MSc International Management Timetables and Modules
Note: Modules offered each academic year are subject to change. Listed below are the modules and timetable for 2024/25.
Michaelmas Term |
Hilary Term |
Trinity Term |
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Michaelmas Term (September to December)
- International Cross Cultural Management
- Global Brand Management
- Global Social Entrepreneurship
- International Digital Marketing
- International Strategy and Entrepreneurship
Hilary Term (January to April)
- Applied International Strategy
- Complete Leadership
- Ethical Business
- Experiences in International Management
- Global Supply Chain Management
- International Sales
- International Trade and Business
- Project Management
Trinity Term (May to August)
Electives (choose four in total over two terms)
- Project Management
- Global Social Entrepreneurship
- Global Supply Chain Management
- Applied International Strategy
- International Sales
- International Trade and Business
Module Descriptions
International Cross Cultural Management (5 ECTS)
This module has two broad aims. Firstly, it aims to develop the awareness, skills and knowledge required by managers seeking to work abroad as international executives. The module provides a key grounding in the nature of management in the global context by increasing awareness and understanding of the soft skills in international management, particularly those relating to cross-cultural management. Second, it will introduce students to the area of international human resource management. In this regard the module will explore the role of people in adding value in organisations and how organisations can manage people to ensure sustainable performance.
On successful completion of this course, students will be able to:
- To develop basic knowledge about the concepts of national culture, cultural differences, stereotyping, cultural sense-making and global talent management.
- To develop an understanding of a range of international management practices and how culture impacts upon them: work, leadership, cross-cultural communication and decision-making, knowledge transfer, and ethics.
- To evaluate the importance of talent and its effective management to organisational success in the global context.
- To develop an understanding of the ethical issues around doing business internationally and the insights to inform the development of sustainable people management strategies.
- Apply your knowledge of comparative management models and their implications for management in different national / regional contexts to evaluate the challenges of development and implementing people management practices in cross cultural contexts.
- Effectively present in written and oral format in a means appropriate to a professional audience.
Global Brand Management (5 ECTS)
Brands permeate modern economies and are complex and exciting entities in contemporary management. The module takes an inter-disciplinary approach to global brand management, using theories from marketing, management, sociology, psychology, and cultural studies.
Having successfully completed this module, the student should be able to:
- Understand and articulate the role of brand in contemporary organizations, business systems and societies
- Demonstrate a systematic understanding of the principles of strategic brand management including implementation strategies
- Critically appraise the issues in managing a portfolio of brands
- Understand the role of brands in value creation and capture the characteristics and management of brand equity and brand value.
- Creatively extrapolate theoretical and strategic issues in branding to the real world of individual brands.
Global Social Entrepreneurship (5 ECTS)
The module investigates the promise and potential of social entrepreneurship and social enterprise. It accomplishes this via two moves. First, learners are provided with essential knowledge of key principles, theories, debates, and frameworks related to social entrepreneurship and social enterprise. Second, students are immersed in the social entrepreneurial process; they actively apply the principles, theories, and frameworks from the module to identify an unmet social need and design a potentially viable solution for addressing that need.
Having successfully completed this module, students should:
- Discuss and reflect on the landscape of social entrepreneurs in an international context,
- Debate and evaluate the major theories relating to social entrepreneurship and social enterprise in an Irish and international context.
- Identify, evaluate and prepare responses to the integrative and dynamic nature of the social entrepreneurs’ activities and operations.
- Exercise appropriate judgment in the location, extraction and presentation of information and resources to address specific issues.
- Influence others through the communication and presentation of problems/scenarios or solutions/responses.
International Digital Marketing (5 ECTS)
This module is focused on developing students' knowledge of the ever-changing world of digital marketing. The module aims to teach students how to research, analyse and implement international digital marketing programmes.
Having successfully completed tis module, the students will be able to:
- Understand the impact and influence that digital marketing channels have on consumer behaviour and experience in an omnichannel world.
- Understand key digital marketing concepts and apply these in the development of a digital marketing strategy.
- Critically examine international digital marketing strategies.
- Devise and develop digital marketing strategies for international markets (For B2B and B2C products).
- Appraise digital marketing strategies and their impact on business goals.
International Strategy and Entrepreneurship (5 ECTS)
This module seeks to develop students’ understanding of the fundamental principles of global business and international entrepreneurship from the firm’s perspective. It provides learners with the necessary knowledge and understanding to gain an appreciation of motivations for why and how entrepreneurial ventures internationalise. It also highlights the pertinent socio-cultural, economic, legal and political variables that affect their international business decision-making and strategies operating in global markets. Students will also gain insight into key theories explaining paths to firm internationalisation and strategies explaining how firms select and enter foreign markets.
On successful completion of this module, students must be able to:
- Identify key concepts, frameworks and theories behind of firm internationalisation
- Gain an understanding of pertinent social cultural economic and policy issues that affect business decisions of organisations operating in a global context
- Acquire an awareness and understanding of dynamics at play in international entrepreneurship
- Describe the motives for firm internationalisation and appraise the various international market selection and entry strategies available to firms when internationalising.
- Advance independent and collaborative skills in teams to design internationalisation strategy of a new venture.
Applied International Strategy (5 ECTS)
This is a highly interactive module where students take on the role of senior executives running a global organisation. This team-based module will give you a great sense of the ‘live’ challenges you will face as a manager and in doing so will provide an opportunity to stand out from the crowd in the jobs market.
Having successfully completed this module, the student should be able to:
- Assess organisational strategy in diverse global markets
- Identify individual, team and organisational challenges for global business.
- Analyse market results and make investment decisions.
- Address issues associated with integrating social and environmental performance.
Complete leadership distinguishes itself from other approaches to leadership which tend to be partial, to the extent that they typically feature one or more of the following methods: (a) use only a subset of the relevant fields of management (predominantly HRM and OB), (b) focus mainly on leading only one stakeholder group (namely, employees), (c) do not distinguish the importance of short and long-term time horizons and (d) tend to focus on a narrow range of performance measures (often, just employee satisfaction and endorsement of leadership). By contrast, the learning objectives of this course entail a wider portfolio of leadership activities to enable students play more complete leadership roles in organisations in a contemporary setting.
Having successfully completed this module, the student should be able to:
- Learn leadership content from the various fields within business studies and be able to apply them in the interactive context of complete leadership. In this regard, understanding the fundamental concepts, theories and practices in the field of leadership for purposeful and performance-driven organisations.
- Gain an understanding of how the purpose and context of businesses in the 21st century require more complete leadership.
- Be able to undertake ‘leadership self-assessment’ to identify an authentic leadership style as well as discover potential, limitations and leadership skills to develop
- Understand the process of leading the creation of a mission, vision and strategy which fits the purpose, values, culture and capabilities of an organisation. Also, learn how this is differs when short and long term perspectives are taken; especially in relation to organisational culture and values.
- Learn what is entailed in nurturing and leading leaders. In particular, selecting, advising, mentoring, supporting and coaching leaders – with an understanding of the techniques used to coach individuals (TGROW) and groups of people (GROUP).
- Understand the challenges and opportunities for leadership in creating and managing an ambidextrous organisation
- Learning the communication and personal engagement leadership skills utilised both within and outside an organisation in order to lead across all relevant stakeholder groups. This also includes blended communication skills that can use storytelling through combined verbal, visual, financial and data channels.
This course provides a comprehensive introduction to core theoretical concepts of ethical business as well as of corporate sustainability and responsibility (CSR). Since ethical business ultimately aims at influencing business practice, the course focuses on the practical implementation of ethical business in multinational corporations.
Having successfully participated in this module, students will:
- Identify and explain fundamental concepts and frameworks for ethical and sustainable business and apply these concepts and frameworks to real-world cases.
- Describe the key concepts of ethical business, as are corporate sustainability and responsibility, stakeholder management, multi-stakeholder governance, political CSR, business and human rights, sustainable business models, stakeholder value creation.
- Evaluate the ethical, legal, financial, social, political and ecological dimensions of business and integrate these dimensions into related decision-making policies and practices.
- Implement a stakeholder-orientated approach to solving ethical business challenges through responsible management policies and practices.
- Demonstrate effective professional oral and written communications skills (i.e., group presentations, discussions in class, individual written assignment).
- Work effectively in a diverse team environment to generate an appropriate solution for a real-world ethical and/or privacy problem in business data (through group presentations as well as case studies in class).
Experiences in International Management (10 ECTS)
This module aims to develop in students a critical awareness of the issues and challenges associated with international business assignments and managerial careers in both local MNEs and activities in overseas environments. You will develop your capacity, via experiential and reflective learning, to investigate and diagnose ‘live’ international business management and strategic issues. The module serves as a quasi-experiential immersive exposure to managing and operating in a culturally diverse environment.
Having completed this module, the student should be able to:
- Demonstrate an appreciation of the key challenges that arise for international managers in local host and foreign contexts
- Exhibit awareness of the principles and theories of cross-cultural sensitivity and empathy that underpin successful international management
- Appreciate critical international assignment issues in a foreign environment and acknowledge the requirement for appropriate preparation
- Provide insights into particular characteristics of an economy, market, supply chains and production systems
- Understand how theoretical models learned in the classroom are applied in real world settings.
Global Supply Chain Management (5 ECTS)
Global Supply Chain Management (SCM) focuses on effective planning and management of integrated materials, information and financial flows between the supplier's suppliers and the customer's customers. In this module, the focus is on the particular challenges posed by being positioned in an international supply chain, linking the module to other international management challenges.
Having successfully completed this module, the student should be able to:
- Demonstrate an awareness of the key processes in a supply chain and how these are linked together by product, financial and information flows;
- Understand and apply a range of models concerning these flows to specific business cases;
- Demonstrate an awareness of the impact of supply chain activity beyond profit to the wider economy and society, and in particular in relation to sustainability challenges.
- Analyse the interdependencies within and operational risk profile of different supply chain configurations;
- Understand how technological, economic and geopolitical trends and developments impact and shape global supply chain designs.
Satisfactory completion of this module will contribute to the development of the following key skills:
- Deconstruct and analyse global supply chains
- Improve supply chain designs.
Selling is key to the success of every organisation. Without generating customers great ideas fail, companies fail and shareholders lose value. This module will examine sales and sales management and the use of tools and application of these tools in an international context.
Having successfully completed this module, the student should be able to:
- Understanding of the Core Elements of the Sales Function and the constituent models of engagement, e.g. inside sales, outbound marketing, account management, enterprise sales.
- Identify how to apply the differing management models of Sales Groups: Inside Sales, Outbound Marketing, Sales Support, Enterprise Sales, and use of tools such as CRM and Social Selling and methodologies such as Miller Heiman, SPIN Selling and Challenger Sales.
- Recognising team and individual skills and behaviours required in a sales environment. This will also include reflecting on Motivation and Reward of staff.
- Examine and apply the factors of international management to market development, building appropriate sales organisations, cultural appreciation and practical examples.
- Understand how to position an appropriate sales mix within the strategic context of the firm.
International Trade and Business (5 ECTS)
The purpose of the module is to delineate economic thinking from its restrictive traditional understanding. Through analysing the anthropological and social origins of certain economic phenomenon, this course will show how the economics driving trade, in all its forms, need not be obfuscated using complex and rigid economic modelling, but rather can be understood of by simply looking at one another, our interactions, our history and our collective existence.
Having successfully completed this module, the student should be able to:
- Understand complex economic processes.
- Learn about the history of money.
- Challenge common economic beliefs.
- Reshape the ways in which one views the world, specifically how economics can be understood by introducing sociological, psychological and historical frameworks to viewing economic processes.
- Feel confident talking, thinking and maybe even if necessary writing on economics and international trade to very sophisticated, adult level.
- Understand the impacts of international trade, recession cycles, disputes, protectionism and tariffs on strategizing by international business manager.
The successful delivery of projects within organisations has become more critical than ever. Project management is a core skillset for all organisations and their management teams to maintain competitiveness in a business environment where the pace and complexity of change is ever increasing. Over the last decade, globalisation, outsourcing and technology enabled remote working have increased the scale and of international projects. This trend will accelerate even further over the next five years. This module develops a core understanding of project management and provides students with a fundamental knowledge of the subject and practical insight into where it provides the most value. These skills can be applied in any business setting to achieve successful outcomes and further career development. Overall, this module equips the student to assume the role of project manager.
Having successfully completed this module, students should be able to:
- Articulate the role of project management and how it aligns to strategy and operations in organisation.
- Demonstrate the importance of leadership, including soft skills, to project success.
- Understand the project management life-cycle.
- Utilise the major approaches to project management, and the ways of working required to successfully deliver a project.
- Appreciate the unique nature of international projects.
- Articulate the importance of project governance, assurance and reporting
- Make accurate use of the frameworks and models covered in the course, applying them to a wide range of situations;
- Understand the management of international projects including specific ways of working and other key factors.
International Consultancy Project (30 ECTS)
For the International Consultancy Project students work in teams to apply the techniques and knowledge acquired from the taught modules to a managerial problem of real-world social, strategic or economic concern. Student teams conduct an in-depth exploration of a challenging problem or opportunity in international business management, including the generation of feasible solutions in real companies.
Having successfully completed this module, the student should be able to:
- Contribute to resolving a significant issue for the host company by analysing the business environment, the organization’s strategy, capabilities, values and culture.
- Apply appropriate tools and frameworks in diagnosing and exploring these issues.
- Demonstrate their capability to be effective management practitioners, with a good understanding of the practical aspects of work life, including presentation and communication skills.
- Demonstrate a clear ability to be an effective member of a high-performance team and exercise sound judgment when confronted with significant constraints (e.g. time deficits, information deficits).
- Evaluate their own capabilities as an international practitioner and build related leadership and management skills.