AY2026/27 Term 1

This course explores the various theories and practices of mediation. The stages of the mediation process and techniques for each stage are taught. Simulated role-play exercises are arranged to develop skills as mediators.

This course aims to provide students with a strong grounding in problem-solving mediation, and the opportunity to develop practical skills as a facilitative mediator. After successfully completing this course students will be able to:

1) Explain facilitative mediation and the purpose of each stage in the process;
2) Explain the different approaches to mediation and when each might be appropriate;
3) Apply the skills and techniques in communication, negotiation and mediation.
4) Reflect meaningfully on the practical experience and analyze how the experience relates to conflict resolution theories.
5) Research and critically discuss some current issues in conflict resolution and effectively present (orally and in writing) your research findings.

This course deals with the rapidly growing area of private international mediation and multi-tiered dispute resolution processes that have mediation as an element. It offers participants a framework for understanding cross-border law and practice in this field.

Imagine the following scenario: A Singaporean mediator is asked to mediate a professional negligence dispute. The plaintiff is based in Indonesia, the defendant accounting firm is in the Netherlands, and the defendant’s insurer has its headquarters in the United States. All agree to attend mediation in Singapore. The preliminary discussions and meetings, however, take place via email and video-conference with all parties in their home countries. The mediation occurs and the parties reach a settlement, which the parties’ legal representatives draft into contractual form.

Such cross-border mediations involve:
• international and intercultural competencies;
• online and face-to-face mediation protocols; and
• knowledge of private international law in relation to the substantive and procedural aspects of mediation.

The course will address these and other topical issues, including enforceability of international mediated settlement agreements, to provide participants with a current overview of international legal practice and trends in this field. Participants will have the opportunity to develop specialised mediation skills relevant to cross-border settings.

As businesses increasingly embrace the use of technology in domestic and cross-border operations, such as blockchain technology, cloud technology, the Internet of Things (IoT) and digitalised trade documents, it is necessary for lawyers and legal policy-makers to not only appreciate the complex legal and policy issues arising from such use of technology, but to also help provide clear legal thinking and innovative ideas in resolving such issues.

This unique course aims to provide students with an opportunity to learn about and confront a selection of such issues, develop an understanding of real-world legal-policy issues and exercise skills in critical thinking and creativity to produce usable law and policy recommendations. The issues are selected based on their topicality, feedback from industry, importance to Singapore and ASEAN and a review of academic and business literature.

Students will be guided in an exploration and analysis of cross-border trade law issues relating to the intersection of commerce and technology. In the first part of the course, an explanation of the some key issues will be provided to help students understand the broader context of trade in the digital economy. Students will then be exposed to a number of issues which are confronting policy-makers and the private sector, so that they may conduct legal research and craft clear and cogent law and policy recommendations from their findings. Industry professionals will help to provide feedback and discuss students’ findings and recommendations. Industry contacts in this course are likely to be from the fields of finance, technology, commerce, policy/strategy and law.

In addition to interactive learning with the course instructor (Professor Locknie Hsu), students will also receive industry and policy insights from 1-3 industry experts (who may be from the commerce and finance, technology and/or policy-making sectors).

The proliferation of cross-border business activity has generated an increased demand for international commercial dispute resolution. As alternatives to litigation, arbitration and mediation have emerged as viable routes to the timely and cost-effective settlement of disputes, particularly in Singapore. This course will provide an overview of the role of the dispute resolution advocate within these processes, the legal framework governing their procedure and enforcement, and practical issues of cost and speed across different mechanisms. Participants will be divided into groups and presented with a simulated case to outline the role of an advocate at each stage of a dispute. Written submissions, oral presentations and groupwork will give participants a sound understanding of how an effective advocate must adopt a tailored approach to different processes of dispute resolution.

This course is designed to provide students with the intellectual foundation as well as experience of the new product development process. To develop intellectual foundations, students are expected to read the textbook, prepare for case studies, and participate in the class discussions. In addition, to get a real life experience of the new product development process, the students will work in groups for a semester long project. In the project they will identify a customer problem, propose a solution, test the solution and develop a plan for launching the product. At the end of the semester, the students can expect to have a richer understanding of the new product development process and be equipped with the state of the art tools and techniques that are essential for developing and launching new products.

All firms have processes, most of which can be improved or optimized.  Some of these processes include innovation, development, manufacturing, services, internal and external processes.  The ability of managers to define, measure, improve and control processes is a key skill set and, combined with leadership, can enhance the success of a firm. In this course, students will develop a combination of practical tool knowledge and project management skills to effectively change and improve important processes.  Students will also gain a strong theoretical and practical understanding of six sigma deployment and will have the opportunity to achieve SMU Six Sigma “Greenbelt” certification.  Students will learn the DMAIC methodology (Design, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control) and apply it in real projects.  These projects will be sponsored by SMU, local SME’s and MNC’s. This course will also allow students to further develop and get feedback on the following SMU Graduate Learning Outcomes: disciplinary knowledge, critical thinking and problem solving, collaboration and leadership, communication, self-directed learning, and resilience. (See https://www.smu.edu.sg/programmes/graduate-learning-outcomes)

Sustainable Entrepreneurship involves the application of business solutions to societal problems. It entails new ways of creating, capturing, and delivering sustainable impact in a commercially viable way. At the core of the course is the process of developing low-cost experiments to learn about the viability of new processes, products, or services that create, capture, or deliver sustainable impact. There will be multiple iterations of the idea until an attractive variant is identified or an avenue to an adjacent space is explored. The course also familiarizes students with how best to present their market validation information and the initial outlines of their business models or cost-benefit analysis to stakeholders including internal corporate champions or external early-stage investors in the social impact space. The course will guide students in the process of developing and validating new ideas to create sustainable impact either through a new venture or with a company. Students will work in teams, and each team will be assigned to a mentor who will provide the team with feedback over the course of the project.

The Sustainability Practicum is a required compulsory course for the Sustainable Societies major. Each section of the course will focus on 1-2 specific UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and a specific measurable indicator therein. Led by the faculty instructor, the practicum will be organised around a specific real-world problem that is set in collaboration with an external partner. The students will work on assignments and deliberation-focused class activities that engages with the chosen theme and will culminate into a final deliverable to the external partner (eg. in the form of a report, presentation etc.).

All BSocSc students may also take this course to fulfil their Social Science Practicum requirement.

This course focuses on problems and strategies specific to the marketing of services. It supplements basic marketing and marketing strategy courses. As the world of business transforms into a global knowledge-based economy, value creation for customers is primarily shaped through provision of services, rather than goods. In most economies, services account for more than 50% of the economy. This course is designed for undergraduates seeking to develop a deeper understanding of services. Strategies used by successful services marketers to overcome problems unique to service industries like banking, health care, financial services, insurance, hospitality, consulting, telecom, media, and IT services will be discussed. Manufacturing and high tech industries which depend on services to provide added value will also be explored.

The SMU-X course “Business Consulting” is jointly offered by SMU and the University of St.Gallen. It is designed to allow students to translate classroom knowledge into professional experience. It is a unique opportunity to learn more about consulting services and apply theoretical knowledge to a real business project. The core focus of this class rests on a group work built around a real-world business project offered by one of our corporate partners. For each session, we are collaborating with more than ten different corporate partners, with each student group benefiting from an exclusive relationship to their own corporate partner. The corporate projects cover different industries and different topics. Students are invited to share their preferences with which corporate partner (and thereby in which industry or on what topic focus) they wish to work and gain experience. This SMU-X course is a combination of advanced in-class learning, AI-powered project work, and practical interaction with the business world via project work and guest lecturers who work/have worked with major consultancy companies such as McKinsey, BCG, or Bain. The lectures introduce the world of consulting by teaching the basic steps and tools used during the consulting process. You will learn how consultants frame, analyse and solve problems. You will experience how they use software, artificial intelligence, and how they present their solutions to their clients. You will obtain tools and frameworks to reduce complexity and structure a project. Several mini cases, mi-cro workshops, and lived situations with your corporate partner will help you to develop an understanding of how to approach a business project and manage the relationship with your corporate partner as a client. Guest lectures will provide you with industry insights and hands-on experiences about the day-to-day business of a consultant.The unique opportunity to explore, learn, and directly apply competencies in a real-life, multidisciplinary, team-based consulting experience with a company/organization is the distinguishing feature of this course. You will be working in teams for (large) corporations or smaller startups, acting as student consultants working on real challenges the organisations presently face. The solutions you develop will be presented to the senior management of the companies. In previous semesters, our corporate partners included Bentley (Automotive), DBS (banking), Adidas (sports apparel), Dell (IT hardware), WWF (wildlife NGO), Nestlé (nutrition), SingPost (logistics), Lufthansa (airline), Capita-Land (real estate), Sygnum (fintech), Lazada (e-commerce), and many more.