MBA (Master of Business Administration) [MBA]

• Core courses
• Optional courses
• Personal and career development

The MBA is structured to enhance your personal and academic development.

The programme includes orientation and induction sessions ahead of the core courses to address your individual needs as you set out on the MBA programme.

The core courses are followed by specialist optional courses, allowing you to focus on the areas of learning that are most suited to your future career path. You will have the opportunity to follow one of three specialist tracks in Finance, Strategy or Marketing.

The programme finishes by offering you the considerable practical benefits of a consultancy project, as well as the in-depth and applied analysis of a dissertation.

In addition, a range of social, networking and guest speaker events run throughout the year to enhance your learning experience and to help you get the most out of your MBA.

An important part of the MBA is the team consulting project: an opportunity for you to put the theories you’ve learned during the programme into action.

This course will introduce you to the intellectual perspectives and methods that underpin the practice of making decisions essential for business management. In this course you will explore the many different disciplinary and methodological traditions that should inform effective analyses of the business world. You will also learn how informed thinking and analysis will assist you in making decisions and delivering better business outcomes.

This course integrates all key business disciplines with courses such as dynamic strategic management, developing leadership skills with people and resources, strategic marketing, financial analysis and decision-making, and global economics. You will develop the skills expected of senior managers and be capable of developing a career in any leading organisation.

You will be presented with first-hand experience of business leaders, many of them our alumni, of how to face an uncertain future. This course includes guest lectures from successful organisations that will introduce you to key issues in business, including:

• Is globalisation playing out as expected?
• What degree of control do managers really have over their organisations and their people?
• To what extent are innovation and diversity really present in contemporary organisations?
• How is technology and innovation changing the shape and scope of organisations?
• How should managers react to a more uncertain world?

Previous speakers include Tom Purves, former CEO of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars; Brian McBride, former Managing Director of Amazon UK and current Chairman of ASOS; Kate Armstrong, founder of Confused.com and Admiral; and Mike Reid, Chairman and founder of Care Vision.

• Political contexts (geopolitics, corporate responsibility, scenario planning)
• Economic contexts (regulation and international markets, risk management, social and environmental accounting)
• Social contexts (the importance of place, personal and corporate ethics, cross-cultural management)
• Technological contexts (innovation, ICT and global communications)
• Environmental contexts (climate change, energy)
• Legal contexts (changing roles of the state, citizen and consumer rights).

Following the core courses, you have the choice of five optional courses. These will give you the choice to follow three specialist tracks: Finance, Strategy or Marketing. The courses on offer vary each year and are taught by a range of leading academics and practitioners, based on their research or personal experience of the corporate world. Previous courses have included:

• Business scenarios for consulting
• Business to business relationship management
• Company and market failure
• Corporate image, branding & communication
• Credibility & networks - Selling yourself and your organisation
• Entrepreneurial finance
• International financial analysis
• International strategy for multinational enterprise
• Project leadership & control
• The role of technology in innovative organisations
• Strategic human resource management
• Supply and logistics management.

This element runs in parallel to the rest of the programme, beginning immediately after Leadership Foundations. It is made up of five interconnected components: mentorship in leadership and employability; personal development planning; research techniques training and the primary research project of the dissertation. In this course you will undertake a group project to test the skills and techniques you have accumulated through the programme.