International Business Management - 2012 entry

Business at Brookes is known internationally for its learning and teaching, evidenced by the achievement of top scores in the last quality review. We adopt an innovative approach to teaching, which helps the student learning experience to be vibrant and engaging. Our students develop skills in critical enquiry along with a firm grounding in business practice which, together, enable them to confidently take on the demands of graduate jobs in leading international businesses.

We are the only business school to host a Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (in assessment) as well as the two national Higher Education Academy Subject Centres in business and management disciplines (Business, Management, Accounting and Finance, and Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism), putting us at the centre of business education in the UK.

The international focus of the Business School is reflected in the content of the course. You study in a research-rich environment, learning from the staff who write leading textbooks on business and management and who bring their considerable experience and links with industry into the school.

We firmly believe learning should be exciting as well as challenging. Students are encouraged to take an active approach to their studies through, for example, problem-solving classes, dragons’ den type assessments involving local employers and working with actors to develop presentation skills. At the Business School we want you to enjoy developing the skills you will need to succeed in the competitive business world.

The distinctive learning activities will support you in developing the knowledge and skills for effective learning in the rest of the course. Later in the course more emphasis is placed on acquiring specialist knowledge and the compulsory modules will provide different perspectives on international business issues and opportunities for more autonomous learning. The course aims to provide opportunities for you to work with business professionals, for example, using guest speakers and live cases from the business community.

Knowledge and understanding

A graduate in International Business Management will be able to:

1. Demonstrate a systematic understanding of:
   • the contribution of key business functions, processes and structures, and their interrelationships, to business effectiveness
   • the complex and uncertain nature of the global environment, its effects upon the strategic management and direction of business and responses to change
   • the nature of the International Business transformational processes.
2. Explore and critically evaluate business, management and leadership processes, concepts and frameworks through analysis of complex and multifaceted business problems from a range of organisational, industrial and international contexts.
3. Demonstrate an ability to make business and management decisions that:
   • show strategic awareness and an ability to analyse and evaluate options that contribute to business policies and strategies
   • recognise international complexity, multiple perspectives and the culturally mediated nature of organisations
   • use functional data for the management of risk and uncertainty.
4. Take a systematic and integrated approach to the management of people, which acknowledges the uncertainty, complexities and interdependencies of management.
5. Deploy relevant techniques for the effective financial management of business.
6. Examine and deploy a range of business and management research methodologies and techniques, demonstrating an awareness of their role in decision-making and the development of ideas at the forefront of the discipline.
7. Use the theory of communication, networking and the management of a multicultural workforce to evaluate practice within a international business environment.
8. Critically evaluate the importance of values, ethics and social responsibility in all aspects of business and personal life.

Disciplinary and professional skills

A graduate in International Business Management will be able to:

1. Structure, design and apply tools of research, analysis, decision-making and evaluation to a wide range of international scenarios and problems.
2. Demonstrate skills of critical evaluation to devise, substantiate and sustain arguments contributing to decision-making.
3. Identify competencies in the leadership and management of organisational activities and processes in a range of contexts with particular emphasis on multicultural perspectives.
4. Demonstrate self-awareness by reflection on continuing personal and professional development, including the ability to evaluate their own performance.
5. Use and practise business communication techniques including digital and on-line methods.

Transferable skills

A graduate in International Business Management will have developed the following transferable skills:

1. Team working: interact effectively within a team / learning / professional group; recognise, support or be proactive in leadership; negotiate in a professional context; and manage conflict.
2. Self-management: with minimum guidance, manage own learning, exercising initiative and personal responsibility; be able to seek and make use of feedback and evaluate own work.
3. Learning skills: demonstrate the learning ability needed to undertake appropriate further training of a professional or academic nature.
4. Communication: communicate information, ideas, problems and solutions in a professional manner using appropriate media and rhetorical structures.
5. Problem solving: be confident and flexible in identifying and defining complex problems and the application of appropriate knowledge, tools / methods to their solution.
6. Information technology: effective and confident use of relevant and appropriate technologies to enhance learning, communication and problem solving. Students will be able to communicate effectively online and experience working with others using collaborative tools.