MSc Business with Marketing

Technology has led to a proliferation of social media channels. These channels enable peer-to-peer communication as well as providing brands with many more ways to reach their customers, have relevant conversations with them, and listen to what matters to them. This module develops an understanding of how brand managers can access and use social media channels as part of their marketing strategy in order to build brand presence and maintain relevance in the life of their customers.

Through this module you will develop a greater understanding of the fast growing, changing world of social media channels and their relevance to customers, brands and the firm. The module aims to develop an appreciation of how the firm’s integrated marketing communications, brand management, and content management strategies are impacted by social media channels, and to examine the strategic opportunities and challenges these present.

Specific objectives of the module include:

• Understanding the role of social media in achieving the objectives of the firm's integrated marketing communications strategy.
• Understanding the significance of a content management strategy, including selecting and combining appropriate social media tools for stages of the customer journey.
• Linking social media into the marketing mix, including understanding their relevance in developing product, place, and service decisions.
• Understanding how to use social media as a tool for insight into changing customer needs
• Recognising the advantages and pitfalls of earned media including brand communities, viral marketing, and PR crises.

Through this module you’ll be introduced to a range of debates that are central to the human resource management and employment relations field, including the 'high commitment' models of human resource management. It will also provide you with an in-depth insight into a number of the specific HR practice areas, including: recruitment and selection; training and development; job design and teamworking, pay and rewards; unions and HRM, and equal opportunities and diversity management.

During this module you will:

• Demonstrate an understanding of the development of human resource management as a field of study.
• Critically appreciate the contribution made by each of the core disciplines (e.g. sociology, psychology, law, economics).
• Analyse specific human resource management problems in their wider social context.
• Understand, evaluate, and marshal critical social science research on human resource management.
• Extrapolate from existing research and scholarship to identify new or revised approaches to human resource practice
• Demonstrate advanced study skills including written communication, location and retrieval of relevant reading from library stock and electronic resources, using information technology, employing appropriate quantitative methods.

This module aims to provide an overview about how today's firms use digital marketing technologies to achieve their business objectives. Students will require theoretical and practical subject knowledge and understanding, cognitive and methodological skills (e.g. written assignment, critical reflections, discussions in seminars, hands-on excercises) and social/soft skills (e.g. leadership and team work).

To be effective in modern organisations requires an understanding of the dynamics of digital work. This module equips students with a broad understanding of the tools and organisational arrangements driving this shift towards digital working, and provides them with techniques and frameworks to operate effectively in this more dynamic and fluid work environment.

The module reviews major trends and changes in the workplace arising from the increased adoption of digital tools to support work practices in modern organisations. It reviews major drivers of adoption of these tools and the emergence of new dynamics of interactions and patterns of work.

There are two specific features about project management theory which make it a slightly different type of subject to most other academic modules. Firstly, the subject has its origins in large-scale, complex operations. This means that a large proportion of the published theory concerns the planning and control aspects of the management of such processes. Secondly, most of the concepts were developed in the heyday of the 1960s, where a lot of activity was taking place in the aerospace, defence and construction sectors. This means that most of the basic literature is reasonably old and technically focused.

In the modern context, project management methods are now used for a much wider variety of applications including change management, Third World development programmes and IT-based projects. As a consequence, this module aims to span a range of sectors and be as multi-disciplinary as possible. The planning and control aspects of the module occupy only about 20% of the total time available.

You will:

1. Develop an understanding of current project and programme management approaches and to make comparisons with your own organisation.
2. Develop sensitivity to different project environments and to make comparisons and conclusions about them.
3. Increase your understanding of commercial and behavioural issues in the management of projects.
4. Provide experience of handling project management problems in a simulation setting.

Explore the importance of management of innovation in products, processes, technology and communications. Critically evaluate key indicators of innovation activity, examine internal and external factors that lead to new product failures and determine key innovation strategy issues for different situations and sectors. Develop understanding of conceptual, analytical and practical insights into the entrepreneurial process with reference to profit and non-profit enterprise contexts. Develop skills to help effective engagement in a world in which innovation and entrepreneurship are key drivers of change. 

This module introduces you to the ways in which economists and psychologists have used behavioural theories and experimental methods to provide extensions to, or alternatives to, the conventional economic wisdom described in the Fundamentals of Economic Behaviour module. It will examine recent cutting-edge research, and consider the implications of that research for individual decision making, the operation of markets and public sector policy making.

The aims of the module are to:

1) Introduce students to the principles, theories and research underlying the academic disciplines concerning the behaviour, leadership and management of people and organisations (Organisational Behaviour, OB and Human Resource Management, HRM) at four levels of analysis: individual, group, organisational and societal.

2) Develop a critical appreciation of the behavioural and social sciences as they relate to the study of behaviour in organisations.

3) Introduce students to a critical understanding of the practice of management, leadership and people management in particular.

4) Provide students with structured opportunities to practice applying OB and HRM principles, theories and research to analyse and solve organisational problems.

This module introduces you to the theory and practice of conducting business analytics projects. It adopts a business analytics methodology which enables you  to (a) analyse a complex business situation, (b) identify high value opportunities for business analytics and (c) deliver an effective business analytics project. The module adopts an experiential learning philosophy by giving you a guided and mentored experience of conducting a realistic consulting project.

The module aims to provide training in applying data science methods to contemporary economic problems by looking at case studies. Specifically, the module aims to give you the opportunity to conduct a data science project using economic data. You will discover how to replicate and extend a data science case. The module aims to give the appropriate grounding in economic analysis, while developing your research and communication skills.

Businesses today have unprecedented access to information about their customers. However, many businesses fail to use this information to generate meaningful insights about the behaviour of their customers. The consequence is that these businesses fail to exploit opportunities for value creation, and improving their financial performance.

This module is inspired by the idea that 'It's not the size of the data, it's how you use it'. Hence, the principal aim of this module is to challenge students' thinking about the appropriate and inappropriate use of customer data for strategic decision-making. Using real-world cases as context for data analyses, we will discuss good and bad practices for how to derive meaningful insights from data. Examples include comparing data for different groups of customers, finding clusters of customers, and how to analyse relationships between different types of customer data.

Students will not only improve their theoretical understanding of empirical methods, but will also learn how to apply these methods in the widely-used software R. Once these insights have been generated, it is also important to know how to use graphical representations of these insights for story-telling in business presentations. Accordingly, this module will also place great emphasis on good practices in the context of presentations with data.

This module will cover a wide range of cutting edge research in Big Data Analytics, with a particular focus on the extensive value of data from the Internet, much of which is freely available if you have the skills to mine it.

This module involves learning to program in R, but no prior programming knowledge is required.

Module aims will include:

• Linking stock market movements to online data
• Measuring sentiment with online data
• Predicting consumer behaviour with online data
• Getting quicker measurements of key economic indicators with online data
• Measuring where people are and where they are going with mobile phone data and online data
• Predicting crime and epidemics
• Understanding social networks.

The module will also teach you the practical skills needed to work with online data.

You will learn:

• How to mine data on Google searches
• How to mine data on Wikipedia page views
• How to mine data on photographs uploaded to Flickr
• How to make data visualisations
• How to design and execute a small data science project of your own

As part of this, the module will teach you how to use R, an industry standard programming language for data analytics.

The objectives of this module are to:

• Provide students with an appreciation of the roles of design within a business context
• Develop in students a good understanding of the contribution design can make to innovation and organisational success
• Critically examine various innovation and design approaches and processes, and the scope and content of design in both product and service contexts
• Provide insights into the functions and contributions of professional designers
• Discuss the emergence of 'design thinking' and its importance to business
• Explore the issues related to the management of cross-functional teams
• Examine the impact that design and designers can make on organisational performance.

Understand the wider institutional location of business activity within the polity and the society. The module puts particular emphasis on corporations’ responsibilities in global society and discusses key governance issues related to this agenda. Firms will be seen as both 'takers' and 'givers' of governance and regulation in a variety of formal and informal ways. The module is not a traditional course in business ethics but explores the influence of the non-market environment on businesses’ strategies and operational practices and will confront some 'critical issues' topics.

The aim of this module is to provide you with a deep understanding of this strategic role of human capital management and the tools with which to analyse and manage it.

We will consider what is means to align the HR function with strategic objectives. We will ask whether all human capital is equally valuable. We will debate the extent to which human capital and its associated outcomes are quantifiable in a meaningful way. We will examine whether HRM can support both efficiency and flexibility at the same time. Ultimately, the class will provide a range of models and tools for managing human capital in a strategic way.

Get an introduction to the principles of Corporate Finance and learn how the basic tools and techniques of modern finance theory can be applied to analyse and improve the investment and financing decisions of the firm.

Indicative themes include:

• Financial calculus
• Financial markets
• Valuing bonds
• Valuing stocks
• Portfolio choice and diversification
• The capital asset pricing model
• Capital budgeting
• NPV in action
• Market efficiency
• Financing and capital structure
• Payout policy
• Corporate risk management

The module aims to provide training on methods that aid decision making when managers face an uncertain future. The module covers methods for short-term and long-term forecasting of product demand and macroeconomic variables. The module discusses how forecasting aids decision-making.

Exposure to the global economy brings new ideas, technologies, and management practices to a business. Whether looking to build a new plant, sell to a new market or find global business partners, exploiting opportunities in new markets or regions poses fresh challenges.

Many of those challenges arise from the different business environment that's present in countries around the world. What does an understanding of economics tell us about which countries and regions will see markets develop quickly in the medium term? Which governments act in ways that pose macroeconomic risks and which do not? How can resources and intellectual property be managed effectively? Which economic theories offer strategies to foster talent and help staff respond to new opportunities?

The patterns of world trade and the responses of governments have always been in constant flux. Businesses can't rely on traditional markets in the medium- to long-term. The pandemic has disturbed even the recently-established patterns of global economic growth. Strategic business decisions require an appreciation of the economic thinking that underpins these new patterns of growth and the changes in international finance that support them.

This module will provide real world examples and case studies to illustrate how economic thinking helps businesses make the most of new opportunities, while managing the risks associated with expansion into new markets and regions.

The module has been developed for business and management students across the WBS MSc portfolio and draws on ideas and research from macroeconomics, microeconomics, international finance, business strategy and development economics. No previous experience of economic analysis is required.

The module aims to develop an understanding of entrepreneurs and the firms they create and manage. Entrepreneurship is not only about new ventures or 'small' business or 'early-stage' business, nor even exclusively about for-profit business. Rather, it is a method of creative problem solving in business and a logic for taking action in a variety of settings where business can make a positive difference. The module, therefore, will explore a range of different ways of thinking about what entrepreneurship is and what entrepreneurs do. Our intention in the module is to try and help facilitate you in developing a more entrepreneurial mindset. This module also provides you with an opportunity to develop a Feasibility Study for exploiting an entrepreneurial opportunity - a precursor to a formal Business Plan.

The main module aim is to build on your knowledge of the global economic and business environment and link this to strategies for managing in changing global contexts.  Key questions are:  How do changes in this environment affect the ways in which companies do business and managers manage across borders:  How should firms and individual managers respond (in theory)?  How can they respond (in practice)?

Topics will include: the drivers and processes of internationalisation, cross-cultural management challenges, the assessment of overseas investment opportunities and the specific challenges of emerging markets.

This module focuses on how digital technologies enable organisations to offer digital services that aim at improving customer experience as well as firm performance. The module assumes no prior knowledge of technology and prepares students to engage with technology-related conversations (e.g., designing a new digital service) at the modern workplace. 

The module has three themes. The first theme is gaining competitive advantage using a digital business strategy and covers concepts such as motivations for digital transformation. The second theme provides an overview of what today’s managers need to know about the advantages and disadvantages of cutting-edge technologies including artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality, internet of things (IoT), cloud computing, social media, and data analytics. The last theme focuses on the lifecycle of digital service provision, covering key concepts such as technology selection and sourcing, agile implementation, and risk management

This module aims to develop a greater understanding of how to foster an innovative work environment. In this module the role of the leader will be examined as he/she facilitates innovative ventures by identifying and defining problems worth pursuing (where potential payoffs justify risks), creating a context that allows for multiple parties to work together in generating viable ideas (those with a chance of successful implementation) and managing the context of idea development and fielding – to ensure that viable ideas are likely to be adopted in the marketplace. This module also aims to understand how to develop leaders for innovation.

 It is further aimed to develop an understanding into issues such as:

•  Why is innovation important (especially now)?
•  What makes a leader more or less successful at leading for innovation?
•  What is the role of the team in the innovation process?
•  How might leading for innovation vary by domain (i.e. IT, marketing, etc)?
•  How can crowdsourcing be used to foster innovation?

If you select the dissertation route you will work with an allocated academic supervisor and research a topic relating to Marketing. The module is assessed by a 6,000 word formal dissertation. You will be supervised and supported throughout, and the Term 2 compulsory module Research Methodology helps you prepare.

The Business in Practice module is the core capstone module for students who choose this route instead of the dissertation route. It will illustrate business theory in practice by combining academic lecture input with expert practitioner insights, and will also provide intensive personal work-skills development via the WBS CareersPlus team. The module is taught over two intensive weeks incorporating an innovative and exciting business simulation. 

If you select the dissertation route, Research Methodology becomes a compulsory module for you and it gives you the academic skills to confidently approach your dissertation topic. The focus is on epistemological foundations, the design of a research project, the preparation for and execution of valid and reliable business research (whether qualitative or quantitative), and on the writing up and presentation of research results.