Business Management with Placement Year

As the global business environment continues to become increasingly competitive and challenging, businesses need to take more risks and develop sustainable business models that serve their customers and have a positive impact on society. This course aims to provide you with a critical understanding of the management of organisations.

Studying the BA (Hons) Business Management award is a great opportunity to gain a degree that is focused on your long-term career prospects. Whether you are wanting to manage your own business or you are interested in working in a large corporation, you will need to possess an understanding of how businesses operate and how skilled managers can contribute to their success.

Importantly, management is about people, and we will enable you to develop your own skills as a team player, a group member and ultimately as a manager of others. Your Business Management degree will allow you to specialise in management and gain an insight into how managers work to meet organisational objectives. Alongside this knowledge you will also develop the skills you will need to be effective as a future business leader in the dynamic digital age.

Special features

• A focus on the management of organisations builds the knowledge and skills you will need as a manager. This includes the management of people, resources and business activities

• Accreditation by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) giving you a professionally recognised qualification (Level 5 Diploma in Management and Leadership) alongside your degree

• Throughout the course there are opportunities to engage with practising managers, organisations, employers and entrepreneurs and take part in work related experiences and internships

Modules
Compulsory modules:

Practising Responsible Business Behaviours: This module examines the nature of business enterprise and its relationship with wider society, seeking answers to the question: what does it mean for businesses to behave responsibly? There is an ongoing debate regarding this question, with answers ranging from ‘just maximize shareholder value’ to ‘consider everyone who is affected, including unborn future generations’, with many variations in between. In this ongoing debate we encounter ideas regarding, for example, stakeholder theory, the triple bottom line, corporate social responsibility, business ethics, the role of the state or of supra-national organizations, and so on.

Organisational Behaviour in the Digital Age: The purpose of this module is to examine and critically assess a number of key concepts and issues associated with behaviour in organisations. It is designed to develop students’ understanding of the key characteristics of work organisation, the context of organisational behaviour, and how a number of different organisational variables affect individual and organisational performance. This module discusses the role of contemporary business in the modern digital age. It seeks to consider the changing role and nature of business and how it influences society and the way business is conducted.

Entrepreneurship and the Business Environment: The purpose of this module is to provide students with an understanding of the internal and external business challenges facing managers today. Students will be introduced to the theoretical underpinning of the business environment which will further develop their abilities to analyse and address managerial issues posed by the drivers that influence organisations The module exposes students to the exciting, challenging and increasingly complex work of entrepreneurship. Students will also develop a critical understanding of contemporary discourses surrounding ‘entrepreneurs’ and ‘entrepreneurship’ as they are found in the wider culture and society at large.

Business analytics and the Blockchain: The aim of this module is to give you a practical grounding in the skills and techniques necessary to conduct data analytics and anticipate the effects of the blockchain on both short and long-term strategy. The module introduces the blockchain and the scope of the blockchain industry.

Basic statistical models are introduced in this module. As future business leaders, students will learn to understand blockchain, explore blockchain trends, investigate the market disruptions caused by technology and the impact of blockchain in industries worldwide. The module is designed to get you over the basic hurdles you will face when beginning to learn data analytics and management techniques, and will cover some of the basic tasks that you face as a data analyst and will put you in a position to extend your knowledge of applying your analytical techniques.

Managing Business Resources: Resource management is the efficient and effective deployment and allocation of an organisation's resources when and where they are needed. Such resources may include financial resources, inventory, human skills, production resources, or information technology. The purpose of this module is to give students a broad understanding of the ways in which human, financial and physical resources are managed within a business organisation. In addition, students will appreciate the importance of effective resource management.

Understanding Customers and Markets: This module will introduce you to the business philosophy and practice of marketing. It will examine how organisations can analyse and segment markets to improve performance and profitability by building long-term relationships with their customers. A wide range of marketing decisions is studied together with the influence of the changing marketing environment on these decisions.

All modules are worth 20 credits unless stated otherwise