founders, second-generation leaders, and professional managers, the course emphasises practical application, with participants developing a Family Business Strategic Roadmap that they can adapt and build on beyond the classroom.
This intensive course exposes students to a contemporary and evolving business issue from multiple perspectives. Taught by two instructors, the course examines the selected topic from complementary angles, such as strategy, technology, leadership, finance, or regional context.
Students are encouraged to integrate these perspectives through critical discussion and applied analysis. The course culminates in a group project, which may take the form of a business case analysis or a business proposal, requiring students to synthesize insights from both instructional components to address a real-world business challenge.
This course will provide you with an introduction to business sustainability. Sustainability is increasingly an important aspect of an organization that stakeholders, particularly investors, are taking an interest in. As such, your knowledge of sustainability will enable you to contribute positively to your organization.
To stay and complete the programme, you must maintain a Grade Point Average (GPA) of at least 3.2. In the event that you are unable to maintain a GPA of 3.2 and above, the following scenarios may occur:
