Elective Courses

This course is designed to help students acquire the necessary knowledge and skills to achieve service excellence in an organization. The course materials are equally applicable to organizations in service industries (e.g., banks, transportation companies, hotels, hospitals, educational institutions, professional services, telecommunication, etc.) and to organizations that depend on service excellence for competitive advantage. It considers service excellence as a corporate strategic vision and views effective service strategy from an integrative perspective that covers customers, employees, and operations. The course covers: understanding and managing customer expectations and evaluations of services; designing services that meet or exceed customer expectations; delivering and performing quality services through people and operations; pricing of services; managing customer complaints and service recovery; and building & managing customer relationship. Students will also learn effective services marketing and management tools such as service audit through gap analysis, service quality survey, customer satisfaction survey, and service blueprinting.

The course is designed to cover global technological trends and how it affects new product strategies in firms. It enables participants to understand the variety of technologies (Nano, material science, digital, neural psychology, medical sciences etc.) and how they affect firm innovations (including disruptive, breakthrough, incremental, affordable and reverse innovation). Through firm case studies, participants should gain knowledge about complex issues involving technology development and management. It pinpoints how different types of firms (entrepreneur, SMEs and large corporation) can monitor and harvest these technology advances in their new product/service development. It covers market learning, R&D and marketing interface, unique characteristics of new service development (NSD) such as co-creation, product/service launch.

This course is aimed at bridging the academic world and the business world. Indeed, “branding” is an extensively researched topic and also a day-to-day management subject. Throughout the course, the concept of branding will be thoroughly examined in a holistic manner. The contemporary literatures on branding strategy will be frequently referenced, balanced by an interpretation of the instructor’s practical experience. Case studies from a global as well as Asian perspective will be cited in order to provide students with relevant insights to brand management in their work place. This course combines the most critical theories as well as the most current marketing topics including “branding in the digital age” and “brand management during economic turmoil” and “CSR and sustainability”.

This course focuses on marketing strategies in the fastest growing market in the world, China. It covers a full range of topics including key market knowledge in China, including characteristics of consumers, city markets in China and unique marketing strategies for firms operating in China. It provides participants with a fundamental, current and multi-dimensional understanding of China so as inspire them and on insights and complexity in managing marketing in this vast and ever-changing marketplace. Substantial cases of marketing strategies adopted by international corporations in China will be thoroughly examined. Selective Chinese enterprises will be studied in the context as a market force that contributes to the intensity of the market competition of domestic enterprises or multinational corporations that have an interest to learn more about China and the China market.

This course approaches the integrated marketing communication (IMC) as a cross-functional process for creating profitable relationships between customers and corporations. It focuses on how firms can strategically design and execute messages to consumers and general public. It also examines ways for firms to engage and encourage dialogues with consumers through different digital media. Participants will learn how best to integrate marketing communication elements (advertising, social media, public relations, sales promotion, event marketing, direct marketing, and selling) to enhance brand loyalty and advance firm successes. It will cover theoretical framework, firm practices as well as cases to help participants learn how to develop effective IMC plans.

This course provides students with a systematic and step-by-step guide to the application of theoretical frameworks to the effective design and implementation of global marketing activities across national boundaries and within foreign countries. The course shows students how they can easily make use of publicly available databases to understand different markets in a global context. Without the requirement of any prior sophisticated knowledge in statistics, students will learn how they can gain deep insights into global marketing decision making through easy-to-implement data search and basic data analysis. Real-world marketing cases and examples will be discussed to help students understand how they can make theory-inspired and data-informed decisions regarding market selection and marketing mix design.

The ability to manage people is a critical managerial skill. All managers have to manage people – they have to motivate and discipline followers, to maintain their commitment, and to coordinate them in a group setting. The core objective of this course is to expose students to major concepts and theories for understanding and managing human behavior in the workplace, which is important for both the short-term and long-term viability of any organization today. Upon finishing this course, you will gain a better understanding of how individuals, teams, and organizations function, and, more importantly, how to manage social relationships at work and motivate employees to dedicate full efforts to their jobs for reaching their personal and organizational goals.

The course is flexible in content that tailored to the expertise of visiting faculty members. It is designed to supplement gaps in knowledge in marketing strategies that students may have. It covers a range of potential topics that include pricing, distribution, retailing, brand acquisition and social issues in marketing. The pedagogy would be similar and at a high quality level commensurate of other electives in the programme. It covers the theory framework, best firm practices and failures, key topics of interest, social and ethical issues. Cases, cutting-edge knowledge and real-life examples will be used extensively.

Entrepreneurship is both an exciting and a big topic. This course aims to provide an overview of the entrepreneurship process by focusing on new venture creation from idea generation, building compelling business model and entrepreneurial marketing. While traditional marketing is defined by customer orientation, entrepreneurial marketing is defined by customer development and innovation orientation. Students will learn how entrepreneurs should interact with potential customers with activities like designing minimum viable products and conducting customer development and validation process.

This course is designed to provide students an opportunity to acquire first-hand knowledge of international marketing management. Experiential learning and knowledge exchange will be applied throughout the study field trip to develop students’ understanding of international marketing environment in a different cultural context, help them construct a global perspective, provide them with the opportunity to analyse a business organization of their interest, and to apply and integrate the marketing concepts they have learnt during their studies in the programme. Firm visits and cultural related activities will be arranged during the study field trip to arouse students’ awareness in cultural diversity and enhance their understanding of how culture can impact international marketing strategy.

Consumers leave a massive digital trail through mobile devices, social media, transactions, and information communication technologies (ICT). Companies and organizations in all industries face this plethora of consumer data and are looking to turn it into value through advertising and better products and services. This course looks to introduce students to the various methods and strategies to make sense of the data. We will cover topics including advance and Big Data predictive analytics, machine and deep learning, text mining and analysis, image and video analysis, and geospatial and mobility analytics. Students will have real hands-on practice exercises with these methods, learn how to generate insights from large and unstructured data, and build an understanding of its strategic relevance in creating sustainable competitive advantage. The course will also bridge these technical methods with social sciences and consumer behavior. We will cover a number of case studies, with an emphasis on Asia, in sundry industries including retailing and e-commerce, advertising, FinTech and retail financial sectors, telecommunication, and transportation and smart nations. Finally, we will discuss the interwoven dependencies on the legal frameworks with Big Data, including issues relating to privacy, regulations, rights, consumer reactions and adherence to data legislation in different markets.

The FinTech movement is considerably changing the financial sector. In particular, there has been considerable disruptions in retail banking & consumer finance coming from technology companies, the “TechFins”, and from traditional financial institutions, the “FinTech”. These efforts have helped to give access to financial services in un- and under-banked consumers, provided novel products and services to mature markets, and helped build financial access across borders. This course looks at how technological advances and regulatory policies have created opportunities in different markets, with an emphasis in China, Asia, ASEAN, and the region. We will discuss how retail banking & consumer financial products and services including microfinance, peer-to-peer lending, crowd-funding, digital payments, digital banking, and insurance are being affected, and, at times, disrupted, by Big Data, AI, blockchains/cryptocurrencies, and smartphones. Furthermore, the course looks at how these omni-channel and technology-based approaches are fundamentally changing consumer behavior of banked, un-bankable, and under-banked consumers. We will also look at the direct and unexpected societal and economic impact of these innovations. Students will get hands-on experience with credit scoring using non-traditional data. Finally, teams will create their own blockchain of their own design.

The strategic management of customer relationships is a critical activity for all enterprises. In this course, an understanding of customer equity in various parts of the enterprise will lead to customer management strategy development incorporating elements of segmentation and differential marketing (data-driven marketing), key measurement areas such as churn rate, the use of customer satisfaction survey and Net Promoter Score (NPS), and determining Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). Further sessions will explore the profitability of customer retention, the effectiveness of win-back, and modern customer management methods and tools with the associated data privacy and security requirements. This course will also include the leadership elements required to develop an enterprise-wide customer-centric approach to maximising customer value.

More than ever, corporations are engaging the larger community with policies and procedures in pursuit of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG). Using a case-based approach, this course will focus on the experiences of companies that have used such strategies successfully – and unsuccessfully. Students will analyse different models of social purpose, examine case studies to test assumptions and find the winning solutions for companies’various stakeholders. By studying the criteria and standards of evidence developed to measure the true social impact of an organization, they will identify the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Environmental Social and Governance Criteria (ESG) to accurately assess an organisation’s inputs, outputs, and impact. Students completing this course will have a clearly defined understanding of purpose in an organization and how to contribute to successful implementation.

This course introduces the quantitative analysis of online marketplaces. Students will learn how to gather information from online marketplaces and how to analyze the data to generate managerial implications for platforms, sellers, consumers and public policymakers. The course covers a variety of topics for data collection and data analysis, including statistical and econometric analysis, programming, data visualization, data scraping, text analysis, and some machine learning algorithms. Students will also have the opportunity to analyze real datasets from online platforms to gain deeper insights of data analysis in the digital age. Students will use R and Tableau for the course.

This course is designed to equip students with a thorough understanding of the major marketing and digital transformation frameworks / concepts, as well as how they can be applied practically to develop competitive marketing strategies and performance evaluation mechanism. We will build on the principles of marketing frameworks to examine the role of digital transformation as a strategic necessity. It provides a roadmap for transforming companies into infrastructures to link customers, partners and employees to create superior business value.

This course examines the opportunities and challenges that contemporary managers confront when conducting business across national borders. It addresses the complex environment of international business with respect to economic, social, cultural, political, and legal institutions. Special attention will be given to examine how these institutions shape business operations in the global market. Throughout this course, we will also highlight some of the drivers of global macroeconomic development and its impact on international business.

This course introduces simulation models to analyse business processes and solve practical problems. Students will gain basic knowledge such as Monte Carlo simulation and discrete event simulation first, and then be introduced to a simulation package that can be used to evaluate business process performance and, more importantly, facilitate decision making process.

This course focuses on marketing strategies and emerging issues in platform business models and the sharing economy. It covers the special features, pricing, customer acquisition and management, trust building, ecosystem and governance of such business models. The course also analyzes the business models of representative firms in several key sectors — lodging, ride-hailing, e-commerce, office sharing, and online travel — and the future trends of platform business models and the sharing economy. In addition to qualitative analysis, this course also discusses how data analytics are applied in these businesses and the special skills needed for such business models. This course combines lectures, HBS case studies, hands-on exercises, and student group project presentations.

Consumers do not always make rational and predictable decisions based on the information provided by firms and retailers. A deep understanding of consumer psychology will enable you to better predict consumers’ behavior in the marketplace and also develop important skills to influence consumers and make effective business decisions. This course intends to provide hands-on experiences applying knowledge about consumer behavior to identify important problems in real business cases and practices, analyze available data, and provide insightful recommendations.

Profitable pricing is one of the most critical, but often the least understood managerial decisions. Among all the marketing mix, pricing is the only element that produces revenue. Firms rely on pricing to harvest its effort to create value for consumers, yet managers often make mistakes in their pricing decisions. Oftentimes, pricing is too cost-oriented, unresponsive to market change, and inconsistent with the product position. This course covers both the economic theories of pricing and the analytical tools for formulating effective pricing strategies. The course also discusses both commonly used pricing tactics and some of the newest pricing practices. The course is highly applied and prepares students for pursuing a career in marketing, consulting, and finance.

This course covers the most fundamental quantitative skills in marketing. It includes types of quantitative marketing data and appropriate models to analyze different types of data. It applies SAS and SQL programming languages to organize and analyze marketing data and to estimate marketing models. The course will cover models on major marketing decisions on whether to buy, what to buy, how much to buy, and when to buy, both at the aggregate and individual levels. Each model will be analyzed with real-world data together with real-world applications.

This course is designed to provide students with a deep understanding of social media marketing theories, strategies, analytics, and best practices. The course covers a wide range of topics, including social media ecosystem, media types, social advertising, influencer and viral marketing, content creation and curation, short video and livestream commerce, and attribution models. Students will also explore various types of data found on social media, such as textual data, multimedia data, user interaction data, clickstream data and metadata. They will also learn various data analysis techniques, including clickstream data analysis, text analysis, multimedia analysis, and basic machine learning applications.

This course will cover the most cutting-edge digital experimentation methods used in daily operations at large technology firms, such as Tencent, Alibaba, Facebook, and LinkedIn. We will also share the key lessons and pitfalls encountered in practice. Topics include the statistics behind experiments, experimental design, methods of analyzing experiments, networked experiments, quasi-experiments, A/B testing platform and culture in organizations, and recent development in digital experimentation. Students will also learn how to conduct and analyze online experiments using programming languages, such as python, in assignments and a course project.
Note: This course is not open to candidates who have taken or are taking MSBA7025.

Python is a powerful and versatile programming language renowned for its simplicity and readability. This course aims to equip students with fundamental programming skills using Python. It covers a wide range of topics, including data types, operations, iterations, string operations, functions, data organization, data analysis, and data visualization. The course is designed to accommodate students with no prior programming experience, making it accessible to beginners as well. 

This course provides a comprehensive understanding of B2B marketing strategies and tactics for MSc Marketing students. Through a mix of lectures, case studies, discussions, and assignments, students will gain the knowledge and skills to develop and implement effective B2B marketing campaigns.

Corporate Communications has become an indispensable function of modern organizations. Developed and conducted by an award-winning industry veteran, this Corporate Communications course is designed to provide students with both a strategic framework and hands-on understanding in what it takes to manage an organisation’s corporate reputation. 

Through a combination of case analysis, readings, discussions and scenario responses, students would be able to gain a solid understanding of the latest Corporate Communications function and build the essential corporate communications skills relevant to the 21st century world.    

The course aims to provide students with practical knowledge and workplace skillsets shared by practitioners from various commercial and industrial sectors for the professional development and career advancement of students. Trending topics and current issues will be covered to equip students with the mindset and calibre for the challenges they are going to come across at workplace. With an emphasis on practice, the course instructors will deliver in-depth lectures on real world business issues.  

This course offers a valuable opportunity for students to take ownership of their learning and produce an original and substantive piece of work. It allows them to tailor their studies to their individual interests and career aspirations. Students will produce a report or research paper on a topic of their choice on a specific business issue, industry or problem that they are particularly interested in. It gives them the opportunity to apply the skills and knowledge gained throughout the master’s programme in a self-directed study project under the supervision of a faculty advisor.

You can take up to two electives from the Master of Accounting, Master of Economics, Master of Finance, Master of Finance in Financial Technology, Master of Global Management or Master of Science in Business Analytics programme at HKU. Enrollment in electives from other programmes is subject to seat availability and approval by the Programme Directors concerned based on your profile, capabilities and performance in the MSc(Mktg) programme.

Since enrollment in other taught postgraduate electives is not guaranteed, you should always choose five MSc(Mktg) electives during the course enrollment in our programme. Course enrollment results of other programmes may only be confirmed after that course has started. If your enrollment is successful, you can drop the MScMktg elective(s) and enroll in the other taught postgraduate elective(s).

It is your responsibility to make sure you obtain 60 credits to fulfill the graduation requirements and there is no overlapping of classes and exams in courses from different programmes.

*The list of available electives from other programmes may have prerequisite requirement(s) and is subject to change for future intakes.