Business Management with Foundation and Placement Years

The BSc (Hons) Business Management with Foundation and Placement Years is ideal for those interested in a future professional career in business and management. The course offers an excellent grounding in key aspects of business management and will equip you for a wide variety of career options including operations, HR, project management, business analytics, business consultancy as well as setting up your own venture.

Throughout the course you’ll get to develop key employability skills such as research, presentation, critical analysis, problem solving, teamwork and entrepreneurship. The curriculum is also complemented by guest lectures and ‘live’ workshops to promote independent learning and help to increase your employability skills for the future.

The degree programme is designed so that the Foundation Year provides an underpinning year, incorporating both academic and work/professional related learning, for applicants needing to improve their academic skills. The year develops students academic and professional skills within the contexts of the disciplines offered by the university, e.g. Business, Law, Psychology, Computer Science and Criminology, to enable students to continue and participate in the undergraduate business programmes at levels 4, 5 and 6. This includes developing communication skills, digital and research skills, and understanding the importance of sustainability, diversity and inclusion.

Year 1 covers the foundation elements of business management. Years 2 and 4 cover the areas in more depth and in particular develops your employability skills. The programme equips you with the knowledge and skills required for a professional career in a rapidly changing work environment, while supporting your self-awareness, personal development and providing access to valuable work-experience opportunities.

If taking a Placement Year, this will fall in the 3rd year of a 4-year degree. You’ll have the opportunity to find paid work, putting the learning of your first 2 years into practice to develop and enhance real world skills to launch your career.

BSc Business Management has been approved as part of The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) Accredited Degree scheme and students are eligible to claim exemptions towards the CIM Certificate in Professional Marketing/Digital Marketing.

Students will have an opportunity to qualify for the CMI Level 5 Diploma in Management and Leadership (5D1V2) or the Level 5 Certificate in Leadership and Management (5C1V2) dependent on successful completion of modules which are mapped to one of these CMI awards. This is a good opportunity to develop the skills that are required to become ready for the workplace, while gaining a formal qualification and building a skills portfolio that you can show to future employers.

Foundation Year

Term 1:
• Communication Skills (20 credits)
• Digital and Research Skills (20 credits)
• Sustainability and Society (20 credits)

Term 2:
• Foundation Year Project (20 credits)
• Core Concepts of Business (20 credits)
• One option from the following: Core Concepts of Computer Science; Core Concepts of Criminology; Core Concepts of Law Core, or Concepts of Psychology.

Year 1

The first year will consist of six compulsory modules:
• Essentials of Management (20 credits)
• Academic and Employability Skills (20 credits)
• Principles of Marketing (20 credits)
• Accounting and Finance (20 credits)
• Quantitative Methods for Business (20 credits)
• Managing and Leading People (20 credits)

PLEASE NOTE - Students who may want to take LLB modules as electives in Years 2 and 3 will undertake one law module (Common Law Method) on a pass/fail system (i.e. non credit-bearing) over the summer between Year One and Year Two. Students are strongly advised to take this module before undertaking the core law modules.

Year 2

The second year will consist of six modules.

Three Compulsory Modules in Semester 1:
• Ethics and Law in the Gig Economy (20 credits)
• Corporate Governance and Social Responsibility (20 credits)
• Economics for Business (20 credits)

Three elective modules from the list below in Semester 2:
• Strategic Brand Management and Social Media (20 credits)
• International Human Resources Management (20 credits)
• Marketing and Sales in a Digital World (20 credits)
• Consumer Psychology and Behaviour (20 credits)
• Introduction to Digital Marketing (20 credits)
• Project Management (20 credits)
• Business Law 1 (20 credits)
• Data and Intellectual Property Protection (20 credits)
• Introduction to Taxation (20 credits)
• Financial Markets and Instruments (20 credits)
• Research Methods (20 credits)

Students also have the opportunity to spend Semester 2 studying abroad (60 credits).

PLEASE NOTE
Research Methods is a pre-requisite for the Dissertation module in Year 3.
Business Law 1 is a pre-requisite for the Business Law 2 module in Year 3.
Introduction to Taxation is a pre-requisite for the Advanced Taxation module in Year 3.

Year 3

Students who select to undertake a placement year in industry will spend the penultimate year of their BSc programme working for an organisation under academic supervision. This supervised work placement will connect them with the employment market.

Students will gain job-related skills, awareness of the structure of an organisation, practical problem-solving, responsibility, interpersonal skills in professional settings, and understanding of the unwritten rules of workplaces. They will have the opportunity to reflect on their learning, supervised by an academic supervisor. They will also enrich their CVs with important practical experience.

Year 4

The fourth year will consist of five or six modules.

Three Compulsory Modules in Semester 1:
• Global Leadership and Change Management (20 credits)
• International Strategic Management (20 credits)
• Creativity Innovation and Entrepreneurship (20 credits)

Two or three elective modules in Semester 2 from the list below:
• Sector Specific Project or Dissertation or Internship* (40 credits) and/or
• Cases in International Strategy (20 credits)
• International Business and Global Trade (20 credits)
• Digital Marketing Strategies (20 credits)
• Market Research and Digital Marketing Analytics (20 credits)
• Digital Sales Management (20 credits)
• Personal Finance (20 credits)
• Business Law 2 (20 credits)
• Advanced Taxation (20 credits)
• Audit (20 credits)
• Introduction to FinTech (20 credits)
• Mergers and Acquisition (20 credits)
• Trading (20 credits)

Assessment is designed to meet the programme and module learning outcomes both academically and professionally in formative form including the preparation and feedback from seminars, workshops, tests and presentations, as well as in summative assessments that contributes to the grade, including individual coursework, group work, projects, in-class presentations, and exams. In particular, as is usual in the sector, this programme involves a considerable amount of group work and group assessment, i.e., as much as 50% of the assessment on selected modules may take this form.