The Executive MBA
for the Future

Compulsory modules

All modules are subject to availability and this list may change at any time.

• MBA Orientation and Leadership Catalyst

  No matter who you are or where you’re from – we know you’ve got the potential to be a brilliant leader.  

  We’ll start with an overview of the programme, but after that, it’s all about you – your experience, your skills, knowledge, behaviours, and your aims. 

  You’ll reflect on and analyse your journey so far, using academic literature, inspiring case studies, and personal research to pinpoint areas to develop, skills to hone, and measure your growth throughout the course and beyond. This new level of self-awareness will provide a solid footing as you discover your own leadership style and unique place in the business world. 

  Right from the get-go, you’ll be developing vital study skills and training in essential systems. As well as a strong academic and theoretical approach, you’ll explore fundamental principles of leadership, including growth mindsets, decision-making, and persuasion.

  This module won’t just help you get the most out of your course; it will prepare you for your own transformative leadership journey. 

• Global Economic Environment

  Organisations operate within a face-paced global economic environment that influences their performance.

  Changes in the global economy can be both unexpected and significant, leading to an increase in uncertainty about the state of the global, regional and national economies through impacting their future evolution and, thereby, the performance of business.

  The Global Economic Environment module introduces the concepts, tools and analytical approaches of modern economics to inform business leaders’ understanding and decision-making relating to contemporary global, regional and national events, indicators and trends.

• Strategy Making in a Complex World

  With the rapid pace of change and disruption, future-focused leaders need to be able to strategise in a complex world and deal with emergent complex challenges and many have already relinquished assumptions of a mechanistic world associated with a more stable world order and are now working out what a complex world means and how to be effective in it. Systems thinking not only offers future leaders theoretical understanding of how complexity is created but also provides practical support for the managerial endeavour of strategising in complex systems and the creation of sustainable social value.

• Marketing in a Disruptive Digital Era

  In this volatile business landscape, disruption is the norm. Organisations have to be ready and willing to break the status quo. This could mean shaking up their entire business model or revamping their service or product, and it will almost always involve adapting how they reach their customers.

  In this highly interactive module, you’ll gain real, hands-on experience. You’ll get to grips with the marketing platforms and analytic tools to understand how organisations use the very latest data and harness the most disruptive digital trends to build sustainable growth for stakeholders.

  You’ll learn how to critically evaluate an increasingly competitive, online, and distraction-filled marketplace and identify key trends. You’ll understand the importance of reaching customers with the right product at the right price, at the right time, and through the right channels. By combining insight into the complete brand planning process with the University’s vision for a ‘fairer, brighter, carbon neutral future’, this module will inspire sustainable marketing plans that meet the needs of the organisation, the customers, and the environment – we call this Total Marketing.

• Accounting, Finance and Corporate Social Responsibility

  The future of finance is digital transformation, this module will equip leaders with the future trends embracing the accounting and finance discipline. Technology and new global standards such as eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) are changing the way finance and accounting processes operate and financial data are reported. This is enabling CFOs and investors to make quick data drive decisions and to help other leaders in the organisation lead and influence projects, also to benchmark. Equally there is a need to balance profit with purpose, with greater focus now on financial products, investments, financial instruments, or fund products focused on sustainable investment.

• Leadership Behaviours and Psychology

  Leadership and Business Psychology enable you to reflect on your leadership behaviours and examine new ways of working in volatile, uncertain, chaotic and ambiguous environments. We will examine how the environment around us influences the decisions we make (as leaders) and tasks we focus on. Also focusing our attention on behaviours and psychology allows us to unpack the critical success factors for socially responsible leadership.

• Global Talent Management and Human Resource Management

  People: your business’s most valuable resource.  

  In this module you’ll gain a profound understanding of people management within a complex, shifting, and increasingly globalised context.  

  Split into three main parts, it covers the principles of human resources management, global talent management, and organisational culture. From this, you’ll develop helpful people management strategies to apply to your own real-life experiences – giving you the tools to become a responsible and ethical leader.  

  From recruiting and managing talent in a global market, to committing to corporate social responsibility; from creating diverse and supportive cultures, to the implications of the psychological contract; and from workforce health and wellbeing to the global paradox; this module covers the full breadth of theories and practices relating to talent and human resource management.  

• Sustainable Supply Chain Management

  Never before has responsible and ethical supply chain leadership been so important to organisations and the world economy. The global pandemic, modern-day slavery, the energy crisis and climate change have shone a spotlight on the importance and impact of supply chains in making a difference.

  Gain an in-depth understanding of supply chain strategy, design and sustainability. Learn how to analyse and design effective supply chain operations and how to use data models and simulation games to solve problems and inform decisions. You will become an ethical role model with a reputation for sustainable development in a global supply chain community, acting with integrity and promoting an ethical, inclusive and supportive culture.

• Digital Transformation and Information Security

  Explore how digital technologies can lead to failures for organisations, but also, how technology can enable organisations to achieve a meaningful digital transformation and compete in the digital economy. You will review the latest disruptive technologies and consider their wider implications in business and society. Examine technology in a systems theoretical manner, develop critical thinking around digital assets and consider the core cybersecurity challenges that organisations face in an era where information systems security becomes a fundamental concern for all businesses.

• Creating an Entrepreneurial Organisation

  Organisations are having to become nimbler and more adaptive to change, especially as we move further into industry 4.0 and as digital disruption changes and creates uncertainty in the business environment. As opportunities arise from new technologies and ways of doing things corporations have to begin acting like start-ups in their ability to identify and exploit opportunities for value creation (or more effective in competing against start-ups). One solution is to turn a rigid and process driven organisation into an entrepreneurial organisation that is more flexible, nimble and alert to opportunities.

  This module will equip you with the toolkit to revolutionise or enhance entrepreneurial processes within your own organisation.

• MBA Project and Consultancy

  Put everything you’ve learnt to the test.  

  In this module, you will be introduced to the nature of research and the management consultancy processes. You will be involved in carrying out research and consultancy in an area of management that emphasise organisation change and development, disruption, innovation and effective decision making.

  The module offers an exciting opportunity for you to work on a live consultancy project with a client organisation. It provides an opportunity for you to apply your learning throughout the MBA to a substantial project whilst at the same time developing your networks, collaboration and skill for the gig economy and beyond. Consultancy teams will be supervised by an appropriate academic.

• Leadership Springboard

  This module represents the final touch point for you on your leadership journey and before you officially become an exclusive member of our lifelong MBA alumni and community. Crucially this module comes last in the programme, after submitting your Major project & Consultancy, but before graduation, to prepare you for your onward journey and to reflect on what you have achieved on the MBA programme. For instance, Where am I as I exit the programme? Did I achieve my plan? How have I developed?

  Leadership Springboard will actively engage and challenge you to reflect deeply on your own personal leadership journey on the MBA programme and your career plan moving forward. This module is a ‘springboard’ to prepare you for future employment and career opportunities.