MBA (Leadership) Unit Outline

Discover the key markers behind successful disruptive innovations and how they penetrate established markets faster, with greater impact.

A disruptive innovation is one that disrupts an existing market and value network by creating a new one, effectively displacing established market-leading firms, products and alliances. Learn how business disruption, innovation and entrepreneurship come together to work as a whole. You’ll also examine current case studies and come up with your own workable environments for disruptive innovations and entrepreneurship to thrive.

Key takeaways include:

• applying appropriate leadership principles to inspire market disruption by ‘first movers’
• employing creativity, innovation and the spirit of entrepreneurship to design a business venture from start-up to maturity
• exploring how modern entrepreneurship and innovation function according to organisational size, industry type, culture and strategy, and
• improving individual performance within a business entrepreneurial environment via personal awareness and direction.

Learn important principles of how an organisation is structured and operated at various levels.

Gain a holistic view of the drivers, behaviours, group dynamics and leadership practices that influence the culture, social skills, change and effectiveness of an organisation.

Drawing on insights from management, human resource management, sociology and psychology, you will focus on individual, group and organisational-level themes surrounding development and effectiveness. Topics covered include perception, attitudes, values, personality, motivation and performance, the nature and management of teams, leaders and leadership, communication, conflict, and decision-making, as well as organisational structure, organisational culture, and change.

Key takeaways include:

• influencing employee job satisfaction and emotional wellbeing by leveraging leadership and motivation theories
• identifying the challenges that confront contemporary society as determined by social and cultural research
• learning how to work effectively with people of diverse cultures, norms and languages, and
• improving organisational, team and individual performances by implementing effective performance methods.

Develop the key communication skills in becoming the most effective business leader.

Because of their aptitude for mobilising and engaging stakeholders towards organisational achievement, leaders with well-developed social skills are in demand. Becoming proficient in interpersonal interactions is necessary in creating exceptional business performance. Learn how cultivating optimistic attitudes to problem-solving, nurturing positive mindsets and sharing aspirations all go towards organisational success.

Discover how leadership is informed by coaching, delegating, and initiating organisational change, and how sophisticated communications can benefit the strategic marketing and positive public awareness of any business. Realise how organisational goals are achieved by simplifying the effective flow of information by business leaders and employees alike.

Key takeaways include:

• interacting constructively and professionally with others
• demonstrating persuasion and negotiation techniques
• working collaboratively with others in a cross-cultural setting, and
• communicating concisely to global audiences in a dynamic media environment.

Learn how to effectively communicate the objectives and corporate goals of an organisation through strategic marketing.

Evaluate the competitive advantage and potential marketplace of an organisation’s offering by exploring the significance of corporate strategy, along with how a marketing strategy and plan are devised, executed and evaluated.

A strategic marketing plan summarises the how and what is necessary to achieve the objectives of the organisation. The process targets desired customers and compares them to competitors. From this, the appropriate actions are created and implemented to ensure the marketing strategy succeeds. A marketing strategy identifies relevant market segments, targeting, brand prioritising and positioning.

Key takeaways include:

• analysing current marketing strategies through key marketing concepts, theories and statistical techniques
• identifying suitable marketing strategies through market research
• analysing legal, ethical and societal influences on marketing decision-making, and
• communicating product, price, place and promotional objectives effectively via a marketing plan.

Come away with the fundamentals of accounting across all aspects of business operations within ethical, professional, organisational and social contexts.

While financial accounting comprises the concepts and procedures of producing accounts, management accounting controls cost and profit to enable the use and application of financial information.

Applying theoretical principles of accounting to real-world practices, you will learn how financial information gathering, analysis and reporting is used to plan and control business operations in the support of strategic decision-making. These go towards safeguarding routine and non-routine business accountability.

Key takeaways include:

• analysing how different accounting methods affect financial data
• applying various approaches to decision-making aligned with accounting principles in financial reporting and analysis
• exploring ethical issues, such as fraud and earnings management, related to financial reporting, and
• communicating financial and non-financial information to stakeholders effectively.

Leading by example: Discover how influencing, motivating and empowering others has contributed to the advancement of organisations.

Effective business leaders have the ability to consistently captivate and motivate others. Learn about the various models, theories, frameworks and techniques that can improve individual, group and organisational productivity. Also, examine the traits, behaviours and corresponding likelihood of what goes into making a great leader.

Transformational leaders inspire others to consider the greater whole and go beyond. They have the potential to achieve lasting change for the benefit of all members in the organisation, ultimately affecting successful and sustainable business outcomes.

Key takeaways include:

• enhancing organisational productivity via leadership theories, frameworks and techniques
• using established leadership values to translate strategic commercial decisions into sustainable trends
• assessing leadership styles effective for change management and the creation of a transformational culture, and
• implementing the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Assignable, Realistic, Time-related) framework to inspire a sustainable vision.

Discover how businesses, often driven by global economic obligations, create instability that impacts organisational performance, and how this can affect stock and financial markets.

A critical function of managers is to make informed decisions on unpredictable economic circumstances. Learn the key principles of macroeconomics – how an open economy functions and stakeholder relationships. Understand how global economic events impact regions and nation-states. By assessing emerging business opportunities and managing risk, you will identify how developing a clear competitive advantage framework will meet these dynamic challenges.

Key takeaways include:

• investigating policies that address national output, unemployment, inflation, exchange rate, household debt, balance of payments and other macroeconomic issues
• examining the activities between firms and consumers, and the growth of productive resources, like production, distribution and consumption
• analysing how the implementation of fiscal and monetary policies manage global business cycle fluctuations, and
• using statistical tools, graphs and written essays to study quantitative economic data.

Gain a broad insight into the practice and significance of international law.

In response to courts drawing more and more on international law to support lawmaking, business leaders must distinguish how this may affect their organisations. You will focus on the logistical, regulatory, financial and political risks surrounding the formation and operation of international commercial trade.

Businesses must also comply with international agreements that require a competent understanding of various mechanisms. Critical aspects of international law engagement with international organisations, such as treaty-making, dispute resolution and the interaction of international law, will also be covered. Traditional topics like international legal practice and engagement are also tapped into.

Key takeaways include:

• using legal principles and precedents to identify legal risk
• identifying, interpreting and applying legal cases, rulings and statutes related to domestic and international business
• using legal databases to carry out basic legal research, and
• critiquing and applying rules of domestic and international professional legal ethics.

Study the integral strategic concepts and practices used by business leaders.

Strategic management determines the overall direction of an enterprise by establishing an organisation's objectives, and developing policies and plans to accomplish them. Industry relevance is maintained by embedding research activities into an applied strategic business plan. Strategic planning produces and analyses data for input for strategic thinking, and is often used to impose control mechanisms when implementing a strategy.

Evaluate the function of strategic decision-making models and frameworks and learn about the strategic drivers of competitiveness, including their processes.

Key takeaways include:

• leading teams towards a common goal via motivational strategies
• turning vision into reality through business, corporate strategies, cooperative and international strategies, competitive dynamics and action plans
• coming up with effective ways to clearly communicate a vision and strategy, and
• applying theories, frameworks and models to evaluate a business’s internal and external environment.

Discover how organisations and individuals meet the challenges of rigid social issues.

Social innovation solutions – designed to be low-cost, sustainable and disruptive – often work where traditional approaches fail. Learn about resolving complex problems via social benefit, the concept, practice and impact of measurement in a social innovation context, effective change initiatives, assessing and designing solutions to long-term global social issues (case studies), and how social innovation fits into the role of transformative global leadership.

You will also be able to apply problem-solving and active/participatory research skills, plus the notion of fast prototyping to ‘live test’ solutions.

Key takeaways include:

• empowering positive innovation and entrepreneurship via demonstrated commitment to social change
• improving current practices for social sustainability through policies and practices
• coming up with new ways to support social innovation through human-centred design, and
• assessing the ethical aspect in social project design, practice and management.

Part One: Simulation – evaluate your performance and business skills. Make decisions on research and development, marketing, production and finance to see how different business areas interact and effect each other. Topics include shipping costs, tariffs, and fluctuating currency exchange rates. Compete against five computer-controlled competitors for USA, Germany and China market share.

Part Two: Business report – establish your shift to a successful leader via applied research into a chosen business problem or opportunity. This goes towards developing a professional business report showcasing your ability to research and synthesise relevant ideas, theories, models, frameworks and cases to demonstrate your learning.

Key takeaways include:

• coming up with a research question and designing a research project to test a theory or formulating propositions using quantitative or qualitative methods
• reviewing literature and other information specific to a research question
• producing an independent research project which reflects on ethical and methodological issues, such as reliability, threats to validity and quality of data measurement, and
• developing business know-how by operating the functional areas of an international business simulation.