International Business BA(Hons)

This module is designed to raise your awareness of an increasingly dynamic business environment. You'll explore pressing global issues, such as globalisation, climate change, digital age and sustainability. You'll have the opportunity to develop an understanding of how these issues present challenges and create opportunities to businesses. As you progress through the module, you'll develop the skills to follow the developments of global events, give them a meaning and consider the causes and consequences of ongoing developments.

In this module you'll understand the importance of data and how managing this data can help organisations to make decisions. This will be achieved through the analysis and identification of various data management techniques and how these methods are used to support organisational innovation and growth. You'll critically apply various data analytical approaches and look at the various concepts and current prevailing ideas in data management. In addition, you'll investigate some of the key legislative, operational, and strategic issues which support the collection and usage of data within a digital business environment. This will be underpinned by looking at both internal and external data sets such as, data.gov.uk and the World Bank.

This module provides you with an introduction to key concepts, theories, and research in the field of organisational behaviour. Starting with the important question what an organisation is, this module presents and evaluates up to date research on current knowledge about human and organisation behaviour from the perspective of three levels: individual level (personality, motivation, knowledge, and learning), group level (organisational culture, team-working) and the organisational level (leadership, changing world of work, technology). You'll gain knowledge to understand the role of the manager in a contemporary organisation and to critically explore the influence of a range of behaviours have on organisational outcomes.

This module introduces you to how financial information for businesses is prepared, presented and interpreted by internal and external users. As well as delivering theory and technical information, practical application is presented through worked examples, group working and discussions. The objective is to enable you to use financial information for planning, decision making and control, calculate business costings by applying the theory of cost behaviour to different situations and analyse the performance of a business using ratio analysis.

This module aims to make you aware of the economic and marketing underpinning of a range of business issues and problems. It has an even balance between theory and practice, you'll be introduced to the principles of microeconomics, featuring aspects which have particular relevance and application to those of you who intend to work in business and management. You'll also be introduced to key principles of strategic and operational marketing and will gain an understanding of the underlying concepts and theories underpinning marketing practice.

This module will enable you to conduct and use research that informs real world business decisions. You'll be given the opportunity to develop your higher-level research and analytical skills and this will act as a strong foundational preparation for the undergraduate dissertation you can choose to take in your final year. You'll also learn to distinguish strong from weak research which will allow you to make better quality business decisions in the future. Being able to fully appreciate research methodology as reported in academic journal articles will further provide you with the knowledge you need to deepen your critical analysis of the research-based literature when writing essays and other pieces of coursework on the remainder of your course.

In this module, you'll explore the theory and practices that inform and enable business start-up and small enterprise development. You'll follow the entrepreneurial journey in four phases; creativity and conceptualising the business; understanding context; opportunity spotting and scoping; and business model development. You'll use case studies to explore entrepreneurial practices in a variety of contexts. You'll experiment with opportunity spotting and the formulation of a business model, which will help you understand the practice and theory of new venture creation, from ideation to creating a business enterprise.

Globalisation means that nowadays all business to some degree are international. It is almost impossible to find a product or service that does not have an international aspect to its customer base and its supply chain. In this module, you'll investigate the business transactions taking place across national borders. You'll develop an understanding of all the external environment parts and the major issues that businesses are confronted with when operating in international markets. The module covers an introduction to international business principles, including environment, strategy, international trade, international marketing and people in multinational enterprises.

This module introduces the key discipline of business operations. Operations relates to the delivery of products and services, using important planning and control techniques. After a general introduction to the concept some of the most important techniques will be covered such as capacity management, inventory management and quality.

The module is designed to provide you with an understanding of the challenges faced by those involved in leading organisations. You will learn models, theories, and research in the area of leadership, before looking at how leadership is enacted or applied. Approaches to understanding and improving leadership will be introduced and developed over the course of the programme of study.

In this module you will learn about the foundational principles of strategic management, as well as emergent strategic ideas such as business models, open strategy and ecosystems that have been developed to cope with the rapid changes facing the 21st Century international business environment. You will engage with future shaping strategy and gain confidence in your own appraisal of strategic choices.

The module examines the inter-relationship between business ethics, corporate social responsibility, business sustainability and sustainable development. You'll engage in constructive debates related to theories of business ethics and ethical decision-making by business managers and examine how companies could fulfil their social responsibilities. By focusing on global sustainability issues, you'll appreciate how businesses can develop sustainable solutions to resolve grand challenges.

In this module, you'll explore how culture affects business and management. You'll learn the essential knowledge and theories in cross-cultural management, which will enable you to compare cultures systematically. You'll also investigate the latest developments in cross cultural research, which will develop your capability in understanding and analysing cross cultural scenarios. You are encouraged to develop an open-minded approach to cultural differences and an understanding of culture’s influence on business and management.

This module will introduce you to psychological concepts and then you'll have the opportunity to learn, understand and appraise the application of psychological principles and theories to workplaces and organisations. This module will include a critical overview and discussion of personnel psychology, namely, theories of personality and psychometric testing and assessment centres. Furthermore, the module will help you to develop a critical appreciation of human behaviour in the workplace including the nature of employee behaviour, the extent to which the work environment contributes to the physical and emotional wellbeing of employees, group functioning, motivation and performance. Knowledge acquired from this module will provide a foundation for learners to pursue further study at postgraduate level in organisational behaviour, through enabling them to develop a comprehensive understanding of businesses from a psychological perspective.

The aim of this module is to equip you with a set of tools and techniques for managing environmental performance in both the context of national and international policy regulations, conventions and government policy and corporate strategy. You'll examine the impact of culture, media and religion on the formulation and implementation of environmental policy at international, national and corporate level. Techniques for improving the environmental performance of an economy as a whole as well as policies and systems for measuring and managing environmental improving corporate performance will be explored.

In this module, you'll explore entrepreneurship for large and small businesses in both national and international settings. This module considers the theory and practice of entrepreneurship from different academic perspectives (economic, organisational, behavioural, etc.) and in the current world business climate. The teaching and learning approach on this module makes extensive use of practical case studies.

The aim of this module is to help develop your understanding of the marketing theory and principles within the international or global business arena. It involves the consideration of the international marketing environment and the application of marketing principles for companies operating in foreign and world markets.