Recommended Study Sequence

Marketing Management is designed to provide an introduction to the key concepts, principles and practices that constitute the Marketing discipline. It will develop a focus on marketing as a business philosophy underpinning the activities of the firm.

This unit introduces students to the concept of the value chain and its management. The unit explores the strategic issues of the role of the value chain in developing, maintaining and growing a business. It will enable participants to understand what is required and the business models that will have to be adopted.

This unit locates the management of human resources within its theoretical, philosophical, historical, regulatory, social and organisational contexts. An integrated model of strategic human resource management is developed whereby the strategic link between managing people and corporate planning is demonstrated. The unit also examines the ways in which the various HR processes are inter-related and introduces debate on the future directions of people management in the modern organisation.

This unit is a foundation course in financial management in the corporate context. It examines corporate financial decision-making by exploring sources of business finance and means of evaluating alternatives. The unit has a particular focus on financial risk management.

This unit is a foundational benchmark for management students wishing to gain an understanding of international management issues in multi-national enterprises (MNEs). The unit provides practical guidance in how to develop and sustain competitive advantage in the international arena. Functional areas of MNE's are discussed in a broader economic context and international business processes are analysed for companies wishing to embark on global expansion. This unit will provide: a framework for the study of international business; an analytical and strategic perspective to the study of international business issues, in particular, on the strategies, which are required to produce international competitiveness.

Courses in organisational behaviour usually concentrate on the responses of organisational participants to the stimulus of organisational phenomena such as structure, technology and management processes. Such an approach has been heavily influenced by behaviourist and humanistic psychology and functionalist sociology, and suffers from the limitations of these approaches. Given the social formation of organisations, an interactionist approach is offered. The interactionist model holds that meaning lies both within society and within individuals and is inculcated in individuals through the processes of socialisation. The individual, however, is by no means passive and seeks to impose meaning on organisational phenomena. Group behaviour is explained in terms of shared provinces of meaning as individuals collectively confront their life situations. The implications of such interactions for organisations are explored.

This unit focuses on the analytical uses of accounting information by managers. It emphasises the role of both financial and management accounting in measuring, processing and communicating information that is useful in making economic decisions.

This unit places strategic management in an historical context to identify changing trends; in particular, the pressures towards internationalisation, globalisation and gaining competitive advantage. It also examines critically the major theoretical approaches to strategy and emerging trends in this field of study to demonstrate how decision making processes, leadership and organisation politics impact upon the strategic activities of managers. Drawing on various concepts, theories and approaches, a dynamic, contingent and contested view is presented of strategic management.