International Business Management

Developing Skills for Business Leadership

Successful leaders have different approaches to their work, sharing a range of diverse personality traits. A key purpose of this module is to encourage you to develop a strong sense of self-awareness of your own strengths and weaknesses as a manager and colleague. In addition, you will develop a range of transferrable skills which are pivotal to successful management practice. These include decision-making skills, team-working and interpersonal skills and others associated with developing personal effectiveness.

Research Methods

This module prepares you for completing high quality, systematic business and management research, and equips you to be successful in your Final Research Project. You will learn how to undertake effective research drawing upon a range of secondary and primary data sources, and will be introduced to a range of tools required for research including methodological issues, data collection techniques and study skills.

Operations Management

In this module you will develop your understanding of an organisation's ability to deliver goods and services of the quality, quantity and cost that will satisfy customers' needs, while making efficient use of resources. The key principles introduced in this module can be applied to any business sector and function. Issues covered include ethics, environmental sustainability, global business, complexity and uncertainty, and continuing professional development.

Finance and Accounting for Business

In this module you will develop your critical assessment of corporate financial information from the users' perspective. You will study both financial and management accounting covering three areas: basics (terminology, purposes, users), rules and regulations, and business entities.

• Financial accounting - key financial statements, published accounts and analysis and interpretation through ratios.
• Management accounting - costing, budgeting and forecasting, budget management and pricing.

Introduction to the Principles of Responsible Marketing

In this module you will be introduced to the key principles of marketing. You will explore the roles of buyers, the marketing environment, and the ways marketers plan, manage, and monitor marketing programmes in an international environment.

Global Strategic Management

Strategic management is the process by which managers formulate and implement strategies to generate high performance. In this module you will develop your understanding of the managerial strategic challenge; how to deliver sustainable competitive advantage. You will engage in critical evaluation of the key strategic issues. You will consider the wider economic environment and explore why strategy is important, how organisations make strategic decisions through the processes of analysis, choice and responsible and ethical management and leadership.

Innovation, Change and Organisations

The aim of this module is to provide insight into a series of topics that represent key issues around innovation and change and the organisational context in modern general management.  The module is forward looking from the contemporary organisation towards future developments.  A key perspective is the development to date of entrepreneurship, innovation, change and organisational practices making students aware of long-term patterns and cycles, and the way and extent to which the past can shape the present.

Strategic Planning in Practice OR Consultancy Project OR Virtual Global Study Trip

Choose between:

Strategic Planning in Practice: a hands-on, intensive experience with the ideas and practices of international business through working in a Strategy Planning Software. Students will work in groups and analyse real organisations. The experiential nature of the module puts the knowledge of the participants to work.

Consultancy Project: gain practical international project experience by working in a cross-cultural team on a real problem for a client organisation. You will develop problem solving and communication skills as well as the ability to work in cross-cultural teams. Your team will work virtually, face-to-face and with help from tutors.

Virtual Global Study Trip: this module gives you a hands-on experience of current business ideas through visiting multinational enterprises and international organisations. You meet with leaders of global firms and have the opportunity to tour facilities. The programme includes presentations to executives, managers and experts.

Understanding Customer Behaviour

You will critically appraise the behaviours of customers and their interactions with marketing. Informed by behavioural science, you will analyse why customers behave as they do and how marketing activity influences their behaviours. This analysis informs your critical understanding and implementation of both strategic and responsible marketing practice. An innovative dimension of this course is the investigation of change agents that will significantly influence the behaviours of customers in the future, for example neuroscience, climate change and technology innovation. This is an analytical module that utilises research evidence to inform evaluation, behavioural and communications research.

Sustainable Global Marketing Strategy

This module embraces the UN Sustainable Development Goals and their relevance for responsible marketing practitioners. Students learn how to select and apply a range of theories, concepts and approaches in order to inform the decision-making processes involved in developing sustainable global marketing strategy. The main aim of this module is to ensure that students understand and appreciate the importance of ethical, social, cultural and environmental issues in the global marketplace and the profound impact these areas have on sustainable global marketing practices

People Resourcing and Talent Management

This module will give you an understanding of the principal internal and external environmental contexts of contemporary organisations and how these affect both organisational and HR strategies. You will engage with leading edge practices for planning and recruiting organisational workforces, including the risks and benefits of using technology, and learn how to create an integrated people plan.

Employee Engagement, Performance and Reward

This module aims to provide a critical understanding of how contemporary organisations can elicit employee engagement and performance, and the challenges associated with doing so. It presents theoretical perspectives on the individual and collective employment relationship as the basis by which students can understand the challenges of managing employees – drawing on the key themes of authority, power, and control - and how the levers at management’s disposal, notably, those associated with reward and performance management, can be deployed to best effective. The module also explores dysfunction and conflict in the employment relationship from both theoretical and practical standpoints, and the role of the HR professional in managing the relationship between stakeholders.

Entrepreneurial Theory and Practice

This module enhances your understanding of enterprise and entrepreneurship, and helps you develop vital entrepreneurial skills. These skills include idea generation and evaluation, communication, networking and the evaluation of risk. In addition, you will develop an understanding of the social and economic impact of entrepreneurialism. The module focuses on developing an understanding of factors relating to the development of the entrepreneur, the entrepreneurial idea and the entrepreneurial organisation. By studying these topics the module bridges the gap between theory and practice.

Planning for New Business Ventures

This module develops your business planning skills and is essential for those students who intend to start and run their own businesses. At the heart of the module is an evaluation of a firm's business model. You will prepare a business plan in groups for a new or existing venture, which will be assessed by a panel. You will be evaluated on its economic logic, value to customer and return on investment for its owners.

Strategic Business Simulation

This module teaches you about group decision making. It involves a live new business development scenario, through which you apply your understanding of business and entrepreneurship principles to a computer simulation. The simulation will challenge your business, entrepreneurial and responsible management decisions when running an international business and will consider a range of business functions. You will develop management skills such as team management, budgeting, strategising, implementing a communications strategy and coping with unexpected competitor activity.

Corporate Governance and Social Responsibility

In this module you will learn about alternative perspectives on strategic management and corporate governance. This will encompass stakeholder issues including ethics, sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR). You will develop your understanding of approaches to solving problems when governing in the corporate sector. Your studies will consider current issues and consider the social implications of governance. You will also focus on the impact of globalisation on international management practices. You will be equipped with the knowledge to enhance management decisions involving ethical choices. Finally, you will consider your assumptions about the role of managers and organisations in a complex and challenging context through the exploration of contemporary issues in CSR.

Corporate Finance Concepts

You will study how businesses manage their finances within a company in line with their corporate strategy. This includes understanding the different methods used for valuing a businesses. You will also understand how key business decisions are made from a financial perspective, such as the investment in major projects, managing working capital and evaluating risk.

Financial Markets and Institutions

You will study how businesses interact in an external financial context by understanding how funds are provided through markets and institutions. This module looks at how financial markets operate, including stock markets, markets for fixed income assets and derivative markets and focuses on issues of asset pricing and market efficiency. With regard to institutions we examine the transformation of the financial sector as a result of globalisation, technical innovation and regulatory change.

Procurement & Supply Chain Management

In an increasingly globalised business environment, the ability of organisations to identify, and then to manage, supply networks and individual chains of supply has grown in its significance. It is of vital importance that both the upstream and downstream relationships with suppliers and customers are managed effectively to ensure value is added whilst controlling costs and ultimately satisfying the customer. In this module you will learn about the key elements and activities within procurement and supply chain management, how this function supports the wider organisation and its objectives, and how these activities can be managed to ensure the optimal outcome.

Strategic & Sustainable Logistics

Physical logistics is concerned with managing and controlling the activities and processes along a chain of supply, from procuring materials to moving, distributing and delivering finished goods that satisfy customer orders. Customers have become ever more demanding, wanting more for less and greater added value. This often involves customised products and services, quick response deliveries, and state-of-the-art information systems. This new era of customer ‘pull’ as well as the globalised business environment, alongside with the emphasis on sustainability, has led to the concept of ‘Strategic and Sustainable Logistics’. Students will evaluate how effective logistics and distribution systems can become key business enablers, and the importance of managing international logistics systems.

Digital Business Strategy

It is no overstatement to say that digital technologies are having pervasive and disruptive effects on organisational life. Few industries and areas of work have been untouched by their ever-deeper penetration into products, services and business processes. The 21st century has seen the rise of new industries and business models unthinkable without the availability of fast, affordable and flexible digital devices – together with their associated networked infrastructures. This module aims to help students appreciate and address the organisational challenges and opportunities bound up with digital innovation and transformation. It looks in particular at the strategic and leadership issues managers are likely to confront, and the concepts, theories and frameworks they need to understand and apply in response to these.

Information Systems in Organisations

Digital technologies, as diverse as accounting and sales software, internet and mobile technology, artificial intelligence and robotics, have wide-ranging roles and impacts in organisations that need to be understood and managed. This module aims to equip students with knowledge and skills for understanding, analysing and evaluating the use of digital technologies in organisations, taking an information perspective. This will be grounded in systems theory, and focus on the role of data and information in management decision making and business processes.

The Practice of Data Analysis

Students will learn how to examine data and use statistics to produce information to help businesses, to formulate strategies and make decisions. Statistics underlies business analytics and intelligence and becomes a powerful tool for decision-making. Essential concepts in business analytics and intelligence will be introduced, as well as statistical and econometrics concepts that underlie areas such as business analytics, data mining, data analytics, big data and artificial intelligence. Students are encouraged to work with diverse datasets, learn how to prepare these and test basic models of analytics.

Business Intelligence

Business Intelligence (BI) refers to technologies, applications, and practices for the collection, integration, analysis, and presentation of business information. The purpose of business intelligence is to support better business decision making. This course provides an overview of the technology of BI and the application of BI to an organisation’s strategies and goals. This module equips students to apply data extensively using theory and knowledge to perform statistical and quantitative analysis to drive business decision and actions. Students will learn the business intelligence techniques and skills to understand, evaluate and interpret business and performance metrics and tools, in order to improve individual and organisational performance, and use this to inform and update organisational policies and procedures.