SM9730 - The Rise of the Global Economy

The module will be delivered through weekly lectures (of one hour duration) and seminars (two hours), which will be offered in a mixed method approach (both online and in-person). Each week’s lecture and seminar will be organised around a particular theme or phenomenon, such as ‘Preindustrial economies’ or ‘Socialism in Action 1920s-80s’, with the lecture providing an overview of the topic and the seminar providing the opportunity for more in-depth group work and discussion. Given the emphasis on student-centred learning in postgraduate education, you will be expected to engage actively in the seminars and to complete a weekly reading list and other assigned tasks in order to enable you to do so. The semester programme proceeds chronologically to help students make sense of longer term developments.

You will be supported through this module by the Module Tutor and the wider teaching team who all have relevant expertise in the subject area; students will be able to arrange 1-2-1 appointments with the module team if necessary. You will also support each other. There will be an emphasis on active student participation in seminars and this is partly to help foster collegiality and informal collaboration.

You will have access to a Blackboard site for the module, which will provide you with all the necessary learning materials, assessment guides, and a discussion board to address module queries. A full electronic reading list will be also made available, allowing you to access the necessary reading materials. For the assessment, there will be in-class time allocated to help students prepare for each component.

All modules at Northumbria include a range of reading materials that students are expected to engage with. Online reading lists (provided after enrolment) give you access to your reading material for your modules. The Library works in partnership with your module tutors to ensure you have access to the material that you need.

Knowledge & Understanding:
1 By examining its long-term development, to acquire an in-depth understanding of the global business environment (MLO1)
2 To understand how business practice(s) have adapted to changing environments (MLO2)

Intellectual / Professional skills & abilities:
3 Ability to communicate complex and varied information in writing and verbally (MLO3)

Personal Values Attributes (Global / Cultural awareness, Ethics, Curiosity) (PVA):
4 To appreciate the variability of national and regional growth trajectories, and the consequences thereof (MLO4)

Formative assessment:
The seminar sessions will be collaborative and will require students to participate in group tasks such as presentations and debates. Formative feedback will be provided by tutors and peers in these sessions which will help students achieve the MLOs.

Summative assessment:
The summative element of the assessment is made up of two components.

Component 1: In groups, students will describe and analyse the long-term development of a key facet of the modern global business environment. Example topics would be the development of the Chinese economy since 1949 or long run changes in inequality. This component will be weighted at 25% and will assess MLO1, MLO2, MLO3 and MLO4

Component 2: Students will write a 3000 word essay exploring a facet of business and/or economic history. This will test students' ability to engage in personal research, to analyse quantitative and qualitative evidence, and to deploy this evidence to explore a detailed question. It will also test their ability to deploy basic economic concepts related to growth and development. This component will be weighted at 75% and will assess MLO1, MLO2 and MLO3.

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To survive and thrive, every business must navigate a plethora of ever-changing environmental factors – a non-complete list would include relations with government, societal norms of behaviour, demographic change, technological development and geo-politics. The goal of this course is to provide students with the tools to do so, by studying the past three centuries of economic and business history. In particular, students will acquire an ability to analyse the most fundamental contours of the modern economic and business environment – so fundamental that they often recede into the background. Why have economies evolved in such distinct ways and why are there significant global inequalities?
Students will also practice how to ‘read’ a varied range of quantitative and qualitative evidence, and to synthesise them into coherent analysis.