Business and Management MSc
16 Months Full-Time | January Start

In this module you will learn about a comprehensive range of research methods and business analytics techniques. This will equip you with the knowledge and practical skills necessary for you to conduct research at Masters’ level and prepare you to complete a Master’s Dissertation, Consultancy Project or Management Enquiry. By the end of the module you will know how to apply both quantitative and qualitative data collection and business analysis techniques. In quantitative techniques you will learn about sampling, questionnaire design, statistical inference, and hypothesis testing while qualitative techniques covered will include methods such as interviewing and focus groups. Analysis methods such as content analysis and thematic analysis will also be covered. In addition, you will gain some understanding of research philosophy (positivism and interpretivism) and research ethics and you will be able to write a research proposal to bring these ideas together.
Furthermore, this module will provide clear, critical, and analysis of data, you will also be able to consider the use of analytics implementation skills, where you will be introduced to analytics software such as SPSS. SPSS statistics analysis is one of the powerful solutions that is designed to help businesses and researchers to solve problems by various methods (geospatial analysis, predictive analytics and hypothesis testing).

This module engages you in personal and professional development in order that you develop and hone your teamworking, management and leadership skills, capabilities and attributes, and in so doing, enhance your employability. On this module, you will not only prepare for your first job after you graduate but also kickstart your commitment to life-long personal and professional learningThe module you will be supported in a self-analysis by a range of activities, including the completion of self-administered diagnostic tool-kits to demonstrate an increased self-awareness and self-understanding. This will also involve applying theoretical frameworks and researching a range of literature for a more in-depth understanding of self and the nature of social interactions. A key outcome of this process is how you will be able to exploit this development in order to lead, and manage, more effectively in your future careers.

The module contains activities enables you to build on your self-analysis and explore further your strengths, weaknesses and areas for development in the context of your career development plans. You will receive guidance on how to craft professional profilesand supporting documentation to meet the needs of employer. Your understanding of self helps you to understand the key issues and specific challenges in relation toemployability prospects in your target profession/industry/sector. This will also include the development of knowledge into the global graduate market, (including routes such as self-employment and developing your career with an existing employer) drawing upon local, national and international examples.

This module critically explores managing and leading positive and responsible change within work organisations. While the focus is on planned approaches to changes, you will also develop an appreciation of emergent change through exploration of a range of concepts, models, and theoretical frameworks. You will compare types of change and processes to participatory change and stakeholder inclusion and engagement. You will also consider impacts of change on individuals and issues of resilience and sustainability.

Following the historical perspectives, contemporary development, emergent areas in marketing and the cross-functional business areas, this module takes a strategic view of marketing management. The aim is to introduce marketing at an advanced strategic level, enabling you to develop theoretical understanding, in order to interpret the theoretical understanding into practical application.The purpose is to support the development of knowledge and skills required for strategic analysis of market and key stakeholders to formulate sustainable marketing strategies.

A forward-thinking approach is adopted throughout the module, as you will have the opportunity to learn and discuss the theories and concepts that have been persistently influencing the evolving marketing dynamics. This module will cover three key areas of strategic marketing and business sustainability:

1) Understanding your market and developing marketing strategies:

• The transformation in marketing dynamics: Looking backward to move forward
• Marketing audit: Stakeholders as the key players in your market
• Competitive factors and strategic marketing
• A cross-cultural world: Understanding the contemporary buyers
• Customer value and new product development
• Pricing strategy

2) Implementation of strategies: Strategic marketing and sustainable competitive advantage

• Stakeholder relationship management and business sustainability
• Marketing mix and market segments
• Strategic communication: Image, reputation and brand positioning/re-positioning
• Resource-based view and sustainable competitive advantage: Outplaying competitors’ value proposition
• Influencing buyers’ decision: Implications of behavioural economics
• Digital marketing
• International marketing

3) Emerging areas in strategic marketing

• The ongoing changes in market dynamics
• Ethical consumers and green marketing
• Responsible marketing and the UN sustainable development goals
• Cross-functional implications of marketing and vice-versa

This option is offered as an alternative to the NBS Masters’ Dissertation on all 1-year MSc programmes and in the second semester of year 2 on the 2-year programme variants with Study Abroad and with Advanced Practice (if the students select an Internship in semester 1), again as a Dissertation alternative. It is also offered as alternative to the Management Investigation on the MBA.

On this consultancy based module you will enhance your individual effectiveness and employability skills by locating the learning and development in an organisational context. In doing so, you will promote personal and group development, commercial awareness, and a range of inter-personal, intellectual and practical skills and knowledge centred on and demonstrated through a group negotiated real-time work-based project.

The content of the management report will be unique. The nature and scope of the area of your investigation will be defined and agreed in collaboration with the organisation and the University supervisor. The syllabus will include:

• Conducting research in organisations.
• Identifying researchable questions.
• Consultancy and project management skills.
• Research methods and doing a literature review
• Presentation, communication and report writing skills.
• Analysing findings.
• Writing recommendations and action plans.
• Reflecting on work based experiential learning.

In undertaking this project based module, you will critically reflect and evaluate upon organisational practices and their relation with academic theory, and in doing so, provide practical and actionable recommendations through an investigative management report.

The assessment for your module consists of a Group Consultancy Report (7,000 words) and Final Client Presentation, weighted at 60%, alongside an Individual Assignment comprising a Literature Review (4000 words) and a Reflective Learning Statement (2,000 words), weighted at 40%.

In this module you will gain an understanding of the academic skills that are required to produce a Masters Dissertation. By the end of the module you will have written a 15000 word Masters dissertation. The areas included are:

• Justification for the choice of topic
• Appropriate understanding, awareness and critical analysis of existing and up to date literature evidenced by a comprehensive and well-referenced literature review with an extensive reference list
• Selection, justification and application of an appropriately rigorous methodology - including limitations of the approach selected
• Clear statement of the findings of the research
• Critical analysis of the findings
• Explicit links between the analysis and the conclusions supported by critical argument
• Evidence of original work or thought for example in the form or context of the data collected, analytical process or application of findings

The Masters’ Management Enquiry module is a student-led individual project that enables you to undertake a significant piece of assessed

work commensurate with a capstone module and is offered as an alternative to the Masters’ Dissertation and Masters’ Consultancy Project.

The module aims to provide you with an opportunity to demonstrate an authentic engagement with managers and/or professionals in your

discipline (this enquiry has to be discipline specific), and to integrate the knowledge you have developed during your programme to explore

the theory in practice. The learning on this module is experiential and problem based, where the focus is upon you discovering, probing and

questioning key practice-based issues. Through the module you will be offered the opportunity to develop and enhance key transferable

employability skills including; time management, project management, communication (written, aural and verbal), negotiation, persuasion and

influence, discovery, initiative, problem-solving and analysis.


The module has five thematic areas; explore, review, engage, reflect and connect. These form the key elements of the assessed submission

which is a single 15,000 word report.


Part A (35%, 5,000-5,500 words)

Explore: Interviewing a manager and/or professional in your discipline. In this interview you will either explore a key issue which you feel the

discipline is facing or, alternatively, explore with the manager or professional the key issues that they feel they are facing in practice. It is

expected that you will apply non-verbatim documented conversation and provide evidence of the key ideas emerging within the submitted

enquiry report (e.g. within the appendices).

Review: Critically examining the academic and practitioner literature to support the exploration, displaying an ability to critically assess and

appraise the knowledge of your discipline related to a specific key issue arising from your exploration.


Part B (65%, 9,500-10,000 words)

Engage: Displaying an authentic engagement with the discipline problem/issue identified in Part A, by collecting/generating and analysing

further live data (beyond the initial interview) regarding the discipline problem/issue. This live data may be primary data (e.g. further interviews

with, or questionnaire to, managers and/or professionals in practice) or secondary data (e.g. industry data). Application of appropriate,

ethically-considered, research methods and appropriate qualitative or quantitative data analysis.

Reflect and Connect: Demonstrating an ability to critically evaluate and reflect on the issues arising from the Management Enquiry.

Demonstrating how you have connected and fed-back to the participants of the Enquiry (usually the manager and/or participants) your key

findings to provide clear prioritised, well-justified, practical and actionable recommendations for change/enhancement/improvement to existing

practice to show how the recommendations would potentially affect workplace professional decision making.

You will develop your understanding of academic conventions in UK higher education aligned to your level of study, including expectations around critical analysis, structure, argumentation, evidencing, and referencing. The module focuses on developing communication strategies that will help you express your ideas clearly and coherently in written assignments and spoken activities. You will also reflect on your current academic and language skills and develop strategies for development ahead of your assessments.

This 20-credit core module is delivered during the first semester of the MSc International Business Management and is aimed at you if you have prior business and management academic experience.

The aim of the module is to build on your prior academic knowledge of business management and explores the new post-recession economic and business environment. It aims to develop your academic knowledge and professional skills in evaluating sustainable strategic options for international organisations seeking competitive advantage through innovation. Contemporary but also traditional strategy formulation theoretical frameworks are presented within the module to develop you as critical thinkers and future practitioners.

The module is designed around five pillars: (i) developments in the new (post-global recession) economic and business environment; (ii) strategic options for international growth; (iii) innovation; (iv) leadership and change within an international/global business model; and (v) sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR).

The module aims to provide you with knowledge and skills regarding the application of digital technologies in support of entrepreneurial activities, across the different stages of the entrepreneurial process (opportunity identification, start-up and scale-up). The module is delivered using interactive workshops, supported by an interactive discussion board, tutor supported, but permitting interaction with fellow students.

This module will cover the main aspects of the relationship between digital technologies and entrepreneurship:
• Opportunities and challenges of digital technologies for entrepreneurs,
• The skillset of digital entrepreneurs: entrepreneurial and digital skills,
• The impact of digital technologies on the creation and recognition of entrepreneurial opportunities,
• The start-up of digital enterprises: value creation, business models and funding strategies,
• The scale-up of digital enterprises: strategies to deal with regulation, competition and barriers to growth.

The module will lead you to the development of fundamental, contemporary skills for creating and developing digital enterprises. On completing the module, you will learn about the specific challenges of undertaking entrepreneurial activities in the context of digital markets and acquire the skills to develop effective strategies to build sustainable digital enterprises.