AY2026/27 Term 2

In the era of new digital technologies, the focus of marketing has shifted. It's no longer about selling a product or service but engaging with customers through relevant content and encouraging interactions that positively impact business. This advanced course recognizes this shift and is designed to equip students with a comprehensive understanding of digital marketing, incorporating established and emerging strategies. This advanced course is delivered using an SMU-X learning approach. 

SMU-X is an experiential learning framework that calls for students to take on real-world challenges by collaborating on projects with corporations, non-profits, and government organizations. The framework represents a paradigm shift in the traditional teaching and learning approach, from teacher-centered to students taking ownership of their learning. 

The course offers a comprehensive blend of theory, empirical analysis, and practical examples to reinforce key concepts related to digital marketing. Students will apply their knowledge to develop a digital marketing strategy for a real industry partner. We will collaborate with a real industry partner and offer consultancy services to recommend relevant digital marketing strategies for a real business problem.

 With engaging seminars, case study discussions focusing on global brands, insights from industry experts with rich international business experience, and hands-on real business projects, students will sharpen their problem- solving skills to tackle real-world business problems through interdisciplinary approaches and activities. They are guaranteed an interactive learning experience that is informative and relevant to working for global businesses.

By aligning itself with the SMU-X experiential learning pedagogy, MGMT245 offers a unique opportunity to focus on the role of digital marketing and other digital tools in transforming Southeast Asia businesses. This course will enhance your problem-solving skills and prepare you for the complex regional business environment. Moreover, it will provide you with regional business experience, cross-cultural understanding, and networking and communication skills, all during a 10-day trip to Kuala Lumpur City (2nd May to 12th May 2027).

This course will not transform you into an innovator, but will help you hone your skills in managing the product development and innovation process. This course will familiarise you with how organisations manage the process of innovation and how they develop successful products, services and systems. The course is most valuable for those who want to work in industrial firms or do consulting work.

To achieve superior performance in an increasingly dynamic and uncertain global business environment, companies in every industry must create internal capability to harness strategic change for sustainable competitive advantage. However, companies that are able to strategically change their entrenched ways of doing things and then reclaim leading positions are the exception rather than the rule. With the industry 4.0 upon us and fast advancement in digital technologies, firms in many industries would find it even more pressing but challenging to build the managerial capabilities to cope with the digital transformation that will reshape the business landscape tremendously for the future. 

Against this backdrop, this course discusses how companies can effectively manage the strategic change and digital transformation that will significantly impact the way the business is configured for competitive advantage. Besides the internal managerial challenge, the course also emphasizes that companies must cope with strategic interactions with different industry players to create value collectively and continuously. With respect to digital transformation, the course discusses digital concepts and technologies such as omni-channel, platforms, eco-systems, blockchain, IOT, AI, and cloud computing etc. that impose both challenges and opportunities for strategic change management in the increasingly technology-based, internet-based, and data-based business contexts.

In today's world, the interest in investments that generate measurable positive impact on society and the environment is growing rapidly. Clients, consumers, regulatory bodies, and even employees are increasingly requiring that Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) considerations be integrated into every stage of the investment process, including deal sourcing, due diligence, and portfolio management. More than just a means to mitigate risks, the incorporation of ESG is now seen as essential for enhancing the value of portfolios. Through this course, participants will delve into the intricacies of sustainable and impact investing, exploring its development, its global landscape, methodologies for measuring impact, and reporting frameworks. 

This course is designed to equip students with the knowledge and skills necessary to engage in investment strategies that generate social and environmental impact alongside financial returns. While there will be some in-class meetings to discuss theoretical concepts, learning will be primarily experiential in nature through class discussion, group exercises, case studies, guest lectures from industry experts, and a team project with an industry partner. These activities are designed to provide a real-world perspective and hands-on experience in sustainable and impact investing.

The core objective of the new SMU-X Transformative Leadership course is to nurture a new generation of young leaders motivated and capable of tackling intricate global and local challenges related to the nexus of ‘digital disruption, demographic change and diversity’ in an integrated, interdisciplinary fashion, providing the opportunity to integrate perceived differences between older and younger people in terms of values, communication priorities; age discrimination or the initiation of new types of social (‘digital’) behaviours transmitted from the plugged-in ‘Generation Z’ (born 1996 and after) to Baby Boomers (born 1946 to 1964). These three challenges (positioned at the interface of both current and future issues) are not only globally relevant but also have significant local implications for Singapore.

Embedded in the experiential SMU-X initiative, the Transformative Leadership course provides students with a unique learning opportunity to develop and implement (socially) innovative solutions to make a positive impact on business and society in close collaboration with reputable partners in business, nonprofits and government. Learners will be paired up with an external SMU-X partner to work on relevant innovative projects with real impact.

The successful completion of such transformative SMU-X projects requires learners diving deep(er) into various disciplines such as social sciences, business, political governance, public policy, demography, technology, etc. It is expected that the chosen practical challenges commissioned by SMU-X partners will ‘stretch’ students, forcing them to step out of their comfort zones and to explore the unknowns in order to make a ‘real’ difference ‘out there’ in both the social and business sectors.

In terms of effective leader development, in particular, transformative leadership, the SMU-X course design will support learners in expanding their individual capacity to be effective in leadership roles and processes. Emphasis will be put on proximal indicators of leader development such as self-views around self-concept, including leader self-awareness, leadership self-efficacy and leader. Through their SMU-X projects, students will appreciate the importance of leadership development so that they can articulate what it takes for teams and their leaders to create strong(er) alignment and high(er) levels of commitment. The latter requires interpersonal trust, care and concern as well as shared mind-sets regarding (transformative) goals and values such as the ‘real’ sharing propelled by collaborative leadership approaches.

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, organisations and 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 world has changed dramatically over the past few decades. We now live in an interconnected and interdependent society where change can be fast-paced, constant and unpredictable. Though the global economy is slowly recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, the future still looks gloomy. The devastating Ukraine war, soaring inflation, supply chain disruption, more severe natural disaster due to climate change, and a worse-than-anticipated slowdown in China are all shocks dampening the global economic outlook. Organizations are faced with unprecedentedly challenging environment. This environment has been best described using the “VUCA” acronym, which stands for Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous.

With such momentous changes happening in the world today, this course prepares the students to better understand the complexity and difficulties in reacting to the ambiguity inherent in those changes. This course helps students to understand the tensions in a given situation and how they need to think through a problem from multiple dimensions.

The course aims to give students an insight into the mega trends and forces that are impacting their world. We ask what are some of the causes of these trends and their business implications? What can future managers like themselves do about understanding these changing trends, and why they need to address, appreciate, adapt and attempt to manage these changes in their ecosystem? 

The course aims to introduce some basic VUCA concepts, in order to broaden their world view of management and nature of managing complex problems. The first half of the course introduces some of these trends, while the second half provides tools and possible frameworks to deal with the VUCA aspects that they will face in the future.

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 actionbased 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 handson 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’