Within this module you’ll explore the fields of management and strategy, noting how strategic analysis and formulation contribute to an organisations performance. You’ll explore practically relevant ideas and frameworks that facilitate strategy design and implementation, dealing with the craft of strategy, identifying and choosing superior competitive position, how to analyse strategic situations and how to create the organisational context to make the chosen strategy work. Practical and problemoriented, this module places emphasis on the application of concepts and exploration of frameworks to assist you in analysing and gaining insight into competitive situations and strategic dilemmas.

You’ll investigate and critically evaluate historical and contemporary approaches to leadership theory, focusing especially on leadership at junior to middle management level. Classical theories of leadership will be examined including traits theory, behavioural theories and contingency theories. Some contemporary theories will include issues such as emotional intelligence, psychodynamics and leader-led relations. There will be a strong emphasis on applying the theory to your own personal leadership with a view to enhancing leadership performance in preparation for middle management roles within the organisation. Management of change will be another key emphasis, including organisational politics & power, change theories and the implementation of the change process. Issues for consideration will include the organisational context of change, resistance to change and practical management of the change process.

In this module, you’ll be introduced to basic economic principles, theories and models that are used to explain the behaviour of businesses, consumers, markets and the economy as a whole. You’ll develop the ability to utilise these to understand and predict economic behaviour and the direction of influence of different factors (such as changes in government policies). You’ll gain an understanding of how individual consumers decide on how much to purchase in order to maximise their satisfaction derived from consumption, how individual firms decide how much to produce and what price to charge in order to maximise profits in different types of markets (from perfect competition to monopoly), how the interaction of demand and supply determines the market outcome, how aggregate demand and aggregate supply describe the economy, and how changes
in business conditions and other factors influence the performance of the economy (short-run economic fluctuations and the economy in long-run). You’ll develop economic intuition, the ability to interpret economic information and employ economic reasoning to improve managerial decisions.

Management decision making is a complex subject involving many variable factors. The primary objective of this module is to provide a conceptual and analytical framework for looking at organisations operating in capital, financial and operational markets. You’ll explore the financial element contained in decisions and the techniques that may be used to assist informed management decisions. You start by considering the availability of financial information that may be relevant to decision making and whether this fits with the information you need to make the decision. This is further developed to the type of decision and differing requirements, leading to a more bespoke deliverable information set that meets the context of the decision. You’ll gain an appreciation of core themes prevalent throughout financial management. The module also explores the financial techniques developed by financial and management accountants and how they may be used and applied. Finally, consideration is given to the relevance and weighting of the financial element in the decision making process and how qualitative issues may be incorporated in the overall decision. Strategic financial management issues covered include financial statement analysis, budget and performance management, raising finance (both short and long term), efficient allocation and utilisation of financial resources (including investment decisions), and mergers and acquisitions as well as foreign currency and interest rate risk management.

Different organisations and sectors are covered to develop your knowledge and skills in finance and business analysis through practical tasks involving developing financial strategies, conducting a financial analysis, managing foreign currency risks and by using professional database such as FAME and Osiris, etc.

You’ll work through the main theories and principles of marketing for the marketing manager or business leader, understanding how those theories and principles can be applied in practice to a range of business contexts; from business-to-consumer, business-to-business, charities, arts, to tourism and service-based industries. You’ll focus particularly on global business challenges; competition and defining value; a digitally based economy; and societal marketing (corporate social responsibility, sustainability, morals and ethics) whilst also understanding the legal framework that impacts upon marketers and marketing practice such as consumer and data protection laws. This module will challenge you to examine marketing problems that have faced brands and organisations to critically analyse their approach and suggest new alternatives. You’ll gain a firm grasp of the scope of marketing in general business management and leadership roles as well as a clear understanding of the specialist areas of study and work as you plan your lifelong career in this very broad industry.

Human Resource (HR) professionals and managers operate within increasingly complex and changing organisational and contextual circumstances in the public, private or third sectors. This is exacerbated by the variety of organisational types and size that contribute to national wealth creation in terms of the services and goods they provide and produce. This module provides you with understanding of market and business contexts in the operational, tactical, and strategic HR function, along with issues of the modern organisation. You’ll examine the cultural, political, and social contexts that organisations operate within, both from an internal and external perspective. Further, you’ll discover how economic forces affect and influence organisational practices, and their impact upon the HR function and its practices. You’ll explore globalisation and how the changing demographics and social environments impact on organisational strategy and the HR function. Plus why ethical and democratic practices are needed to meet the changes of complex business and economic practices or the management of human resources in more dignified ways. Finally, you’ll see how HR can contribute to and influence the strategic direction of organisational practice in the pursuit of welfare profit, as well as monetary profit.

In this module, you’ll undertake a project focused on understanding and supporting entrepreneurial action in practice. This could be an applied/engaged research project, an enterprise consultancy project which addresses an opportunity or challenge faced by an entrepreneurial organisation or researching and developing a new business proposition or idea. This project needs to provide the opportunity to understand, and manage how to move from opportunity to idea to action and could relate to your study or employability interests and/or current interests within the entrepreneurial management field. You’ll work on key concepts/frameworks and issues within entrepreneurial management to stimulate thinking around trends and drivers creating opportunities for entrepreneurial management, as well as researching entrepreneurial opportunities and entrepreneurial action. In undertaking the project, you’ll develop the case for why your chosen opportunity or idea is worthy of consideration as a project, particularly in terms of its value to the appropriate community of practice, develop a project plan, acquire the appropriate resources and internal and external support to develop and deliver the project, manage the project in terms of moving from idea to action and reflect on the development of the project against key themes related to being enterprising, the role of the individual in moving an idea from concept to action; and the influence of the entrepreneurial task environment.