Master of Business Administration Finance MBA

This module provides an introduction to the theory and practice of financial accounting and reporting, management accounting and finance. Both commercial and not-for-profit organisations will be considered.

Financial reporting is the process of presenting financial (and other) information to a range of stakeholders in order to ensure appropriate accountability and stewardship. Students will be encouraged to consider the need for integrity in financial accounting and reporting, and the potential limitations of regulation and standards.

Management accounting is concerned with the preparation and presentation of accounting information to aid managers in their jobs of planning, decision making and control. New and traditional management accounting techniques are analysed in the context of a changing management context with its emphasis on strategy, costing and performance metrics. The content of the module is aimed primarily at managers and not accountants.

The finance section emphasises two of the major financial decisions, the investment decision and the financing decision - where the money comes from and how it is best used within the organisation. 

The module aims to introduce participants to key economic tools, concepts, and their application and to provide participants with an understanding of the nature and scope of economic policy and the economic theories upon which it is based. The emphasis is on policy. In particular, this module aims to offer a rigorous understanding of basic economic principles by combining theory and application to contemporary issues. 

Learning outcomes:

• The development, access and operation of markets for resources, goods and services.
• A coherent core of economic principles, including the microeconomics of decision and choice, production and exchange and the macroeconomics of employment, national income, the balance of payments, exchange rates, inflation, growth and money.
• Economic policy with an understanding of analytical methods and model-based argument and of different methodological approaches and their strengths and limitations.
• Ability to apply core economic theory and economic reasoning to applied topics.

Entrepreneurship is now seen as a positive force for economic development in virtually all economies, yet there is no clear consensus as to what it is or how it is manifested. This course sets out to identify entrepreneurship in theory and its economic contribution, positive and negative, in practice. Finally, it considers whether policy intervention can encourage entrepreneurship activity and if so, how this may best be achieved.

This module explores key contemporary issues in organisational behaviour and the management of people in diverse and dynamic contexts. The topics covered will include employee motivation, leadership and working in teams, power and politics, conflict, change, culture, inclusion and contemporary challenges for an emerging industrial age.

This module is designed to introduce the fundamental concepts of marketing and to help managers understand the ways in which these may be used in practice. The course examines: understanding the marketing concept; the role of marketing within a business and its contribution to business performance and enhancing value; developing marketing strategy; segmentation, targeting and positioning; managing the marketing mix; and planning and implementation. These subjects are taught and debated in such a way as to provide participants with a more critical perspective on modern marketing by encouraging students to evaluate their broader social impact.

This module provides a thorough grounding in concepts and principles that are essential for the successful management of operations in contemporary organisations. Module topics include the role of the operations function and the major variables in managing operations; service operations management, including service systems design and queuing systems; quality concepts and the management of quality; supply chain management concepts including material and information flows, supply chain dynamics, forecasting and sales and operations planning, postponement and mass customisation; lean thinking and lean concepts and process excellence; project management concepts and methods.

To provide students of management with the key tools, concepts and frameworks of strategic analysis and to examine the process of strategy implementation. 

Learning outcomes:

• The dynamic and changing nature of business and the consideration of the future of organisations within the global business environment, including the management of risk.
• The management of resources.
• The development of appropriate policies and strategies within a changing environment to meet stakeholder interests.
• The need for individuals and organisations to manage responsibly and sustainably and behave ethically in relation to social, cultural, economic and environmental issues.
• The development of strategic priorities to deliver business at speed in an environment where digital technology has reshaped traditional revenue and business models.

This module takes the form of a series of lectures, workshops, case studies and role play and is taken by all MBA students. The course integrates and reflects upon the interdisciplinary nature of the MBA programme and challenges students' understanding and application of the material presented on the core MBA modules. This is undertaken by focusing on the role of different business stakeholders in achieving economic and environmental sustainability - through an examination of their possibly contradicting and contradictory objectives, values and decision-making processes. We have a wide range of practitioners featuring in the course. The participants have to present and defend their integrated sustainable strategy to a real board, consisting of practitioners with experience of board membership. The students also have to run a real media conference consisting of journalists from the press.

The idea that managers should operate in the interests of shareholders is examined and its consequences explored. The course looks at what should happen in practice, but also what does happen. Where theory and practice apparently diverge possible reasons are explored. 

Learning outcomes:

• The dynamic and changing nature of business and the consideration of the future of organisations within the global business environment, including the management of risk.
• The sources, uses and management of finance.
• The use of accounting and other information systems for managing financial risk.
• The development of appropriate policies and strategies within a changing environment to meet stakeholder interests.
• The use of risk management techniques and business continuity planning to help maximise achievement of strategic objectives.

The module examines the risk and return characteristics of classes of financial securities (equities, bonds, derivatives) and the processes and consequences of combining these securities in portfolios. The traditional meanvariance approach is extended in two ways, first by recognising that return distributions may not be well described by mean and variance, and secondly by examining the possibility that investors take into account non financial, ethicalconcerns in their portfolio building decisions. Any finance module, and a portfolio management module, in particular, needs, post 2008, to reflect (and to reflect on) the gap between textbook treatments and "the real world". Standard textbook treatments offer "the efficient markets hypothesis", "the capital asset pricing model" and "the Black Scholes model" in a relatively uncritical way, but post 2008 these models have been ridiculed in the financial press as "unrealistic". This major difference of opinion is examined in the module.

This course provides students with an appreciation of the role of law in consumer and commercial transactions. One of three central aims of the course is to offer participants an appreciation of the legal status of corporations and the rights and responsibilities of the various stakeholders in the corporate entity.

This module examines ethical issues and dilemmas, covering a range of complex and controversial problems relating to business in a global economy. The main concepts and theories underpinning the business ethics field will be introduced, and students shall have the opportunity to apply these to business situations. More specifically, the course explores issues of human rights, globalization and sustainable development, and places these within different philosophical and cultural perspectives. The course also explores the role of corporations, multinational corporations, and Nation-States from an ethical perspective, and situates these explorations within a political-economic framework. 

This module explores the role of Business Intelligence (BI) in transforming the way companies strategize and organize for change to induce sustainable growth and innovation, new organizational forms, and intellectual property. BI is prevalently relevant to the digital economy. Being digitally fluent is a must to lead and manage, and to respond to changes in competition and markets. 

Entrepreneurship in Practice will introduce students to the more practical elements of innovation and enterprise activity across multiple contexts, including not just new venture creation but corporate and social entrepreneurship as well. Whereas Entrepreneurship and Creativity focus on idea generation and entrepreneurial theory, Entrepreneurship in Practice will prepare students to recognise opportunities and to implement innovation and enterprising ideas. The ability to make informed and timely decisions will be an important aspect of this, and the module will use a start-up business simulation to encourage this. 

What is Innovation Management? - definitions and models of the process; Innovation Strategy; the national and competitive environment; innovation processes within multinational firms; innovation processes within large public sector organisations; the systems of innovation specific to small high technology firms; Management techniques for innovation, shared vision, effective team working and a creative climate; Learning from Markets, marketing technological and complex products and learning through alliances; Integration of Approaches, Key themes, learning to manage and measure innovation and through the group presentations - Appraisal of innovation management within different organisations.

This course is about leadership based on the observation that the leadership needs of organisations vary by the stage of the organisation's existence. Leading an entrepreneurial start-up requires different skills from leading a mature organisation. Consequently, organisations need to be aware of their progress through the organisation's lifecycle and evolving needs. This course examines the stages of an organisations existence and the associated evolving leadership needs, plus additional situations such as leading in a crisis. The course focuses on identifying leadership needs and the necessary decisions together with the appropriate leadership style. As a secondary theme, there will also be a number of sessions focussing on leadership qualities and styles which will encourage participants to reflect on their own development as leaders. A number of models of leadership are considered and different leadership perspectives. Understanding of the concepts is achieved predominantly but not exclusively through the use of case study material.