Mandatory Courses

Our strategic marketing course is new and launched in 2019. It aims to provide students with the necessary tools and frameworks to enable them to make proactive marketing decisions. The philosophy underlying this course is that marketing-oriented companies put customers first, are geared for long-term success and that this orientation must be championed by top management and infused throughout the whole organisation.

Strategic marketing requires knowledge, skills and competencies in a range of techniques such as strategic analysis and planning, implementation – via a number of integrated and synergistic marketing functions and activities – and marketing control, aided by an array of marketing metrics and digital developments.

Topics include:

• Marketing management for a turbulent era
• Marketing fit with corporate and business strategies
• Marketing environmental insights
• Customer insights and customer connections
• Marketing insights for demand measurement
• Segmentation and target marketing
• Branding and positioning
• Marketing strategies for competitive and market scenarios
• The integrated marketing mix
• Organising, planning, delivering and measuring market performance.

This course aims to provide students with a strong grasp of both the strategic elements of establishing a long-term customer orientation and the operational techniques that are required of marketing managers to implement a strategic marketing orientation successfully.

Read the full course syllabus

Read an extended outline of the course syllabus for Strategic Marketing, which gives you an overview of the course content.

Our People, Work and Organisations course aims for students to develop a detailed appreciation of factors influencing how people behave at work and how these link to performance.

The course focuses on understanding individual differences, how these differences affect group dynamics and how organisational factors affect individual behaviour. At its core, the course aims to equip students with the skills and knowledge to positively impact on individual, team and organisational performance in a variety of dynamic organisational contexts.

Topics include:

• Understanding behaviour in organisations
• Individual differences
• Motivation and engagement
• Work group dynamics
• Power, politics and conflicts
• Designing effective organisations
• Organisational culture
• Organisational change

The course concludes with a detailed case study that allows students to draw on their knowledge of organisational behaviour and recommend interventions to improve performance. Throughout the course, students are encouraged to think critically about their role as managers and to reflect on their practice in light of relevant theory.

Read the full course syllabus

Read an extended outline of the course syllabus for People, Work and Organisations, which gives you an overview of the course content.

The course is divided into eight modules. Having explored what we mean by ‘leadership’ in the first module, the course then considers key developments in leadership theories and how they apply to modern organisations.

Leadership is enacted differently depending on the context, and the course hones in on some example settings for practice, including creative industries and projects, to explore alternative approaches to leading.

The role of leadership in setting and shaping organisational strategy is also explored, and contemporary issues of gender, culture and ethics are discussed.

Topics include:

• Introduction to leadership
• Traditional and contingency leadership approaches
• Modern theories of leadership
• Post-heroic leadership
• Leadership in contexts
• Leadership, gender and culture
• Leadership and ethics
• Developing leadership

The course ends by considering how leaders and leadership can be developed and provides insights into current trends and future directions.

Read the full course syllabus

Read an extended outline of the course syllabus for Leadership Theory and Practice, which gives you an overview of the course content.

Financial decision making aims to provide students with a set of accounting and financial tools that enables them to interpret and critique financial information from a variety of sources, and to make informed and effective financial decisions that directly impact company operations.

The course begins with a closer look at the current financial landscape. It then examines the application of financial and management accounting tools relevant to critical financial decisions, including key performance indicators, breakeven analysis, working capital management techniques and the budgeting process.

This is followed by a consideration of financial management and the decisions faced by organisations on investment (what projects), finance (what type of finance) and dividend (pay or retain) and how an organisation analyses takes action on each of those decisions.

Topics include:

• The financial landscape
• Financial accounting
• Working capital management
• Management accounting
• Budgeting
• Financial tools
• Capital budgeting and investment appraisal
• Financing, payout policy and management.

The course concludes with an introduction to exchange rate and interest rate risk management.

Read the full course syllabus

Read an extended outline of the course syllabus for Financial Decision Making, which gives you an overview of the course content.

Watch the course video: Economics for Business, Youtube

The course starts by outlining fundamental economic concepts and examining the workings of the market system. Different market structures and their impact on organisations are reviewed and the role of government in the economy is examined.

Relevant aspects of the macroeconomy are introduced with a focus on business impact and decision-making. This is followed by an exposition of international economic issues.

Topics include:

• The Role of Economics in Business
• The Market Mechanism
• Demand
• Supply
• Market Structure
• Factor Markets
• The Role of Government
• The Macroeconomic Environment
• Macroeconomic Policy
• International Trade and Globalisation
• Research Activity

The course ends with a research activity that will pull all the strands of the course together, and prepare students fully for the assessment.

Read an extended outline of the course syllabus for Economics for Business, which gives you an overview of the course content.

The Developing and Executing Strategy course is the capstone and final course in your online MBA programme.

This course covers the core areas of strategic management and uses the general management setting to integrate ideas across the core disciplines covered in other MBA core courses. Developing and Executing Strategy begins by examining the evolution of management and academic thinking around strategy and strategic management over the past 50 years, reviews the diversity of contemporary strategy theory and practice and examines the role of strategy in the management of different types of organisations.

The course then examines a variety of aspects of strategy, such as strategic intent, analysis, strategic options and implementation. At each stage the links with other management disciplines, such as leadership, organisational behaviour, economics, marketing and finance are considered. Finally an integrative framework for strategic decision-making is presented, which facilitates a holistic approach to complex business and management issues.

Topics include:

• Introduction to Strategy and Strategists
• Strategic Intent
• Strategic Issue Diagnosis
• Interpreting and Analysing the Environment
• Analysing the Organisation
• Generating, Selecting and Evaluating Strategic Options
• Strategy Implementation and Practice

The course encourages students to think and operate at the strategic level in a range of dynamic settings through integration of ideas across core business disciplines.

Read an extended outline of the course syllabus for Developing and Executing Strategy, which gives you an overview of the course content.