Master of Business Administration (The Liverpool MBA) MBA

This module explores topics in organisational behaviour at the individual, group, and organisational levels. At the individual level, the module looks at individual differences in key attributes that lead to work effectiveness such as personality and motivation. At the group level, the module builds on earlier content to establish how teams function and explores the role of effective leadership in influencing teams. At the organisational level, the module looks at organisational culture and change and consolidates the content by looking at a range of organisations and sectors. The module will offer students several reflection points on their work behaviours on which they will receive targeted feedback.

Today’s managers must understand more than just how markets work and the principles of supply and demand. They also must understand how self-interested parties within organisations interact, and how corporate governance mechanisms control these interactions. This module applies basic economics tools to provide aspiring managers with the skill set necessary for rigorous analysis of business problems that they are likely to encounter throughout their careers.

The module aims to provide students with an understanding of the nature of financial resources available to an organisation; how resources can be managed to add value; how business activities are summarised and the relationships between different activities summarised and predicted; and how the core skills and competencies of an organisation are identified and managed.

The module takes a strategic approach and captures the essence of marketing planning in analysing the internal, external and customer environments in order to evaluate choices and exploit opportunities for growth. It examines sources of competitive advantage including being customer orientated, matching supply chain design to competitive strategy, exploiting pricing options and positioning the organisation’s products and/or services through integrated marketing communications strategies.

Leaders and managers of organisations today face many types of challenges. The essence of strategy is in successfully achieving the appropriate fit between resources and environment in an increasingly dynamic and turbulent world. The aim of the module is to provide the students with a comprehensive overview of strategic analysis, strategy formulation and implementation, and to enable them to develop and implement strategies in their own organisations. The module pays particular emphasis on helping students to understand the environment in which strategising takes place, including the industry and country environment. Furthermore, the module aims to enable students to understand and appreciate the organisational context in which strategic decisions are made. The module takes a critical approach. It draws on insights from a variety of sources and disciplines, including managerial and industry economics, but also behavioural perspectives and organisation theory in order to provide an integrative perspective on strategy.

This module aims to enable students to understand and apply key aspects of strategic management through business simulation exercises. Students work in a team environment to develop and reinforce their knowledge and skills in strategic decision-making, with a number of tasks centred on strategy, finance, marketing, and operations.  During the exercises teams compete against each other in a simulated business environment and the strategic decisions they make have various impacts on their organisations. Decisions are coordinated within the team based on the interpretation of various forms of information. Students reflect and are assessed on their understanding of both technical performance, complexity, temporal impacts and team/process issues.

This module is focused on developing the individual student as a reflective leader and manager. Through a series of diagnostic tools and exercises, students will gain insights into their strengths in leadership roles as well as develop areas for improvement. The module draws on a wide range of leadership theories and management best practices to equip students with the necessary tools to function as effective leaders. In sum, this module focuses on the individual within their own context, enabling them through practice, diagnostics, experience and reflection to recognise and develop the skills and knowledge they need to progress.

The objective of this module is to integrate the two fields of innovation and entrepreneurship focusing upon management practice and creating change in a range of sectors. It will approach the analysis of innovation and entrepreneurship by drawing attention to relevant theories and research but placing more emphasis on applying these to practice in a broader context including the private, public and third sector and ways of creating new business models, opportunities, value and change. In particular, the module will examine issues and dilemmas in “doing” innovation and entrepreneurship.

The module provides an understanding of the major drivers of the internationalisation of business activities. Based on the understanding gained from lectures, seminars and individual and group research activities throughout the module, students will be able to analyse the strategic implications of internationalisation for organisations and assess how to manage international business activities effectively. The module outlines the main theories and latest research evidence on major issues of international business management and explores key factors that make international business management different from domestic strategies and operations. The application of theoretical models and concepts to practical issues in the management of organisations is central to the module’s objectives. The module provides students with a sound knowledge of not only the theory and evidence on key topics in the internationalisation processes of organisations, but also applies this to how to manage effectively in the context of a complex and evolving international business environment. Examination of the major drivers of evolution of the international business environment (for example, the rise of emerging economies, and economic, technological, political and cultural changes affecting international trade and investment) provides the basis  for assessing how organisations may best adjust to the changing patterns of internationalisation. By the end of the module, students will understand how business strategies and operations fit into the fast changing global arena and will have a good appreciation of the strategic challenges and opportunities facing organisations that operate internationally, as well as of implications for their personal careers in an international context.

Management consulting projects offer great opportunities for learning and exchange, but they need to be carefully managed in order to achieve the expected outcomes. In this module, students gain first-hand practical experience in management consulting by working on a live project with a client organisation. Students are expected to offer a solution for the client’s issue in presentation format to be delivered to senior client managers.

The module provides the participants with both conceptual foundations and practical experience in the management of consulting projects, which can be delivered either by external consultants or by internal employees. The module builds on and integrates content from other MBA modules, such as Managing Financial Resources, Strategic Management Simulation and Strategy and Organisation. Students will develop skills related to management consulting, in particular project management, teamwork, data analysis, and oral and visual communication. Further learnings will depend on the exact project specified by the client, i.e students will gain insights into the client’s industry and the functional topic of the project, e.g. strategy, business development, marketing, etc. Typical projects could relate to market analysis, change management or product innovation and tasks could include industry analysis, external and internal benchmarking and firm-internal data analysis.

Advanced Corporate Finance and Financial Management aims to endow students with a comprehensive coverage of key finance areas, including equity/bond valuation, investment appraisal methods, portfolio theory, asset pricing, debt financing, initial public offerings, dividend policy, capital structure, mergers and acquisitions. Delivered through block teaching over five weeks via a mix of lectures, seminars and in-class exercises, the module provides students with a thorough understanding of key aspects of financial decision making, allowing them to better appreciate the enhanced – and ongoing – complexity of contemporary capital markets in terms of their functions, the variety of financial instruments available, the globalisation process and how it affects them and the concomitant changes in their reigning institutional design.

This module aims to enhance students’ knowledge and skills in Human Resource Management (HRM). The module covers several important topics in managing human resources, such as functional HRM, strategic HRM and the implications of HRM to organisational performance. This knowledge will increase students’ capabilities of implementing HR practices and develop their skills in human resource management.

​The module covers the major aspects of designing, launching, communicating and managing a brand. Delivered via a combination of interactive lectures, workshops, peer assessed presentations, case studies, quizzes and independent reading, students will be equipped with the tools necessary to design a brand and a launch campaign. Students then will be assessed via a role-play presentation to pitch the campaign.

The module will introduce students to the use of data analytics to aid decision making. Through the use of case studies from a variety of industries (e.g. aviation, health, sport), students will learn how different industries and organisations use analytics to gain insight from data in order to improve their operations. It also establishes the importance of data science for business intelligence, and describes opportunities and limitations in the use of analytics.

Upon completion of the module students will be able to interpret analytical results found in organisational reports, industry press, relevant literature and journal articles, and be able to make objective judgements on the quality, validity and usefulness of analytics performed by others.

Students will engage in data management and analysis, and familiarise themselves with existing platforms and software tools to develop core skills and expertise needed to process and visualise big data. The software package R will be used throughout the module and students will be able to perform analysis, including using machine learning, themselves.

The module will be delivered in an interactive style. Student participation and class exercises will allow students to gain a practical understanding of why data analytics has become an important tool in the business environment.

This aim of this module is to present key issues in corporate governance and discuss their impact on corporate financial performance. These include most common big-scale “agency” problems, where top executives of the firm have opportunities to take actions that benefit them, while shareholders and other stakeholders bearing the cost of these actions. In particular, it covers various aspects of internal governance including the role of the board of directors, reviews the importance of executive compensation, equity ownership structure and turnover as internal control mechanism. The course also explores numerous external governance devices from non-executive to non-equity shareholders, and addresses the role that accounting, legal and regulatory interventions play in corporate governance. Academic research and real-world case studies will be used to enhance the understanding of why corporate governance matters, and how directors, managers and shareholders respond to these issues in their daily corporate affairs. By the end of this module, students will gain: (ii) the ability to look at the “big-picture” questions in the area of corporate governance, and (ii) skills to critically discuss the practical solutions/mechanism to improve the effectiveness of corporate governance.

The dissertation is a major academic component of the MBA. This module aims to equip students with the skills and resources required to effectively prepare for and produce a dissertation. This will include: determining the topic and structure for the dissertation; conducting a literature review; selecting the research design; selecting and applying research methods; advancing coherent arguments and conclusions; presenting the dissertation and completing the bibliography. The module also aims to support the students in developing a research proposal as a part of the dissertation process. On completion of the module students will understand the purpose and structure of dissertations and have the skills necessary to conduct an independent piece of research. After completing the dissertation students will learn how to develop an initial idea into a feasible research project, be able to plan and schedule the dissertation, appreciate how to choose appropriate research methods and understand how to present a logical, critical and sustained argument, and develop conclusions in a manner consistent with Master’s level. There are three parts to the assessment: topic choice form; dissertation proposal; and the dissertation itself. During the dissertation phase of the module students will be individually supervised. The design and delivery of the Dissertation module, student’s engagement with the research methods workshops and the preparation, writing and submission of a research proposal all contribute to the successful preparation of an MBA dissertation.

This module provides an alternative to the traditional academic dissertation, and is aimed at those students who have secured a work placement. This module prepares MBA students to undertake their work based project which is the final integrative activity of the MBA Programme. The aim of this module is to provide a process which will enable students to use and extend knowledge and skills that they have acquired during their programme of study. Using appropriate management research methodologies and/or data collection methods, students will have the opportunity to explore an area of interest within management in significantly greater depth than during the taught modules themselves. Students will work on a specific project for an organisation. This organisation selected will function as the ‘client’. The aim of this path is to enable students to undertake a self-managed process of systematic practitioner inquiry within the domain of management. The output will be two documents, one for the client, in the format appropriate to that organisation, and one for academic purposes which incorporates those elements that are important to an academic research project of this nature, but are not required by the client. This will also include a reflective piece on the student’s personal development.