At the completion of this course, students should be able to:

• Identify social media communication strategies, how they are used and by whom

• Analyze and recreate the various techniques of persuasion used on social media 

• Recognize what the media makers want us to believe or do

• Evaluate social media messages based on their own experiences, skills, beliefs, and values

• Create and distribute their own social media communications on subjects involving business, the arts, and social or environmental causes

The course will focus on the role of the modern manager as a leader and a coach, and the psychological aspects of working with people. Focus will be on how people function as an individual (me), interdividual (you and me), and as a group (we). First part of the course consists of a brief introduction to psychology. Special attention will be given to Positive Psychology, which focuses on improving the mental functioning of human beings above that of normal mental health. Students will learn what makes the positive psychological traits of human beings. They will learn how the mind works, and the role of automatic thoughts. How the way people think influences the way they feel. Which specific thoughts lead to which specific feelings. How by changing the way you think, you can change the way you feel. The ten most common thinking errors.

Second part of the course will focus on the differences between different personality types. Students will receive an introduction to the most common personality type indicators, with the possibility to take one (MBTI), so students can get an insight in how their own personality works. How their personality typically develops during lifetime. What is their dominant mental function. What is their inferior function. What typical situations bring them stress, and how can they reduce it. What are the typical careers for the different types. Based on the different personality types, different subjects will be discussed. Speed reading personality types. Misunderstandings between types. What each type can learn from the others. How do the different types view leadership, teamwork, time management, meetings, problem solving,… Students will learn about the different roles people play in a team. 

The starting point of this course will be several key elements that have been instrumental in the development of a European identity as we know it today. From industrialisation, the formation of nation states and the tendency to internationalise and globalise certain aspects of politics and trade over the concept of supranationalism, the transfer of sovereignty, the creation of the internal market and the customs union to the creation of the EU where concepts such as freedom, democracy and respect for human rights are considered as commonplace in European democracies.

We will study each of those topics more thoroughly, from a historical and contemporary perspective, find similarities over different countries and look for equivalents worldwide, consult media channels, look at what challenges them nowadays, consider future projections ...

Complementary to thorough proficiency in English you can develop your skills in Dutch. Dutch is the local language of Antwerp where you will be living for a while. The approach concentrates largely on listening, reading and speaking. These three skills will be combined with the fourth skill, the writing skill, in your assignments.

Complementary to thorough proficiency in English you can develop your skills in Dutch. Dutch is the local language of Antwerp where you will be living for a while. The approach concentrates largely on listening, reading and speaking. These three skills will be combined with the fourth skill, the writing skill, in your assignments. Students who are fluent in German tend to learn Dutch very fast and can reach an A2 level in one semester.

Delivering a memorable presentation requires you to be a psychologist, creative wonder, strategic salesperson and Hollywood star combined. No small task.
On top of this, public speaking ranks – next to flying, death and spiders - very high on the list of things we’re most afraid of.
Therefore, our approach in this course will be a bit different from other presentation trainings out there.  It’s not one size fits all, we’ll build on your personal talents and work around the pitfalls.
We’ll explore ways to master all aspects of presenting so you can confidently take that floor and become the pitch Ninja you never thought you’d be!

Students will learn to drive traffic and sales for a real business with Google Ads. After a theoretical introduction of how Ads works and how to research and set up a campaign, students will create a real Google Ads campaign for “their client”. In the end, students will interpret the data of the campaign, create a report and present their insights and recommendations.

Branding has become one of the most important concepts in marketing, its application ranges from consumer goods and services to places, people and concepts. The branding phenomena reached its peak when companies got a green light to incorporate the brand’s intangible value in their balance sheet. In this module students will obtain a clear understanding of the relevance of brands in contemporary society and will learn how to set up a brand management strategy.

This course addresses the topic of Human Resource Management in an international setting. As the business world globalizes even more, we must be aware of the reasons, the benefits and the challenges of moving employees across borders for organizational purposes. Even though HR processes basically imply the same activities regardless of their national or international reach, the specificity of applying processes in the international environment is quite significant. After this course, students will have a good understanding of what it means to recruit & select employees to be sent to foreign offices, to train & develop them, as well as to create compensation packages for the international labour force.

Marketing is all about convincing customers, to buy YOUR products and services and to prefer them over the competition´s offerings. This course covers the two main areas to do so, i.e. "Product Management" (How to create the "right" products?) and Brand Management (How to make customers perceive it that way?) and especially looks at the "toolboxes" necessary for that in a very applied manner.

City Marketing, also known as City Branding (or Place Making) is a practice whose objective is to build a city’s image, which in turn is the starting point for developing a city’s brand. It is the basis for raising a policy to pursue economic expansion and, at the same time, it serves as a conduit for city residents to identify with their own city, impacting in their daily life, economically, socially and culturally. In an scenario of a globalized world, where competition among cities is a commonplace, City Branding  comes to the foreground as a complex cutting edge, all-pervasive discipline and well-organized governmental activity, which contributes to the economic and physical restructuring of localities, in order to succeed in such a competitive environment.

The analysis and design of cities’ image and/or identity, including its subjective dimension as a place of emotion and meaning; and the methodological considerations techniques, practices and postulates of City Marketing are some of the aspects tackled in this course. Some of the questions that are addressed include, what is: A place? A city? A brand? Identity versus image? The citizens’ role versus tourists’? Measurement and city brand equity? A city brand index and items to be considered? Or if brands can be city makers?, among other inquiries. 

The course aims to develop managerial skills in multicultural decision-making contexts through the acquisition of knowledge necessary for the understanding of interaction between different cultures. The course will bring strong emphasis on human skills required to manage the cultural diversities in global teams.

Storytelling, it’s all about communication, interaction and getting your idea across. 

• The difference between information and ideas 
• Key requirements 
• Story versus factual representation 
• Requirements to tell stories 
• CAST model  
• Finetuning 
• Bringing it all together 

If you want to communicate so that your ideas and messages stick, tell stories. Storytelling is not fluffy, it’s about adding narrative structures, narrative elements to your content, to your texts.  

It’s about shaping the story of your organisation, through stories of the past, the future, the successes and the failures. Adding a human touch, and shaping the tone of voice of your brand, your organisation. It’s about communication without clutter, making yourself heard and remembered. 

This course will prepare you to conceive and deliver a solid Digital Marketing Strategic Plan, using the very same methodology implemented in a number of high-level organisations, often in a multi-country environment, such as Toyota, British American Tobacco, NFL (National Football League), Ericsson, British Council, and many others. 

By the end of this course (via a hands on and interactive methodology) you will be able to: 

• Conduct an in-depth analysis of your brand and your competitors online 
• Use the most relevant tools to audit digital channels: sites and social networks 
• Propose solid strategic paths to achieve success in the online environment 
• Deliver a tactical plan in order to maximise your company’s results in an increasingly tough and unpredictable market  

Complementary to thorough proficiency in English you can develop your skills in Dutch. Dutch is the local language of Antwerp where you will be living for a while. The approach concentrates largely on listening, reading and speaking. These three skills will be combined with the fourth skill, the writing skill, in your assignments.

Complementary to thorough proficiency in English you can develop your skills in Dutch. Dutch is the local language of Antwerp where you will be living for a while. The approach concentrates largely on listening, reading and speaking. These three skills will be combined with the fourth skill, the writing skill, in your assignments. Students who are fluent in German tend to learn Dutch very fast and can reach an A2 level in one semester.

The importance of networking and lobbying is hard to overestimate in today's world. Both are powerful skills for achieving business objectives and raise important ethical considerations. Together, we will sharpen your soft skills and insights.

The aim of the course is to clear out the concept of logistics, its functioning peculiarities, to master and exploit the basic theoretical and practical knowledge in managing the logistic processes and be able to implement them in practice. After the completion of the subject, students will understand the structural components of the logistics system and will be able to use the main managing principles of logistic processes.  

This course covers the history, politics and economics of European integration, the progressively deepening cooperation between member states of the European Union (EU). Students will learn about the EU institutions and their role in the integration process. They will discuss key events that have had an impact on the development of the EU such as the financial crisis of 2008, the 2015 European migrant crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic and rising nationalism and authoritarianism in Europe. A debate will be held on the question of widening and deepening the EU and we will zoom in on existing candidate countries (Turkey and several Balkan states), as well as more recent membership requests (Ukraine). Finally, this course will look at the role of the EU as a global player in relation to other powers such as the US, China and Russia.

Antwerp is one of the largest ports in the European Union. In the course International transportation law the focus will be on the legal aspects of international transportation to and from the port of Antwerp.  

• The following questions will be answered during the course:  
• Which conventions are there for which means of transportation?  
• What is the role of transport documents, such as bills of lading and CMR consignment notes?  
• For how much is the carrier liable if a container falls off the ship or if a container is stolen? 

Besides the transportation from and to the port of Antwerp, the course will also look into the alternative means of transportation like transportation by air, rail and multimodal transportation. 
In every class transportation cases will be offered in which goods have to be transported from one place in the world to another. At the end of the course you will be able to solve different kind of transportation cases by using the right Conventions and you will be able to assess whether or not the carrier is liable and for how much. 

The students acquire the following intercultural skills:      

• the ability to relate and analyse one's own culture and foreign cultures  
• cultural sensitivity and the ability to identify, analyse and use a range of different strategies for interacting with people from other cultures 
• the ability to act as a cultural mediator between one's own and a foreign culture and, after in-depth analysis, to deal effectively with intercultural misunderstandings and conflict situations  
• the ability to overcome stereotypical relationships  
• the ability to confidently deal with foreign values, rules and cultures 
• the ability to interact successfully and appropriately with individuals and groups from other cultures  
• the ability to self-reflect on one's own culture and relativise one's own position and thus greater empathy and tolerance. 

The exchange module International Finance for Logistics is aiming at a good understanding of future logisticians / supply chain managers of their work in an international environment. As we know supply chains are crossing all the time borders, not only within the EU and Euro-zone, but between all parts of the world. For instance: Cacao coming from Ghana to Antwerp, and shipped to the Netherlands; or coffee from Vietnam or Colombia arriving at the port of Antwerp and shipped for processing to the hinterland. So SCM managers have to be aware of a lot of operational risks with especially a financial component  like exchange rate risks, price risk, commercial risks etc. But SCM managers have also to be aware of the economic trade-off of choosing the right modality of transport and its impact on working capital via inventories and cost of warehousing. In this course also non-financial value will be taken into account, supply chain managers are aware of people, profit and planet.

During the course we will analyse product development, segmentation and positioning peculiarities. We will also analyse what values determine the competitiveness of organisations in the context of sustainable development. The subtleties of content creation and co-creation will be discussed. We will analyse the aspects of relationship building in order to attract new consumers and how to build loyalty to existing consumers. It is important for organisations to be attractive not only to consumers, but also and to interested organisations when forming a competitive advantage. Business organisations need to think about higher goals when shaping supply. To form such supply chains that would include not only the production of products, but also the management of consequences after consumption. From this perspective, organisations need to build close relationships and at the same time create value for the market. This must also be done at the inter-organisational cooperation and in a sustainable way. The long-term competitive advantage of the organisation can be achieved through targeted and sustainable cooperation with other organisations and communities.

The Banking Management Game (BMG) simulates a competitive market situation where each team has to manage a bank. The BMG must not be considered as an explanatory model to simulate real economic situation of banks or to forecast future scenarios, but as a tool to make "players" familiar with the decision making process that a bank has to compete, to make them think as a
bank manager, facing the contrasting effects - in terms of costs and opportunities - that each strategy involves. Purposely, the range of variables taken into consideration has been reduced with respect to a real situation. This is to allow "players" to concentrate on a more limited number of crucial factors of banking management and over the most delicate elements of the strategy (liquidity management, optimisation of security portfolio, lending and borrowing policies, differentiation of price conditions according to market segmentation, etc.).

To make sure that you have enough knowledge in this study field, we offer pre-reading materials. 

At the end of this course students are expected to acquire the knowledge, understanding and skills of various dynamics of financial management of multinational companies. The core dynamics include financing, investing, risk management and operations in the global context. The students are also expected to develop their understanding of international financial markets, institutions, and major financial tools.

Today’s global societal and environmental challenges raise significant questions for companies and the way in which they operate. How can we transform business to fit into a circular and regenerative economy? How can we design products to have a zero ecological footprint?  How can we use business to increase the health and well-being of all people on this planet? How can business help to solve climate change? In this course you learn more about the UN sustainable development goals, the Doughnut Economics, what it means to have a regenerative thriving economy, and much more. You will be asked to analyse a company’s sustainability performance and to work in a small team to draft a sustainable business plan for a service/product that will make this world a better place. 

To succeed in the corporate world, you need a good understanding of the legislation that impacts on your business activities. Learn how to operate within a legal framework as you discover how to create legal ads, comply with competition rules, protect your intellectual property, and select the right contractor for clients and contracting parties. You will also explore options for international mergers and acquisitions and learn how to process client data in line with privacy laws.

Transport management is a key issue in the supply chain process. You study the technical and operational characteristics of the different modes of transport and the modal competition. Find out how to organize transportation efficiently as well as meeting the challenges in terms of price, safety, speed and sustainability. Get an insight into the global flow of goods from suppliers to customers.