Industrial Economics BSc

The module presents a formal analysis of entrepreneurship in theory and practice leading on to a consideration of creativity and business concept generation. The module concludes with the practical application of these theories and concepts in business planning and business concept presentation.

This module introduces you to microeconomics and macroeconomics. This module introduces you to the microeconomic theory of the market and the firm. Topics covered include:

• market demand
• supply and equilibrium
• firm production and costs
• market structure
• perfect competition
• monopolistic competition
• oligopoly and monopoly

This module introduces you to the nature and scope of the macroeconomic policy agenda, and develops the analytical frameworks necessary for the evaluation of policy instruments. The module enables you to understand the economic arguments that under-lie different views and to evaluate relevant arguments.

This module introduces you to the microeconomic theory of the market and the firm. Topics covered include:

• market demand
• supply and equilibrium
• firm production and costs
• market structure
• perfect competition
• monopolistic competition
• oligopoly and monopoly

This module covers:

• rules and regulations of studying at university, organisational skills and time management, and how to approach reflective work and skills analysis
• essay writing, referencing and plagiarism, taking minutes and agendas
• team working, listening skills, values, personal attributes, networking, cultural awareness
• problem solving, critical thinking and decision making, SDGs and project - social enterprises
• study abroad, careers insight days, CVs and applications
• communication - personal brand, self-awareness values
• project management
• interviews and assessment days - careers and some external companies, commercial awareness
• presentation skills
• ethics in business and technology in relation to future careers

This module covers:

• economic application of calculus
• confidence intervals
• introduction to hypothesis testing
• partial differentiation
• optimisation of two variables
• probability
• random variables
• sampling distributions

This module introduces you to:

• numbers
• algebra
• functions
• equations
• exponents
• logarithms
• descriptive statistics
• differentiation
• optimisation
• integration

This module provides an introduction to the fundamental concepts of finance and will help you:

• understand that there is a relationship between the risk of an investment and the expected returns
• understand the concept of the time value of money and be able to calculate the present value of a single and multiple future cash flows
• to be able to apply NPV to project appraisal in realistic situations
• understand the fundamental ideas or portfolio theory and be able to apply the CAPM
• to be able to estimate cost of capital for equity (CAPM and dividend growth model) and bonds (market value and IRR)

This module will cover:

• UK legal framework
• impact of EU legislation
• law of contract - essential elements, performance and remedies
• business and the law of tort
• employment law
• law in a local and global context
• agency
• legal personality; sole traders; partnerships and limited companies
• purpose and legal status of memorandum and articles
• management and the administration of a company
• insolvency

This module will introduce the use of computers and IT in business today - and in particular spreadsheet modelling - via a lab based assessment and a case study group report and presentation.

This module considers the impact of business upon the environment and society. It will evaluate governance approaches that support the organisation to become both responsible and sustainable.

This module covers:

• key accounting concepts
• the impact of accounting policy selection
• the recording and collating of accounting information, including double entry bookkeeping
• preparation of financial statement from accounting data
• cost concepts and allocation of manufacturing overheads
• absorption and variable costing
• cost-volume-profit analysis
• relevant costing
• budgeting

This module provides an integrated overview of operations management and information systems, covering the following:

• Key technology trends: Web 2.0, cloud, mobile computing
• Manufacturing systems design and management (process choice, layout, location)
• Service operations design and management
• Balancing capacity and demand
• Information systems analysis and design
• Operations planning and control, including inventory management
• Operations excellence, lean thinking and business process re-engineering
• Supply chain design and management
• Customer relationship management
• Knowledge management
• Business intelligence and analytics

This module will introduce you to the basic ideas of organisational behaviour. The content will encourage you to develop an understanding of managing and developing people within business organisations.

The module will draw its primary material from the major theorists and theories of both organisational psychology and organisational behaviour. The module will also develop links with other aspects of the business school curriculum such as general management and international business.

This module introduces you to:

• numbers
• algebra
• functions
• equations
• exponents
• logarithms
• descriptive statistics
• differentiation
• optimisation
• integration

This module explores the nature of work and society. It will look at the development of our understanding of work and society. The development of the industrial and the post-industrial society will be explored and its impact on the nature of work, organisation and management.

There will be a historical and critical review of the schools of thought and key writers. Examples of research into individual and group experiences of work, organisation and management will be discussed.

The aim of the module is to introduce you to the theoretical building blocks for the economic analysis of organisations and innovation from a variety of perspectives, as well as the application of theories toward understanding issues in the subject areas, covering topics such as organisational architecture, reward systems, performance measurement, various types of innovation, intellectual property and standards, economics of networks, innovation clusters and policy-related issues etc.

The aim of the module is to introduce you to industrial economics. The module coves two broad topics:

1. The traditional market models (monopoly, oligopoly, decisions under uncertainty)
2. Auctions

In this module you'll study further maths and statistics including topics such as linear algebra, constrained optimisation, difference equations and hypothesis testing. 

This module will provide an introduction to the theory and practice of quantitative economic modelling at a basic level. The theoretical framework will be developed around the classical regression model and its extensions, with theoretical understanding being supplemented with computer-based practical examples of modelling and data analysis. 

The aim of the module is to introduce you to the economic view of firms, highlighting the implications for firms' decisions in closed and open economies.

The module intends to cover topics such as agency theory, transaction cost economics, integration, and organisational and institutional aspects of international business and their impacts.

This module provides key mathematical analysis and tools for advanced modelling for a wide range of applications used in business, finance and economics. Elementary calculus of a single variable is reviewed and extended and used to give insight to modelling through use of first-order differential equations. Differential calculus of functions of several variables is introduced and their applications for multi-dimensional models.

The current business climate demands that companies, large or small, develop the capability to anticipate and respond to changes in their external environment. These changes may represent opportunities or threats for companies.

Entrepreneurship has been viewed as a means through which economic actors identify and pursue such opportunities. It is often assumed that large, established organisations are constrained by bureaucracy and are not as flexible and entrepreneurial as new small firms. There are, however, several examples of large companies (such as Sony, 3M and IBM), which have been able to create and sustain a competitive advantage by being consistently innovative and entrepreneurial.

This module explores entrepreneurship in larger companies. Corporate entrepreneurship is a term used to describe entrepreneurial behaviour inside established mid-sized and large organisations.

This module concentrates on the major investment and financing decisions made by managers within a firm.

This module examines the process of relational database design and implementation using relevant theory. Applications of modern databases will be studied and all students will be required to create a database system, fully documented, to solve a given problem. 

This module will develop your understanding of entrepreneurship in an international context through considering a range of key issues and topics. The module adopts a critical and broad-ranging social science approach to the subject and aims to provide you with the ability to analyse entrepreneurship from an international perspective within the context of a wide range of management, organisation studies and social science debates.

The module focuses on both the conceptual aspects of international entrepreneurship as well as practical elements in order to equip you with a valid grounding of both theory and practice.

This module will introduce the following topics:

• Activity based costing
• Process costing
• Transfer pricing
• The changing role of the management accountant
• Curvilinear cost functions (for example, the learning curve)
• Pricing decisions and strategies
• The range of alternative approaches to performance measurement and their respective merits/problems

This module develops an understanding of when and how different approaches, models and methods are used in management decision-making. Areas covered include: optimisation models and methods, project management methods, queuing systems and simulation, sequencing and scheduling.

This module provides you with a theoretical and applied overview of strategic management in today's operational environment. It introduces and analyses the key concepts, frameworks and techniques of strategic management, which allow them to diagnose complex situations related to real-world business development.

The module examines the particular management and marketing issues affecting the tourism sector, using both relevant theoretical frameworks and applied cases from a range of different countries. The module covers topics such as:

• the importance of tourism to the global economy
• services marketing and management principles and the specific characteristics of tourism in the service economy
• tourist consumer behaviour, including latest trends in travel patterns
• strategic marketing tools for tourism
• managing service quality and delivery in tourism
• destination management and marketing, imagery and branding
• tourism product development, marketing communications and pricing
• ICTs, channel strategies and e-tourism marketing
• mobile and social media marketing in tourism
• crisis management and scenario planning

This module explores the strategic importance of operations in business management, within and across organisations, and in addressing environmental and societal challenges. Organisations in this module refer to organisations from the public, private and third sectors; service and manufacturing.

Examples of topics include:

• value and performance
• the links with other business functions
• sustainability
• product and service innovation
• managing the supply chain and network
• resource management
• excellence through improvement and quality

This module will examine and explore:

• the interactions between and the management of tourism and the environment from the perspective of key stakeholders including business, government, non-governmental organisations, tourist and local communities
• the emergence of environmentally concerned consumers and the implications of different environmental paradigms for tourism development
• debates surrounding the environmental and economic impacts of tourism to highlight the potential for both conflict and consensus
• the role played by pressure groups in influencing tourism development and the emergence of nature/eco-tourism

This module is designed to focus on the strategic and operational aspects of marketing management. It will examine:

• understanding the marketing concept
• the role of marketing within business and its contribution to business performance and enhancing value
• developing marketing strategy
• segmentation, targeting and positioning
• managing the marketing mix
• planning and implementation

Much economic and business behaviour deviates from the traditional views of rationality - for example, utility and profit maximisation. This module provides an overview of alternative views of decision making from behavioural economics and the economic psychology of individual choice.

The focus is both on new methods of economic enquiry and the insights they have generated into economic and business decision making. These new approaches include: experimental and cognitive economics; neuroeconomics; economics of emotions and happiness; behavioural finance; cultural economics; social preferences and evolutionary psychology.

This module will introduce the different aspects of corporate risk and examine how the risk of fortuitous loss may affect the various stakeholders in the operations of firms.

This module will introduce you to:

• supply chain fundamentals, including: the supply chain planning processes and the need for them
• planning processes and methods, including: forecasting; aggregate planning; MRP; capacity management; theory of constraints (TOC); JIT (kanban); inventory management
• IS/IT support for planning including ERP systems
• planning through the supply chain, examining the challenges in different contexts through case studies

The module will foster your understanding of the process by which business organisations make effective use of labour; and the policies they employ to this effect.

Topics covered include:

• employees' incentives in organisations
• the hiring process
• training and labour turnover
• employee pay and performance
• trade unions
• employment relations

This module covers the two broad areas of market structure and competition policy. Topics covered include the measurement and determinants of market concentration, links between market structure and industrial/firm performance, advertising and R&D in the context of industrial economics, public policy on inter-firm agreements and restrictive practices, abuse of monopoly power and merger control.

This module will analyse the conduct and strategies of firms from a game theoretic point of view. Topics to be covered include basic game theory, models of oligopoly, pricing tactics, strategic entry deterrence, standard settings, networks and technology adoption, cooperation, communication and competition.

This module will offer an introduction to some theoretical concepts related to the allocation of risk by financial institutions. Then it will apply these concepts to the analysis of financial and banking crises.

This module covers the two broad areas of regulation and competition policy. Topics covered include:

• natural monopoly regulation
• retail price control
• access pricing
• universal service obligations
• public policy on inter-firm agreements and restrictive practices
• abuse of monopoly power and merger control

This module examines the antecedents and consequences of corporate restructuring. Factors triggering corporate restructuring are considered in a number of alternative organisational settings. In particular, the role of corporate governance in inducing and shaping corporate restructuring receives special attention (in particular, executive compensation and the market for corporate control).

The process of restructuring is discussed against a background of resource-based, agency and behavioural theories of the firm. The impact of corporate restructuring on the size, complexity, incentive systems and ownership structure of large firms is examined. Finally, the evidence relating to the effects of corporate restructuring on performance, employment, R&D and corporate governance is examined.

This module provides you with analytical capability in a range of key applied algebra techniques as typically used in the quantitative study of problems in business, finance and economics. The complexity of solving general (large) systems of equations is examined in terms of matrix techniques. Matrix algebra is extended to identify characteristics of matrix systems in term of eigenvalues and eigenvectors. Techniques are developed to solve difference equations and systems of equations subject to constraints. Optimisation of management and operations research type problems will be addressed with elementary linear programming techniques.

This module will provide an introduction to econometric techniques for modelling data. Topics to be covered include:

• panel data modelling (difference-in-difference models; regression discontinuity designs; experiments)
• qualitative response models
• time series models

This module will provide you with an understanding of methods, results and models of behavioural economics and behavioural finance. We will talk about experiments and their importance in several fields. Within this context we will cover topics such as:

• how to design an experiment
• asset markets
• labour markets
• social dilemmas
• bargaining
• contests
• behavioural finance
• market structure
• risk

You will learn how to design your own experiment and how to interpret empirical results.

This module is an opportunity for you to work largely independently and in depth on a subject of your choice to be approved by staff from the Business School.

You will be encouraged to understand the political and institutional frameworks within which business operates. Businesses do not simply react to policies set by government however; they are intimately involved in the processes of policy formation and decision making will be examined. You will be encouraged to think critically about policy formation and the role of business in this process.

This module introduces and develops frameworks which enable businesses to understand the buying behaviour of consumers.

The module includes lecture content to consider the background, need for, and potential of ‘entrepreneurship for social change’. This includes reviewing

• the fundamentals of the business and society relationship
• the emergence and potential of social and environmental entrepreneurship
• the organisational forms where entrepreneurship for social changes takes place, for example, Cooperatives, Charitable Foundations, Social Enterprises, B-Corps
• the ecosystem that supports entrepreneurship for social change, for example, social venture capitalists, institutions, networks

Further, the module introduces a series of concepts and engages you in using practice tools/ frameworks for entrepreneurship for social change, at times these will be anchored by the UN’s SDGs.

This module examines the workings of the major financial markets. Markets for equity and debt are dealt with (money and foreign exchange markets are also the focus) as are markets for derivative instruments. The module covers the key theoretical models of modern finance, key market conventions and mechanisms, financial risk management with derivative instruments.

This module discusses and analyses the management of the international finance function of firms. Typical issues include:

• foreign exchange markets
• foreign exchange and other international risks
• international financial markets
• international investment decisions
• foreign trade 

This module covers:

• introduction to law and economics: the Coase theorem, property rights and transaction costs
• economics of corporate law: ownership, agency and governance structures
• economics of contract law: efficient breach and efficient remedies
• economics of tort law: efficient liability rules
• economics of criminal law: fines and imprisonment
• economics of legal processes: litigation, settlement and trial
• competitive markets: products liability
• non-competitive markets: economics of antitrust law and regulation

The module provides an introduction to logistics and supply chain management (LSCM) within the international context. It examines how LSCM strategies contribute to businesses' competitive advantage, the relationship aspects between business partners in delighting end-customers and supporting operational activities and the international transport of goods. The module is taught by reference to academic literature and management practice, including case-studies and application to special topics such as humanitarian logistics and international trade.

This module provides a broad-based introduction to the theory and practice of using computer and communication systems to solve problems in organisations.

The module is designed to provide the theoretical knowledge and technology-based insights needed in order to manage effective problem solving with information technologies and systems (IT&S), and to extract the most value from an actual or potential application of IT&S.

Specific domains include the strategic management of IT&S; the development, implementation and use of IT&S; the impacts of specific IT&S on organisational forms and activities.

An overview of marketing and society, macro-marketing issues, responsible and sustainable marketing, consumer response to marketing activities, marketing's impact on society and consumption.

This module will engage you in the more practical elements of innovation and enterprise activity, in terms of creating new businesses and entrepreneurship within the corporate environment. You will become prepared for enterprise activity across a variety of contexts. 

This module provides an understanding of the factors which influence a company's choice of location, and of how to approach the design of layouts to support a company's strategic objectives and maximise the efficiency of its operations.

This module will discuss the processes utilised by corporate enterprises to manage the risk of fortuitous loss. Once corporate risks have been identified and their impact on the firm measured, risk management attempts to control the size and frequency of loss, and to finance those fortuitous losses which do occur. 

This module examines individual decision-making under conditions of risk and uncertainty, and investigates the effectiveness of insurance as a means of controlling risk.

This module aims to provide you with the skills, knowledge and practical experience required to respond to the challenges involved in managing, commercialising and marketing technological innovation and new business development.