MBA - Master of Business Administration Part Time

A Master of Business Administration (MBA) is the main postgraduate qualification offered by business schools across the globe. It has a unique status amongst masters programmes and is specifically dealt with in the UK Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) Business and nagement benchmarking statement.

The QAA recognises that business and management education is an essential ingredient to the health and productivity of national and global economies. Managers and business people benefit from professional education and development, becoming effective and enterprising and therefore more able to assist their organisations to be competitive in a knowledge-based global economy. In the QAA statement, the MBA is defined as 'a career development generalist programme for those who have significant post-graduation and relevant work experience on which the learning process should build'. The recommended experience required will be at least two years, but this is not typical as most entrants will have substantially more than this. MBA programmes emphasise leadership through strategic management. MBA programmes have a strategic focus while the skills component should develop an enterprise culture. The learning and teaching methods are therefore likely to be intensive and challenging with an expectation of considerable autonomous learning. In addition to being familiar with recent research, MBA graduates will also be familiar with leading-edge practice based on rigorous evidence. MBA programmes include a significant group work element during which participants should be able to develop further their own knowledge and experience through drawing on the experiences of others.

Philosophy of the Winchester MBA
The MBA at Winchester is designed for individuals wishing to progress to a strategic management level or for those wishing to broaden their skills within their current role. The programme is structured to provide a firm foundation in core management disciplines and to develop the strategic expertise essential for the effective senior manager. It provides a blend of academic theory with business and management practice to ensure that the knowledge acquired can be readily transferred to the workplace. The programme's structure conforms to the QAA benchmarks for MBA programmes and follows the 'Dublin descriptors' for masters level studies, which establish common standards for European higher education following the 1999 Bologna agreement.

The QAA benchmark expects MBA graduates to gain knowledge and develop understanding in the following areas:

· Markets - the development and operation of markets for resources, goods and services
· Customers - customer expectations, service and orientation
· Finance - the sources, uses and management of finance; the use of accounting and other information systems for managerial applications
· People - the management and development of people within organizations
· Operations - the management of resources and operations; information systems; the development, management and exploitation of information systems and their impact upon organisations
· Communication and information technology (CIT) - comprehension and use of relevant CIT for application in business and management
· Business policy and strategy - the development of appropriate policies and strategies within a changing environment, to meet stakeholder interests
· Pervasive issues - these would include sustainability, globalisation, corporate social responsibility, diversity, business innovation, creativity, enterprise development, knowledge management and risk management

What is distinctive about the Winchester MBA programme?
MBA programmes are generalist degrees and conforming to the relevant QAA benchmark statement results in quite similar content being taught in schemes across the UK. What is distinctive about the Winchester MBA is that the academic team have chosen to merge topics to provide a strategic orientation to everything that is taught. The team have chosen not to teach a separate module in business strategy, but to encompass strategic elements to all of the topics that are delivered. In addition, modules are not discipline-focussed, but team teaching allows an integrative approach to the modules, with perspectives and contributions from a variety of different specialisms.

The optional courses provide a distinctive flavour to the MBA. The inclusion of the module Socio-cultural Analysis of Global Issues builds on an area for which Winchester has an increasing reputation. While studying Global Sports Marketing is a timely inclusion for managers working in sports-related industries especially in the run up to the London Olympic Games. The Business Consulting module provides a valuable opportunity to work on 'live' consulting projects to apply some of the theories studied in a practical context. This will appeal to a broad range of national and international students and provide a tangible value-added service to the local and regional business community. Additionally Managing Change in the Public Services will appeal to the many public services organisations located in the Winchester area, and the module provides the opportunity for management progression within public sector organisations.

The University of Winchester in itself is unique. The University is small in scale compared to many other universities, and thus is able to offer a highly supportive environment in which academic staff and students work together in true partnership.

Skill-sets developed
In designing the course the Winchester Business School staff recognised that course participants will seek to enhance their knowledge base and higher order skills as they make a journey through their postgraduate career. It is envisaged that the skill-sets could be usefully categorised along the following dimensions (although these may frequently overlap in practice):

· Scholarship skills

The ability to research subject areas at an advanced level and then display the abilities to dissect, evaluate and progress various lines of argument. The ability to sift, evaluate and apply source material and to adapt to the purpose in hand will also be developed. Independence of thought, originality and creativity are also important attributes to be furthered. These skills will be manifested in their formal outputs such as coursework and will culminate for most students in their MBA dissertation. However, it is to be recognised that the style and presentation of an argument may well have to be tailored in particular circumstances to meet the needs of the audiences to which it is addressed.

· Technical skills

Technical skills include not only conventional ICT skills in package manipulation but also the ability to utilise rapidly developing technologies (virtual learning environments, for example) in potentially innovative ways. Technical skills also encompasses those techniques specific to particular disciplines (such as finance, economics and statistics) that enable course members to present sound arguments to the requisite professional level.

· Inter-relationship skills

Inter-relationship skills ('soft' skills) refers to that bundle of attributes that may well be critical in group membership and organisational functioning. They include not only self-presentation and communication skills but also reflection designed to enhance future performance. There is an argument that such skills have not typically received the attention that they deserve in postgraduate education which may well have placed emphasis upon scholarship and technical to the detriment of interrelationship skills. The course designers are conscious that the success of many (if not most) business projects relies upon the successful deployment of inter-relationship skills and serves to address these specifically in the course design.

Study options

The MBA programme is available for fulltime or part-time study. There is progression through the Postgraduate Certificate (PgCert) and Postgraduate Diploma (PgDip), and study culminates in a dissertation which qualifies the student for the MBA award.

Learning and teaching
A Master of Business Administration is taught to ensure a practical orientation, with a focus on strategy and integration of thinking across an entire organisation. Teaching is highly interactive and this depends on putting students' previous business experience into a context that informs all members of the cohort.

Various teaching methods are used for core and elective modules, dependent on the nature of the subject and the size of the group. These methods include lectures, case studies, syndicate work, role-playing, business games, group presentations and seminars.

Syndicate and group work is encouraged to enable participants to benefit from the varied backgrounds and experience of other cohort members. Guest speakers and alumni may also be invited in order to enrich the content of the programme and the diversity of experience.

Assessment
The assessment strategy of the programme is based on using a variety of assessment methods appropriate to mature learners and reflects the need to give students prompt and clear feedback on their performance. Assessment methods appropriate to the strategic focus of the modules in the programme are adopted, and some assessment by conventional examinations is included, although all modules will have coursework components. There is a particular emphasis upon assessment methods that closely simulate the demands of the business environment (for example, research and production of a report incorporating an analysis conducted under time-constrained conditions). The majority of modules will have at least one formally assessed element which may well take the form of a traditional examination (seen or unseen), case study analysis, time constrained report production or similar. In the case of collaborative and group work, successful completion of the module is only possible where there is a significant amount of work which is clearly attributable to each individual student (this follows existing Business Management group guidelines and good practice).

Dissertation
The final stage is the 40 credit dissertation which leads to the ultimate award of an MBA. The dissertation is designed to offer opportunities for research into a specific topic chosen by the student in consultation with members of the tutorial team. The title and research area have to be approved by the programme team. Dissertations must include either original fieldwork or an extensive and critical analysis relevant to the learning outcomes of the programme. Supervision of the dissertation is by means of tutorials, which will follow initial group seminars to discuss the nature, aims and outcomes of the dissertation module. A substantial analytical report of 10,000-15,000 words is produced with a practitioner focus.