Business Management [with Foundation Year]

Anglia Ruskin University

This module presents a fusion between the philosophies which underlie marketing, with a strong emphasis of integrating digital and traditional concepts and the real life application of marketing across a variety of sectoral contexts. You'll examine the core marketing concept of customer value and the interplay between marketing and sustainability and the ethical challenges and critiques of modern marketing. You'll gain a wide range of knowledge across a breadth of sectors and be able to adapt these to whatever career or future research you choose. On completion of the module you'll have not only a solid grounding in marketing philosophies and theories but also a critical view of marketing, based around the realisation of the reality of modern digital marketing operations and management in a context of increasing global economic challenges, but also within a context where the customer profile is shifting to become increasingly demanding, critical and questioning of the motivations and ethics behind the marketers activities.

You'll explore the factors that affect business, from a mostly external perspective, including elements of globalisation and international business and the fundamental skills needed in the world of business. Political, Economics, Social, Legal, Ecological and Technological factors will be examined in the macro business environment and how these interact in a competitive environment with globalisation, technological and social change to create complex strategic options for organisations. You will also explore in some detail the concept of sustainability and introductory economics.

As an introduction to a broad range of civil legal issues, you'll get an insight and appreciation of the various ways in which the law impacts on the world of commerce and our everyday life. The module provides a foundation across a broad range of fundamental legal principles and concepts of the English Legal System. The rights and obligations of legal entities/individuals under the Law of Contract and the Law of Tort will also be examined.

Finance and business information is the lifeblood of any organisations operations and decisions. You'll work with data and case studies from organisations, meet with businesses to understand the practical use this key information is put to and present your decisions on a going concern or start-up. As you present your analysis of key information and conclusions to other stakeholders, you'll develop your persuasion and negotiation skills.

You'll be introduced to a range of organisational behaviour issues that you may encounter in your career and be provided with evidence-informed analyses of ways in which culture, leadership, structure and motivation affect workers and workplaces. This foundation enables you to analyse the human side of management and diagnose problems affecting organisations both independently and as part of a group. You'll have the opportunity to take managerial, critical, symbolic-interactivist and feminist perspectives to business issues and organisational behaviour related theories, models and concepts to build your social capital and critical analytical skills. Specifically, we will equip you with the knowledge and human capitals to understand how people and organisations function in individual, group and organisational levels based on the latest academic evidence on topics such as motivation, leadership, teams, organisational structure and culture. Finally, we aim to inspire you to value and continuously use the best available academic evidence on effective management of people and organisations throughout your career.

You'll analyse leadership as an interaction between leaders and followers, rather than a downward force from superiors to subordinates. This will help you recognise the effects of values, emotions and shifting power relations on your interactions with both your leaders and your followers. You'll be encouraged to reflect on the skills used by leaders and required for leadership in your relationships. By taking a critical and constructivist view of leadership, you'll recognise leadership skills and potential in both yourself and others, reflecting on the purpose and practice of leadership skills. This includes coding and decoding the language choices and organisational cultures that support effective leadership, analysing leader myths and stories and emphasising the role of followers as active drivers of change within organisations.

Development and management of new products and services is deeply linked to the results of companies and innovation plays a key role in their long-term success. You'll discover the innovation concept and its strategic role, as well as the process to develop innovative and sustainable new products and services. From the perspective of business and marketing, you'll relate idea generation and launch with its practical application in industry and commerce. You'll think independently and innovatively and improve your ability to work outside of the comfort of structure and predictability and security whilst learning the tools to develop your critical thinking and creativity. You'll learn innovation theories and new developments in suitability and the circular economy; understand how firms develop new consumer-centric sustainable and innovative products/services; improve your creativity skills and; understand the success factors for new products. In teams, you'll develop your own new product based on a provided brief and will present it in a pitch presentation with accompanying media to a panel for evaluation..

This module will give you a sound understanding of the knowledge, skills and behaviours required by human resources (HR) professionals, whether in a generalist or specialist role as described in the CIPD HR Profession Map (HRPM). You'll embrace the ?thinking performer? perspective and cover the competencies needed by HR professionals when collaborating and working with others and functioning efficiently and effectively in an organisational context. You'll assess your own strengths and identify a continuing professional development plan, based on the capabilities required for ethical, business-focused and interpersonal professional conduct, exploring and recognising the strategic importance of the effective management of the human resource and people management and progresses a critical appreciation of the role of HR. You'll explore and recognise the strategic importance of effective HR management and using work-based research and good practice, critically evaluate the role of HR in formulating strategies to prepare business cases and present viable and realistic improvement which shows an appreciation for issues identified in your research.

Financial management is the assessment of the investment and financing decisions of firms and you'll gain knowledge of the theoretical foundations underlying much of financial management practice and learn how those theories should be applied in practice. You'll learn how to apply problem solving and analytical skills to complex and current issues in corporate finance.

You'll be introduced to classical theories of leadership and management, and invited to critique the traits, styles, and decisions made by leaders and managers in real-world organisations. You'll be able to understand, develop and reflect on your leadership skills by: considering the behaviours of effective and ineffective leaders in organisations; critically analysing classical theories and debates about leaders and leadership, and work in groups to develop your ability to lead and work in teams. By focusing on key debates and the associated development of leadership studies as a discipline, this module underlines the contested nature of leadership and management in organisations throughout history while also looking forward to future challenges for leaders and leadership in post-Fordist organisations.

Project management is a key skill for any future professional. This module focuses on providing a sound basis for managing or working on projects. In essence, the concept of managing a project hinging on one quite basic principle, managing the triangle of: quality of the project outcomes, cost and time. The module covers: Project Management Body of Knowledge; the importance of stakeholder and risk management; scheduling and costing; monitoring and controlling techniques, time management and resource optimisation; improving the success of projects; and the principles of agile project management.

Ruskin Modules are designed to prepare our students for a complex, challenging and changing future. These interdisciplinary modules provide the opportunity to further broaden your perspectives, develop your intellectual flexibility and creativity. You will work with others from different disciplines to enable you to reflect critically on the limitations of a single discipline to solve wider societal concerns. You will be supported to create meaningful connections across disciplines to apply new knowledge to tackle complex problems and key challenges. Ruskin Modules are designed to grow your confidence, seek and maximise opportunities to realise your potential to give you a distinctive edge and enhance your success in the workplace.

Entrepreneurs are people who identify and exploit opportunities for new products, marketing or processes to generate economic and social value. Entrepreneurship is not just about new venture creation, it involves using creative or innovative ideas to recognise and develop solutions. You'll work as part of a team over 3 rounds of activity (such as gamification, experiential learning and simulation) to focus on the identification of an opportunity, the creation of a product or service and pitching a concept to work as part of the team to develop your skills and collaborate with organisations and guest speakers.

You'll explore consumer behaviour but not only the what and how we buy, you'll be getting deeper into how marketers tailor their offer to consumer demands and market trends, how consumer behaviour is influenced by new products and services, the marketing mix and it's design and implementation. The psychological and sociological models and theories and emerging consumer psychology research will be illustrated with practical examples of the day to day marketing activities of product and service providers. You'll work in teams, following market research techniques, to develop your skills and entrepreneurial awareness.

You'll explore sustainable work practices and think critically to comply with the highest professional standards whilst also exploring personal and social responsibility. You'll understand key developments in business and the external contexts of HR and provide sustainable organisational and HR solutions to address them. You'll gain a wider understanding of the impact of strategies and policies on sustainable business decisions. Your knowledge of sustainability, including preconceptions about ethics and sustainability will be identified, expressed and developed to encourage you to play a leading role in activating change in your immediate surroundings as well as in communities and organisations. You will look at the contribution of reward to business viability and advise on the appropriateness of sustainable policies and practices paying particular attention to questioning the different responses of a business and their social responsibility and sustainable management.

People represent a key source of sustainable competitive advantage for most organisations. Employment law continues to expand both in terms of volume and complexity and the amount of regulation covering the employment relationship and the workplace has grown substantially in recent years. You'll gain a comprehensive understanding of employment law and employment relations in terms of theory, debates and practices in national and international settings and from a theoretical and behavioural competency perspective. Your knowledge, understanding and skills will let you brief and support organisations on the consequences of current and future developments in employment law/relations and give up-to-date, timely and accurate advice concerning the practical application of key legal principles of UK employment law.

The aim is to critically explore intercultural issues and challenges in international and diverse work contexts and develop an understanding of how cultural factors can influence decision-making, collaboration and communication as well as identifying when culture is not the main factor. You'll examine different regional business environments and their cultural and institutional differences, explore classic and contemporary thinking on culture and intercultural management and be encouraged to apply theories and ideas to practice and relate them to your own experience through various examples, cases and practical activities. The module further aims to help you develop as competent globally minded professionals who are able to engage with the complexities and challenges of working and collaborating in international and diverse contexts, have an understanding and openness to difference and how to avoid stereotyping.

This module is designed to give you an overall understanding of marketing communications and the part that it plays in marketing and in business success. You'll explore the role of communications and the integrated nature of modern advertising campaigns, the tools and techniques used in marketing communications, both online and offline whilst looking into how and why each tool is used. You'll analyse the advantages and disadvantages of each, illustrating how the tools interact with the other elements of the marketing mix and how they must all integrate to achieve vital synergy. The promotional planning process at the strategic, tactical and operational levels is identified and examined and applied.

Strategic Management is a fascinating discipline that studies the long-term purpose and direction of organisations, by looking at how to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. The first part of the module focuses on core frameworks and analytical techniques that will enable you to assess the resources and capabilities of organisations in relation to the conditions of the industry and the macro environment, and stakeholder pressures. The module concludes with the evaluation of business-level and corporate-level strategies, providing a springboard to the Advanced Strategic Management module in the final year, focused on strategic implementation.

You'll develop understanding of the shift towards more environmentally, socially and economically responsible business practice and in particular focus on the drivers behind this shift; including an understanding of the sustainable development goals and growing business arguments for including a consideration of sustainability in all business and management practice. The module promotes a personal approach to the issues of sustainability and personal and social responsibility. The module includes an authentic assessment where you'll be diagnosing, designing and evaluating an environmental management plan for your households or organisations, while reflecting on your personal responsibility and ethical behaviour. You'll pay special attention to questioning the different responses of business in relation to social responsibility and sustainable management. If you're studying BSc (Hons) Business Management, successful completion of this module provides exemption against the Chartered Management Institute's (CMI) unit 5022V1 Organisational Corporate Social Responsibility.

An entrepreneur must be resilient, to keep going, and keep trying despite mistakes, lack of funds, or opportunities. You'll look at theories of reflection, and is analytical and theoretical in its approach. We look at the numbers and analysis to work out the next steps, reflecting on previous learning on the course. You'll build your social networks and capital, learn to pitch, find out how to apply for grants and write a successful bid and speak to entrepreneurs to find out what made them successful. We link to the patchwork framework and the entrepreneurial toolkit to help you to pull on your personal resources and we consider diversity and entrepreneurship as you prepare for self-employment or taking your entrepreneurial skills into the workplace. You'll be invited to explore different types of entrepreneurs and reflect on your own skills, knowledge and behaviours. The assessment will be scenario-based critically analysing the resources that can be used to overcome specific issues affecting the entrepreneur.

Undertaking a Major Project allows you to engage in a substantial piece of individual research, and/or product development work, on a selected topic within the broad business and management field, relating to your particular interests and background, although closely linked to our wide range of staff interests and research. You will have many group sessions to support your project, plus the supervision by an academic member of staff. The project also encourages students to share ideas and approaches. The chosen topic will be in your course subject area and require you to identify/formulate problems and issues based on a range of topics provided by conducting a literature review and evaluating information. You will investigate and adopt a suitable desk based methodology and determine solutions, perhaps developing hardware, software and/or media artefacts as appropriate. You will critically appraise and present your findings, reflecting upon the limitations of your research and the research process.