What are the major challenges that businesses face today? How are ways of managing, organizing, and conducting business changing because of the rise of artificial intelligence and prevalence of large data systems, or because the challenges that we currently face around the ageing population of our society? How are we innovating and creating new sustainable systems to respond to global ecological crisis with "clean growth"? How are we developing our infrastructure or adapting our systems of production and consumption in order to respond to the challenges of mobility and transport?
On this module we seek to explore answers to these kinds of questions by drawing on the latest research in management and organization studies. We will take a case study-based approach to evaluating the grand challenges, looking at different case study examples every week in order to understand how different organizations are mobilizing people and resources to innovate and respond to these big-picture challenges in impactful ways.
This module also explores the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals and how they contribute to a global perspective on addressing the challenges.
Private Study: 128
Contact Hours: 22
Total: 150
Compulsory to the following courses:
BSc Business and Management
Main assessment methods:
Individual Poster – 40%
Individual Reflective Essay (2,500 words) – 60%
Reassessment method:
100% coursework
The intended subject specific learning outcomes.
On successfully completing the module students will be able to:
- Identify and explore key issues relevant to the grand challenges that businesses face today, including artificial intelligence and data, ageing society, clean growth, and the future of mobility.
- Understand fundamental theories and models of business practice and investigate how these are adapting to meet the grand challenges through the analysis of practical problems in business and management.
- Evaluate the external business environment in terms of key PESTEL influences as well as major forces shaping business developments such as sustainability and technological innovation.
- Identify the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals and understand their relevance for addressing the grand challenges in equitable and inclusive ways.
The intended generic learning outcomes.
On successfully completing the module students will be able to:
- Develop intellectual curiosity and make effective use of information from various sources to assess ideas around the grand challenges.
- Propose and communicate equitable and sustainable solutions to the grand challenges which are relevant to their discipline and their own personal context.
- Reflect on their own position, skills, and progress at university in order to understand how they can make a positive impact on both their communities and wider society.
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