Master of Science in Complementary Studies in Business Economics (Business Economics)
The Master in Business Economics has two main subjects, i.e. Business Economics and Taxation. In the field of Business Economics, you will become acquainted with the internal structures and processes that enable companies to achieve their objectives. The field of Taxation is gaining importance every day, as more and more individuals, companies and associations are confronted with increasingly complex taxation legislation.
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
For whom
The admission requirements may vary. Depending on your prior education, you can either enrol directly or there may be additional requirements.
Structure
The Business Economics programme comprises a preparatory programme and a Master’s programme. Covering topics such as inflation, unemployment, social justice, the budget, monetary and environmental policy, the preparatory programme offers a solid foundation in Economics. This will enable you to situate a company within a broader socio-economic context. The Marketing Management course unit will enable you to translate a marketing strategy into a professional commercial policy, using the appropriate models and research methods. The Research Methodology course unit provides the techniques needed to successfully complete your Master’s dissertation, if you haven't already acquired them in your initial study programme. Finally, double-entry bookkeeping is an essential skill in the business world, as is a thorough understanding of financial reporting. These are the focus of the Introduction to Financial Reporting and Accounting Techniques course unit.
The Master’s programme (60 ECTS) comprises six mandatory course units focused on the thorough mastery of financial and general management. Among other things, the Financial Economic Topics course unit will introduce you to the art of interpreting annual accounts and using them to value businesses, as well as to financial tools that will help you seek returns or mitigate risks. In the Cost Accounting course unit, you will learn to use cost price in decision-making and management processes. The General Management course unit offers you a framework for thinking about the strategic choices businesses face. Innovation Management provides insight into how individuals, organisations, and complex ecosystems can successfully manage innovation processes. In this course unit, you will learn how innovation can provide businesses with a competitive advantage and help tackle social challenges. The Human Resource Management course unit covers the importance of human capital as a production factor and how to manage it optimally, taking sustainability into account. Finally, the Introduction to Entrepreneurship course unit sheds light on the strategic decisions entrepreneurs need to make.
Aside from the mandatory course units, the curriculum includes 18 ECTS of electives to either deepen your knowledge in a specific domain or broaden it across various domains. You can choose from the following clusters: entrepreneurship, service management, business informatics and operations management, corporate finance, accountancy, marketing and HR, and research-related or university-wide electives.
The Master's dissertation (15 ECTS) assesses your ability to apply the knowledge you have acquired to an in-depth study of a topic of your choice. In consultation with your supervisor, you either define a topic within the field of economics or propose your own topic (from your prior education) that you wish to study further from an economic perspective.
Exemptions based on previously acquired credits are possible. If you think ahead, you can choose elective course units in your initial study programme that are already in line with the preparatory or the Master’s programme.
For further details on the content of the preparatory programme, please consult the Faculty’s brochure (in Dutch).
Labour Market
Prospective employers increasingly expect employees to be familiar with business economics concepts and relationships. They must be able to think and communicate economically within a complex, corporate social context. Your background in business economics is an important asset in the labour market, and often even a requirement. Whether you are a lawyer, psychologist or engineer, you function better in an organisation if you understand how it works and its economic context. Every interested and ambitious young person, therefore, needs a solid knowledge of a company’s operation or organisation.
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
- Effectiveness: without a doubt our greatest asset is the fact that we can impart a great deal of business economics-related knowledge and skills in a relatively short term. Our students can therefore more than stand their ground in the labour market alongside students of Business Economics or Business Administration.
- Talent development: we offer our students a lot of freedom of choice to tailor a large part of their curriculum to their own interests.
- Curriculum: our study programme imparts a great deal of specific knowledge based on scientific-academic insights. After graduation, our students are able to start a PhD in Business Economics.
- Communication and collaboration skills: through numerous assignments, our students learn to work together on business economics-related themes and to report in a professional manner, both in written and oral form.
- Focus on environment and society: we pay attention to how business decisions can take into account environmental and social welfare aspects.
Strengths
- Our programme boasts a student-friendly team of lecturers with a demonstrable academic track record and international recognition. At the same time, they focus on low-threshold contact with students.
- Assessment: our students are well informed in advance about the assessment methods and exam expectations.There is ample opportunity for feedback.
- Making use of the multiperspectivism within the programme: our programme has a diverse student intake with a previous non-economic degree. We bring students with different prior education together. This allows them to exchange previously acquired insights and apply them to economic aspects.
Challenges
- In the future, we want to involve even more people from the business world in our programme. Given that many students take the programme in order to increase their chances on the labour market, there must be a good mapping between the programme competencies and the skills needed in the business world.
- Alumni activities can still be improved: our students’ relatively short stay (i.e. often nine months) at our faculty, the bond with the faculty and the study programme is not strong, and quickly lost after graduation. We would like to take initiatives to strengthen the bond with our graduates.
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 resulting 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 10/07/2024.
In case of questions or suggestions with regard to the publicly available information, please contact the study programme.
Accreditation
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 resulting 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 10/07/2024.
In case of questions or suggestions with regard to the publicly available information, please contact the study programme.