Course details
On this course you will be taught by a range of staff with relevant expertise and knowledge appropriate to the content of the unit. This will include senior academic staff, qualified professional practitioners and research students. You will also benefit from regular guest lectures from industry.
Foundation year
Core units
- Fundamentals of Business & Management: This unit aims to develop your understanding of the business context across industry and sectors globally. You will cover the key issues and challenges facing businesses going forward and the essential role of people in dynamic, resilient and complex organisations. You will explore key functional business areas including marketing, finance, accounting, economics, people management, and organisational behaviour.
- Academic & Professional Practice: You will build your confidence in both academic and professional skills. This unit will cover the academic skills which will be required at degree level study and you’ll practice them throughout the unit with support from key university services including the library and study skills team. There will also be the opportunity for you to reflect on and develop your own professional skills through interactions with employers, careers services and online resources.
- Fusion Business Project: You will undertake a business project based on a real issue or problem. The Fundamentals of Business & Management unit will support you in understanding key issues and challenges which could form the basis for your project. Projects will be undertaken in workplaces, community settings or part of research processes related to your chosen field of study. You will be allocated an academic mentor who will support you in developing and undertaking the project.
Year 1
You'll begin to develop the versatility and personal qualities needed to manage a range of business activities in a global context.
- Developing Management Competencies: You'll be exposed to real-life business and management challenges, enabling you to develop interpersonal, organisational, transferable, creative and reflective learning skills, as well as a learning culture founded on mutual support, empathy and respect.
- Global Business Environment: An introduction to the fundamentals of the external global business context, enabling you to understand business-related political, economic, social and technological news stories and developments.
- Introduction to Accounting: Expand your knowledge and skills needed to progress to further study of financial reporting and/or financial analysis by studying the fundamentals of accounting.
- Organisational Behaviour & Responsible Management: This unit covers the individual, psychological and social aspects relating to people in organisations and the systems that govern them.
- Business Simulation: Through simulation, you will gain invaluable hands-on experience by analysing data and collaborating with your peers to resolve dilemmas, making managerial decisions.
- Fundamentals of Marketing: By identifying interesting marketing problems, you'll understand the range of marketing solutions available, and learn how to develop appropriate marketing strategies by focusing on real-life case studies.
The second year is designed to prepare you for the world of work, by strengthening your employability skills, readying you for the placement application process, and helping you better manage complexity and ambiguity. You will learn about business strategy, allowing you to personalise your studies, in preparation for your final year and beyond.
Core units
- Recruiting, Selecting & Retaining Talent: You will be encouraged to develop an understanding of the recruitment and selection process, and contemporary recruitment and selection techniques, whilst developing an understanding of their position in relation to the wider talent pool.
- Strategic Management: You'll develop the ability to apply appropriate tools and techniques to critically analyse the organisation and its environment, learning about the development of competitive marketing strategy and operations
Option units (choose four):
Please note that depending on the specialist pathway you choose not all option unit combinations will be possible.
- Global Operations Management: This unit will cover the impact global operations management has on the business as a whole and the close relationship of operations management with other business function.
- Project Management: Provides a practical communication focused perspective of the rapidly evolving digital world. As such it offers students practical assistance in shaping professional digital identity and footprint.
- Consumer Behaviour & Contemporary Issues: This unit aims to extend your understanding of marketing, providing a critical understanding of the role and application of consumer behaviour within marketing and the wider organisation.
- Branding & Integrated Communications: Covers strategic issues of integration and planning as well as the tactical considerations needed to execute relevant marketing communications campaigns that meet consumer’s needs.
- Supply Chain Management: As an essential aspect of business today you'll explore and evaluate key elements of supply chain management that requires numerous operational activities
- Fundamentals of HRM: This unit will introduce you to the Human Resource Management function and its practice, using frameworks, analysis and case studies for context.
- Globally Responsible Business Practice: Gain the ability to critically evaluate the complex role of business practice in global systems and their understanding of management processes.
- Digital Marketing Fundamentals: This unit provides a practical communication focused perspective of the rapidly evolving digital world, offering practical assistance in shaping professional digital identity and footprint.
Placement year
The course includes an optional 30-week (minimum) placement between your second and final year, providing a valuable opportunity to develop your vocational skills and understanding of the workplace.
We are proud that our students have played their part in the success of top firms including Microsoft, JP Morgan, IBM, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Motorola.
Final year
You'll undertake significant pieces of academic work, demonstrating the critical, analytical and research skills. Your two options will enable you to develop specialist knowledge, understanding and techniques in your chosen area, preparing you for your future career or further studies.
Core units:
- Research in Business & Management: The unit provides an overview of research methods available covering both qualitative and quantitative approaches, with a particular emphasis on the development and delivery of ethical and sustainable research.
- Organisational Leadership: The aim of this unit is to critically explore leadership styles, theories and followership concepts in a range of organisational contexts.
Core units (choose one):
The Project choice(s) available will depend on the specialist pathway selected.
- Research Project: In this unit, you will put into practice a range of research methods, tools and techniques, to investigate and report on a business problem or opportunity of your choice, related to your final-year specialist pathway.
- Reflective Practitioner Project: This unit aims to develop your knowledge and understanding of workplace and career-related challenges, as well as your critical thinking and writing skills, through a reflective project focusing on your placement year (please note that this Project choice is only available on certain pathways).
- Consultancy Project: This unit gives you the opportunity, individually or as part of a team, to work on a real-life project brief, putting into practice your project management and CRM skills, to deliver a product, service or outcome for your client (please note that this Project choice is only available on certain pathways).
- Entrepreneurship Project: Students who select the Entrepreneurship pathway have the opportunity to put into practice their entrepreneurial knowledge, understanding, tools and techniques to develop their own business idea.
- Hacking for Sustainability Project: This is a team-based consultancy-style project, which gives you the opportunity to work on challenging sustainability problems being faced by large organisations, such as the MoD. This Project involves working in a team, as well as with stakeholders and a client, and includes a mix of 'real-life' individual and group deliverables (please note that this Project choice is only available on certain pathways).
Option units (choose two):
Please note that depending on the specialist pathway you choose not all option unit combinations will be possible.
- Entrepreneurship & Business Ventures: Learn how individuals and teams build on opportunities to create new businesses or transform existing ones by undertaking entrepreneurial activities.
- Managing Innovation: You'll begin to understand how managing different contexts of innovation is an important step to becoming an effective manager or entrepreneur in today’s business world.
- Global Operations Strategy: This unit will educate you on how to deal with strategic global operations issues, developing an understanding on how global strategies can be devised and implemented.
- Global Supply Chain Management: Supply chain management is the fastest growing area of business today, and this unit aims to develop a strategic understanding of global supply chain management through planning, sourcing, making, delivering and returning products and services.
- Contemporary Issues in HRM: The main contemporary issues and themes within human resource management will be covered in this unit, providing you with an understanding of the role of an HR professional and the key aspects of 'adding value' to an organisation through enhancing performance.
- SHRM in Context: Looking at the strategic role of human resource management and key issues within the area, this unit will critically evaluate how HRM can be used within business strategies while covering global factors.
- International Management: With a large focus on practical aspects of management, this unit will teach training and development in the contemporary global organisation, looking at global management policies, practices and processes.
- Global Strategic Marketing: By helping you to develop the ability to think critically about real-world marketing scenarios and use market information to make informed decisions and recommendations, you'll be provided with skills in strategically managing the key elements of global marketing.
- Digital Marketing: The ever-evolving topic of digital marketing has become the dominant form of marketing in the majority of organisations and this unit will equip you with technical skills and the conceptual understanding of how to engage effectively to see results
- Buying & Merchandising: By critically analysing industry data, you'll understanding of the concepts, functions and processes of buying and merchandising, in theory and practice with a global context.
- Fashion Business: This unit is particularly for students with a strong interest in embarking on a career that involved some element of fashion, equipping you with a broad awareness and appreciation of how the fashion industry is evident within all areas of the business.
- Advanced Project Management: Providing an understanding of the role of project management, this unit focuses on the challenges, controversies, opportunities and debates around managing projects, within the organisational, social and environmental contexts in which they are located.
