Master in Management MIM

The overall aim of this module is to provide students with an understanding of marketing in terms of academic principles and practical applications. Academically, students will learn about both the foundations of marketing management but also current debates within the field. Practically, students will learn about marketing management tools such as the extended marketing mix, segmentation, positioning and targeting and how these might be applied using case studies. 

Managing Finance is designed to develop your expertise in problem solving, numeracy and commercial awareness through a lecture and workshop program that helps you understand, apply and competently practice in accounting and finance. The module aims to take you from an introductory-level beginning, designed for those who have not studied accounting and finance before, through to a level of understanding that will allow you to engage confidently with finance professionals.

Business analytics has been defined as the extensive use of data, statistical and quantitative analysis, explanatory and predictive models, and fact-based management to drive decisions and actions in both private and public sector organisations. The success of an organisation’s business strategy depends heavily on how well it can deploy its analytics. Business analytics is a process that transforms data into actions through analysis and insights in the context of organisational decision making and problem solving at a strategic level. The module introduces students to the key aspects of data analytics and examines how business analytics drives decisions and actions, both operational and strategic.

This module focuses on the skills and knowledge required by effective leaders and managers in contemporary organisations. These skills are developed by exploring contemporary organisational phenomena from different perspectives and personal reflection. Over the course of the semester, students will learn about managerial work and its tensions and contradictions in a range of organisational settings. The nature of the management role will be problematized through a series of cases and scenarios that will encourage learners to explore the nature of professionalism and ethics in management. The module also aims to develop students as managers who engage in scholarly, reflective practice both during their time on the programme and in their future careers.

The purpose of the module is to facilitate students in gaining a broad, interdisciplinary overview of theoretical approaches to Organisational Theory (OT). It is intended that students will develop an understanding of how and why OT assists in analysing, from a scholarly perspective, complex situations in relation to management and organisation theory, and practice.

The module will enable students to gain enhanced and comprehensive knowledge of theories in the organisation studies field, and will prepare students for performing accurate analyses of relevant organisational contexts.

Having introduced the concept of OT it is intended that the module will focus on the concept of ‘organisation’ as a complex entity of multiple possibilities, ensuring it is open to investigation from a variety of perspectives, with the aim to encourage a critical understanding and reflection of ‘organisation’ for students.

This overview will include a broadly chronological introduction to OT, set in the context of other intellectual and interdisciplinary traditions including disciplines of Economics, History and Politics. It will facilitate both micro-level and macro-level understandings of organisations, including contemporary understandings of behaviours and power enacted and experienced within organisations, and how they interact with other external organisations in society.

Having completed this module, students will be well positioned to discern the links among and between complex empirical cases and theoretical perspectives: leadership and decision-making theories; power and political theories; gender/Feminist theories; organisational culture, and critical/post-modernist theories.

This module investigates the intersections between organisation studies and strategy. Drawing on key journal articles and empirical information, students are invited to apply strategic theories and to critically reflect on their efficacy. The module makes use of online collaboration tools to stimulate group work and discussion.

Operations management is concerned with the creation of goods and services. This places the subject at the heart of what every organisation does irrespective of size, location or sector. The success of an organisation’s business strategy depends heavily on how well it can deploy its operations. With increasing globalisation and the need to seek for areas of competitive advantage, operations management is increasingly examining the inter-relationships and inter-dependencies of the multiple, independent organisations necessary for the production of goods or services. The effective management of supply chains is key to successful operations in modern organisations. The need to be competitive, reach new markets, source new goods and raw materials as well as globalisation have all been key contributors to the development of supply chains as a function. The module provides the student with the ability to select appropriate key strategies and methods to be used in achieving efficient and effective operations in a given supply chain application.

Project management is a key management paradigm, enabling organisations to efficiently achieve their goals in a changing business environment complicated by risks, uncertainties and competitor pressures. This module introduces cutting-edge principles and best practices of managing projects within organisations. The areas to be covered span state-of-the-art strategies of successful project management, including risk and change management, project cost and schedule performance management, quality assurance and sustainability. Fundamentally, any project implies innovation, because the whole project aim is in creating a unique product, service or process within a given time period and with limited resources and budgets. This module aims to provide students with an understanding of project management and its principles in a contemporary project environment, while reaping the benefits of team dynamics through group work.

The aim of this module is to integrate the two fields of innovation and corporate entrepreneurship focusing upon the corporate practices of entrepreneurship and innovation across different sectors. It will approach the analysis of innovation and entrepreneurship by drawing attention to relevant theories and research. The module will also detail how organisations engage in entrepreneurial and innovative practices. The module will explore the various corporate entrepreneurial strategies, how, why and when new business models are developed, how entrepreneurial opportunities are recognised, and value is created in firms. In particular, the module will examine organisational tools to manage entrepreneurship and innovation. Further, issues and dilemmas in ‘doing’ entrepreneurship and innovation will be discussed.

The pedagogical approach of this module is designed to encourage the active engagement of students in the learning process. This is done explicitly with group-work exercises such as ‘role play’, ‘simulation’, ’case analyses’, ’brainstorming’ and ‘business modelling’ in seminars. During seminars, students will be introduced to a topic and then given various exercises in which they will work together in small groups to develop their sense of community, active learning engagement with their peers, critical thinking and analytical skills. Similarly, they will be introduced to corporate illustrations of the concepts discussed in synchronous and asynchronous lectures. They will be given an opportunity to discuss and justify why specific concepts apply to certain corporate situations in synchronous session interactions. Further, they will also be given opportunities during seminar exercises to apply the concepts they have gathered from the synchronous and asynchronous lectures and case analyses, group work, and readings and develop new business models. During two seminars, the groups will be required to engage in group study exercises prior to the seminars and make brief presentations describing what they have learned from the exercises.

Strategic communication involves the use of arguments aimed at influencing opinions and decisions of relevant audiences (citizens, investors, customers and other stakeholders). The goal of this module is to introduce students to the analysis and evaluation of persuasive argumentation in strategic communication contexts (such as business, politics, and journalism), with a particular attention given to the role of digital media in shaping influencing strategies. The module provides students with analytic and methodological instruments from argumentation theory and rhetoric that will enhance their ability to critically examine business, public and media discourses and to understand issues of persuasion and trust in digital strategic communication.

Argumentation is a communicative activity in which reasons are given to justify an opinion and persuade an audience to accept it. As such, argumentation plays a decisive role in media discourse, corporate and political discourse and all other forms of strategic communication. Good argumentation promotes strategic decision-making processes, help building sustainable and ethical persuasion, enhance public trust in organisations, political institutions and news media.
While argumentation is naturally oriented at reasonable and ethical persuasion, public influence is often pursued via fallacious and unsound arguments or even non-argumentative tactics of manipulation (e.g. fake news, power, ideology, violence) creating serious threats to democracy, economic stability and prosperity, social justice and citizens’ trust.
This module aims at providing students with conceptual and analytical instruments from argumentation theory and rhetoric which will enhance their ability to critically examine business, public and media discourses and to understand issues of persuasion and trust in strategic communication and media discourse.

Branding is now pervasive in society. Communicating a positive image and building a good reputation to create a strong brand, have become key objectives not only for global private corporations selling products, but also for countries, cities, regions and even neighbourhoods (place branding); public, cultural and religious institutions (corporate branding); and individual celebrities (self-branding). The module examines branding in its multiple instantiations, as a set of socio-cultural communicative practices and processes, which rely on very fundamental socio-cultural dynamics. In the module, we will consider the complex process of brand management from the definition of a brand and branding strategy to the elaboration of brand narratives, taking into account the increasingly digitalised media landscape and the participatory, two-way communication context where organisations and individuals operate. Thorough the module we seek to understand how identity, public opinion, reputation, and branding are negotiated at the intersection between top-down corporate communication and more grassroots or networked forms of expression. The module combines insights from business studies, social psychology, anthropology and cultural studies, introducing students to branding from a critical strategic communication perspective, focusing on power struggles, contradictions and dialogic relations. Besides offering students a good overview of key concepts and tools for strategically managing brand communication, the module includes a critical reflection on key issues and debates relating to the societal and ethical implications of branding practices, especially in relation to the prominence of promotional cultures in today’s democratic societies.

This module examines businesses from an ethical perspective. Business ethics theories will be introduced and critiqued with reference to contemporary business. The module will provide students with key tools for understanding and practicing business ethics.

​This module will provide an innovative student centred approach to learning. It will be made up of a desk-based investigation opening up to students an opportunity to blend approaches to teaching and learning in a way that suits their individual learning style. The module will provide students with the opportunity to investigate international perspectives of management guided by an expert academic member of staff, such as the international management environment, the culture context of management, and global human resource management. Overall learning outcomes of the module will form the scope of the teaching and learning relationship and will be augmented by the student and academic who together will agree upon a series of expected outputs from the individuals’ work and clearly demonstrate milestones in the teaching and learning process.

This module offers an opportunity for students to develop knowledge and understanding of the multi-level processes involved in organisational and managerial practices. The module is a practical platform for students to develop business analysis and strategic decision-making skills; as well as the opportunity to demonstrate the ability to research, analyse and present information coherently in order to support a recommended course of action. The individual assignment provides students with the opportunity to carry out an in-depth investigation of a management issue relevant to their MSc programme. For this assessment students are to critically evaluate and synthesise relevant theories, models and practices of management by undertaking a detailed enquiry into a programme specific area of research by undertaking an analytical literature review by using secondary data. The reflective element of the individual assignment encourages students to critically analyse and evaluate their experience of the learning process during the module and their MSc.

This module is designed to help students develop an in-depth understanding of a topic within their chosen domain of management and business and for the student to use this knowledge to analyse a management problem or issue. A preparation phase of the module is included to provide the students with the skills necessary in problem analysis and research in order that they can undertake an independent research project. Thereafter, independent, guided study and research are used to develop both theoretical and practical critical-thinking skills, and to present research, analysis and findings. The reflective element of the dissertation gives students an opportunity to critically analyse and evaluate their experience of the learning process.