Management and Society (CLC) courses
CLC9002
Managing Personal Finance
Offering Unit: Department of Operations and Risk Management
The course is designed to provide students with general knowledge that would enable them to manage their own finance in a smart way. Topics include personal risks, personal financial planning, personal insurance products and strategies, cash and debt management skills, investment strategies and main products, and tax basics. This is a self-contained and non-technical introductory course to all students interested in having a better control over their financial life.
CLC9003
Understanding Investment in the Stock Market
Offering Unit: Department of Finance
This course is specially designed to help students understand the basics of investments and the functions of capital markets.
In this course we will emphasize both the academic and practical aspects of fundamental investment and portfolio management. Students will learn concepts that are applicable in the field of investments.
The course integrates an understanding of basic market fundamentals, determinants of stock prices, basic chart analysis, importance of corporate governance, trading services, disciplined investing approach, practical investment skills and use of free web tools and financial reports to improve students’ financial knowledge.
Moreover, the course covers the characteristics of popular products such as exchange traded funds and real estate investment trusts traded on the Hong Kong Stock Exchanges. The course also indicates how these investment products may meet the needs of investors. The active and growing IPO activities in Hong Kong will also be discussed.
The course is unique in that it gives students the practical tools and knowledge they will not find in other courses.
This is a self-contained and non-technical introductory course to all students interested in having a better control over their financial life.
CLC9004
Traditional Chinese Thought and Management
Offering Unit: Department of Management
This course prepares students with an understanding of the relationship between traditional Chinese thought and Chinese management in contemporary contexts at the introductory, broad-based and general level. Through the course, students are expected to improve their understanding of the impact of traditional Chinese thought on management practices, both within Chinese culture and in cross-cultural contexts, and thus will be equipped with basic understanding and relevant competence to handle such cultural issues in their future career.
CLC9005
Finance and Politics: Public Interests and Private Manipulation
Offering Unit: Department of Economics
This course introduces students to the nature of financial institutions, corporate ownership structure and corporate governance through case studies, anecdotal evidence and academic papers. Students will be expected to develop practical perspectives on financial policies and government regulations, and be able to articulate implications for future financial development and practices in both Hong Kong and worldwide.
CLC9006
Law and Governance
Offering Unit: Department of Government and International Affairs
This course attempts to cultivate students’ understanding of the core issues and debates about government, law, society, and their inter-relationship, particularly in the context of Hong Kong. At the same time, this course helps students to apply theories to analyze practical issues, think laterally, engage in community and public affairs, and present arguments intelligently and persuasively. These skills are essential to students in their future careers, particularly in the public sector.
CLC9007
Stress Management, Health and Life Balance
Offering Unit: Department of Psychology
Rapid changes in this century will see enormous transformations in global and local economic, social and cultural development. These changes may present challenges to young university students, particularly in managing stress. This course will acquaint our first-year students with knowledge about stress management to help cope with changes, stress, and burnout in university from Eastern and Western societies.
CLC9008
Business Ethics
Offering Unit: Department of Management
This course introduces ethical issues and dilemmas concerning aspects of business and management, and provides a foundation of ethical concepts and a wide range of perspectives that are relevant to preventing and resolving such problems. Topics include ethics in business, using ethical principles in business, why things go wrong, establishing ethical safeguards, ethics in the marketplace, ethical issues related to investors and stockholders, ethics of consumer protection and marketing, and ethical issues related to employment.
CLC9009
Corporate Social Responsibility
Offering Unit: Department of Management
A range of perspectives on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), such as ownership theory and stewardship theory, will be introduced and debated early in the course. The concept of stakeholder analysis will be illustrated, and stakeholder perspectives on selected issues such as food safety and hygiene; consumption of scarce resources, and environmental pollution, etc. will be discussed. Examples of the CSR policies and practices of various local and international companies will be examined. Students will apply their learning to practice by conducting a project for a business corporate or a social enterprise.
CLC9010
Getting to Yes through Negotiation
Offering Unit: Department of Management
Negotiation is the most dominant form of communication in resolving conflictual ideas, goals, and offerings in business contexts (i.e., transactions, disputes). Individuals are involved in various forms of negotiation with supervisor, sub-ordinates, customers, clients, team members on a daily basis. For entrepreneurs who face and overcome various hurdles and challenges from starting new ventures to growing the business, effective negotiation can promote conflict resolution and task efficiency, expand joint gain, and reinforce business relationships.
This course examines the wide variety of approaches to the analysis of and practice of negotiation and related issues going through the processes of starting, building and running ventures. Students will learn the nature and strategies of negotiation across situations such as personal transactions, public and private sector collective bargaining, resolving conflicting interests within an organization and across organizations. Specially, student will learn the differences between value-claiming and value-creating negotiation strategies, and integrate related factors such as cognition, emotion, power, culture, relationship, third party intervention and ethics, etc.
Teachings and learning tools include lectures, class readings, case studies, class discussions, negotiation simulations (in-class and using AI practices), presentations and so on. Students are expected to be prepared for class discussions regarding readings, cases and negotiation simulations, sharing ideas, answering and asking questions, and participating in a variety of class activities. Full and active participation is critical for achieving the optimal learning outcomes.
CLC9012
To Care About Our Society - Social Marketing
Offering Unit: Department of Marketing and International Business
Social marketing is a discipline that focuses on using commercial marketing concepts and techniques to influence behavior for delivering positive impacts for the society. This discipline has been making profound contributions to social issues in the areas of public health, injury prevention, community involvement, and more recently, financial well-bring. It is of particular relevance to Hong Kong or any other societies that is experiencing social challenges in the quest for sustainable growth. Students will be exposed to different social issues. Through a mix of lectures, class discussions, and group and individual projects, students will be equipped with the marketing concepts, tools and strategies to address different social issues. This course is offered in the spirit of taking responsibility for ourselves as well as caring for those around us. It therefore targets at students who concerned about social issues and passionate about bringing positive influence to the society.
CLC9014
Hong Kong Civil Service
Offering Unit: Department of Government and International Affairs
The course analyses the civil service system of the Hong Kong SAR, and the societal and political impacts on civil service management structures. It examines the institutions, management processes, and major issues confronting the civil service system. A brief introduction to the civil service systems of mainland China, the United Kingdom and the United States will also be provided in the later stage of lectures to further enhance students’ understanding of important international public personnel systems. If possible, guest talks by former Hong Kong senior civil servants will be arranged to provide students with insights into the current operation and practices of the system in post-handover Hong Kong. This course will benefit students who are planning to pursue their career in the government or other public sectors after graduation.
CLC9015
Human Relationship and Interpersonal Skills in Organisations
Offering Unit: Department of Psychology
This course emphasizes the understanding and development of effective interpersonal skills and strategies in verbal and non-verbal communication in organizations. Personal, situational, and cultural influence on human interaction will be addressed. Key topics in this course include interpersonal dynamics, listening skills, conflict management, effective negotiation, impression management in organization etc. Video clips will be used to demonstrate effective and ineffective communication. Class activities (e.g., field experiment, communication task, self-assessment) will be conducted. Group discussion will be facilitated to discuss factors which may influence the interpersonal communication process.
CLC9016
Contemporary Socio-Economic Issues
Offering Unit: Department of Economics
The notion of management is at the heart of the socioeconomic problems such as the environment, crime, and poverty among the working-poor and elderly. In particular, addressing problems in these areas requires asking general questions such as:
- “How can societies manage for themselves the responsibilities of fixing these problems between public and private solutions with resources available?”
- “Once a government decides to take primary responsibility for resolving a socioeconomic problem, should a government take a ‘hands-off’ management approach by primarily encouraging certain beneficial behaviour should government manage society more actively by prohibiting certain behaviour?”
In the context of topics covered in this class, students will wrestle with these questions by thinking of specific situations such as:
- “Should governments address indirectly the socioeconomic issue of pollution by assigning property rights to public goods and allowing private parties to trade these rights to minimize pollution (e.g., cap and trade)?” or “Should government manage more actively by fining any firm that emits pollution beyond a certain level?”
- “Should government manage resolution of the problem indirectly by providing tax deductions and allowances for poor people who work) or more directly by prohibiting employment at a wage under a certain threshold?”
CLC9017
Labour Markets, Employability and Career Development
Offering Unit: Department of Management
This course helps students to explore their career options, identify career preferences, establish career goals, and gain insights drawn from HR analytics into how to enhance and demonstrate employability. Students in groups are required to interview human resource management practitioners to identify requisite graduate attributes and how these are being assessed. Other learning activities include analysis of the market for occupations, self-assessment career tests to develop students’ personal awareness of their own strengths and weaknesses, and career aspiration. This course requires students to engage critically with conceptual frameworks for diagnosing and assessing salient factors in career choices, and to apply appropriate conceptual frameworks when making self-representation decisions and applying employability strategies.
CLC9018
Games in Daily Life
Offering Unit: Department of Operations and Risk Management
People, organisations, and states interact in various situations, where the actions of each party (people, organisation, or state) will affect the interests of the other parties, which can be conflicting or common. Competitive or cooperative situations of this sort are regarded as “games.” To make strategic and rational decisions in game situations, each party needs to understand the rationale behind others’ actions or responses to his or her own decisions. This necessitates the game methods, which underpin how each party can adopt rational strategies in everyday interactions with other parties.
This course presents the concepts, social contexts, and basic methods of games. We use the game-based lecture method to teach how students can undertake strategic reasoning and decision-making in a wide range of social situations. Students will be encouraged and supported—through active engagement in a series of real games and game experiments, and participation in reflective discussions about their game experiences—to develop rational and effective approaches to strategic reasoning and decision-making as players in competitive and cooperative settings.
CLC9019
Policy and Technology for Urban and Rural Sustainability
Offering Unit: Office of Service-Learning
The course is aimed broadly at young innovators, who are interested in learning more about interconnected issues related to rural sustainability and in cases of innovative policy and effective technology that are being implemented in Hong Kong and around the globe. As the course does not presume any previous knowledge in policy study and technology design, it begins by showing students the striking similarity between the policy-making and technology design process and how new strategies are tested and improved in the field for optimal results. Through real-world case studies, students will acquire practical analytical skills necessary to deconstruct complex problems and rebuild them into smart strategies. Practicing professionals, such as a sociologist, a humanitarian relief worker, an engineer and an architect, will be invited to share vivid examples to illustrate how complex sustainability challenges can be solved, at the intersection of technology and policy, through research and design.
CLC9020
Law in Everyday Life
Offering Unit: Department of Accountancy
Law affects our daily life, our rights, and our social, economic, political and emotional well-being. University students therefore need a basic understanding of the legal system and the laws likely to affect their everyday life. This course covers the most interesting, useful and basic legal knowledge on a variety of issues: marriage, employment, consumer rights, information technology, etc.
This course is topic-driven. In each lecture, a particular topic and several selected relevant cases will be introduced and discussed in order to encourage students to consider the particular legal issues behind current social phenomena or developments.
CLC9021
Morality and Markets
Offering Unit: Department of Philosophy
The course introduces students to arguments for and against moral limits on markets. Moral limits that have been proposed often concern particular markets such as the labor market and markets in human organs, but they may also concern markets in general; for example, socialism versus free-market capitalism. The aim of the course is to enable students to arrive at a fair assessment of the proposed limits by comparing the strongest arguments for and against. Where possible, reference is made to Hong Kong policy, for example, concerning “positive noninterventionism”, minimum wages, public housing, imported workers, the licensing of doctors and taxis (e.g. Uber), prostitution, and so on.
CLC9022
The Digital Economy and Social Media
Offering Unit: Department of Marketing and International Business
The new information communication technologies (ICT) have transformed the economy in fundamental ways. The Internet and social media have enabled instantaneous interactions and transactions among people through online platforms. The course adopts an interdisciplinary perspective, introduces the economics of information, explores how ICT and social media have transformed the modern economy, its structure and players, and examines the formation of social networks and public opinions, which in turn inform consumer attitudes and decisions and allow firms to engage consumer in a multitude of ways. It also addresses relevant critical issues including information asymmetry, participation inequality, privacy, information disclosure and manipulation, and explores how players can work together to create value, ensure consumer welfare, and promote the healthy development of the Internet and e-commerce.
CLC9023
Digital & Sustainability Transformation
Offering Unit: Department of Management
We are living in a fast-changing and unpredictable digital world and are moving toward sustainability. The digital transformation offers unbelievable impacts on business and wider society in the coming decades. These megatrends have profound impacts on the changes in organizations and societies. Our younger generation should have a fundamental & strategic understanding of the digital revolution and climate change and their implications on organizations and societies in order to create a better smart & green world.
This course is designed to enable students to have a basic understanding of innovation theories, new technologies and climate change opportunities and challenges so as to transform a typical company to create both economic & social value. Three transformations will be explored, corporate, digital & sustainability. Impacts to organization and societies will also be elaborated. Insights will be gained about how companies must rethink their place in the future world and how they must transform to build sustainable advantage. In addition, students may have more solid ideas & insights to transform themselves to live in a digital & green world and even develop their careers to become digital leaders and green entrepreneurs.
CLC9024
Sustainable Ocean and Aquaculture Management
Offering Unit: Division of Science
This course explores how oceans and aquaculture shape global sustainability and responsible management practices, aligning with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) principles. Tailored for non-science undergraduates, it examines how diverse communities, corporations, and governments manage marine resources amidst challenges like overfishing, climate change, and globalization. Through interactive lectures with relatable examples (e.g., sustainable seafood, coastal cultures), a field trip (e.g., Hong Kong fish farms or coastal sites), and a collaborative group project, students will critically analyze real-world marine management issues. The course equips students with the skills to evaluate ethical and social responsibilities, advocate for sustainable ocean stewardship, and engage with diverse societal perspectives to address global challenges.
CLC9099
Special Topics in CLC Cluster
The subject matter of this course varies according to the expertise of the subject teachers or visiting scholars available. Special topics will mostly complement regular courses offered in the CLC cluster, to provide a broad range of general knowledge and wide perspectives for students to investigate, analyse and reflect on issues and topics related to Management and Society.