Bachelor of Science in Business Economics
Our programme focuses on the study of businesses and their functional domains: how and why a company is established, how it is financed, how it organises itself administratively, how it produces goods and services, how it markets and sells those goods and services, how it deals with personnel and how the company’s management coordinates and steers all those activities.
This program is accredited by AACSB International – The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. AACSB is a global nonprofit association whose accreditation processes are ISO 9001:2015 certified.
What
The Business Economics programme trains students to deal with business in an integrated way: How does a company become profitable? How to optimally finance an investment? How to set up market research for mapping out customers? From inception to setting up a new business: how to assess the economic viability in advance? All this and more is covered in the Business Economics programme. As a student of Business Administration, you become specialized in the fields of accounting, corporate finance and marketing. A concise description of these domains would be: how to report operating results (accounting), how to raise enough money for the company (corporate financing) and – based on the customer needs – how to create value by offering the right products and services (marketing). In addition, our programme offers an analytical basis with an emphasis on quantitative skills and research skills. There is also room for general economic principles, but the focus is on decision-making within the company.
Remarks
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For whom
Are you interested in a career in business? Do you like to know exactly how a problem is solved? Are you looking for specialized training in business economics? Do you aspire to a managerial job at a large company? If the answer to these questions is a resounding ‘yes’, then the Business Economics programme is the perfect choice for you! In terms of prior education, a secondary school degree with at least 5-6 hours/week of mathematics in its curriculum is recommended. Specific prior knowledge with regard to economics is not necessary, as the basic economic concepts are covered in the first-year curriculum.
Structure
- Bachelor
Our programme shares its first-year curriculum with the Economics and Business Engineering programmes. This ensures that students make an informed choice in subsequent years. The first year gives you a thorough basis of general economics and business economics, and in a number of supporting and related fields. From the second year onwards, the emphasis in the Business Economics programme shifts to acquiring academic insight into the functional domains of Accounting, Corporate Finance and Marketing. In addition, the programme boosts your general business knowledge with course units on management, legal issues and entrepreneurship. The curriculum also contains course units on quantitative skills and research skills. You conclude the third year with a Bachelor’s dissertation, in which you research a number of business issues individually.
- Master
Our one-year Master’s programme contains three areas of specialization (Accountancy, Corporate Finance, Marketing) and is as of now English-taught. In line with your choice of specialization in the Bachelor’s curriculum, you can tailor your Master’s curriculum further to your own interests and acquire an in-depth knowledge of that domain. In addition, there is room for at least one elective course unit, which you can also replace with a work placement in the business world. The Master’s programme is concluded with a Master’s dissertation, in which you research a specific problem from all dimensions, under the supervision of a professor.
In addition to the (domain) Master’s programme described above, you can also choose a Master’s Programme in Teaching (in Dutch: Educatieve Master). (90 ECTS-credits).
Labour Market
Business Economics graduates are found in all possible positions within the business and education sectors. Business Economics graduates with main subject Accounting can e.g. start their career at an international audit firm, where you assess whether large businesses’ annual accounts are true to reality. After a few years, then, you gradually take on greater responsibilities, or you make the transition to a position as an internal auditor or controller (i.e. cost price expert), and then advance into the position of financial director within a company. Business Economics graduates with main subject Corporate Finance can e.g. start their career in the banking-consulting sector, helping companies realize their acquisition plans (with or without an Initial Public Offering (IPO)), and may then progress to the position of bank manager. As a Business Economics graduate with main subject Marketing, you can e.g. start as a ‘brand or product manager’, guiding companies in drawing up a promotion policy and then making the transition to marketing manager at a company. In short, many of our graduates progress over time to general management positions. A number of specific jobs in which our graduates find themselves are: auditor, cost price expert (controller), financial director, financial consultant (IPOs, company takeovers), marketing manager and market researcher.
Quality Assurance
At Ghent University, we strive to educate people who dare to think about the challenges of tomorrow. For that purpose, we provide education that is embedded in six strategic objectives: Think Broadly, Keep Researching, Cultivate Talent, Contribute, Extend Horizons, Opt for Quality.
Ghent University continuously focuses on quality assurance and quality culture. The Ghent University's quality assurance system offers information on each study programme’s unique selling points, and on its strengths and weaknesses with regard to quality assurance.
More information:
Unique Selling Points
- Multiperspectivism: as a student you are trained to become a critical professional who can work both individually and in a team. We teach our students the necessary skills to work creatively and solve problems.
- Talent development: your talents as a student are further developed on the basis of 5 learning pathways: 1a. Basic Economics and 1b. Business Economics, 2. Research Methodology, 3. Innovation and Entrepreneurship, 4. Communication, 5. Multiperspectivism and Sustainability. The Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees offer ample options, both in terms of main subject and in terms of elective courses.
- Knowledge creation: our study programme pays great attention to a step-by-step build-up of knowledge that is contained in the learning pathways. You are constantly encouraged and challenged to engage in critical self-reflection. Our graduates are highly versatile yet also sufficiently specialized. As such, their opportunities in the labour market are endless.
- Curriculum: to optimize your learning effects, the Master’s programme is modular and subject-oriented. In addition, there is room for ‘in practice’ course units, in which you learn to put the acquired concepts and theories into practice. Work placements with specific business applications, though elective, are an explicit part of the teaching options, while opportunities for an international experience have been improved through an exchange with partner universities.
- Integration of theory and practice: over the various study years, our programme integrates a gradual transition from lectures to interactive teaching methods. Our ‘in practice’ course units, elective work placements and group work, and the involvement of guest speakers from the field make up an optimal career preparation. We aim to provide students with a thorough theoretical and analytical foundation that enables them to tackle actual problems and cases in the field.
Strengths
- Focus on research competencies: the Business Economics programme is strongly research-based. This is evident in the ‘Research’ learning pathway and the Master’s dissertation. We focus strongly on research-based Master’s dissertations. This research focus gives our students a solid theoretical and analytical foundation, which enables them to tackle any type of problem in the field, regardless of its nature or origin.
- Our study programme boasts a dedicated team of lecturers from various disciplines, who combine their passion for teaching with conducting research, and a belief in added value through research. As active contributors to the international research community, they integrate new insights into the programme, thus keeping it up to date.
- External perspective: we are intensifying our contacts and co-operation with companies, alumni, trade unions, standard setters and other stakeholders by means of, among other things, the ‘in practice’ course units, work placements, and alumni and guest speaker contributions.
- Smooth transition to professional life: our graduates’ entry into a broad labour market is strong, with high employment rates (in positions suited to the diploma level).
- Assessment: our students appreciate that they are well informed about the form and content of assessments so that they clearly know what to expect while studying.
Challenges
- Transparent and efficient Master’s dissertation policy: by focusing on supervision during the preparation and realization of the Master’s dissertation we strive for premium-quality end products. This ranges from providing clear and appropriate information about dissertation topics to focusing on extra coaching when drafting the Master’s dissertation. This allows students to think critically and experience the coaching as valuable, as well learn to apply their theoretical knowledge. To realize this intensified supervision, we plan to expand our professioral staff and arrange for better coordination among.
- Involvement of the professional field: our connection with stakeholders and the professional field greatly improved in the context of the external perspective. We focused on collaboration with guest speakers from the business world, on inviting motivated and critical alumni into the Programme Committee, encouraging work placement assignments in, and in collaboration with companies, etc. We are aware that we have not yet fully realized “embedding the external perspective”. Involvement of, and integration of feedback by, the professional field in the study programme needs further strengthening. In addition, the recent establishment of the FEB Academy of Lifelong Learning will allow us to strengthen the ties with external stakeholders and alumni in a sustainable and result-yielding way.
This study programme is accredited by the Accreditation Organisation of the Netherlands and Flanders (Dutch: NVAO). Accreditation was extended following the positive outcome of the institutional review in 2022. Programme quality was validated by a quality review, i.e. a screening of the Education Monitor by the Education Quality Board. The Quality Assurance Resolution (in Dutch) can be found here.
This program is accredited by AACSB International – The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. AACSB is a global nonprofit association whose accreditation processes are ISO 9001:2015 certified.
This information was last updated on 01/02/2023.
In case of questions or suggestions with regard to the publicly available information, please contact the study programme.