Finance, Accounting and Management BSc

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 introduces you to the microeconomic theory of the market, firm and consumer, and to the nature and scope of the macroeconomic policy agenda, developing the analytical frameworks necessary for the evaluation of policy instruments. The module enables you to understand the economic arguments that underlie different views and to evaluate relevant arguments.

Topics include: market demand, supply and equilibrium; firm production and costs; market structure (perfect competition, oligopoly, monopoly); consumer theory; market failure; asymmetric information; externalities; aggregate demand; money and interest rates; aggregate supply; unemployment and inflation; balance of payments and exchange rates.

This module provides you with the opportunity to apply for CIMA accreditation in the CIMA paper: Fundamentals of Business Economics. It also provides you with the foundations to build upon in quantitative and econometric modules which provides you with the opportunity to apply for additional CIMA accreditation.

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 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 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 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 introduces you to:

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

This module will survey the international tourism industry in the 21st century. Starting with lectures on the history and sociology of tourism and its broader cultural significance, it will analyse trends in tour operation management, sustainable transport practice, niche markets like eco-tourism, and investigate and evaluate the various social, cultural and environmental impacts which the tourist industry has on destinations. 

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.

This module looks at the use of accounting information systems in financial and management accounting and their control and audit. You'll cover topics such as:

• introduction to systems
• business processes
• budgeting and decision support systems
• internal control and audit
• computer crime and external audit
• enterprise resource planning systems

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

This module addresses the application of financial reporting principles in preparing financial statements in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards for a range of transactions and economic events. This module also develops your understanding of the role of external audit and audit theory and practice.

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. 

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 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.

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

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 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 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

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.

We examine the development of, and current issues in, public services management to include public management, bureaucracy, leadership, e-government, and public service.

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

This 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 advanced financial reporting topics including:

• accounting conceptual framework
• accounting measurement and recognition issues
• special topics

This module will discuss some or all of the following topics:

• Pricing decisions and profitability analysis
• Measuring business performance
• Strategic management accounting (including strategic cost management)
• Issues in management accounting and control
• Current issues in management accounting

This module explores the (inter)relationships between business, society and the environment through the theories and practices of business ethics and sustainability. You will be introduced to different ethical frameworks that can be used to understand a business' responsibilities to a broad range of stakeholders; ranging from investors and customers, to employees, communities and ecosystems.

The module equips you with the capacity to describe and address specific situations that enable and/or constrain ethical and sustainable decision-making in businesses. Ultimately, the module develops your 'moral imagination' - to become responsible managers of the future - in light of competing stakeholder expectations, situational factors, and broader challenges of sustainability.

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 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 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 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 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.

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 covers:

• introduction to purchasing - its importance, role and impact in organisations
• strategic sourcing decisions and approaches
• the stages of a typical purchasing process and introduction to various tools buyers use
• internal organisation of the purchasing function such as centralisation vs decentralisation
• supplier evaluation and selection issues, total cost of ownership (TCO) and quotation analysis
• portfolio and segmentation approaches to supplier management
• incentives and behavioural issues in managing suppliers
• negotiations
• special issues in purchasing: service sourcing and public procurement
• industrial case studies

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 introduces you to key strategy and innovation concepts and tools which are relevant to dynamic markets in which there is rapid change in knowledge and skills, technologies, products, and services. Topics covered include:

• creating and sustaining competitive advantage in dynamic markets
• dynamic capabilities
• first and second mover advantages in innovation
• industry life cycles
• new product development and technology lock-ins
• innovation in services (public and private sector) 

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.