Management MSc - 2020 Entry

Course Structure

You will study a range of modules as part of your course, some examples of which are listed below.

Core

• Accounting for Managers

  Accounting & Reporting for Managers is designed as an introductory course to the areas of accounting andreporting. It has four main objectives:

  • to discover the accounting cycle - from basic transactions to the preparation of financial statements
  • to study the language of accounting and accounting standards
  • to understand the importance of financial reporting and the role of financial statements in its process
  • to understand and interpret financial statements
• Corporate Governance and Financial Management

  The module is designed to convey fundamental principles of economic valuation and to learn how these affectfinancial management decisions.

  The course starts with some initial sessions on financial valuation, making students familiar with companystructures and basic information available through annual reports. Then, capital markets are introduced as thebenchmark for all valuation purposes, and as a useful tool to infer essential information needed for financial valuation and decision making.

  Theoretical concepts like the net present value, decision making under uncertainty, portfolioselection and the capital asset pricing model are introduced. These concepts serve as prerequisites for discussing investment and financing decisions, which are exemplified by an analysis of firms' capital structure decisions and payout policy.

• Digital Transformation of Business

  The main objective of the module is to understand how to apply and leverage information systems in the way we work. Topics include:

  • Corporate computing – architectures, software, networks, and data management.
  • Enterprise applications – frameworks for understanding integrated systems in manufacturing and services industries.
  • IT as an enabler: changing primary value creating functions (example ebusiness and airlines) and resulting new products and services (examples music business and courier services).
  • IT as an enabler: changing strategy and organisation forms (examples knowledge management and eHRM).
  • Business Value of IT: methods for determining and optimizing the value of IT investments.
  • Managing digitization: aligning business strategy and digitization strategies, challenges and options for companies in different industries
• Entrepreneurship: Principles & Practices

  The purpose of this module is to examine entrepreneurship in different economic and cultural contexts. The main questions are how does entrepreneurship develop in different economies and cultures and how can we understand this process.

  Topics covered include:

  • Trends and drivers of global entrepreneurship
  • The alchemy of business growth – high impact firms
  • Business plans in action
  • Opportunity recognition
  • Evaluation of opportunities
  • Business planning
  • Financing startups and venture valuation
• Managerial Economics

  The module aims to enhance your understanding of realworld business practices by using economicreasoning. You will learn the definition of key concepts in modern microeconomictheory, how they interact in models and can be applied in practice, including for the analysis and design of firms’ strategies in various market structures.

  Topics include:

  • Supply, demand, and equilibrium in examples: How do prices and quantities relate on competitive markets?
  • Production and costs: Where do (dis)economies of scale come from?
  • Monopoly and competition: Can the comparison lead to there a typology of business strategies?
  • Interdependence in decision making processes: What do we mean by oligopoly and collusion?
  • Mergers, surpluses, and competition policy: Can society benefit from increased industry concentration?
  • Integration, separation, and contractual alternatives: How do vertically related firms (should) write contracts?
• Marketing Management

  The main objectives of the course are:

  • To develop knowledge and understanding of the key theories, concepts and models in marketing to guide the development and execution of marketing strategies.
  • To develop the skills to critically analyse marketing situations facing organisations.
  • To develop written and verbal presentational skills.
• Operations Management

  The aim of this module is to introduce you to the discipline of Operations Management; to a range ofapproaches that can be used to plan, control and improve operations; and develop understanding of how Operations Management contributes to business competitiveness.

  Material covered will include:

  • Operations Strategy
  • Process Design
  • Capacity Planning (and Forecasting)
  • Inventory (and Material Requirements Planning)
  • Supply Chain and Supplier Relationship Management
  • Lean and JIT
  • Project Management
  • Performance and Quality Management
• Organisation Behaviour and Human Resource Management

  This module explores the main debates in the flield of Human Resource Management and the HR profession. This includes:

  • The business environment and strategic HRM
  • HRM in a multinational context
  • Managing change and HRM
  • Ethical stakes and challenges of global business
  • Examining HRs role in promoting more ethical and sustainable organisations
  • HRM and firm performance
• Practical Project Management

  This module introduces a practical approach to the management of projects. It engages students with a range of methods, tools and techniques used in industry to organise, plan and control successful project delivery. Also, it features an activity that provides students with the opportunity to apply these methods, tools and techniques.

  Typical syllabus topics relate to Methods, Tools and Techniques: Project Definition; Involving Stakeholders in Projects; Activity Planning: Project Risk, Developing Schedules and Budgets; Management Planning: Quality management.

• Professional, Career and Leadership Development

  This module is designed to support your core study of the management discipline. It will assist in building advanced study skills and enhancing your professional development, equipping you with information that will help you make the most of your time on the MSc Management.

• Research Methods

  Designed as a bridge between the more formal taught parts of the programme, this module will provide you with insights into the philosophical and practical issues involved in conducting research.

  The initial lectures and seminars introduce you to the role of philosophy in the design of any research project. The remainder of the first half of the module is then concerned with the wide variety of qualitative methods that are available to those involved in social science research. Finally, through a series of lectures and hands-on tutorials, you are shown the basics of conducting a quantitative study which includes the use of an appropriate software package.

• Research Project (Company Based Project)

  The last module of your degree, the Research Project, is the biggest and most intensive piece of work you will undertake on the MSc Management.

  For this module you will be assigned a company that you will work with on a specific issue the company identifies. You will work in a team of 2-3 students and submit a report that will be passed on to the brief you develop with the company. After completing the group company report, you will carry out an academic piece of work reflecting on this experience, that will be assessed individually.

  Through the project, you will also develop your organisational and analytical abilities. Supervision is provided by academic members of staff from the various Management School departments.

• Research Project (Library Based Project)

  The last module of your degree, the Research Project, is the biggest and most intensive piece of work you will undertake on the MSc Management.

  For this module you undertake independent research over a period of ten weeks, using and building on the knowledge gained from the previous modules. Through the project, you will also develop your organisational and analytical abilities. Supervision is provided by academic members of staff from the various Management School departments.

  There are the following project options available to students:

  • An independent piece of desk based research, choosing from a number of academic areas put forward by academic staff within the Management School.
  • A Summer School at one of our international partners followed by an independent piece of desk based research with an international focus.
• Strategic Management

  The ultimate goal of the course is to develop your’ skills in analyzing strategic situations and formulatingstrategy. After the module you should be able to analyze the competitive situation facing a firm, identify potential sources of competitive advantage and disadvantage and gain an appreciation of international business environments. In these analyses, you will apply analytical techniques from strategy, finance, accounting, organizational theory, organizational behavior, marketing, economics and operations management.

  You will be able to recognize the problems the organization faces and develop and evaluatealternative courses of action available to the firm to solve those problems. Further, you will be able topersuasively communicate your analytical conclusions, both verbally and in writing. You will develop the ability to view the corporation as a whole and to appreciate the responsibilities and margins of freedom of top executives.

Optional

• Business Analysis and Process Consulting

  In today’s fast-moving and turbulent business environment, organisations need to be nimble whilst at the same time, true to their core values. To do so requires their people to face up to issues and problems of some complexity.

  There is no magic solution to any complex problem, but there are approaches that have been found useful in many different circumstances. This course introduces you to some tried and tested methods for understanding, analysing and improving complex systems within organisations. The latter part of the course highlights how the modelling language of one of these methods, Soft Systems Methodology (SSM), can link to the design of information systems.

  By the end of this module you will have:

  • understand the basics of these methods and approaches, appreciate their limitations and be in a position to use them in later work
  • become familiar with the basics of a number of methods and approaches for understanding and improving complex systems within organisation
  • become familiar with the application of Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) to complex problem solving within organisations
• Business Ethics and Society

  The objective of this course is to attempt to develop moral sensibility and practical reasoning in the context of managerial everyday action in organisations. The course will be concerned with morality in action, as it happens, rather than a removed reflection on codes and principles of ethics. The course will aim to show that ethics in action is diffused and difficult. Nevertheless, managers and employees have a responsibility to `work it out' for themselves. It is this `how to work it out' that the course will keep as its focus. The course will use a number of case studies as a basis to develop this moral sensibility so that managers will be able to act in a morally appropriate manner as part of their ongoing organisational action.

• Organisational Change
  Organisational change is widely accepted as a defining feature of contemporary life. Most of the topics covered in management courses assume the need for changes of one kind or another. To respond to the hypercompetitive business environment, managers have been told to change their organisational structures. To enhance organizational performance, managers have been told to change organisational cultures. This emphasis on change has led some commentators to suggest that organisations today are immersed in a virtual cyclone of change. In fact one US study claimed that 84 per cent of US firms were conducting a major change programme.

  This module introduces contributions from the social sciences to the field, introduces you to ongoing issues and dilemmas, and encourages you to develop a mature and informed appreciation of issues that you will undoubtedly encounter throughout your managerial career. This is whether you become some kind of line manager, technical specialist (broadly defined, to include, for example finance or HRM), or even some kind of consultant. We will also introduce you to some contemporary examples of change management through initiatives such as business process reengineering, enterprise wide systems, global software outsourcing, collaborative work and learning.

Information contained on the website with respect to modules is correct at the time of publication, but changes may be necessary, for example as a result of student feedback, Professional Statutory and Regulatory Bodies' (PSRB) requirements, staff changes, and new research.