MSc Management

The module aims to develop the student’s ability to critically analyse the financial statements for single and group companies, understanding how the financial statements are prepared, considering compliance with legal and regulatory requirements and the relevant International Accounting Standards. Students taking the module will examine both financial and non-financial matters that affect a business on a day-to-day basis and develop proactive ideas to solve these issues.

The module will equip the students with the knowledge and skills necessary to understand corporate financial performance and the relevance of accounting information, including the implications for the organisation, stakeholders and for effective corporate governance. The module recognises the different types of decisions that managers are required to make and considers how financial and management accounting information can be used in support of these decisions.

The module aims to develop the skills needed to understand, apply, and critically appraise the various tools and techniques that may be used to support managers in decision-making in order to determine their relevance in different organisational contexts. The module also evaluates the impact of financial and management decisions on different stakeholders and ensures that decisions are properly made and implemented to maximise value for key stakeholders of the organisation.

The practical side of the module extends to the role of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems in decision-making and explores the impact of cyber security on a company’s financial performance and financial reporting.

Outline Syllabus:

• Published financial statements: Income Statement, Statement of Equity, Balance Sheet and Cash Flow Statement, in the context of single and group accounts including multinational companies.
• The analysis and evaluation of complex financial and non-financial information including limitations of financial reporting.
• Appraisal of a company’s financial performance through analysing a set of company accounts and applying ratio and financial analysis.
• Capital investment decisions including the concepts of risk and uncertainty, relevant costing, and mergers and acquisitions.
• Working capital management and short-term financing decisions.
• Capital markets and long-term financing decisions.
• Cyber security in accounting and finance including the role of ERP systems in strategic decision-making.

The business world never stands still; technologies and the move towards a more global economy are creating opportunities that organisations must embrace to maintain their competitive edge. Never before has global events and innovations had greater impact on local markets. Business now competes on a global stage where marketers can do so much more with small budges ultimately shrinking the historic chasm between SME’s and large enterprise. Creative marketing that grabs the attention of the ever-demanding changing needs of the consumer takes careful planning. International Marketing Planning provides students with the fundamental building blocks to manage an organisation’s marketing function. By establishing an organisation’s current market position, unpacking their value offering to consumers and formulating a plan to meet strategic marketing objectives, the marketing planning process provides a creative framework to drive organisational success.

Outline Syllabus:

• Market analysis
  • International macro-environmental issues that impact on an organisation’s strategic direction
  • Micro-environmental issues including the capabilities of the organisation, their suppliers, marketing intermediaries, their existing customer profile, who their competitors are, and the public that may influence their strategic direction.
• Setting marketing objectives
• Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning
  • Segmentation tools to profile the desired audience.
  • Targeting strategies
  • Positioning strategies
• Implementation and control of the international marketing plan
  • Marketing mix
  • Implementation issues in effective planning
  • Contingency planning
  • Monitoring and controlling the plan
  • Module Learning Outcomes

This module is designed to provide students with a conceptual and theoretical background in leadership, and an opportunity to develop leadership competencies in themselves and others. It covers topics such as leadership style, followership, ethical and responsible leadership, gender and leadership, and cross-cultural leadership. Over the course of this module, students will gain an understanding and appreciation of the impact interpersonal skills have on leadership effectiveness. This module has an applied focus and requires students to reflect on and apply theories and techniques to their personal real-world context in order to enhance their leadership practice.

Outline Syllabus:

• Leadership style
• Situational leadership
• Leader-member exchange
• Followership
• Ethical and responsible leadership
• Cross-cultural leadership
• Gender and leadership
• Power and influence
• Communication and conflict resolution

With the rapidly changing context of modern business, the process of introducing novel technologies, products, infrastructures, or systems has become vital yet more challenging due to often conflicting stakeholder requirements, irreversible investments, operating constraints and associated risks. Therefore, any business change has to be project-managed as the current emphasis in business is on flexible, rapid response to customer demands. Managers increasingly require a project competence with a systems-oriented management style that cuts across traditional functional roles throughout the project life cycle. Project management is thus considered a crucial management philosophy of how organisations manage fluctuating business environments and bring to life something innovative or simply never accomplished before.

Through the Project Planning and Management module, students will get a solid foundation in the theory and best practice of project management and develop the practical skills of how to plan, implement and control projects. The module provides students with an understanding of the system perspective on management and a practically oriented overview of the nature and purpose of project management and its key functions (scope, time, cost, quality, etc). The role and qualities of the Project Manager and the composition of the team are also examined. Overall, the material and approach in the module incorporates world-wide best practices from major professional bodies: the PMI Body of Knowledge, APM Body of Knowledge and PRINCE2 – providing a common ground and concentrating on the underlying principles rather than specifics of any given framework.

The module is specifically strong on transferable skills for boosting students’ professional development and employability: practical problem solving and decision making in conditions of uncertainty and ambiguity; planning capability; adaptability to work in different contexts – all highly valued by employers.

Outline Syllabus:

• Systems approach and project integration
• Traditional and alternative project life cycles
• Project requirements definition and scope management
• Sequencing and scheduling of project activities
• Resource allocation and levelling
• Cost estimation and project budgeting
• Quality management in the project environment
• Risk assessment and mitigation
• Stakeholder and communication management
• Project execution and control

In our current globalised world, individuals in leadership and management positions within organisations across sectors are often confronted with a myriad of ‘wicked’ problems which demand for a comprehensive and cohesive strategy. To succeed, individuals in position of responsibility must develop a range of capabilities needed to gain competitive advantage in markets and in the globe. This module seeks to equip students with crucial knowledge and strategy making skills to perform as a strategist and contribute to responsible business strategies to give their organisation a competitive advantage. Students who fully engage with the module will develop the knowledge and professional expertise needed for the formation, implementation, and analysis of responsible business strategies; to make appropriate choices between strategic options; and then to follow a strategic route that will deliver results that are robust, ethically sound and socially responsible.

Outline Syllabus:

• Introducing strategy
• Making sense of strategy making and execution process
• Understanding and Analysing the External Environment Using Analytical Tools
• Understanding and Analysing Industry/Sector Contexts Using Analytical Tools
• Understanding and Analysing the Internal Context of an organisation Using Analytical Tools
• The crafting of a strategy and the achievement of a competitive advantage
• Designing organisational control systems to sustain effective strategy and promote ethical business behaviour and environmental sustainability.

The purpose of this module is to develop students’ understanding and management of people at work. This will be achieved by introducing students to key concepts and theories in the field of organisational psychology and their application to different organisational settings. A wide range of topics relevant to effective people management are covered including personality, selection and assessment, training and development, team working, motivation, work design, stress and well-being, and organisational change and culture. The module will also provide the opportunity for students to reflect on their own experiences and competencies as managers.

Outline Syllabus:

• Individual differences
• Personnel selection and assessment methods
• The psychological contract
• Groups, teams and teamwork
• Motivation
• Work design
• Training and development
• Stress and well-being at work
• Organisational change and culture

This module draws on the latest UK QAA (2018) guidance on Enterprise and Entrepreneurship in Higher Education and aims to develop enterprise awareness, an entrepreneurial mindset, and entrepreneurial capability, which lead overall to entrepreneurial effectiveness which can be applied in a range of contexts.

Entrepreneurship is an essential skillset in the development of new and existing businesses, social enterprises and more broadly societies and their economies. Enterprise is defined as the application of creative ideas and innovations to practical situations, combining creativity, ideas development and problem solving with expression, communication, and practical action.

Entrepreneurship is the application of enterprise skills to creating and growing organisations in order to identify and build on opportunities and applies to both individuals and groups (teams or organisations). It refers to value creation in the private, public and third sectors, and in any hybrid combination of the three. Learning about and experiencing Enterprise and Entrepreneurship has several benefits. It can provide students with alternative perspectives on their career options and potentially the confidence to set up their own business or social enterprise. Enterprise competencies will be useful to those in employment, or those who become self-employed and work on a freelance or consultancy basis. It can help develop a ‘can-do’ confidence, a creative questioning approach, and a willingness to take risks, enabling individuals to manage workplace uncertainty and flexible working patterns and careers.

This module will explore various forms of entrepreneurship, for example, social, green, and digital entrepreneurship.

Outline Syllabus

• Enterprise and Entrepreneurship awareness
• Introduction to entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurship theory
• Entrepreneurial capability and effectiveness
• Opportunity exploration & assessment: a systematic approach to defining entrepreneurial.
• opportunities, Researching & finding a market, Planning to realise opportunities: business proposal & venture creation, Exploring technological advances in application to venture creation and effective management, Introduction to venture finance, Financial business modelling, Acting on opportunities: implementing the business plan, entrepreneurial management, & business growth.
• Entrepreneurial mindset
• Personal Enterprise: connecting opportunities and personal goals, Entrepreneurial Learning &
• creative thinking as an entrepreneur, developing an entrepreneurial mindset, including: self-organisation flexibility and resilience, curiosity towards new possibilities for creating value,
• responsiveness to problems and opportunities by making new connections, tolerance of uncertainty, ambiguity, risk, and failure, sensitivity to personal values, such as ethical, social, diversity and environmental awareness linked to entrepreneurship.

A major characteristic of all decisions in every organisation is that they are taken to achieve objectives, both short-term and long-term. To do this well is a fundamental skill for managers at every level in the organisation. But decisions are often hard to make in the presence of multiple objectives, uncertainty about the future, and differences of opinion among key players. For decisions that require large amounts of resources and commitments, the weight of responsibility felt by the decision maker can be heavy, especially when the consequences require considered judgements about trade-offs between benefits, risks, and costs. The aim of this module is to enhance the students’ decision capabilities when confronted with strategic or operational choices. Students will learn how decision analysis tools can be used to structure and analyse decision problems and how a mix of data and judgment can help decision makers to better achieve their objectives. The main focus of the course is on practical management problems.

Outline Syllabus

• Introduction to the role of Decision Analysis and process
• Key elements of decision problems
• Modelling decision problems
• Decision criteria and making choices
• Sensitivity analysis
• Group Decision Making

Sustainability practices are wide ranging and include various managerial decisions, monitoring, environmental damage, and external financial reporting. Sustainability practices are a growing concern to investors, creditors, and regulators, all of whom demand greater transparency and accountability.

The module provides an in-depth overview of current issues and best practices in sustainability and integrated reporting from both managerial and financial perspectives and develops an understanding of an essential role that sustainability practices and transparency play in corporate governance worldwide. The module aims to develop students, as future business leaders, managers, or governance professionals, who understand and appreciate the importance of going beyond numbers and supporting good ethical business practices to help companies to sustain long-term success.

Outline Syllabus

• Introduction to corporate social responsibility and business ethics
• Corporate social responsibility and sustainability reporting framework
• Sustainability performance metrics
• Business ethics in organisations-decision making
• Current issues in corporate social responsibility and business ethics
• Ethics and globalisation
• Doing what’s right in a competitive market

The professional Inquiry Project allows students to demonstrate their mastery of management within the field of their degree. It is an individual and independent project in which students can bring together and apply their learning from the programme to help to solve a chosen business problem or challenge, a real-world issue, or a research topic. Through bringing together learning from across their degree programme, students will demonstrate their accumulated knowledge and understanding of management within their field and its application to organisations, through synoptic assessment.

This module seeks to enable and facilitate innovation and creativity in terms of project foci, form and output. Rather than being prescriptive, students are required to not only undertake an in-depth study of a topic related to the title of the degree but also to take responsibility for their own learning and negotiate the form and output of the final project. The choice of topic and format of the final assessment will be negotiated with the tutor, which will ensure mutuality of intent, process, practice and format of assessment. Although the foci and form of the final project are to be negotiated, the following are indicative of the potential formats students may choose: work based project, client based project; or other negotiated project.

The module requires students to draw upon the framework for research methods and requires the in-depth development of a proposal for the Business Project. Students will be responsible for finding an organisation and negotiating access where necessary with regard to client-based projects. Students who are employed will normally undertake a project based on an agreed business problem that forms part of their role and agree the project title and support arrangements with their employer and tutor.

Completing the Professional Inquiry Project gives you a unique opportunity to undertake an extended piece of personal research on a topic of your own choosing. By undertaking the project students will be demonstrating their ability to research and critically analyse and integrate complex information necessary in the world of contemporary management.

Outline Syllabus

Whilst the specific content of each project will vary, in general it will be underpinned by a process of research; interpreted in an applied, rather than a pure academic, sense.

Projects will typically include a number of activities:

• Mapping ideas for research/project topics
• Identification of the stages of a project which is appropriate for the professional context
• Project planning focusing on aims and objectives, methodology, resources and criteria for evaluation.
• Critically surveying current knowledge
• Arguing and advocating
• Considering ethics and principles of responsible management
• Undertaking research, data analysis and interpretation, problem solving and / or decision-making techniques
• Use of evidence-based tools and ethical approaches to undertake problem solving and support decision making.
• Discussing findings, making conclusions, and constructing recommendations
• Reflecting and identifying future directions
• Presenting project process and outcomes in appropriate manner and format