Master of Business Administration

In this module students will deepen and extend their ability to create and maintain high-quality relationships with people who come from a wide range of backgrounds and possess different points of view in order to create and execute processes that produce successful outcomes and results.

This module teaches business managers and leaders to reflect critically on concepts from the behavioural sciences that can be applied to a fast changing business environment to improve their abilities to lead and manage in organisations.

Behavioural frameworks for individuals, teams, and organisations are evaluated critically and discussed in the context of real-world cases. Tutorial groups provide practice in problem-based teamwork, communicating in specialist and non-specialist registers, and in applying the frameworks in practice.

This module examines how leaders can most effectively use the resources of their team members to achieve business outcomes. The module develops managerial and leadership competences, focussing on how key improvements in the general strategy and techniques of managing people can produce outcomes more significant than isolated improvements to employee performance.

The module provides students with concepts to support them across their careers as they continue to develop effective delegation, management strategy, and engagement with people inside of an organisation.

This module will approach leadership by identifying practices that researchers and practitioners have shown to be the most effective. Through these processes, students will gain a broad range of skills.

This module examines how leaders can most effectively use the resources of their team members to achieve business outcomes. The module develops managerial and leadership competencies, focusing on how key improvements in the general strategy and techniques of managing people can produce outcomes more significant than isolated improvements to employee performance. The module provides students with concepts to support them across their careers as they continue to develop effective delegation, management strategy, and engagement with people inside of an organisation.

Specific topics covered include managing a diverse workforce; self-leadership; perception pitfalls; decision making; conflict resolution; emotional intelligence; improving performance; team structure.

Managers require a broad array of negotiating skills to implement business solutions – this requires advanced knowledge of negotiation models, the competence to select the right strategy, and the tactical skills to achieve desired outcomes through negotiation.

In addition to studying key negotiation theories, the module develops skills in negotiation, providing students with the opportunity to test and improve their abilities through discussions that model negotiation scenarios, through the use of case studies, and through reflection and feedback.

Students will review and test various approaches to negotiated conflict resolution (at small personal scales and large organisational scales). The module builds competencies in developing an effective professional and personal style of negotiation.

In this module, students will develop specialised and multidisciplinary capacities to generate creative solutions and alternatives to existing business issues by refining their ability to lead processes that stimulate and manage creativity in a business.

Students will reflect critically on templates and methods for designing, implementing, and assessing processes that introduce creativity to real work situations. The module will engage with both the theoretical frameworks and practical methods or tools for cultivating practices of creativity in response to real business challenges.

Ultimately, the module cultivates skills for autonomous managers to lead creative projects, people, and ventures, and to oversee the processes that keep them on track

This module explores the key concepts of marketing and how they fit into the larger context of management strategy and operational decisions. It presents both the practical 'how' and the fundamental 'why' of marketing activities in the light of contributions from behavioural science, economics, and statistics. The module provides managers and business leaders with the understanding needed to manage and lead those who implement the marketing activities; the module provides concepts and processes for business leaders that seek to continue developing through future experiences or coursework in marketing.

The module then focuses on managing processes. Theoretically, it models business functions as a network of actions that convert inputs into outputs. Process design is considered, including the volume and variety of system inputs and outputs - especially with respect to goods and services. Different inventory management and logistic systems are explored. Finally, forecasting and process optimisation are explored, strengthening managers ability to operate with finite resources.

In this module students will gain the capacity to understand how firms work in a global context, incorporating a broad, future-oriented, systems-based approach that incorporates data, information and insights from diverse perspectives and sources. This module is designed to convey the key concepts of strategic thinking and how they fit into the larger context of management strategy and decisions. Students will be presented with both the practical “how” and the fundamental “why” in the light of contributions from behavioural science, economics, and statistics.

In this module students will strengthen their capacity to lead individuals, teams, and organisations in processes that generate data-driven solutions to problems, data-driven insights into customer behaviour, and data-driven decision-making.

This module provides the foundations of probability and statistics required for a manager to interpret large quantities of data and to make informed decisions under conditions of uncertainty, with incomplete information, and in both structured and unstructured settings. Theoretical topics include decision trees, hypothesis testing, multiple regression, and sampling.

Designed for professionals seeking to enhance their interpersonal competencies, this course provides an in-depth exploration of the complexities of human interactions and the art of building and managing meaningful relationships. It equips participants with essential skills and knowledge to foster and maintain high-quality relationships with individuals from diverse backgrounds and perspectives, ultimately enhancing their ability to lead and manage in dynamic organizational environments.

Learners will engage in interactive activities that explore how personal characteristics, social identities, and interpersonal behaviors shape interactions, impact communication, and influence their ability to cultivate meaningful and productive relationships. Through a combination of theoretical knowledge and practical application, participants will develop a nuanced understanding of the factors that contribute to effective relationship management.

Specialized discussion groups also provide opportunities to discover one’s impact on others and explore new ways of behaving and interacting that foster desired relationships and outcomes. Participants will gain insights into their interpersonal style and receive constructive feedback, enabling them to refine their approach to relationship management.

In this module, students will gain the capacity to appropriately apply a broad repertoire of communication skills in business, professional, and social contexts.

Throughout the module, students will critically analyse managerial communication skills required for leadership in a wide variety of industries. It considers the varied means of communication including writing, speaking, and calling, and generally appearing professional. The communication requirements of different contexts are studied, including informational, persuasive, and relational forms of communication.

In this module students will deepen and cultivate their capacity to reflect continually on their learning and growth; they will examine the ways in which one’s behaviours and decision-making impact others, with a goal of leading with integrity.

This module is designed to deepen and extend students' conceptual and practical understanding of leadership in organisations, extending beyond the application of knowledge in practical judgements that achieve business outcomes, to embrace wider social and ethical considerations. The module is experiential and multidisciplinary, requiring participants to reflect on the social and ethical responsibilities of leaders in relation to their own experiences. It is designed to help students discover insights about themselves as leaders, fostering the development of a self-awareness, including strengths and opportunities for personal growth.

In addition, the module provides a context for enhancing the skills and competencies that enable a student to become an effective leader in today's highly dynamic, diverse and adaptive organisation.

This module enables students to develop the skills and concepts needed to ensure the ongoing contribution of a firm's operations to its competitive position. It helps them to understand the complex processes underlying the development and manufacture of products as well as the creation and delivery of services. Throughout the module, students will receive a comprehensive overview of technology utilisation to drive a competitive

advantage for company operations. Students explore various technology

solutions for business process automation, including value proposition

analysis across organisation functions. Specific topics addressed include process analysis; cross-functional and cross-firm integration; product development; information technology; and technology and operations strategy. Additionally, students will analyse how technology can be leveraged to improve product development during the four lifecycle phases. The module provides a detailed overview of the impact of technology on various operating models such as manufacturing, supply chain

management, customer-facing, product development, and support

functions.

This module is designed to achieve an understanding of fundamental notions of data presentation and analysis and to use statistical thinking inthe context of business problems. The module addresses modern methods of data exploration (designed to reveal unusual or problematic aspects of databases), the uses and abuses of the basic techniques of inference, and the use of regression as a tool for management and for financial analysis. The potential ethical issues related to each topic will be reviewed. Socially and environmentally relevant data will be utilised throughout the module.The goal of the module is not to turn students into statisticians but to enable them to appreciate the use of probability in assessing evidence and making decisions, and to be statistically literate consumers of quantitative information generated by economists, biomedical researchers, psychologists, statisticians, survey researchers, and other experts.

The role of marketing management in organisations is to identify and

measure the needs and wants of consumers, to determine which targets

the business can serve, to decide on the appropriate offerings to serve

these markets, and to determine the optimal methods of pricing,

promoting, and distributing the firm’s offerings. Successful organisations

are those that integrate the objectives and resources of the organisation

with the needs and opportunities of the marketplace. The goal of this

module is to facilitate student achievement of these goals regardless of

career path.

This module addresses how to design and implement the best

combination of marketing efforts to carry out a firm's strategy in its target

markets. Specifically, this module helps to develop the student's

understanding of how the firm can benefit by creating and delivering

value to its customers, and stakeholders, and develop skills in applying

the analytical concepts and tools of marketing to such decisions as

segmentation and targeting, branding, pricing, distribution, and

promotion.

This module explores basic economic principles (theories and applications) that are relevant to a variety of businesses. The module emphasises an economist's mindset and amassing the tools necessary todo so, including the study of microeconomics and macroeconomics. Throughout the module, students will examine the underlying economics of successful business strategy: the strategic imperatives of competitive markets, the sources and dynamics of competitive advantage, managing competitive interactions, and the organisational implementation of business strategy. Additionally, the module focuses on case discussion and analysis and provides a foundation for consultants, managers, and corporate finance generalists.

In general terms, financial accounting is the measurement of economic

activity for decision-making. Financial statements are a key product of

this measurement process and an important component of firms’ financial

reporting activities.

The objective of this module is to help students become intelligent readers

of the financial reports of most publicly traded companies. Students will

learn the development, analysis, and use of these reports by focusing on

what these reports contain, what assumptions and concepts accountants

use to prepare them, and why they use those assumptions and concepts. A

solid understanding of the fundamentals covered in this module should

enable students to do well in more advanced finance and accounting

courses and to interview intelligently for jobs in finance, consulting, and

general management.

The module begins with the basic concepts of accounting. Students will

analyse the main financial statements: balance sheet, income statement,

statement of cash flows, and statement of stockholders’ equity. Particular

attention is paid to how these four statements relate to each other and

how they provide information about the operating performance and

financial health of a company. The module also covers specific items from

the financial statements and applies tools of analysis whenever possible.

Ethical dilemmas are frequently encountered in the workplace, in every function of the organisation, and at every level. Knowing how to deal with ethical issues is critical in being able to be an effective leader. Additionally, the range and complexity of ethical issues have increased in recent years, as well as expectations of responsible corporate conduct; knowing how to deal with such concerns is an important part of management today.

In this module, students examine how organisations, and individuals within them, can deal with ethical issues and dilemmas at the collective and personal levels. Throughout the module, students will gain skills related to elements of ethical decision-making, the psychological aspects related to business ethics, and ethics in the global marketplace. The module will focus on how business leaders can make ethical decisions, skilfully manage ethical issues in the workplace, and help encourage ethics in a variety of organisations.

This module will approach leadership by identifying practices that researchers and practitioners have shown to be the most effective. Through these processes, students will gain a broad range of skills. This module examines how leaders can most effectively use the resources of their team members to achieve business outcomes. The module develops managerial and leadership competencies, focusing on how key improvements in the general strategy and techniques of managing people can produce outcomes more significant than isolated improvements to employee performance. The module provides students with concepts to support them across their careers as they continue to develop effective delegation, management strategy, and engagement with people inside of an organisation. Specific topics covered include managing a diverse workforce; self-leadership; perception pitfalls; decision making; conflict resolution;

emotional intelligence; improving performance; team structure.

This module examines iterative product development as a method for improving customer adoption and retention. Students will gain a mastery of iterative product development as a strategy for (a) transforming market research into potential solutions, (b) testing hypotheses about product improvements, and (c) gaining validation for product adjustments.

Students will gain a comprehensive understanding of the concept of a minimum viable product, how to test the market in the early stages of product adoption, and the benefits and weaknesses of incremental product improvements. Students will gain an advanced understanding of concepts related to customer segmentation, cohort analysis, and churn in order to learn from market responses to product changes, increase customer retention, and expand customer adoption.

This module provides students with advanced methods and frameworks for understanding customer needs, and for translating those needs into a program of research and product development that can be used to create a successful new product or service. It equips students with skills to generate new product hypotheses, to research the potential of a new product or entrepreneurial venture, and to adjust the product offering to fit the needs of customers. This module instills the all-important distinction between a ‘bright idea’ and a ‘business opportunity’ in new product creation.

Using disciplined methods of customer and market analysis, students will gain advanced abilities in defining the core customers for a new product or entrepreneurial venture.

Students will study the complex combination of factors that influence customers to adopt a new product or service. They will gain a comprehensive understanding of what makes entrepreneurial selling unique, and why it is valuable to integrate key aspects of selling and marketing activities in a new venture. Students will learn how to select potential customers through data collection, including customer interviews, and students will learn how to analyse that data to refine a product offering.

This module provides students with advanced methods needed to understand how a product will fit into a competitive market, and how to introduce the product into that market. This includes advanced research on the receptiveness of a market to the new product, as well as strategies for defining and finding the market that will be most receptive to the product. Students consider product introductions with the goal of what Marc Andreesen called ‘product/market fit’ - a ‘good market with a product that can satisfy that market.’

The module trains students to reflect upon and analyse a company’s go-to- market strategy, and it provides students with sophisticated methods of calculating customer acquisition cost, determining customer break-even, and calculating customer lifetime value.

The Digital Action Programme for Business Administration provides a capstone course in which students deepen and apply their learning through a 'Digital Action Programme' (DAP). In the DAP, students are grouped into cohorts (typically five students) and must work both individually and together on a specific, real, contemporary business consultancy problem related to their specialisation (Data Analytics; Marketing; Finance; International Business; DEI), normally proposed by a cooperating organisation (corporation or non-profit), which results in a comprehensive solution proposal.

This provides students with a real-world business consultancy engagement, and the opportunity to produce, both individually and as a team, a substantial piece of relevant, scholarly, and actionable research, to be presented directly to stakeholders in the cooperating organisation.

Over the course of the DAP, students fulfil the learning objectives: each student demonstrates their comprehensive knowledge and understanding of key business processes; each student uses multidisciplinary approaches to perform critical analyses of real business issues in situations of uncertainty and incomplete information in order to develop an actionable solution; each student practises teamwork, exercises their leadership skills, and reflects on their own performance and the performance of their cohort; and each student communicates to members of their cohort, the cooperating organisation, and faculty members from Woolf. Students are required to demonstrate autonomy, individual scholarly acumen, self-reflection in their engagement with peers, role adaptability within their cohort, and teamwork while engaged in the DAP. The goal of the DAP is (1) to fulfil the learning objectives and (2) to produce a project portfolio containing an analysis of the business problem and the proposed solution.