Business is international, careers span the globe; why shouldn’t education? From the experiences you’ll have, to the people you’ll learn from, the Vancouver Summer Program offered at the UBC Sauder School of Business will help you develop the skills and confidence you need to become part of the next generation of responsible business leaders. You’ll learn from accomplished research faculty and the program will help you take your first steps toward a successful and rewarding career.

What you might expect/course format

Expect to work hard in your courses but to have fun and gain a wealth of knowledge! Each course within our different packages has different requirements but may include assignments, group projects, case studies and exams. Courses consist of in-person lectures, where interaction and participation is expected. Group work is an integral part of most courses and gives you the opportunity to connect and work with students from other universities.

July 2025 Course Packages

International Business Management

This course is taught from the perspective of a senior manager at multinational enterprise. It analyzes the decisions made by firms in an international context. To do so it combines material from strategy, international finance, marketing, human resource management, positive trade theory, institutional trade policy, and other areas. It will emphasize the use of analytical tools and the development of oral and written communication skills. By design, the course is integrative, implying that there is some overlap with material taught in international marketing and finance courses.

International Marketing

This course examines the process of entering international markets and in conducting marketing operations on an international scale. Through lectures and practical assignments students will explore a broad range of global marketing issues and concepts. Specific objectives include understanding the role of marketing in business, analyzing the external issues affecting international marketing activities including the economic, social/cultural, and political/legal environment, identifying and assessing global marketing opportunities in the international marketplace, gaining experience in developing international marketing strategies, and planning to implement and adapt these activities in specific markets.

Prerequisites: No prerequisites

Strategic Management

Concepts and processes for the strategic management of private sector, single and multi-business unit enterprises are analyzed using the case method. Methodologies which draw on economic and organizational theory are integrated to form the foundations for strategic analyses. This course builds students’ ability to analyze and develop business strategies by introducing frameworks and tools to understand the nature of competition in general and to analyze the specific competitive position and strategic options of a given firm. You will learn frameworks for analyzing industry structure, internal capabilities, and competitive interaction, as well as how to use those frameworks to critique a specific firm’s competitive position and develop and evaluate strategic alternatives.

New Enterprise Development

This is an introductory course to the field of entrepreneurship. It is also useful to anyone who expects to be interacting with entrepreneurs in their business careers, be it as private investors, venture capitalists, consultants or customers. The course provides an experience-based exposure to the process of starting entrepreneurial ventures as well as examining the challenges facing any would-be entrepreneur in the real world. This includes developing business models and strategies for innovative products or services and strategies for acquiring resources, particularly financing.

Prerequisites: No prerequisites

Introduction to Marketing

This course is designed to provide a broad introduction to the field of marketing and basic considerations affecting the domestic and international marketing of goods and services. Marketing is far more than just selling or advertising within a business setting; it is a major part of everyday life. This course will illustrate the importance of marketing and will help you develop fundamental marketing knowledge and skills applicable to all specializations within business.

Management and Organizational Behaviour

The primary objective of this course is to teach you about the effects of organizational structures and interpersonal processes on the behaviour of individuals in organizations and the wider implications for the effectiveness and success of organizations. This course will expose you to frameworks, approaches and behaviours that can help in effectively participating, leading and managing in organizations. Research has shown that effective people management is an important contributor to organizational success. The emphasis will be on creating effective leaders and team members through a better understanding of motivation, working in teams, power and influence, leadership and navigating organizational culture and change. All this will help participants contribute to the success of themselves and their organizations.

Prerequisites: No prerequisites

Operations and Supply Chain Strategy

Operations is one of the fundamental functions of any organization. Operations and Supply Chain managers are primarily concerned with the efficient execution of a an organization’s strategy. In doing so, they also help shape a firm’s future strategy. Operations is concerned with designing and managing processes that transform inputs to outputs in an organization. This includes important activities such as the production and delivery of goods and services. Operations is also responsible for the systematic planning, designing, operating, controlling and improving the various processes involved from the time a customer places an order to the time the product or service is delivered. The challenge for supply chain managers is to produce goods and deliver services in accordance with the business strategy of their company in most efficient manner. Typically, this involves balancing the needs for lower costs, higher quality, shorter production times and greater operational flexibility, while at the same time getting the customer orders (products or services) out on time. In this course you will learn the fundamentals ideas of good operational principles and Supply chain management. You will understand how an organization’s strategy and operations are related to each other. You will also understand the impact of operational decisions on the various other business functions such as marketing, finance and human resources.  This will help enhance your managerial insights and intuition and improve your business decisions. The course will feature practices from various companies such as Zara, Alipay, Tencent, Walmart, GE, Toyota and many others.

Business Analytics

Business professionals must have familiarity with and skills in each of descriptive, predictive and prescriptive analytics. Descriptive analytics includes data analysis and data visualization: understanding, manipulating, evaluating and presenting the many complex data and information streams that drive today’s businesses and organizations. Predictive analytics includes forecasting, various statistical techniques, data mining, and machine learning. Prescriptive analytics involves the employment of a number of analytical models to aid decision-making. Topics covered in this course include: descriptive statistics, data visualization, descriptive data mining (cluster analysis), linear regression, predictive data mining (classification trees), spreadsheet models, linear optimization and Monte Carlo simulation. This course aims to provide essentials on these topics, equipping students with the literacy of business analytics. Each student must bring his/her own laptop computer with Excel.

Prerequisites: No prerequisites

For more information

For VSP Business-specific questions, email Ann Gilray, International Programs Advisor, at ann.gilray@sauder.ubc.ca.

Student testimonials

“As an engineering student, it is my first time to learn about international business management and marketing. The professors are very helpful to guide me through my difficulties, and I am so inspired while attending their lessons.”

– Jaye, VSP Business Student

“I met a lot of like-minded partners there, and we discussed and studied the topics assigned by teachers. The teachers’ classes were very open and we could interact and discuss together, and everyone could express their own ideas in class.”

– Xinjing, VSP Business Student