Accounting and Finance MSc

Core modules:

This module will introduce you to the theory and practice of financial decision making. You will study the basic blocks of finance and financial management that are of primary concern to financial managers and financial analysts, and the key aspects to make financial decisions. The module builds on the concept of time value of money, risk and return, and capital budgeting aspects of investment decisions.

This module aims to provide you with an understanding of key management accounting issues and applied methodologies in contemporary business practice, focusing on the role of management accounting in providing information for operational and strategic decision-making, planning, control and performance management. You will have the opportunity to examine the blend of cost analysis and managerial judgment required to make sound economic decisions and covers topics in cost management, budgetary control, and short and longer term financial decision making, particularly in the manufacturing sector.

Being able to understand, interpret and analyse a company's financial statements is an essential skill for finance professionals. In this module, you'll study fundamental issues concerning the financial reporting of companies to become familiar with certain financial statement characteristics reported following the international accounting standards. You'll aim to develop an ability to critically assess and interpret corporate financial performance using financial analysis techniques that aid the interpretation of accounts and performance.

This module will introduce you to more advance topics in corporate finance with an aim of giving you a critical understanding of theories in corporate finance and of practical implications of the theories on a day to day decision making as a finance specialist.

The past decades have witnessed a rapid emergence of good corporate governance as a crucial part of running any successful corporation. The central aim of this module is to provide you with a thorough grounding in a range of advanced topics in corporate governance. In particular, the module seeks to introduce and develop you ability to critically evaluate a wide of range of concepts, principles, theories, models, systems, mechanisms, reforms, regulations and research in corporate governance.

In this module you'll study a range of important contemporary issues and topics in accounting and corporate social responsibility. It is designed to enhance your appreciation and understanding of ethical, regulatory and governing accounting issues. You will also have an opportunity to learn about specific accountabilities of corporate social responsibility from the perspective of small and large businesses, with the aim of the interpretation and application of non-financial data.

In today’s highly mobile and interconnected world of business, you will undoubtedly find yourself working with culturally diverse teams, partnerships and customer bases. It is therefore essential that you are able to offer future employers, colleagues and other stakeholders an adaptable interculturally aware and responsive approach. In the light of that, this module fosters transferable skills fundamental to global employability. Your professional and personal development will be guided through the application of the eight CIPD Behaviours, University of Huddersfield’s target Graduate Attributes, and key Intercultural Effectiveness skills and mindsets. As you develop professionally through your subject studies you will increase consciousness of your individual cultural make-up and the impact of this on behaviour, relationships and worldview in order to navigate beyond the borders of your own culture. You will develop a conscious approach to effective global practice, responding positively to difference, and constructing strategies to deal with intercultural workplace encounters.

Option modules:

The role of decision makers in the supply chain will be considered along with the use of operations research modelling to support such decisions. In this module, you'll have the opportunity to learn how data can be obtained, extracted and manipulated to enable decision support tools to be used to underpin the planning and control of operations and the supply chain.

This module provides an introduction into the strategic management theories and its practical application. It will cover: mission and goal formation, stakeholder theories, corporate governance, and business ethics, in addition to these topics, this module will equip you with the strategy toolbox that includes: external and internal analysis, corporate level strategies and business level strategies, strategic decision making and at the end overall evaluation of strategy implementation and evaluation.

Throughout your professional career you are likely to be confronted with debates about sustainability and managing scarce resources more effectively. It is essential that you are able to engage in these debates with future employers, colleagues and other stakeholders. This module provides an opportunity to explore the challenges of responsible resource management through circular economic thinking and solutions that enable business and society to go beyond a traditional model of linear production and consumption. You'll consider and aim to become familiar with debates about how far the adoption of circular economic principles takes us in this direction.

“The only thing that is constant is change” (Heraclitus). Today’s businesses face a world of ever changing technology and ever increasing customer demands. Throughout your career you undoubtedly be involved in change of some description. This module will facilitate the development of the transferable skills and understanding you will need to face the challenges of near constant change with resilience. Starting with a strategic overview of productivity improvement you will develop the skills needed to lead, as well as take part in, productivity improvement, product development, process improvements, service design, and innovation initiatives.

This module will introduce you to the field of management science modelling. A range of features of the area such as spreadsheet modelling, optimisation, linear programming network models and nonlinear optimisation model will be developed, explored and analysed using appropriate computer software tools. Using a number of different case studies, this module will enable you to evaluate a business problem, identify the most appropriate modelling approach to be used, verify and validate results and present a detailed analysis.

In this module you will aim to develop knowledge and understanding of the key financial instruments, investment strategies and risks in local and international financial markets. You'll have opportunity to develop a critical understanding of practical applications of investment theory by studying various techniques in asset allocation when creating and managing investment portfolios.

The rise in importance and complexity of financial management in an international environment poses a great challenge for financial managers in multinational corporations. The increasing integration of global products and financial markets around the world requires financial managers working for multinational corporations to consider exchange rates, international capital and debt markets, and economic and political risks to achieve shareholder wealth maximization. This module is intended to provide you the tools needed to understand the global financial markets and the challenges and opportunities these bring to the financial managers of the multinational corporations.

This module is designed to help you develop a curious and enterprising mindset. It gives emphasis to curiosity, creative thinking, future thinking, vision and imagination – the precursors to identifying and developing opportunities for professional development, innovation and new venture creation. These skills and mindsets are relevant to business set up as well as freelance careers and employability. You'll gain knowledge and aim to develop behaviours and attitudes to help you interpret a range of problem situations and opportunities, leading to creative and innovative responses in the form of doing things differently and/or doing something new.

This module explores the links between people management practices and positive organisational outcomes and how these are achieved in different types of organisational contexts. Focusing on leadership, flexibility and change management, the aim being to help students become effective strategic managers as well as effective HR specialists, managing others fairly and effectively and increasing levels of engagement, commitment and performance.

This module aims to develop specific skills in analysing reward management practices in organisations. It considers how to strategically use reward as a mechanism for improving productivity and engagement. The module looks at contemporary reward management practices including strategic reward management, executive remuneration, equal pay and gender pay disparity.

Adopting a cross-disciplinary approach to pressing global challenges, the module will explore the humanitarian problems raised by challenges such as migration in the Mediterranean, the use of chemical weapons, desertification, global inequality, and issues around (de)development. By interrogating theoretical, practical, and legalistic responses to unfolding humanitarian challenges the module will draw on scholarship in disciplines including law, geography, and economics to provide a critical and engaging study of tested and innovative humanitarian strategies.

Global demographics are continually changing and are now seeing an increasingly ageing population in many (but not all) countries. Put this together with changes to pension ages and age discrimination legislation and it means that in the future you will be working with many more older colleagues than has been the case to date. In this module, you will evaluate both the challenges and opportunities for business and management that come with increasingly ageing societies in the 21st Century. They will include ageing-related issues at the individual, organisational and societal levels, for example: creating novel and more flexible pension arrangements; innovative marketing to target older consumers; managing more flexible working patterns towards retirement; enabling more inclusive work environments by supporting workers with age-related health issues; and opportunities for career development in older life including starting a business. You will explore ways in which organisations and those working in them can adjust to changing needs in response to a shifting age demographic in the UK and elsewhere in the world.

This module is designed to critically evaluate consumption in the context of philosophy, society and culture, and in relation to broader contemporary sociocultural trends and issues. By adopting an interdisciplinary approach to the analysis of consumption, the module aims to develop your critical awareness of the interrelationships, consequences and tensions that exist between the consumer at the individual and collective level, as well as between the consumer, business, and government.

An opportunity to pursue an area that interests you or which you are passionate about comes in your choice of project. You have a choice of three routes: Research Route, Consultancy Route and New Venture Creation Route (subject to tutor approval).

Final Project/Research Route

In this module you'll have an opportunity to gain a strong foundation in statistical and econometric techniques that are used in the financial industry.

The Individual Research Project provides an opportunity to pursue your own interests and engage more deeply with your subject by completing an in-depth piece of research work using relevant research methods. Working autonomously, but under the guidance of a supervisor, you will make choices about the most appropriate methods and then conduct your own research project. Through the Individual Research Project, you will have the opportunity to greatly enhance your own knowledge and skills. The research will be presented in written format using academic conventions recognised in your field.

Final Project/Consultancy Route

This module prepares you for the Group Consultancy Project. It introduces the theory underpinning the process of consultancy in organisations. The module will analyse various models of consultancy and you will be given an opportunity to explore different stages in the consultancy cycle including: the purpose of consultancy in business context, project scoping and contracting, information gathering, analysis and report, action planning, implementation, review and exiting.

The Group Consultancy Project provides you with the opportunity to engage in a ‘real world’ live client brief. You will work in small teams and will be expected to engage in the process of scoping the project with the business client, undertake the necessary information gathering, analysing the information and make recommendations to the client. As part of this module, you will also need to evaluate how principles of ethics, sustainability and responsibility influence your professional decision making.

Final Project/New Venture Creation

The module provides you with the opportunity to take the practical steps to initiate a new venture or facilitate growth and innovation in an existing venture. The focus is on developing an understanding of business practicalities through action, reflection and case study. The module encourages you to acquire the knowledge, skills and attitudes for practice, recognising that you may be at different stages and working on different issues at the same time. Supervision and action learning sets provide flexible support to enable self directed learning to facilitate start up and business development initiatives with existing businesses.

The module will encourage you to develop your entrepreneurial mind-set, and help you understand the challenges and opportunities of starting and running a new venture. Your entrepreneurial skills and abilities will be guided through the application of different entrepreneurial tools and techniques – as well as practical exercises - that should enable you to assess your own entrepreneurial readiness, while preparing for the risky, uncertain and challenging environment of creating new ventures.