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 Academic Year: | 2018/9 |
| Owning Department/School: | School of Management |
| Credits: | 9 [equivalent to 18 CATS credits] |
| Notional Study Hours: | 180 |
| Level: | Masters UG & PG (FHEQ level 7) |
| Period: |
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| Assessment Summary: | CW 100% |
| Assessment Detail: |
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| Supplementary Assessment: |
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| Requisites: | |
| Description:
| Aims: The aims of this unit are: * to provide students with the opportunity to work in teams with large corporate partners to carry out a significant piece of management research work; * to provide students with the opportunity to refine skills needed for working in diverse groups and with organisations; * to embed problem-solving and management research skills * to enable student to link business issues to the available academic literature and content covered throughout the MBA programme Learning Outcomes: By the end of this unit, students will: * be able to integrate various components of the total degree programme and own experience to solve business problems * be able to identify literature relevant to a chosen business issue, thereby appreciating the relationship between business practice and theory. * be able to undertake a major project in a professional manner and be able to develop solutions to business problems; * have refined skills in organisation, negotiation, management research, analysis, and report writing. * Provide a new interpretation on existing information or provide an original view on an issue. Do all of the above in written form in a report that conforms to acceptable standards of presentation and expression. Skills: Group work; critical-thinking, analytical problem-solving; lateral integration of management activities. Transferable/Key Skills * Ability to select, summarise and synthesise written information from multiple sources; * an ability to develop a holistic perspective on an organization and an understanding of how the different functions relate to one another; * Ability to develop rigorous arguments through precise use of concepts and models (F; A). * Ability to select, analyse and present numerical or non-numerical data (F; A). Professional Practical Skills * deal with complex issues and make sound judgements in the absence of complete information, and to communicate their conclusions clearly and competently to a range of audiences; * operate effectively both independently as well as within teams and assume leadership roles where appropriate. Personal/Interpersonal * the facility to communicate including presenting and marketing themselves and their ideas; preparation and production of effective written report; * the ability to recognise risks and opportunities and to use their problem-solving and analytical skills to the advantage of organisations Content: The unit will start with a Final Group Project workshop with the aim of: * providing students with some the knowledge and ability to conduct group research; * preparing students for the process of planning and undertaking their final group project. During the workshop the following will be covered: * Nature of suitable projects, working with the organisation(s), developing project ideas, the role of a group project supervisor, time management and project ethics. * The use of different methodological approaches; the concepts of validity, reliability and generalisability; locating and evaluating secondary data; the role of theory in project work; quantitative and qualitative data analysis; and the use of different software packages to capture and analyse qualitative and quantitative data. * Optional topics depending upon needs of the group may include inter alia the practicalities of undertaking specific research techniques, specific techniques under the broad headings of: qualitative interviewing; observation techniques; survey techniques; and experimental techniques. Groups will then be expected to work on their projects with the support of a supervisor and produce a shared written report. Based on the project selection for each group, the content may take different forms, however it is expected that the following steps would be common to all projects: Group formation (self-selected); Identification of suitable project; project briefing (including academic expectations); Conduct of projject - students will be provided with the necessary resources to manage the project well. Part of the requirement will be for students to have a record-keeping mechanism to keep track of progress and to ensure project learning for later reporting. Presenting findings: - groups will be expected to present back to the cohort during informal peer-to-peer feedback session in order to gain advice on their projects. Groups will also receive advice on the assessed written report that they will be expected to produce. In addition, individuals will be expected to produce a short reflection piece on the challenges encountered during the group project work. |
| Programme availability: |
MN50655 is Compulsory on the following programmes:School of Management
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Notes:
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