International Business (Professional Practice) MSc

This module introduces you to the analytical frameworks, models and techniques commonly used in international business for the analysis, formulation and implementation of strategies. It provides you the opportunity to develop analysis competencies at an international and strategic level. This includes developing an understanding of the various levels of strategy and the different strategic options available for businesses to choose from. Also, this module helps you understand the nature of the organisation in international business and the significance of the Multinational Enterprise.

In today’s highly mobile and interconnected world of business, you will undoubtedly find yourself working with culturally diverse teams, partnerships and customer bases. It is therefore essential that you are able to offer future employers, colleagues and other stakeholders an adaptable interculturally aware and responsive approach. In the light of that, this module fosters transferable skills fundamental to global employability. Your professional and personal development will be guided through the application of the eight CIPD Behaviours, University of Huddersfield’s target Graduate Attributes, and key Intercultural Effectiveness skills and mindsets. As you develop professionally through your subject studies you will increase consciousness of your individual cultural make-up and the impact of this on behaviour, relationships and worldview in order to navigate beyond the borders of your own culture. You will develop a conscious approach to effective global practice, responding positively to difference, and constructing strategies to deal with intercultural workplace encounters.

“The only thing that is constant is change” (Heraclitus). All businesses face a world of ever changing technology and ever increasing customer demands. Throughout your career you undoubtedly be involved in change of some description. This module will facilitate the development of the transferable skills and understanding you will need to face the challenges of near constant change with resilience. Starting with a strategic overview of productivity improvement you will develop the skills needed to lead, as well as take part in, productivity improvement, product development, process improvements, service design, and innovation initiatives.

The rise in importance and complexity of financial management in an international environment poses a great challenge for financial managers in multinational corporations. The increasing integration of global products and financial markets around the world requires financial managers working for multinational corporations to consider exchange rates, international capital and debt markets, and economic and political risks to achieve shareholder wealth maximization. This module is intended to provide you the tools needed to understand the global financial markets and the challenges and opportunities these bring to the financial managers of the multinational corporations.

This module is designed to help you develop a curious and enterprising mindset. It gives emphasis to curiosity, creative thinking, future thinking, vision and imagination – the precursors to identifying and developing opportunities for professional development, innovation and new venture creation. These skills and mindsets are relevant to business set up as well as freelance careers and employability. You'll gain knowledge and aim to develop behaviours and attitudes to help you interpret a range of problem situations and opportunities, leading to creative and innovative responses in the form of doing things differently and/or doing something new.

This module explores the links between people management practices and positive organisational outcomes and how these are achieved in different types of organisational contexts. Focusing on leadership, flexibility and change management, the aim being to help students become effective strategic managers as well as effective HR specialists, managing others fairly and effectively and increasing levels of engagement, commitment and performance.

This module aims to develop specific skills in analysing reward management practices in organisations. It considers how to strategically use reward as a mechanism for improving productivity and engagement. The module looks at contemporary reward management practices including strategic reward management, executive remuneration, equal pay and gender pay disparity.

As more and new corporate and trading actors emerge onto the global commercial scene, questions as to the relationship between business and human rights increasingly raise profound and intriguing problems of law and policy. This module, alert to historic developments, and drawing on principles of international law, investigates how national, regional and international initiatives to regulate the ever-changing dynamics of financial and cultural globalisation, are affecting respect for human rights in contemporary society. Your study will focus on some of the key dilemmas and opportunities arising from shifts in power dynamics towards non-state actors, enquiring as to how the UN’s negotiation and legal frameworks are adapting for the purpose of protecting rights and ensuring the viability of trading networks in the 21st century.

Global demographics are continually changing and are now seeing an increasingly ageing population in many (but not all) countries. Put this together with changes to pension ages and age discrimination legislation and it means that in the future you will be working with many more older colleagues than has been the case to date. In this module, you will evaluate both the challenges and opportunities for business and management that come with increasingly ageing societies in the 21st Century. They will include ageing-related issues at the individual, organisational and societal levels, for example: creating novel and more flexible pension arrangements; innovative marketing to target older consumers; managing more flexible working patterns towards retirement; enabling more inclusive work environments by supporting workers with age-related health issues; and opportunities for career development in older life including starting a business. You will explore ways in which organisations and those working in them can adjust to changing needs in response to a shifting age demographic in the UK and elsewhere in the world.

This module is designed to critically evaluate consumption in the context of philosophy, society and culture, and in relation to broader contemporary sociocultural trends and issues. By adopting an interdisciplinary approach to the analysis of consumption, the module aims to develop your critical awareness of the interrelationships, consequences and tensions that exist between the consumer at the individual and collective level, as well as between the consumer, business, and government.

This module aims to provide you with an understanding of key management accounting issues and applied methodologies in contemporary business practice, focusing on the role of management accounting in providing information for operational and strategic decision-making, planning, control and performance management. You will have the opportunity to examine the blend of cost analysis and managerial judgment required to make sound economic decisions and covers topics in cost management, budgetary control, and short and longer term financial decision making, particularly in the manufacturing sector.

This module provides an introduction into the strategic management theories and its practical application. It will cover: mission and goal formation, stakeholder theories, corporate governance, and business ethics, in addition to these topics, this module will equip you with the strategy toolbox that includes: external and internal analysis, corporate level strategies and business level strategies, strategic decision making and at the end overall evaluation of strategy implementation and evaluation.

With many industries generating huge volumes of data almost continuously the challenge for these industries is understanding how this data can be utilised for developing organisational value. This module introduces the field of Big Data, sources, management and visualisaiton. The module will evaluate and consider a range of features in the area, and provide opportunity to work with multiple online and offline data sets, investigate ethical issues around the data and explore different data collection strategies. Experience in these areas gives a holistic overview of organisational challenges and an informed perspective in decision making through the utilisation of big data.

The module will encourage you to develop your entrepreneurial mind-set, and help you understand the challenges and opportunities of starting and running a new venture. Your entrepreneurial skills and abilities will be guided through the application of different entrepreneurial tools and techniques – as well as practical exercises - that should enable you to assess your own entrepreneurial readiness, while preparing for the risky, uncertain and challenging environment of creating new ventures.

This module will review the principles and applications of information systems and business intelligence in different types of businesses and organisations. The role of information systems and business intelligence in modern operations and supply chains will be reviewed and discussed. The most recent advances in technology, their applications and implications in managing businesses will be discussed. Different types of information and enterprise systems and software will be reviewed and discussed in this module. Issues to be considered in the implementation and use of these packages will be highlighted.

Businesses around the globe are becoming more aware of their role in helping to build a more sustainable future. Consequently, this module will aim to provide you with an integrative understanding of the role of business in overcoming the challenges of sustainability. Utilising both theory and practice-based frameworks related to business responsibility, corporate sustainability and sustainable development, you will have the opportunity to identify, and assess the challenges associated with the responsibilities of business. You will also be introduced to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with a view towards examining how businesses could collaborate to achieve these.

This module has a twin objective that will introduce you to the new automated, connected, digitised and mobile business arena of the future. On the one hand, it presents selected examples of Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) applications from a human factors perspective trying to identify social, economic and environmental impacts and human-machine interaction complexities and concerns. On the other hand, it will cover how digitised and autonomous technology will revolutionise mobility. Transport considerations and the agenda of Connected and Autonomous Vehicles, the prime example of A.I., will underpin the content of the module.

This module will provide a comprehensive understanding of employment relations perspectives and debates, focusing not just on the theoretical, practical and legislative aspects of this constantly evolving subject area but also to manage employment relations strategies and their outcomes on organisational climate, employees and management. Through critical application of activities, knowledge and behavioural competencies learners this module aims to equip you to strategically manage employment relations practices across broad organisational settings e.g. non-union and union environments, to enable the effective management of the employment relationship.

Adopting a cross-disciplinary approach to pressing global challenges, the module will explore the humanitarian problems raised by challenges such as migration in the Mediterranean, the use of chemical weapons, desertification, global inequality, and issues around (de)development. By interrogating theoretical, practical, and legalistic responses to unfolding humanitarian challenges the module will draw on scholarship in disciplines including law, geography, and economics to provide a critical and engaging study of tested and innovative humanitarian strategies. You will consider and critique how problems of a transnational and global nature are being addressed by reference to a combination of technical, diplomatic, and legal initiatives.

EQ (emotional intelligence) is considered to be the ‘soft’ skill which the sharpest leaders use. This module encourages you to enhance your effectiveness in areas of EQ such as self-awareness, self management, mindset, integrity, maturity, empathy, inter- and intrapersonal intelligences, and physical context. All of this is contextualised within a framework for developing effective relationship management in team work and leadership.

The module will encourage you to develop your entrepreneurial mind-set, and help you understand the challenges and opportunities of starting and running a new venture. Your entrepreneurial skills and abilities will be guided through the application of different entrepreneurial tools and techniques – as well as practical exercises - that should enable you to assess your own entrepreneurial readiness, while preparing for the risky, uncertain and challenging environment of creating new ventures.

The Individual Research Project provides an opportunity to pursue your own interests and engage more deeply with your subject by completing an in-depth piece of research work using relevant research methods. Working autonomously, but under the guidance of a supervisor, you will make choices about the most appropriate methods and then conduct your own research project. Through the Individual Research Project, you will have the opportunity to greatly enhance your own knowledge and skills. The research will be presented in written format using academic conventions recognised in your field.

The Group Consultancy Project provides you with the opportunity to engage in a ‘real world’ live client brief. You will work in small teams and will be expected to engage in the process of scoping the project with the business client, undertake the necessary information gathering, analysing the information and make recommendations to the client. As part of this module, you will also need to evaluate how principles of ethics, sustainability and responsibility influence your professional decision making.

The module will encourage you to develop your entrepreneurial mind-set, and help you understand the challenges and opportunities of starting and running a new venture. Your entrepreneurial skills and abilities will be guided through the application of different entrepreneurial tools and techniques – as well as practical exercises - that should enable you to assess your own entrepreneurial readiness, while preparing for the risky, uncertain and challenging environment of creating new ventures.