Chartered Manager

This module provides students with critical knowledge on how organisations work and how individuals and groups impact on organisational success or failure. It explores the emerging workplace realities of self-leadership, networks, knowledge management, and virtual teams, organisational learning and working within culturally diverse work-place communities. Theory will be linked to reality through analysis of students’ own experiences using specific sectorial issues such as employee motivation and retention, performance enhancement, intra and interpersonal development and developing effective teams and groups.

Every product or service you buy will probably have been created as a result of business operations. Managing Business Operations is about managing the processes that produce or deliver goods and services. This involves issues such as designing processes, making decisions about location, layout and capacity management, managing the supply chain, and managing quality. The emphasis will be on practical examples and case studies with assessments in groups and/or individually in the form of presentation of research findings and a written final exam.

Enables students to develop an understanding and awareness of the environment in which business operates, particularly from the economic perspective and develop the ability to use a range of skills to diagnose and solve problems.

Contemporary concerns relating to the need for effective corporate citizenship and governance structures are addressed and discussed, together with the causes of emerging calls for improved corporate accountability. These issues are examined in the specific context of the nature and purpose of wealth creation, and the contemporary environment created by an enterprise culture and the enterprise economy.

This module aims to provide you with the knowledge and skills that are required to undertake independent business research on a topic/project that you have chosen, where you determine the methodology and approach. In so doing you will take significant strides on the path to becoming an independent learner, and feel able to undertake other research tasks, with minimal supervision. You will also discuss and evaluate a range of business research projects and case studies.

The purpose of the module is to build on the concepts and approaches to business policy developed at Level 5. The integrated nature of strategic management decisions will be emphasised and case studies will be used to show how strategic management applies to a range of business and not-for-profit organisations. The emphasis will be on strategic options, evaluation and choice and on the implementation issues in strategy. Students will be encouraged to develop analytical skills, creative thinking and ability to present conclusions based on critical evaluation of information.

The module is designed to be an applied equivalent of a more traditional dissertation module. Instead of writing an academic dissertation based on original research, students will be conducting applied research on a specific company, market, or business opportunity and write up their results in the format of a business consultancy report, industry analysis or business plan. Thus, the module will help students develop a mastery of analysis and synthesis of data in a practical context. Through supervised applied research they will demonstrate the ability to collect appropriate data and critically evaluate evidence pertaining to a specific business issue in a practical context, and present conclusions and recommendations to solve a business issue.

This module critically examines the major issues faced by companies engaged in identifying and developing their overseas operations. The study of International Business straddles a variety of different disciplines, and this module deals with the problems of international operations from the perspective of economics and politics as well as the functional disciplines of finance, marketing, human resource management and operations management. Most importantly, it seeks to show how the international economic and political environment serves to act as a very powerful influence over how company policies are set.

Develop an understanding of the standards set by the World Trade Organization and certain regional trade agreements. Critically assess the impact of World Bank policies, investment treaties between states, and agreements between multinational. Demonstrate knowledge of the regulation of the financial system. Demonstrate understanding of various finance theories and concepts. Critical analysis of the risk return relationship and options.

The Project Management module provides grounding in the key skills used by project managers in order to manage projects successfully.

There are many examples of projects ranging from large projects such as Heathrow Terminal 5 and the Channel Tunnel through to medium sized projects such as reorganising a factory or developing new computer software down to small projects such as a new marketing campaign or putting on a rock concert. The module is not specific to any one industry but covers the basic principles of project management that apply in all industries and to projects of all sizes.

The teaching sessions combine lectures with group discussions to enable the concepts to be fully explored and understood. Individual practical exercises help consolidate the learning of specific Project Management skills.  All sessions involve Tutor led class discussions.

Students will be required to produce a plan for a project of their choice that is assessed. There will also be an examination at the end of the module.