Online MBA: Master of Business Administration

Principles of Marketing Management

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 and 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.

Organisational Psychology in a Social Context

Human Resource (HR) professionals and managers operate within increasingly complex and changing organisational and contextual circumstances in the public, private and 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. Furthermore, you'll discover how economic forces affect and influence organisational practices, and their impact upon the function and practises of HR. You'll explore globalisation and how changing demographics and social environments impact on organisational strategy and the HR function. You’ll also explore why ethical and democratic practices are needed to meet the changes of complex business and economic practices (and 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.

Management and Strategy

Within this module you'll explore the fields of management and strategy, noting how strategic analysis and formulation contribute to an organisation’s 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 positions, how to analyse strategic situations and how to create the organisational context to make the chosen strategy work. Practical and problem-oriented, 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 also explore the fields of management and strategy, noting how strategic analysis and formulation contribute to an organisation’s performance.

Principles of Economics

You'll end this module with a toolkit of knowledge around how economists define, evaluate, measure and compare firms’ profit max strategies given different market settings, building a foundation of awareness around the factors affecting both the performance of firms and countries. You'll also be able to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of alternative explanations of economic growth and development. You’ll begin by looking at Microeconomics, examining the ways in which decision-making units (individuals and firms) make their decisions. These fundamental concepts and approaches underpin much of modern microeconomics and consider in detail firms’ input and output decisions based on profit maximisation and cost minimization in different market settings (perfect competition, monopoly, oligopoly, monopolistic competition). Basic economic models are used to introduce you to analytical methods of reasoning with applications and mathematical problems used to help you see clearly the interplay between key concepts. Consumer choice based on utility maximization is considered in detail and then applied to areas such as labour supply. It's then the turn of Macroeconomics, where we master the basic concepts, such as the determination of national income, the workings of the monetary system, causes and consequences of inflation and the reasons behind unemployment. We then introduce the tools of economic theory and develop your understanding of the factors affecting both economic growth and development. You'll examine how a country can increase the size of its national income, and also how increased growth can impact a society by improving the development indicators. Upon completion you should understand how economists define, evaluate, measure and attempt to boost employment, economic growth and development and reduce inflation and public debt. You'll be encouraged throughout to debate current issues and challenges facing economics, enhancing your policy decision-making capacity by examining a wide range of decisions, alternatives and their implications. Given the scientific papers of leading scientists in the field the module aims to value critical openness to different perspectives, theories and methods, and encourage cross-disciplinary collaboration.

Innovation and Entrepreneurship

You'll critically review existing entrepreneurship and innovation models and concepts, including process models, and explore ‘patchwork’ and ‘opportunity’ based approaches to entrepreneurship and innovation. During the module you'll explore how ‘innovation’ comes from a variety of sources, examine the principles of ‘open’ innovation, and recognise the importance of exploiting available networks and developing an innovative culture. Your ability to analyse and critique ‘entrepreneurial’ business models, both existing and conceptual, will be improved through the utilisation of tools such as the Business Model Canvas. You'll think creatively by proposing innovative solutions to creating and capturing value through the medium of consultancy report and applying some of the theoretical underpinnings of the module. Finally, the principles of entrepreneurship and innovation are analysed in the context of entrepreneurs, start-up and family businesses from across the globe, in various commercial, public-sector and not- for-profit sectors, emphasising the importance and challenges of ‘social’ and ‘sustainability-led’ innovation.

Finance for Decision Making

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.

Entrepreneurial Action (Major Project)

The Entrepreneurial Action module will allow you to undertake a project focused on understanding and supporting entrepreneurial action in practice. This is to be undertaken on an individual basis and could be an applied/engaged research project – for instance, 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.

Modules are subject to change and availability.