The course gives an overview of the theoretical approach to the economic environment, based on the specificities of the Baltic Sea region countries. The nature of the economic environment is explained by various components, such as the purpose of the enterprise, the economic resources of society (eg natural resources, labor, etc.), fields of activity (eg industry, IT), competitiveness, regulatory environment, foreign trade and investments, infrastructure, anesthetics and others. The course explains the structural changes in the economies of different countries in the region and explains the different aspects of economic integration (foreign trade, investment, energy, infrastructure, etc.). Economic policies of different countries (monetary policy, fiscal policy, energy policy, employment policy, social policy, etc.) are also analyzed. The course also deals with regional cooperation within the framework of the EU Baltic Sea Strategy.

Because growth is imperative in today's business, it is crucial to understand the strategic fundamentals underpinning profitable growth. The course connects frameworks from economics, strategy and management to the practical experiences of firms to illustrate why some businesses can grow successfully while others struggle. The cases and examples in this course will focus on firms from Estonia, Europe and globally in search of expanding their business. The course starts with firm life-cycle theory and the meaning of growth. Growth through scaling, growth through entry (incl. internationalization), and growth through partnerships and acquisition is focused at. Each strategy has its pitfalls and handling those will be addressed.

This course details with the comprehensive reviews on East Asian mindset development through the region's development and cultural formation. By illustrating the Chinese, Japanese and Korean mindsets, this course guides students to apply the mindset elements to nowadays business practices, in particular, in business negotiations and communication; organizational culture and management style.

1. Principles of business process management: What is business process manegement? Why and when should BPM be undertaken? BPM lifecycle; typical business processes (procure-to-pay, order-to-cash). 2. Business Process Modeling: Purpose and principles of business process modeling, business process modeling notations and tools; business process standards and reference process models (SCOR, ITIL, SAP reference models). 3. Business Process Analysis: Activity-based costing; scenario-based analysis; techniques for business process re-design; business process simulation. 4. Process Performance Measurement: Defining measures for business processes; aggregating and processing data for business process performance measurement; discovering typical business processes from event logs. 5. IT Solutions: Techniques for designing IT Solutions for process automation; relations between business process management and software architectures; workflow management systems and business process management suites. 6. Case studies and projects in business process management

This course will introduce several process mining techniques, including techniques for automated process discovery, conformance checking, performance analysis, business rules mining, and predictive process monitoring. In order to develop a mastery of these techniques, we will introduce concrete tools and we will apply these tools to answer business questions using real-life datasets.

The course focuses on the economic development in Japan throughout the post-war period and discusses critical junctures and institutional change during the last decades, which influence current market trends and the recent economy in the whole region. Further, the EPA and SPA are discussed with the implications on trade relations between Europe and Japan. The course connects knowledge on economic development and regional characteristics with specific cultural aspects.