MBA

Course review:

Managers need to be multi-taskers. They need to understand how to motivate staff and how to get the best performance from people; how to market their products or services and meet the demands of their consumers; how to implement processes and systems; and how to manage budgets and understand the impact that financial performance has on strategic decision making. Crucially, they need to understand how all of these activities fit within the context of a rapidly changing, global marketplace.

When you join the MBA at the University of Leicester, you will be making a significant investment in your future. Your decision to join the programme will be one of the most important decisions you will ever make. If you demand first rate academic standards, you are willing to have some of your basic managerial assumptions challenged, and are ready for the hard work involved, you will find studying the MBA programme to be a rewarding and enriching experience.

Aims and Objectives
- The MBA programme has been designed to cover the spectrum of management subjects, calling on a wide range of expertise. It allows you to concentrate on general management or to tailor the course to suit your individual career needs.

- The Leicester MBA provides you with the skills necessary to become a competent and capable manager in today’s global business environment. The course will enhance your ability to evaluate and analyse evidence and implement appropriate solutions in any business environment.

- You will develop the skills to think creatively and strategically about a wide range of business issues, alongside an awareness of cultural sensitivity and the ability to work in a cross-cultural, multi-national, team-based environment.

Professional Recognition
The Leicester MBA is one of a small number of UK courses to have obtained accreditation by the Association of MBAs (AMBA).

The University of Leicester School of Management has been appointed a Government Procurement Services’ supplier, one of only three ‘approved suppliers’ of distance learning MBAs to the public sector in the UK.

This programme has been approved by The Chartered Institute of Marketing to provide direct entry onto the CIM’s Professional Certificate in Marketing.

Distance Learning
Distance Learning (DL) with the University of Leicester means studying at home in your own time and at your own pace, so you can combine achieving a qualification with work or family commitments. The University of Leicester is one of the UK's leading research and teaching universities with over 20 years' experience of offering high quality distance learning courses. Over 25,000 students have graduated from our Distance Learning programmes.

Course Structure
The programme is assessed by a mixture of continuous assessment and examination. You will complete a piece of assessed work for each of the modules.

Stage One – September to December
Foundations of Knowledge and Professional Skills: Provides requisite quantitative awareness, analysis of the production of 'knowledge' within management, encourages you to begin developing personal skills necessary for academic and business environments.

Organisational Behaviour: Examines organisational culture, motivation, groups and organisation, organisational development, human resource issues, structure and work organisation.

Accounting for Managers: Accounting information for decision making, planning and control; cost and activity management; the budgeting process; performance appraisal; investment appraisal.

Marketing Design and Operations: Examines integration of marketing and product design, strategy and product marketing, identifying new markets from product innovation, marketing and product delivery.

Strategy, Business Information and Analysis: Examines the nature of strategy, the role of rationality, learning and the organisation, managing risks, competitive advantage, creating strategic objectives.

Stages Two and Three – January to May
Corporate Finance: The firm; equity; debt; derivatives, the cost of capital, off-balance-sheet finance, gearing and dividend decisions, company valuation and asset pricing; portfolio management and capital markets, takeovers, mergers and corporate re-structuring.

Business Ethics in a Global Context: What are ethics? Why are ethics important? Traditional examinations of ethics, a 'new' ethics, legitimacy and corporate life, corporate social responsibility.

Two electives from the following: Alternative Economies; Benchmarking; Branding and Communications; Business to Business Marketing and Supply Chain Management; Consumption, Society and Culture; Employee Relations; International Finance and Globalisation; International Marketing; International Organisational Behaviour; Knowledge Management; Managing Information: Technology and System; Marketing of Services; Performance Management: Quantitative Approaches; Project Management for Information Technology; Public Finance; Retail Marketing; Strategic Financial Management; Strategic Human Resource Management; Total Quality Management

Stage four – May to September
Research Methodology and Dissertation: You will first produce a short proposal outlining the intended area of research. During the course of the project process you will identify an appropriate management issue, apply theoretical knowledge to a particular organisational situation in order to produce realistic and critically informed analysis. This stage of the MBA provides an opportunity for you to integrate and inter-relate concepts, techniques and competencies acquired in the course of the programme.

MBA Specialisms
We offer you the choice of studying for a general MBA or opting to follow one of our specialist routes:

- MBA (Employee Relations)
- MBA (Finance)
- MBA (IT Management)
- MBA (Marketing)
- MBA (Quality Management

To follow a specialist route, you must study two elective modules and write a dissertation relevant to your chosen specialism.