Curriculum
Semester 1 (Year 1)
Core Modules:
- - Leadership Development
- - Financial Analysis, Governance and Sustainability
- Responsible Management
- Economics and the Business Environment
- Managing the Digital Enterprise
Semester 1 (Year 2)
Core Modules:
- - MBA Project Strategic Leadership in Practice
- - Leadership and Change
- Strategic Management
- Management Consulting
Key Dates - AY 2024/2025
Year 1 Semester 1 (September 2024 - December 2024)
- Block 1: Thursday 12th & Friday 13th September 2024
- Block 2: Thursday 26th, Friday 27th & Saturday 28th September 2024
- Block 3: Thursday 17th & Friday 18th October 2024
- Block 4: Thursday 7th & Friday 8th November 2024
- Block 5: Thursday 28th & Friday 29th November 2024
Semester 2 (Year 1)
- Core Modules:Taxation
- Financial Management and Taxation
- Marketing Leadership - - International Leadership Gateway
-
Electives: Human Resource Management or New Optional Module TBC - Electives: Business Negotiations or Storytelling for Leaders
Semester 2 (Year 2)
- Core Module:
- - Management Accounting for Sustainable Business Success
- Systems for Team Empowerment
- Electives: Digital Marketing or Business Analytics
- Electives: Entrepreneurship & Innovation or Irish Economy in a Global Context
Key Dates - AY 2024/2025
Year 1 Semester 2 (January 2025 - June 2025)
- Block 1: Thursday 16th & Friday 17th January 2025
- Block 2: Thursday 6th & Friday 7th February 2025
- Block 3: Thursday 27th February & Friday 28th February 2025
- Block 4: Thursday 20th & Friday 21st March 2025
- Block 5: Wednesday 9th Thursday 10th & Friday 11th April 2025
International Leadership Gateway Programme
- Sunday 1st June – Saturday 7th June
- Return Friday 6th June (Arrive Shannon Airport Saturday am 7th June)
Leadership Development
This year long module is the Launchpad for your leadership and professional development. Its aim is to provide the foundational development that will enable you to provide effective leadership in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world. Commencing with an intensive residential programme, the module is aimed at an exploration of the dynamics of leadership development through an investigation of both horizontal and vertical development. Participants will categorise leadership styles and reflect on their dominant leaning before beginning a journey of self-awareness and vertical development. The module will explore leadership approaches to Strategic Thinking, Leading Change, Conflict and Leading across boundaries. The module will also focus on the development of critical internal consulting and business interface skills.
MBA Project Strategic leadership in practice
The MBA Project requires students to build on both their professional experience and their learning on the MBA programme to identify, scope, design, lead and evaluate an in-company applied strategic leadership project. The project will be chosen in consultation with the MBA Project multi-disciplinary academic assessment team. The project requires students to integrate the functional knowledge and transformational leadership skills they have learned on the MBA programme. Students are required to critically examine a real-world business challenge in an organisation by applying theory to practice. In completing the module, participants will apply their critical research and business consultancy skills. The project will require participants to consider a range of organisational issues within the broader external environment context and assess relevant ethical and CSR considerations. The MBA Project is the capstone integrative module on the MBA. Participants will be supported through a range of innovative learning methods including action learning sets, multi-disciplinary academic team input, phased in-class deliverables, peer-to-peer learning, and external business coaches.
International Leadership Gateway
Organisations operate in a global context and whether your organisation is operating nationally or internationally it faces global competition. Accordingly, today's leaders are required to possess a deep understanding of international influences and practices. This innovative gateway programme will develop and enhance your international leadership perspective. The gateway module is delivered in an international location, such as Fordham University NYC, in collaboration with academic and business partners. It affords participants exposure to, and interaction with, high calibre academics and business leaders. This compulsory module will take place in late May or early June and is normally taken during year 1. Assessment is continuous with participants required to maintain a critical learning reflection diary documenting their experience and learning from the gateway programme.
Leadership and Change
Effective leadership and effective change management are inextricably linked. A leader must constantly look forward and identify and manage the necessary changes for the organisation. As a result, this module will focus on leadership and change management with a particular emphasis on leader self-awareness and leadership development. The module will focus on individual, team, and organisational leadership and change. Students will be provided with the opportunity to enhance their awareness of their personal leadership and management styles with the use of accredited (British Psychological Society) psychometric profiling, 360° feedback reports and one-to-one executive coaching.
Business Analytics and Decision Making
New data is being produced at an exponential rate, and alongside this more advanced tools and techniques are being incorporated into information systems. Organisations regardless of size are being impacted by the wider availability of data alongside commercially available systems and tools to analyse this data. Participants in this module will develop a critical understanding of big data and analytics within organisations and the tools used to construct decision making algorithms. Participants’ ability to analyse complex data sets will be enhanced by gaining experience of techniques for business analytics and decision making such as data visualisation and data mining.
Business Negotiations
The objective of this course is to give students such theoretical background as will enable them to analyse negotiating situations and prepare appropriately. Role-played case studies will be used to help students acquire the skills and tactics of negotiation. Topics include: approaches to understanding negotiating behaviour; preparation for negotiations; analysis of different negotiating situations; game theory and decision analysis; and conflict and negotiation within organisations.
Digital Marketing
Digital Connectivity is one of the most powerful forces reshaping the business world at the present time. The proportion of the population connected to the internet, the amount of time they are spending on it and the ways in which they are using it for commercial and leisure activities are all growing exponentially. Digital technologies are fundamentally reshaping supply chains, business models and marketing activities. This module examines the rapidly growing domain of digital marketing. Insights from theory and practice are reviewed to enable critical reflection on the changes taking place in the nature of marketing. These issues will be examined through interactive class discussions, case studies and video cases on leading international organisations
Economics and the Business Environment
The aim of this module is to increase the student’s knowledge and understanding of economics and the business environment. The topics are the scope of economics, methodology and economic models, economic issues, economic performance: measurement and analysis, role of economic policy and policymakers, and the economic environment.
Financial Analysis, Governance and Sustainability
This course explores the principles of financial accounting and the analysis and interpretation of financial data for decision-making. The module also introduces students to the basic principles of corporate governance and the implications of governance failure. Consideration will also be given to the concept of ethics in a business context. The course is divided into five parts: 1. Introduction to Accounting and Financial Statements 2. Analysis and Interpretation of Financial Statements for Decision-Making 3. Overview of Corporate Governance: Context, Theory and Practice 4. Failures in Corporate Governance: Examples and Implications 5. Ethics in Business
Financial Management and Taxation
The objective of this course is to introduce students to the principles of financial management, the decision-making needs of financial managers and the various choices of a firm’s goals managers can choose to pursue. Topics covered will include: Market Valuation and Present Values; Capital Investment Appraisal Criteria: The Capital Investment Appraisal Process; Risk Analysis in Capital Investment Appraisal: Options and Corporate Finance; the Valuation of Bonds and Shares; the Firms’ Cost of Capital, Working Capital Management; the Maturity Structure of Financing and Sources of Finance.
Responsible Management
Managers are increasingly confronted with issues of ethics, responsibility and sustainability (ERS). Managing responsibly is an integrative approach to ERS, which entails managers dealing competently with such challenges. This module will facilitate you to engage in changing organisational practices to make them more responsible, with a focus on transformative change. The module provides a foundation to mainstream management concepts and follows by illustrating the application of responsible management in strategy and practice. The practical application of central tools such as stakeholder management in addressing the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is integral to the module.
Storytelling for Leaders
The purpose of this module is to develop a leadership storytelling skillset that includes crafting compelling narrative, delivered for impact and connectivity with diverse business audiences. Upon completion of this module, you will be able to demonstrate, a comprehensive understanding of the fundamental, art and science of storytelling by business leaders that is informed by contemporary theoretical perspectives, masterful knowledge of storytelling theory and technique that underpin the ability to employ storytelling across multiple topics domains and to diverse audiences.
Managing the Digital Enterprise
Information Technology and the Information Systems that they enable are now pervasive within and between Enterprises and have given rise to the term ‘Digital Enterprises’. In addition to being pervasive these systems continue to adapt and evolve at a rapid pace. Managing and directing such complex and evolving systems requires that an executive understands the fundamental technologies within these systems, their impacts on the enterprise and the most appropriate way to manage these systems to deliver value to the Enterprise. Participants in this module will develop a critical understanding of the key systems currently being used in organisations; Enterprise systems, E-business systems, Decision support systems, Collaborative systems, IT security systems. In addition, the module will look at best practice in using, managing and developing these systems to add value to the Enterprise.
Marketing Leadership
The creation of value is intrinsic to marketing and essential for organisations wishing to engage with their target markets. Marketing is a process for understanding markets, for quantifying the present and future value required by the different groups of customers within these markets, for communicating this to all other functions with responsibility for delivering this value and for measuring the value actually delivered. For marketing to be effective, all other functions should be ‘market driven’.
In this digital age, to go along with proven traditional marketing methods, marketers have a dazzling set of new online, mobile, and social media tools for engaging customers anytime, anyplace to jointly shape brand conversations, experiences, and community.
Human Resource Management
This module examines the theoretical and applied aspects of people management within the firm. It explores the workings of the employment relationship in a contemporary context. The module examines the interests and expectations of the parties in that relationship as well as some of the fundamental principles of organisational behaviour. The module will enable students to identify, understand, and evaluate human resource policies and practices at an operational level. The course will also explore the impact of the employee relations framework in Ireland and examine the typical functions of HR departments (including reward management, performance management, training and development, and employee relations).
Innovation and Entrepreneurship
This module explores how managers can create and maintain adaptable, resilient organisations in a rapidly changing environment through innovation and entrepreneurship. Students will enhance their entrepreneurial skills, including opportunity identification, accessing resources, championing ventures, decision-making in uncertainty, and leading venture teams.
Management Accounting for Sustainable Business Success
Effective performance management and high standards of business ethics and corporate governance are crucial for organisations in the current economy. To survive, organisations must be both creative and efficient and management control systems have a role in balancing these objectives. Lapses in ethical standards in business have highlighted the importance of effective management control systems. Topics covered in this course include the key issues in performance management, types of management control systems, creativity and efficiency paradigms, performance measurement tools and accounting measures of performance, the stages of ethical decision-making, and factors impacting on ethical standards in a business context. In addition, the module will include an introduction to the basic principles and historical context of corporate governance, implications of governance failure, corporate governance in practice and the wider
Management Consulting
The overall aim of this module is to provide an in-practice and multi-domain (individual, firm, industry) perspective on business consulting. This is, by in large, an applied module where the focus is on providing students with the opportunity to understand and evaluate the realities of business consulting in practice. This is achieved primarily by inviting guest practitioners and experts to share their experiences, models, techniques and best practices on the various module topics. Readings will be drawn upon to marry theory with practice and engage in critical reflection.
The module covers topics on; planning and scoping a consulting project; the competencies of a consultant (the individual level), the core role of consulting for the client firm (the firm level), the management consulting sector.
Systems for Team Empowerment
In an increasingly complex and dynamic business environment, effective, empowered teams lie at the core of business success but unleashing and sustaining team empowerment remains a constant and often elusive challenge. The purpose of this module, to challenge participants to employ a creative systems approach to team empowerment. To enable this, the module will expose participants to, and give experience of, systematic approaches to team empowerment. Through the combination of case studies, active learning, and practitioner contribution, participants will study and experience the utilisation of systems in the altering of the normative team characteristic of 20/80 engagement to 100/100 engagement. Through the use of a facilitated active learning methodology participants will engage in an experiential systematic approach to team empowerment aimed at unlocking new knowledge and breaking habitual thinking within teams. Participants will also develop a critical understanding of the organisation as a system and cultivate and enhanced skillset to utilise that perspective to positively impact team empowerment.
Strategic Management
This module covers the concepts, theories and techniques of strategy for generating and sustaining competitive advantage. This is done for a wide range of organisational settings. Given the emphasis of the MBA programme to develop skills in transformational leadership and innovating success, particular emphasis is given to applying strategy analysis for the identification of viable strategic options. This includes business and corporate strategies.
(L-R) Nicola Reilly - Programme Coordinator, Maeve O'Sullivan - MBA Programme Director, and Orla Naughton - MBA Programme Manager
(L-R) Nicola Reilly - Programme Coordinator, Maeve O'Sullivan - MBA Programme Director, and Orla Naughton - MBA Programme Manager
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