The overarching objective of this module is to develop the students’ understanding of leadership within organisations. Leadership remains an important topic in the field of management studies, especially with regard to its theoretical underpinnings on the one hand and its practical development on the other.

The module will expose students to a variety of approaches and theories necessary to understand leadership. Moreover, the module seeks to situate leadership within related fields such as strategic management or business ethics.

The module will first introduce students to traditional approaches to leadership in order to build a solid foundation for exploring current concepts. From there the module will progress to the discussion of current issues, followed by a critical exploration of contextual topics. By the end of the module, students will have developed a comprehensive appreciation of leadership in today’s business environment.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Demonstrate a clear understanding of the key elements of the various theories and concepts on leadership in organisations
2. Critically evaluate practices of leadership
3. Analyse leadership in organisations independently

Over recent decades, social and political shifts have culminated in the emergence of Human Resource Management (HRM) as an organizational practice distinct from more traditional ‘personnel’ approaches to managing people at work. An HRM approach takes a strategic view of the organizations’ employees as drivers of competitive advantage and HRM functions – resourcing, performance and reward management, employment relations, and learning and development – are correspondingly aligned with this aim.

However, the evidence that HRM achieves these strategic objectives and, more fundamentally, the nature and role of HRM in an organization is highly contestable. Whilst exploring the dominant theories and approaches to the subject, this module explores HRM through a critical lens. We explore the social and institutional context that shapes the way in which the employment relationship is managed. We explore and question the norms and assumptions that lie behind the dominant approaches to HRM today. We also seek to analyse some of the key employment strategies adopted by organizations today, highlighting and seeking to explain the gaps between theory and practice. Students will develop a critical understanding of the theory and practice of HRM and an awareness of how HR practices impact on individual employees and workers and reproduce wider social structures.

Learning Outcomes:

• Demonstrate an understanding of key perspectives, theories and concepts that inform contemporary understandings of HRM

• Analyse the effects of HRM practices and ideologies within a wider social, economic and political context

• Critically evaluate the significance of HRM for firms’ performance

• Show awareness of current debates and the challenges facing HRM in a contemporary context

Skills for Your Professional Life (Transferable Skills)

• Evaluate issues related to people management from a range of different perspectives and be able to integrate these into a considered and practical approach to management
• Think critically about HRM practices by discussing current case studies and academic articles
• Work effectively and efficiently in small teams (in classes)
• Solve problems creatively and collaboratively (in classes)
• Enhance your oral communication skills through short presentations given in group work activities (in classes)
• Develop your commercial awareness by practical activities and cases (in classes)
• Encourage innovation by practical exercises encouraging you to develop solutions to human resource issues and problems (in classes)
• Reflect on your own future managerial practice in relation to HRM

By stating their social responsibility and voluntarily taking on commitments which go beyond common regulatory and conventional requirements… companies endeavour to raise the standards of social development, environmental protection and respect of fundamental rights and embrace an open governance, reconciling interests of various stakeholders in an overall approach of quality and sustainability” (European Union Green Paper, 2001: 6).

“Businessmen believe that they are defending free enterprise when they declaim that business is not concerned ‘merely’ with profit but also with promoting desirable ‘social’ ends; that business has a ‘social conscience’ and takes seriously its responsibilities for providing employment, eliminating discrimination, avoiding pollution and whatever else may be the catchwords of the contemporary crop of reformers… Businessmen who talk this way are unwitting puppets of the intellectual forces that have been undermining the

basis of a free society these past decades… there is one and only one social responsibility of business–to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud” (Friedman, 1970).

This 10 week module builds upon your existing understandings of management and organisation by considering specifically the ethics of, and in, business. The emergent field of Business Ethics (and associated fields of Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability) have made particular contributions in shaping an ethical examination of business. In this module you will be introduced to the origins, practice and theory of Business Ethics. You will be provided with the conceptual and theoretical resources to examine critically the nature of its contributions. Identifying particular assumptions that inform but also constrain the Business Ethics field the module also explores a number of wider literatures and perspectives that provide further resources for a critical examination of the ethics of business.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Understand a range of ethical factors in, and perspectives, practices and critiques of, business and organisation.
2. Develop greater sensitivity and awareness of implied and explicit ethical assumptions and beliefs in their own and others’ argumentation.
3. Critically analyse, using appropriate ethical concepts and theory, management and business practices and the contribution of the field of Business Ethics towards enhancing ethical accountability in business.

Skills for Your Professional Life (Transferable Skills):

1. Written Communication
2. Oral Communication
3. Research Skills
4. Critical Thinking
5. Teamwork-Collaboration
6. Digital and Technical Fluency

This module evaluates the opportunities and challenges of conducting businesses online. You develop your critical and analytical skills by exploring key concepts in ecommerce and electronic business and examining their effects on society and the economy. Topics include e-business infrastructure, online revenue, payment systems, digital marketing and online security. You also debate the ethical, moral and legal issues of trading online, including areas such as spatial unboundedness, ‘the digital divide’, privacy and security breaches.

The module is intended to open up the relationship between individual behaviour and experience in the context of the study of organizations. As such, it is rooted in the psychology of organising and its primary focus is on the individual in the organization, the construction of meaning and how they behave, react or subvert in relation to organizational life. Developing the discussions from in previous modules, we will explore the role of socialisation, emotion and the construction of identities within the context of the labour processes, paying particular attention to the ‘hidden’ dimensions of organising.

The module is taught over 10 weeks, in two hour sessions which will involve a formal taught element, followed by discussion, group work and other class based activities. The readings will be available on Moodle and are a central [art of what we do in the classroom. The readings are chosen to provide vibrant empirical examples, and to be accessible in terms of opening up the topics at hand. The course will also draw on a range of critical perspectives on organizations and the business context.

Learning Outcomes:

1. To relate everyday observations of organizations and organizational members to the experience of organizations and to be able to hypothesise about management actions and their consequences for the behaviour and experience of members.
2. To be able to write essays which demonstrate an ability to analyse and evaluate aspects of organizational behaviour.
3. To produce a coherent and well-structured argument about the psychological aspects of organizational behaviour.
4. To demonstrate a critical approach to reading and talking about how organizations function.
5. To hypothesise about alternative forms of organization and to understand the complexity of the psychological contract of work.
6. To understand the need for a principled approach to management.

In contemporary culture the need for marketers to be flexible and adaptable to the rapidly changing world is ever growing. As competition in markets grows and consumers make ever more demands on the companies from which they choose to purchase, marketers must be increasingly sensitive to consumers. BE515 explores a variety of different theories of consumption relating to consumption in the marketplace, consumers as individuals, consumers as decision makers and consumers as social beings. The module will go beyond looking at the act of buying to consider the entire consumption cycle. This module explores how an understanding of buyer behaviour plays an essential role in marketing strategy formulation as we consider how marketers use and apply consumer behaviour theory. Given that consumption has an increasingly important role in our daily lives, students will also be encouraged to draw on their own experiences to aid understanding of the theoretical content of the class.          

Learning Outcome:

1. Identify and explain key consumer behaviour theories and their relationship to practice.
2. Understand consumer behaviour as complex phenomena worthy of study for managerial purposes and in its own right.
3. Apply the knowledge necessary for further advanced study on marketing and consumer behaviour courses.

This module explores a number of topics in work psychology through both the academic field of work psychology (Arnold & Randall et al., 2016) and the lens of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).

In terms of substantive topics, the material in this module is designed to build on your second year studies in organisational behaviour (BE410) and complement your studies in human resources management (BE433). The theoretical approach adopted is distinct from that of the optional module management psychology (BE434).

Work psychology has well established research on topics such as Stress, Career Management, Communication, Change and Conflict, and aspects of this research will be explored over the course of the term.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is an internationally recognised model of personality. You will learn the fundamental structure and concepts used in the MBTI, as well as developing an understanding of your own ‘psychological type’ according to the theory. Over the course of the term it is expected that you will engage reflexively and critically with the theory of the MBTI and your own ‘type’. Some teaching sessions will be in a workshop style to facilitate group learning and personal reflection.

Topics to be covered will include the origins, development, ethics and criticisms of the MBTI with detailed explication of the theory itself, comparison with Temperament theory (a comparable model of personality) and sessions exploring Stress, Career Management, Communication, Change and Conflict. These sessions will enable the critical evaluation of how the MBTI is applied to work-related issues.

Learning Outcomes:

1. demonstrate a broad understanding of selected topics in work psychology (such as Stress, Career Management, Communication, Change and Conflict);
2. demonstrate a detailed understanding of the origins, theoretical basis and ethical orientation of the MBTI, and how it is applied to topics in work psychology (such as Stress, Career Management, Communication, Change and Conflict);
3. demonstrate a detailed understanding of the similarities and differences between the MBTI and at least one other theory of personality;
4. show a reflexive awareness of the benefit of understanding personality dimensions of oneself and others, particularly with regard to work and careers

This module seeks to bring together the knowledge and understanding you have gained during the Business Management, Management and Marketing, and Business Management and/with Modern Languages degree courses. It will enable you to apply and integrate your research skills by critically investigating a contemporary issue in business, management or marketing.

Learning Outcomes:

1. identify, plan, organise and pursue a research-based project or study.
2. demonstrate the capacity to exercise a range of research and transferable skills and methods in order to produce a research-led report.
3. analyse and reflect critically on theories and/or conceptual/analytical frameworks in addressing real-life management, marketing or business problems.
4. demonstrate a series of transferable skills including those related to accessing documentary evidence, academic research evidence and data from primary sources
5. demonstrate an ability to synthesise and critique knowledge from a variety of sources.
6. communicate effectively findings and analysis, and generate appropriate recommendations.

On completion of this module, you should have enhanced the following key professional and transferable skills:

1. Written Communication – through the preparation of a final report
2. Research Skills – through the retrieval, evaluation and synthesis of published academic research and commercial and professional literature
3. Critical Thinking – through the evaluation and critique of published academic, commercial and professional literature
4. Digital and Technical Fluency – through the use of internet and electronic database searches to obtain published academic research and commercial and professional literature; or through research into on-line communities, for example
5. Innovation and Curiosity – through the development of a research question and awareness of the academic process
6. Data and Analytics – through the evaluation of published research
7. Personal Brand – through the development of all these skills to enhance your curriculum vitae
8. Commercial Awareness – through the evaluation and critique of professional and commercial literature