The School’s programme portfolio is continuously developed and sometimes changes to modules may occur after you have accepted your study seat.These changes are usually a result of student feedback, or research development. Changes can take the form of altered module content, teaching formats or assessment styles. Any such changes are intended to enhance the student learning experience.
Period 1
The first study period focuses on corporate financial and financing tactics and strategies and on management control, either focusing on strategic management accounting or strategic risk management. Participants follow one compulsory course and one elective course:
- Corporate financial tactics and strategies (compulsory course):
The course trains participants in analyzing and solving complex and unstructured practical corporate financial problems. It provides advanced knowledge of corporate finance, covering topics such as the interaction between internal and external financing and risk management, contracting between a firm and its management and stakeholders, dividends and stock repurchases, and financial distress and its resolution. It also provides applied knowledge of corporate financing using credit-financing solutions, such as straight, hybrid, and structured fixed-income securities and insurance products, as well as trains participants in assessing credit risk and doing corporate credit ratings. - Strategic management accounting and control (elective course):
This course gives participants thorough understanding of advanced management accounting and control issues from both a theoretical and a practical perspective, with a particular emphasis on the role of management accounting in realizing strategic objectives. Throughout the course, participants are confronted with the latest developments in management accounting and control in research as well as practice. - Financial accounting and risk management (elective course):
The course deals with the identification and assessment of risks that could impede the realization of strategic objectives, and the role of audit in effective risk management and control. The course also covers prevention, and detection of mismanagement and corporate fraud through the examination of internal and external control systems and evaluation of the role of gatekeepers and the regulatory environment.
Period 2:
The second study period focuses on enhancing essential accounting and finance capabilities including analyzing and interpreting financial statements and valuing companies, and corporate equity financing. Participants follow two compulsory courses:
- Corporate valuation (compulsory course):
The course focuses on analyzing businesses, corporate performance, and financial reporting. Participants will gain in-depth knowledge of interpreting corporate financial reporting and of valuing companies, primarily using cash-flow-, income-, and comparables-based valuation methods. - Equity financing and governance (compulsory course):
The course deals with equity-financing solutions of particular importance when financing corporate growth, such as venture capital, private equity, initial public offerings (IPOs), and seasoned equity offerings (SEOs). Participants will also gain knowledge of corporate governance issues that arise in the context of financing, as well as of the event study methodology, applied to the equity financing and governance.
Period 3:
The third study period will extend the knowledge of analytical techniques and financial decision-making acquired during the two first periods. In the third study period participants choose three elective courses out of the following four available courses:
- Corporate restructurings (elective course):
The course provides participants with thorough and practical understanding of how to analyze, compare, value, structure, and finance corporate restructurings, such as mergers and acquisitions, alliances, joint ventures, buyouts, spinoffs, carveouts, etc. - Corporate risk management (elective course):
The course deals with strategies and tactics for value-enhancing risk management, with particular emphasis on integrated risk-management solutions. The course also deals with treasury risk management from the perspective of a Chief Financial Officer, using different financial instruments for risk management. - Empirical corporate finance (elective course):
The course deals with empirical research techniques for analyzing corporate finance data. The course emphasises choosing and using appropriate statistical techniques for modelling cross-sectional and panel data and dealing with endogeneity. The course expects participants to know of cross-sectional regression analysis, including the classical linear regression model, ordinary least squares, and properties of the OLS estimator. - Rhetoric in financial communication (elective course):
The course focuses on the textual communication of the accounting numbers presented in financial reports. In order to understand such communication it is necessary to also understand principles for solving advanced accounting problems, i.e., to have an understanding of the origin of the performance measurements that are reported in annual and interim reports, annual meetings, press releases, etc. The course covers financial discourse and communication and is organized in different theoretical themes, such as accounts, intertextuality, linguistic hedging, metaphors, and narrative or storytelling.
Period 4:
Study period 4 is devoted to the degree project where participants conduct their own research and demonstrate their ability to independently apply the knowledge gained from the course work. In the project work, participants further enhance their knowledge and understanding of accounting and corporate finance. The degree project is written in pairs.