UCT GSB CEMS MIM CORE COURSES

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Business Development and Doing Business in Africa (Block Seminar)

Unique to the UCT GSB including students from across the CEMS network. Immersive week-long seminar, including top academic and corporate speakers from across the world, delving deeply into the nuances of doing business in emerging markets, with a special focus on Africa.

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Global Strategy

Addresses issues around how companies operate in world markets, The course examines key questions in strategic management on how to achieve and maintain a competitive advantage, creating value for the company, and examining ethical dimensions of strategic frameworks.

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Business Research Methods

Designed to equip students with the necessary skills to conduct research. Skills covered by the course include conceptualising a research idea and turning it into a researchable proposal covering multiple aspects enabling students to conduct research resulting in both theoretical and practical solutions to challenges encountered in the business world.

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Business Communication Skills Seminar

Students learn a variety of techniques to effectively communicate in a business environment. The BCSSs are offered in English. During the interactive sessions, each participant can express his/herself both orally and in writing, and receive feedback from the seminar leader during, and potentially after the conclusion of the seminar as well.

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Skills Seminars

Skill Seminars are training seminars in practical skills which are offered in both academic terms. They are essential to kick-­starting an effective professional career and fundamental to adjusting easily to an international management environment. Skill Seminars are offered by the CEMS member schools, in close cooperation with companies.

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Global Leadership

This course addresses managing people in international settings and from different cultures, engaging students with the main challenges of leading globally in a diverse and multicultural context with global leadership competence. Students develop skills to pursue an effective global career while keeping the core CEMS values of responsible leadership contributing to a more open, sustainable, inclusive world.

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Business Analysis Project

Business projects reinforce the partnership between universities and companies in jointly shaping the students’ learning processes in international management. The business project offers a platform for students to work on a real-life company problem and develop a consultant-client relationship with the organisation to analyse and diagnose the organisation’s request, and propose a course of action to develop the identified opportunities or challenges while applying the latest knowledge in management research.

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Minor Dissertation

In addition to coursework, students will complete a minor dissertation on an international management topic of their choice, under the supervision of a UCT GSB faculty member. This allows students to deeply explore their area of interest, conduct rigorous research, and make impactful, data-driven recommendations – all key skills that are relevant to today’s workplace.

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International Internship

The international internship is a compulsory part of the course requirement and students are required to complete their internship with a satisfactory performance in order to graduate from the programme. Students either spend the internship abroad or in the home school country subject to certain conditions.

UCT GSB CEMS MIM Elective Courses

This elective connects both organisational behaviour and psychological concepts with managerial practice to provide students with strategies for setting and maintaining the course of change in organisations in diverse contexts. Current and classic frameworks are used for understanding resistance to change, maximising learning and innovative thinking, and for anticipating and coping with the repercussions of change within environments that are shifting to more productive and effective ways of working. Effective change management requires an unprecedented degree of agility and innovation especially within diverse contexts where change is constant. To adapt to these changing environments, organisations introduce new practices, technologies, structure, processes, and management systems. 

This elective is designed to help students understand the effects of global capital movements on the economies and financial systems of emerging countries. It seeks to expose students to debates regarding past problems, current issues, and future possibilities. Key topics covered include the patterns of capital flows to emerging countries post-WW2, the positive and negative effects that capital flows have on the financial and macroeconomic systems of emerging countries, the impact that capital flows have on economic and financial development, the role of capital flows in emerging market financial crises, and macroeconomic and financial sector policy implications. The objectives  of this course are that students will be able to demonstrate an ability to understand the historical context and development of global capital flows; demonstrate an understanding of the key theories associated with capital flow transmission channels; demonstrate the ability to understand the historical context and development of global capital flows; and demonstrate an understanding of the various ways in which capital flows can be attracted or ‘tamed’.

This hands-on course is designed to develop a win more/win more negotiation mindset that contributes to the capability, competence and confidence to negotiate in a manner that enhances the bottom line of the organisations for which managers and business leaders are negotiating, as well as remaining mindful of the interests of counterparts. Negotiation is a ubiquitous skill that cuts across all business disciplines, sharpening the proverbial saw. All managers and business leaders negotiate formally and informally every day in their personal and business lives. By negotiating skilfully, they are able to ensure that they do the business they should do, and do not adopt an approach at the negotiation table that leads to or exacerbates negative counterpart behaviour

This course delves into the development of marketing strategy and the implementation thereof in various different international contexts and industries. Marketing strategy is a discipline that is very closely related to the development and implementation of business strategy. Increasingly it is becoming more important for business leaders to understand consumer behaviour and preferences and how this impacts successful marketing strategy. With consumer preferences and power consistently changing as a result of access to information and ever-increasing choice, often fuelled by digital platforms and technological development, marketing strategy and value creation is increasingly important for successful business management.

This course will provide students with the opportunity to critically examine various facets of social innovations and practically explore how to apply social innovation concepts in real-world contexts. Discussing different theoretical frameworks and practical experiences of social innovations, we will use multiple learning strategies to inquiry how social innovators can address some of the main challenges in the world. Proposing a dynamic academic, practical, and personal experience, topics in social innovation are used as a vehicle for students to act as social innovators and influence change in their professional and personal contexts. At the end of the course, students will adopt a system thinking perspective and develop actionable knowledge that will enable them to continue to be effective social innovators throughout their life.

Irrespective of geo-location, all enterprises desire to operate better and deliver excellently on promises made to a range of stakeholders. In this course, we unpack the notion of excellence, it’s constructions and meanings across borders, as well the implications of such constructions. More practically, the course delves into Lean Thinking, a far-reaching methodology for excellence which has enjoyed both longevity and reach in applications across industries, borders and cultures. Fundamental to the course is answering two questions: How do we deliver better? And how can Lean Thinking help in addressing better delivery?

The aim of this elective is to explore the synergy between strategic brand building and business leadership. Brand building is a total value chain and stakeholder concept. The brand is the vessel of value and brand strategy guides leadership and management in building sustainable stakeholder relationships. Discussion sessions will apply industry models and tools to current global and local brand scenarios. This approach enables real-world exploration of the purpose and application of identity design, architecture, contact strategy, leadership and the building of brand equity.

This course addresses managerial issues in the social, political, and legal environments of business in emerging markets. The cases and readings emphasise strategies to improve the performance of companies in light of their multiple constituencies.  Just as managers have the responsibility for formulating strategies for their company's activities in markets, they are also responsible for strategies in the broader public environment in which they operate. Markets and the business environment are interrelated, since issues such as legislation, regulation, judicial decisions, trade policy, and corporate social responsibility directly affect firms’ market performance. Conversely, the market activities of firms often give rise to issues that involve governments and the public. Emerging markets are nations with social or business activity in the process of rapid growth and industrialisation. Such countries are considered to be in a transitional phase between developing and developed status. Emerging markets are characterised by strong economic growth, resulting in an often marked rise in GDP and disposable income. As a result, people in emerging countries are often able to buy goods and services that they previously would not have been able to afford. This provides international companies with the opportunity to tap large, new customer bases, potentially driving significant growth for a number of companies and industries.


This course aims to give students an overview of the African Innovative Finance space by examining the evolving roles of stakeholders, including investors, foundations, high net worth individuals, governments, corporates, communities, non-profits, social enterprises and social entrepreneurs, in developing and applying new financial vehicles and structures to allocate capital in a way that includes measurement of social and environmental impact.