AY2026/27 Term 1

The world is rapidly urbanizing. More and more cities around the world are becoming increasingly popular as economic powerhouses and magnets for migrants from the countryside, suburban areas and other parts of the world. All big cities in both First and Third World countries as well as emerging markets such as New York, London, Tokyo, Paris, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, New Dehli, Jakarta etc. have to cope with high population density and serious challenges such as air pollution or traffic congestion. 

How do we pack more people into big cities and yet continue to achieve a high quality of life? How do we create and manage ‘good cities’ which are safe, spacious, green, connected, fair and resilient? How can cities create economic wealth while still fulfilling the CSR responsibilities of sustaining a “Green Planet”? What are the best practice designs and technical smart city solutions which could be leveraged to tackle these challenges and how can they be successfully commercialised? This course will provide answers to these questions with special emphasis on the managerial and commercial aspects of smart city concepts. 

The key lies in creating and effectively managing innovative and sustainable, smart cities able to leverage on new technologies such as smart grids or sensor networks to create a place where people can live, play and work well. Starting from the stakeholder requirements of citizens and planners of innovative cities, the course will introduce students to urban design concepts as well as commercialization, management challenges and implementation issues of the smart city model. There will also be a focus on how good governance and enabling technologies such as sensor networks can facilitate the creation, management and sustainability of ‘good’ cities. 

With the help of case studies and resource persons such as industry leaders, innovative city designers, tech experts and business development experts from local and int. companies such as ST Electronics, JTC, Jurong Consultants, Frost & Sullivan, IDA International, Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) etc., students will be familiarized with the opportunities and challenges of the ‘smart city business’ which represents a key element in the value creation and extraction strategy of the Singapore Government and related businesses.

Smartphones, social media and generative artificial intelligence have made easy work of information production, dissemination and consumption. They have also, correspondingly, facilitated the proliferation of misinformation. Widespread false, inaccurate and misleading information can have profound consequences on the well-being of individuals, organisations, and societies; threatening public health and safety, inciting socialunrest, and disrupting livelihoods. 

Its effects have been especially pronounced in recent years, hindering vaccination drives, compelling irrational behaviours, threatening political processes, and causing significant financial losses. What drives some to believe in, and act on misinformation? What can individuals, organisationsand societies do to manage misinformation? Can we believe anything that we see anymore? In exploring concepts, conditions and consequences of misinformation, this course invites students to question the truths, tales and lies that may be guiding human behaviours, social relations, and global affairs.

The overall objective of this module is to build and develop students’ competency in leadership and teamwork skills. The course employs both a theoretical and an experiential learning approach with the aim of fulfilling the objectives as outlined below. Students will gain knowledge and skills about leadership development and team-building skills based on theories, principles, concepts, application, exercises/class activities, self-assessments/instruments, and experiential learning. 

Central to the course is a group project that takes the form of an action-based and experiential assignment, where student groups work with an industry partner with the aim of achieving innovative solutions for the company or organization. Based on this experiential learning, students will gain the practical aspects of the process of teamwork and team leadership. 

The ultimate aims and objectives revolve around learning from the process of the group project lessons on both leadership and teamwork. More is elaborated under Section B of this course outline. The outcomes of the group project for students are outlined as follows:

(i) Students will learn about leadership from the leaders they are connecting with. For example, they will learn how and why today’s leaders are engaged in community-based or social initiatives in Singapore and beyond. 

(ii) Students will also learn from the leaders lessons on leadership and/or teamwork based on the leaders’ experiences.

(iii) By undertaking a hands-on group project, students will also learn practical lessons as well as the complexities of teamwork based on their OWN experience and process of working internally, with their group mates and externally, with organizations outside of school.

(iv) Each student will also reflect on his/her own learning throughout the project from start to end as outlined below (see ‘Reflection Essay’ for details).

(v) Students will also fulfill other learning objectives that include cognitive and academic development as outlined below in the section, ‘Learning Objectives'

This course is designed to provide a broad base coverage of financial accounting, management accounting and taxation topics that are relevant to (future) business owners and entrepreneurs. Business owners and entrepreneurs need the general foundation to help plan and control business operations and finance as well as discussing and negotiating with other stakeholders of the business. This course is suitable for students who do not have prior knowledge in accounting and business. Therefore, this course may also act as a stimulator for students to pursue more advance courses in accounting and finance related topics available in SMU.

This course examines IT systems and environment used to support the business processes common across various industries. The course helps to recognize how IT affects flows of business transactions, identify relevant technology elements, and assess risks arising from IT elements. Topics in the course will include the understanding, identifying and testing relevant to GITC (General IT Controls) and evaluate deficiencies in GITCs and assess the impact of GITC deficiencies on the audit. Moreover this course will also touch upon ways in which IT audit report documentation is done and audit observations are assessed, handled and addressed. Lastly the course will also give an overview of regulatory guidelines in place for technology risk management, outsourcing risk and business continuity management stipulated by Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). The course will use class activities, case study, real world examples and group discussions to increase the practicality of the knowledge content. Course is a perfect blend for individuals who are willing to learn about the IT elements considered in audit and compliance assessments.

Accountants regularly work with large amounts of financial and non-financial data. Data modelling is an important means through which accountants can analyse such data for trends, patterns, relationships, and other useful information for decision making. This course will introduce a variety of quantitative techniques used in the development, implementation, and utilization of analytical data models that accountants regularly use in decision making. It will cover techniques including regression analysis, trend analysis, optimization, text analytics, and simulation.

Traditionally, the accounting function’s role is always viewed as that of a steward, the control centre for the organisation, rather than the catalyst for enterprise growth. The term ‘back office’ is often used to describe the operating nature of accounting function. So in today’s volatile global business environment, the key challenge for accounting function is how to lead the enterprise in its growth strategies while ensuring effective risk management and stewardship of the enterprise. With complexity and data proliferation, increasingly the CEO and the board turn to accountants to help make sense of all the data, to help cut through this complexity, and to provide more informed analysis on the business and its operation. The opportunity for accounting function is if it can generate the insights that help make better corporate decision making, while continuing to ensure effective control of the enterprise, its reputation as a catalyst for growth will be guaranteed. To do so, traditional accounting departments may have to transform themselves into ‘intelligent accounting functions’. Intelligent accounting functions run their operations as cost effectively as possible, leveraging technology to reduce finance operating costs; strengthen stewardship and control so as to establish a solid foundation to support growth. The biggest challenges, however, lie in creating the efficiencies needed to gather and process basic financial data and continue to deliver traditional finance outputs while at the same time redeploying their limited resources to enable higher-value business decision support activities. 

This accounting analytics practicum which adopts SMU-X approach, focuses on a few key topics that are vital to establishing an intelligent accounting function (refer to the diagram below): finance strategy and transformation, lean finance and finance shared services, business intelligence analytics, and enterprise process management. In this experiential learning course, students from various disciplines learn what comprises a highly optimised accounting process, design an end-to-end process management and explore the underlying accounting IT systems and advanced data analytical applications. By working closely with instructors from accounting and information systems disciplines, together with an industry partner, students are expected to carry out design and development of an intelligent accounting function solution. The whole idea is to engage students in real-life application and to encourage students to creatively apply concepts to practical problems in their pursuit of solving real-world problems. Students will apply the concepts in real projects.

This course is aimed at exposing students to recent development in sustainability accounting in the country that is the focus of the study trip. In addition, the trip will also provide students with an understanding of investment and business opportunities in the country, as well as the social, cultural, economic, and political environments under which companies operate. It will give students a better appreciation of the country’s macro-economic environment, its key industries, financial and capital markets, investment climate, and economic policies and systems. During the trip, students will visit companies and interact with executives and entrepreneurs. 

They will also be exposed to the country’s history, culture, traditions, and values as these play an important role in determining business and financial strategies and operations of companies. At the same time, this is an SMU-XO module, which offers an overseas experiential learning opportunity for students. The course allows students to translate classroom knowledge and theory into practical solutions for real organizations. In addition to visits to companies and organizations, student will also participate in a consultancy project. Through the project, students will learn how to solve real problems with guidance from the faculty and project sponsor mentors, from problem definition to final client presentation – while simultaneously testing their skills in real world settings. The project will focus on issues related to sustainability accounting that is faced by the accounting/finance and other functions of the companies in the country that will be visited and recommending/applying solutions to these problems. These issues (eg: implementation of sustainability reporting) are becoming very important for companies all around the world. Prior to the trip, students will be required to undergo intensive pre-trip preparations involving talks by experts, individual and team research of assigned topics, and project presentations and discussions. 

Public Policy Task Force (PPTF) is a core part of PPPM program. PPTF emphasize the development of problem-solving and analytical skills that constitutes a strong comparative advantage for PPPM students. Students are required to sign up for a specific public policy topic that is suggested by a faculty, discuss, and deliberate core theoretical issues for a few weeks, and then conduct actual field works for solving policy problems. At the end of semester, students are required to come up with a specific policy recommendations and reports. The topics include: subjective well-being, environmental pollution, climate change, international conflicts, immigration policy, urban transportation, poverty, etc.

This is the course to take if students are interested in representing SMU in the best international moot competitions. It will be an intensive course held over half of the first semester, and admission is by approval of the course convenor only. This course exposes students to advanced legal research, writing and appellate advocacy skills. Students will be given a hypothetical moot problem on international law and will have to make oral and written submissions by the end of the course. Those who excel in this course will be selected to participate in moot competitions in the second semester.