Philosophy and Management - BA (Hons)

The module introduces students to theories of management beginning with classical management perspectives through to contemporary management concepts. It will illustrate the continuities and transformations in management thinking throughout the 20th and 21st century. The main topics of study include: Scientific Management; Human Relations Approach; Bureaucracy and Post-Bureaucracy; The Contingency Approach; Culture Management; Leadership; Aesthetic Labour; Extreme Management.

The module will cover various aspects of the changing global environment. An indicative list of topics is given below:

Part A: Framing the Business Environment

1. Introduction: Business Enterprise, globalisation, and institutions

2. The economic environment

3. The political environment

4. The legal environment

5. The cultural environment

Part B: Shaping International Business Activities

6. International trade

7. Global finance

8. Technology and Innovation

Part C: Emerging Issues

9. Social responsibility and ecological environment

10. Geopolitical context and international risk

An indicative set of topics to be covered within the module are outlined below.

• Basic Spreadsheet Functionalities: Introduction to common spreadsheet features: workbooks, worksheets, menus, cells, rows, columns, data types, relative and absolute cell addressing, copying, basic formulae, naming cells, formatting, charts and graphs, printing.

• Data Management Facilities: sorting, filtering, data forms, pivot tables.

• What-If Analysis: scenario manager, goal seek, data tables.

• Basic Financial Analysis: Introduction to basic financial analysis and how to carry this out using spreadsheets: compound interest, discounting, NPV, IRR, loans and mortgages.

• Advanced Spreadsheet Functionalities: automating tasks and solving simple optimisation business problems.

The module will begin with an introduction to the link between business and accounting in order to show the value to the students of their having some knowledge of accounting. The module is designed to teach students how to prepare, read and interpret financial information with a view to their being future business managers rather than accountants.

The module will continue with a brief demonstration of double-entry bookkeeping. Students will not be examined on this, it is merely to put bookkeeping and accounting in context. Following on from this, students will be shown how to prepare financial statements from a trial balance and make adjustments to the figures given by acting on information given in a short scenario.

The regulatory framework of financial reporting will be considered as will the annual reports and accounts of a variety of organisations. The module will finish will an analysis of financial statements with students shown how to interpret data and make sensible recommendations

This module begins with a critical examination of Rene Descartes' justly celebrated Meditations on First Philosophy (published, originally, in 1641). This work not only provides a comprehensive account of Descartes' philosophical system, but also constitutes an admirable introduction to The Theory of Knowledge and to Metaphysics. Thus, Descartes' fundamentally Rationalist account of our knowledge of the external world is duly contrasted with the Empiricist accounts offered by such Twentieth Century Philosophers as Bertrand Russell and A.J.Ayer; while Descartes' Dualism is compared with the other major metaphysical doctrines, namely, Idealism, Phenomenalism and contemporary Physicalism. The module concludes with a survey of what is, perhaps, the most perplexing of metaphysical problems, namely, The Problem of Freewill and Determinism.

This module will introduce students to a number of big questions in ethics. The questions may include the following: What makes a life good? Is it happiness? Or is it something else? Another big question is: What makes actions right or wrong? Is it God demanding or forbidding them? Or are actions perhaps right to the extent that they serve to make lives better off, and wrong to the extent that they make lives worse off? Some philosophers have thought so. Others wonder: What if I steal money from someone so rich that my act in no way makes their life go any worse. Might it still be the case that I have acted wrongly—even if I haven't made anyone worse off? A third bit question is this: What’s the status of morality? Is it, for example, the case that what’s right for me might be wrong for you? Does it make any sense at all to talk about moral claims being true or false, even relative to moral communities? Might moral judgments be nothing but expressions of sentiments? Throughout the course, students will be examining these and similar questions from the point of view of a variety of philosophers, including Plato, Aristotle, John Stuart Mill, Immanuel Kant, and David Hume.

Since Plato's Dialogues, it has been part of philosophical enquiry to consider philosophical questions using logic and common sense alone. This module aims to train students to continue in that tradition. In the first part students will be introduced to basic themes in introductory formal logic and critical thinking. In the second part students will be presented with a problem each week in the form of a short argument, question, or philosophical puzzle and will be asked to think about it without consulting the literature. The problem, and students’ responses to it, will then form the basis of a structured discussion. By the end of the module, students (a) will have acquired a basic logical vocabulary and techniques for the evaluation of arguments; (b) will have practised applying these techniques to short passages of philosophical argument; and (c) will have acquired the ability to look at new claims or problems and to apply their newly acquired argumentative and critical skills in order to generate philosophical discussions of them.

What do philosophers do? How do they think? What do they typically think about? How do philosophers write? What sorts of writing are acceptable in philosophy? How should you write? How should philosophy best be read in order to be understood and assessed?'

In this module we will introduce you to some of the most interesting questions in philosophy, both from its history and from current debates. As we do this we will show you how to think, read and write as a philosopher.

The module provides a broad, basic understanding of strategy and strategic management, on which further strategic analysis and exploration of strategic issues can be built. It introduces students to the key vocabulary, concepts and frameworks of strategic management and establishes criteria for assessing whether or not a strategy can be successful. It introduces students to frameworks for analysing the external and internal environments and to different theories of how these relate and of their impact on strategy formulation and implementation.

Students will learn how to identify strategic issues, develop strategic options to address them and decide which option(s) to recommend. Through theoretical readings and case studies, students will develop an appreciation of strategy in different contexts and from different perspectives and of the complexity of strategic decision-making. Students will enhance their ability to read business articles from a strategic perspective and to present strategic arguments in a structured manner

Students will be expected to develop the ability to use appropriate techniques of analysis and enquiry within Operations Management and to learn how to evaluate alternatives and make recommendations. Topics are likely to include:

• Strategic role of operations and operations strategy

• Design of processes and the implications for layout and flow

• Design and management of supply networks

• Resource planning and management

• Lean systems

This course is designed to introduce students to a number of philosophical issues arising from medical research and medical practice. Students will consider attempts to define the following terms – health, illness, and disease – and discuss what rests on their definition. Much medical practice proceeds as though medicine were a natural science. This module will probe the limitations of this conception. The placebo effect demonstrates the powerful influence of suggestion on the body and students will consider its relevance to philosophical ideas of the mind-body relation. Finally, students will consider ethical issues arising in medical practice, such as 'medically assisted death'.

The module will enable students to acquire knowledge and understanding of Wittgenstein's approach to philosophy, and to acquire familiarity with major themes especially in the areas of epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of language. The module will give students practice in deploying their critical philosophical skills.

Groups of marks or bursts of sound are just physical entities but, when produced by a writer or a speaker, they are used to point beyond themselves. This is the property of aboutness or intentionality. Other physical entities generally do not have this property. When you hear a sentence, you hear a burst of sound, but typically you also understand a meaning conveyed by the speaker. What is the meaning of a word – some weird entity that floats alongside the word, a set of rules associating the word with objects, an intention in the mind of the speaker….? What is the difference between what your words imply and what you convey in saying them? How are words used non-literally, how do hearers catch on to the meaning of a newly minted metaphor? How can we mean and convey so much when uttering a concise sentence? When someone says something offensive, is it part of its meaning that it is offensive, or just how it is used? In this module we shall try to find some answers to the questions listed above.

The aim of this course is to engage in the study of specific topics in the philosophy of mind, language, or action and to engage with the criticism of contemporary approaches as it is found in the works of Wittgenstein, Ryle, Anscombe, and/or Austin.

Logic is the study of the methods and principles used to distinguish correct reasoning from incorrect reasoning and, as such, it is a crucial component of any philosophy course. Moreover, logic has applications other than the testing of arguments for cogency: it is also a widely used and useful tool for clarifying the problematic concepts that have traditionally troubled philosophers, e.g., deductive consequence, rational degree of belief, knowledge, necessary truth, identity, etc. Indeed, much contemporary philosophy cannot be understood without a working knowledge of logic. Given this, logic is an important subject for philosophy students to master.

The module will primarily cover propositional and predicate logic. Regarding propositional and predicate logic, the focus will be on methods for testing the validity of an argument. These methods will allow students to distinguish correct from incorrect reasoning. The module will also cover inductive and modal logics. Regarding inductive and modal logics, the focus will be on clarifying epistemological concepts through the use of these logics.

The module will study some of the major works in the history of modern philosophy of cognitive science and artificial intelligence. An indicative list of topics is: The Turing test; the Chinese Room argument; the frame problem; connectionism; extended and embodied cognition; artificial consciousness. The approach will be philosophical and critical, and will involve the close reading of texts. Students will be expected to engage critically with the works being studied and to formulate and argue for their own views on the issues covered.

How does truth relate to existence? This module looks at the connection between truths and the things that make them true. We consider questions relating to the connection between truth and ontology (or existence) concerning time, persistence, possibility, generality, composition, and causation. We will look at how these issues are discussed in contemporary analytic metaphysics. We will explore both what solutions looking at the connections between truth and ontology might offer, whether this approach to the problems is useful, and how best to communicate the problems we discuss.

All things considered, liberal democracy is the best political system we know of. Nevertheless, it has always been in peril, attacked by totalitarian ideologies and undermined by self-destructive forces from within. In this module, we will investigate the essence and value of democracy, and the character and aims of its enemies. To this end, we will study an important theory in modern political philosophy, formulated in Ernst Cassirer's The Myth of the State. Cassirer explores the explosive problem of political myth in our day, and reveals how the myth of the state evolved from ancient times to prepare the way for the rise of the modern totalitarian state. He shows how the irrational forces symbolized by myth and manipulation by the state constantly threaten to destroy our civilization. This major contribution to political theory will help us understand the problems our societies face today, including questions relating to truth and falsehood in politics, and, of course, 'fake truth’. We shall also look at a related text, Hans Kelsen’s The Essence and Value of Democracy.

This course is designed to introduce students to a number of approaches in what is often referred to as "normative ethics". We face and hear about moral problems every day. These problems range from life and death matters concerning abortion, euthanasia and the like to other types of case such as whether to tell a lie to prevent hurting someone's feelings. At some point we might wonder whether there is a set of rules or principles (such as 'Do not lie') which will help us through these tricky problems; we might wonder whether there is something more simple underlying all of this 'ethical mess’ that we can discern.

Normative ethics contains a number of theories that attempt to give us such principles and to sort out the mess. In particular, different normative ethical theories are attempts to articulate reasons why a certain course of action is ethically best; they are attempts to say what types of feature we should concentrate on when thinking about ethical problems and why it is that such features are features which have ‘intrinsic moral significance’. Of course, ethical theories do not exist in a vacuum. As we shall see, our everyday intuitions about what is morally best are both the origin of normative ethical theories and the origin of thoughts raised against them. In all of this, the course will be examining these theories by starting with their historical roots, particularly focussing on the work of J. S. Mill, Immanuel Kant and Aristotle.

This module will introduce students to classical as well as contemporary discussions in the intersection between politics, philosophy, and economics. Topics to be covered will vary from year to year, in light of the expertise of the person convening it and student feedback from previous years. Topics which may be covered include Authoritarianism, Behavioural economics, Rational Choice Theory, Game Theory, Libertarianism and Paternalism, Markets and Trade, Private Property and the Legitimacy of Organ Sale.

Through these and related topics, students will gain a good understanding of the complementary and in some cases conflicting perspectives and methodologies contained in politics, philosophy, and economics, and enable them to evaluate contemporary issues in a manner that's informed by a comprehensive set of relevant traditions.

The course will begin by looking at various philosophical problems, as presented in films. This will involve discussing a range of different philosophical topics, from different areas of philosophy. Film here is presented as a way into the philosophical discussion, which will be supplemented by appropriate primary and secondary texts. The course will then consider ways in which the medium of film itself presents philosophical problems.

Topics to be covered will vary from year to year, in light of the expertise of the person convening it and student feedback from previous years. Philosophical issues presented through film will include, but will not be restricted to, time travel, existentialism and Philosophy of art. Philosophical Issues concerning film will include, but will not be restricted to 'is film art?', 'what is film?' and 'can film be philosophy?'.

Through these and related topics, students will gain a good understanding of both a number of issues in philosophy, and the way that the medium in which philosophy is done is potentially a constraint on or a complement to the aims of the philosophy. The module will enable students to evaluate issues, both timely and timeless, in a manner that's informed by an interdisciplinary approach to philosophy.

This module will introduce students to philosophical theories of causality and philosophical theories of probability. The module will provide a broad background to the range of available interpretations of causality and probability. Topics to be covered will vary from year to year, in light of the expertise of the person convening it and student feedback from previous years. Students will gain a good understanding of the complementary and in some cases conflicting perspectives and methodologies on causality and probability. The module will enable students to evaluate contemporary issues in a manner that's informed by a comprehensive set of relevant traditions.

Emotions figure in many areas of public life, and a number of pressing political issues (from fear in the evaluation of biomedical promises, to compassion in the criminal courtroom) invite us to think about the role of emotion in shaping citizens' political thought and activity. Emotions, however, are all too rarely studied conceptually, with the result that both political theory and practice are often left at a loss. Through lectures and seminar discussion, this module will offer the opportunity for students to engage in close analysis of the philosophy and cognitive science of emotion, as well as the ethical concerns that are raised by the role emotions can play in political activity and institutional practice.

This module will study prominent theories of emotion, asking about the connection between emotion, reason, and well-being. These aspects take a philosophical approach, but are also informed by advances in neurobiology and cognitive science. The module will also explore the public stage, asking how specific emotions figure in political questions: for example, fear, disgust, compassion, blame, empathy, boredom, and revenge. Political topics considered may include risky technologies, wrongful legal conviction, capital punishment, the Citizens' Income, and assisted dying. The role of emotion in media politics and protest movements will also be examined, assessing, for example, how compassion can be manufactured and mediated through political rhetoric, social media, social privilege, and popular fiction.

Is it right that the talented profit from their (undeserved) talents? Should the government provide compensation for people who find it hard to meet that special someone? Should we think our duties to our compatriots are more important than our duties to people in other countries?

This course is divided into two parts. The first part examines classic topics in political philosophy, such as Rawls Theory of Justice, Nozick's libertarianism and the feminist and communitarian criticism of political liberalism. The second part of the course will explore issues within contemporary political philosophy, such as equality, our obligations to those in the developing world, and the politics of immigration. We will consider whether we can make sense of political obligation between states as well as within states. We will look at these issues in the context of particular recent case studies.

This module provides an introduction to some of the major works in ancient Greek philosophy in relation to ethics, aesthetics, political theory, ontology and metaphysics. Students will study substantial portions of primary texts by the Pre-Socratics, Plato and Aristotle. The emphasis throughout will be on the philosophical significance of the ideas studied. The module will concentrate on understanding key philosophical arguments and concepts within the context of the ancient Greek intellectual tradition. This means that students will gain a critical distance from normative and modern definitions of philosophical terms in order to understand how Greek philosophy generally approached questions and problems with different suppositions and conceptions of reality, reason and the purpose of human existence.

The curriculum will typically be focused on an important classic or recent philosophical work. In addition, students will typically be expected to read critical commentaries. (Alternatively, a convenor may choose a small number of classic texts on a unified and important theme).

Exactly what the curriculum will be will differ from year to year. The point of introducing this module, and the sister module Philosophical Texts 2: Normative Ethics (PL626/627), is to offer students the chance to study a single text (or small number of texts) in a very focussed manner, and to introduce more variety into the curriculum. Things are left open so that the text can be altered each year as appropriate and so that different lecturers are given the chance to teach a different text.

Although not set in stone, typically this module will focus on a classic philosophical work, and Phil Text 2 will focus on a recently published work.

Many people today are reluctant to identify themselves as 'feminist': either because they see feminism as a useful political movement that has essentially served its purposes; or because they view feminism as a 'single-issue', militant ideology that they cannot identify with. This module is intended to give students an opportunity to reflect philosophically on what claims like this could mean: if we live in a post-feminist era, why do women earn, on average, two thirds of what their male counterparts earn? If we live in post-feminist era, why are women still under-represented in many fields (including politics, science and academic philosophy?). If feminism is a 'single-issue' ideology, why is it that feminists have proposed such a variety of solutions to the above problems, and from such a wide range of political standpoints?

The module explores some key debates in contemporary feminist philosophy, with particularly emphasis on its uncomfortable relationship with liberalism. The course draws attention to feminist critiques of key liberal concepts, such as consent, the social contract, autonomy, universal rights, and the private/public distinction. We go on to apply theoretical debates in feminist thought to the following political issues: prostitution, pornography, feminine appearance, multiculturalism, and human rights.

Project Management aims to provide an understanding of the key concepts and practices within the context of the organisational setting and the wider business and technological environment.

This module aims to develop a critical understanding of project management to enable students to recognise the importance of the discipline in a variety of organisational and functional contexts. Students should develop a critical understanding of the concepts employed in project management at strategic, systems and operational levels, and an appreciation of the knowledge and skills required for successful project management in organisations.

The key topics of the module are:

1. Project life cycles and alternative development paths

2. Project planning and control techniques, including CPM and PERT

3. Learning and innovation in projects

4. Resource planning

5. Team management and motivation

6. Contracts and incentives

7. Evaluation and returns

8. Stakeholder management

This module will introduce students to the key concepts of managing people involving and examination of organisational, management and human resource management theory and practice. This will be achieved through relating relevant theory to practical people and organisational management issues.

The key topics of the module are:

• The nature of human resource management

• Motivation in the workplace

• Work organisation, job design and flexible working

• Groups and team working

• Diversity in the workplace

• Recruitment & selection

• Learning and development

• Employee Involvement and participation

• Employee performance and reward

• Ethical HRM

How does truth relate to existence? This module looks at the connection between truths and the things that make them true. We consider questions relating to the connection between truth and ontology (or existence) concerning time, persistence, possibility, generality, composition, and causation. We will look at how these issues are discussed in contemporary analytic metaphysics. We will explore both what solutions looking at the connections between truth and ontology might offer, whether this approach to the problems is useful, and how best to communicate the problems we discuss.

Students write a dissertation on a topic of their own choice in consultation with a supervisor. The topic must be on a philosophical subject. The final-year dissertation gives students the opportunity to satisfy their intellectual curiosity by individually and independently researching a large-scale project of their own choice. Students will be given guidance by a chosen supervisor across the chosen academic terms, but the rhythm of research, the writing and frequency of meetings between supervisor and student is left to the individual student to determine.

This course is designed to introduce students to a number of philosophical issues arising from medical research and medical practice. Students will consider attempts to define the following terms – health, illness, and disease – and discuss what rests on their definition. Much medical practice proceeds as though medicine were a natural science. This module will probe the limitations of this conception. The placebo effect demonstrates the powerful influence of suggestion on the body and students will consider its relevance to philosophical ideas of the mind-body relation. Finally, students will consider ethical issues arising in medical practice, such as 'medically assisted death'.

Groups of marks or bursts of sound are just physical entities but, when produced by a writer or a speaker, they are used to point beyond themselves. This is the property of aboutness or intentionality. Other physical entities generally do not have this property. When you hear a sentence, you hear a burst of sound, but typically you also understand a meaning conveyed by the speaker. What is the meaning of a word – some weird entity that floats alongside the word, a set of rules associating the word with objects, an intention in the mind of the speaker….? What is the difference between what your words imply and what you convey in saying them? How are words used non-literally, how do hearers catch on to the meaning of a newly minted metaphor? How can we mean and convey so much when uttering a concise sentence? When someone says something offensive, is it part of its meaning that it is offensive, or just how it is used? In this module we shall try to find some answers to the questions listed above.

The aim of this course is to engage in the study of specific topics in the philosophy of mind, language, or action and to engage with the criticism of contemporary approaches as it is found in the works of Wittgenstein, Ryle, Anscombe, and/or Austin.

Logic is the study of the methods and principles used to distinguish correct reasoning from incorrect reasoning and, as such, it is a crucial component of any philosophy course. Moreover, logic has applications other than the testing of arguments for cogency: it is also a widely used and useful tool for clarifying the problematic concepts that have traditionally troubled philosophers, e.g., deductive consequence, rational degree of belief, knowledge, necessary truth, identity, etc. Indeed, much contemporary philosophy cannot be understood without a working knowledge of logic. Given this, logic is an important subject for philosophy students to master.

The module will primarily cover propositional and predicate logic. Regarding propositional and predicate logic, the focus will be on methods for testing the validity of an argument. These methods will allow students to distinguish correct from incorrect reasoning. The module will also cover inductive and modal logics. Regarding inductive and modal logics, the focus will be on clarifying epistemological concepts through the use of these logics.

The module will study some of the major works in the history of modern philosophy of cognitive science and artificial intelligence. An indicative list of topics is: The Turing test; the Chinese Room argument; the frame problem; connectionism; extended and embodied cognition; artificial consciousness. The approach will be philosophical and critical, and will involve the close reading of texts. Students will be expected to engage critically with the works being studied and to formulate and argue for their own views on the issues covered.

Emotions figure in many areas of public life, and a number of pressing political issues (from fear in the evaluation of biomedical promises, to compassion in the criminal courtroom) invite us to think about the role of emotion in shaping citizens' political thought and activity. Emotions, however, are all too rarely studied conceptually, with the result that both political theory and practice are often left at a loss. Through lectures and seminar discussion, this module will offer the opportunity for students to engage in close analysis of the philosophy and cognitive science of emotion, as well as the ethical concerns that are raised by the role emotions can play in political activity and institutional practice.

This module will study prominent theories of emotion, asking about the connection between emotion, reason, and well-being. These aspects take a philosophical approach, but are also informed by advances in neurobiology and cognitive science. The module will also explore the public stage, asking how specific emotions figure in political questions: for example, fear, disgust, compassion, blame, empathy, boredom, and revenge. Political topics considered may include risky technologies, wrongful legal conviction, capital punishment, the Citizens' Income, and assisted dying. The role of emotion in media politics and protest movements will also be examined, assessing, for example, how compassion can be manufactured and mediated through political rhetoric, social media, social privilege, and popular fiction.

This course is designed to introduce students to a number of approaches in what is often referred to as "normative ethics". We face and hear about moral problems every day. These problems range from life and death matters concerning abortion, euthanasia and the like to other types of case such as whether to tell a lie to prevent hurting someone's feelings. At some point we might wonder whether there is a set of rules or principles (such as 'Do not lie') which will help us through these tricky problems; we might wonder whether there is something more simple underlying all of this 'ethical mess' that we can discern.

Normative ethics contains a number of theories that attempt to give us such principles and to sort out the mess. In particular, different normative ethical theories are attempts to articulate reasons why a certain course of action is ethically best; they are attempts to say what types of feature we should concentrate on when thinking about ethical problems and why it is that such features are features which have 'intrinsic moral significance'. Of course, ethical theories do not exist in a vacuum. As we shall see, our everyday intuitions about what is morally best are both the origin of normative ethical theories and the origin of thoughts raised against them. In all of this, the course will be examining these theories by starting with their historical roots, particularly focussing on the work of J. S. Mill, Immanuel Kant and Aristotle.

This module presents an overview of what work psychology is and its relevance and usefulness in improving our understanding and management of people (including ourselves) at work. Many work places operate sophisticated and expensive systems for assessing the costs and benefits of various workplace elements but often do not extend this to the management of employees. This module aims to demonstrate the benefits of having a comprehensive understanding of the role psychology can play in the management of people in contemporary organizations. Indicative content includes:

• Work psychology

• Individual differences and psychometrics

• Best practice personnel selection

• Stress and well-being

• Motivation

• Stereotypes and group behaviour

• Leadership and diversity

• The dark side of personality

• Political behaviour in the workplace

• The psychology of entrepreneurs

• Using work psychology to enhance employability

This module will introduce students to the key concepts of managing people involving and examination of organisational, management and human resource management theory and practice. This will be achieved through relating relevant theory to practical people and organisational management issues.

The key topics of the module are:

• The nature of human resource management

• Motivation in the workplace

• Work organisation, job design and flexible working

• Groups and team working

• Diversity in the workplace

• Recruitment & selection

• Learning and development

• Employee Involvement and participation

• Employee performance and reward

• Ethical HRM

This module will explore more advanced management and organizational theory to facilitate students’ examination of contemporary management challenges. As well as considering these challenges from a mainstream managerial perspective, the module will also draw on the perspective of critical management studies as a means of providing an alternative viewpoint on contemporary management issues. Indicative topic areas may include:

Globalization and anti-globalization

The character of ownership – foreign versus national ownership

Social and environmental sustainability

Corporate social responsibility and corporate criminality

Corporate governance

Organizational misbehaviour and resistance

Organizational identity and identity work

Masculinisation and Feminisation of Management

New forms of work such as emotional labour and aesthetic labour

New organizational forms

This module offers a comprehensive introduction to the area of cross-cultural management research. Based on a critical analysis of the assumptions underlying various approaches to studying national cultures, frameworks are applied to understand cross-cultural issues managers in international organisations may face.

• Different approaches to cross-cultural management

• Traditional approaches to studying cross-cultural management

• Different Levels of culture

• Cultural-frameworks

• Applications of cultural frameworks to managerial problems

• Critical evaluation of traditional approaches to studying cross-cultural management

• Emic vs. Etic approaches to cross cultural management

• Interpretive approaches to cross-cultural management

• Critical approaches to cross-cultural management

This module offers a critical analysis of how multinationals select their target markets and modes of entry and how they manage their various functions in an international context, balancing the needs for global integration and local responsiveness respectively.

• Managing the internationalisation process

• Country selection

• Choosing and designing entry modes

• Managing collaborative arrangements

• International marketing

• International human resource management

• International supply chain management

• International finance

• Research and development in an international perspective

• Managing multinationals using electronic commerce

• Managing multinationals responsively

A synopsis of the curriculum

Students will be expected to develop the ability to use appropriate techniques of analysis and enquiry within Operations and Service Management and to learn how to evaluate the alternatives and make recommendations. Topics include:

• The nature of services and service strategy

• Service development and technology

• Service quality and the service encounter

• Project/Event management and control

• Managing capacity and demand in services

• Managing inventories

This module will introduce students to the key concepts, theories and issues involved in international marketing. In doing so it will enable students to understand how to identify and evaluate opportunities in international markets and assess the different market entry modes available to companies. In addition students will consider the need to adapt marketing mix elements for different international markets.

The main topics of study are as follows:

• Introduction to international marketing: Definitions, theories, approaches and motives.

• International Marketing Research

• Assessing international markets: The political and economic environment

• Assessing international markets: The Sociocultural environment

• Theories and frameworks for International market evaluation and selection

• Market entry modes: export, intermediate and hierarchical

• International marketing plans and strategy: Segmentation, targeting and positioning

• Designing the global marketing mix: Product, pricing, communication and distribution decisions

This module aims to provide students with understanding and experience of the theory and practice of marketing research. During the module students design and implement a marketing research plan, design a questionnaire, collect and analyse data, prepare an oral presentation and write a marketing research report.

The main topics of study are as follows:

• Introduction to marketing research: Defining and designing marketing research projects

• Understanding data: Secondary data and databases

• Primary data collection techniques.

• Questionnaire design

• Measurement and measurement scales and error.

• Sampling and sample design and error

• Entering and coding data with SPSS

• Data analysis techniques

• Communicating the results of marketing research.

The module will provide students with the tools of marketing communications. Specifically students taking this module will be able to evaluate strengths and weakness of marketing communications channels. Over the course of a term the module will provide students with an understanding of the principles, methods and strategies of marketing communications. The main tools of marketing communications will be discussed as well as their suitability and effectiveness:

Topics may cover:

• The communications process

• Advertising

• Strategy and media planning

• Image, brand management and packaging

• Direct marketing

• Digital and interactive media

• Sales promotion, merchandising and point of sale

• Public relations and corporate identity

• Exhibitions, trade shows, product placement and sponsorship

• Personal selling

This module aims to develop a critical understanding of the role of digital marketing in modern organisations. The module considers what digital marketing strategy means looking at a range of examples across business sectors. Core areas are looked at including the technologies which make digital marketing possible, the relationship between digital marketing strategies and the wider organisation, the key issues in the development and implementation of digital marketing strategies and the threats, security and other, posed by digital marketing.

The following topics may be covered:

Enabling technologies for e-commerce: The Digital Marketing Environment, Digital Marketing Strategy; The Internet and the World Wide Web; Mobile platforms; Dot com and multi-channel; Social Media and Web 2.0; Database and data warehouses; Web site design and management; Marketplaces; B2B Digital Marketing; Business Models and Innovation.

This module provides a critical introduction to the main theories and debates in International Business and uses these theoretical lenses to explain core phenomena in international business.

• Explaining international economic transactions (trade theories, national competitiveness)

• Explaining the existence of MNEs (internalisation theory, eclectic theory, monopolistic advantages)

• Explaining the coevolution of environment and MNEs (institutional theory, resource dependence theory, evolutionary theory, investment development path, product life cycle theory)

• Explaining the growth and decline of MNEs (stages model, market entry/expansion modes)

The module looks at how digital marketing applications can be used by modern organisations. The module considers the fundamental technologies that support digital marketing along with the regulatory and societal challenges that must be taken into account, for example, privacy and data protection. The methods available to attract customers through digital marketing are covered making a distinction between paid methods, such as sponsored search, and non-paid methods, such as an organisation's own social media assets. Issues around loyalty are considered especially in the context of falling search costs which enable customers to switch providers.

The unique nature of digital products, for example music downloads or video streaming, are outlined with the marketing challenges and opportunities this presents. The module stresses the importance of implementation, using applied examples, and the uncertainty involved.

The digital marketing environment; Enabling technologies for digital marketing; Website design, implementation and analysis; Social media; Social commerce; Customers in the Internet age: knowing, reaching & retaining the customer; Network effects and versioning; Loyalty, Customer Relationship Management and Data Mining; E-Marketing campaigns; Brands in the Internet age; Data protection, privacy and legal issues; Digital marketing and globalisation

This module is designed to provide students across the university with access to knowledge, skill development and training in the field of entrepreneurship with a special emphasis on developing a business plan in order to exploit identified opportunities. Hence, the module will be of value for students who aspire to establishing their own business and/or introducing innovation through new product, service, process, project or business development in an established organisation. The module complements students' final year projects in Computing, Law, Biosciences, Electronics, Multimedia, and Drama etc.

The curriculum is based on the business model canvas and lean start up principles (Osterwalder and Pigneur 2010) on designing a business plan for starting a new venture or introducing innovation in an established organisation.

10. A synopsis of the curriculum

This module facilitates the development of an entrepreneurial mind-set, and equips students with necessary cutting-edge knowledge and skills vital for generating value in a knowledge based economy. The curriculum will include the following areas of study:

• Broader application of entrepreneurship

• Co-creation as a new form of generating value in an innovation ecosystem.

• Managing innovation entrepreneurially

• Entrepreneurial opportunity

• Entrepreneurial Motivation

• Entrepreneurial Marketing

• Entrepreneurial Finance – Finance fuels entrepreneurship.

This module presents an overview of what workforce diversity is and its relevance and usefulness in improving our understanding and management of people (including ourselves) at work. The demographics of the population and the workplace are changing drastically because of a number of factors, such as an increasing number of ethnic minorities and women in the workforce and in management. Accordingly, there is a need to effectively understand and manage workforce diversity not only to increase organisational business outcomes but also to create an inclusive workplace in a socially responsible manner.

The module will examine issues confronting managers of a diverse workforce. In particular issues such as ethnicity, race, language, ageing, disability, gender, and intersectional identities will be discussed. Two key approaches towards managing diversity will be explained, i.e. the social equity case of managing diversity, and the business benefits case of managing diversity. The module will explore a range of diversity related concepts and topics, such as social identity, stereotyping, discrimination, intergroup conflict, structural integration, and organisational change.

Main themes covered by this module will include:

Origins of diversity and equal opportunity in the workplace context;

Social and psychological perspectives on workplace diversity;

The UK and European diversity contexts;

Business benefits case and social equity case of managing diversity;

The legal framework for diversity;

Organisational approaches to diversity;

Contemporary issues central to the experiences of diverse individuals in the UK and in organisations across a range of diversity dimensions;

Diversity management in an international context