Course description
MBA
Accredited by the Association of MBAs (AMBA)
To be successful in a 21st century business environment you need to think and lead across international boundaries. The MBA prepares you for the challenges of senior management in an increasingly competitive and global economy.
Our MBA develops your career by building on your professional and managerial experience, drawing from the different cultural experiences of the MBA group. Students come from more than 60 countries around the world. The emphasis is on leadership, strategic thinking and issues of implementation. We develop and combine your powers of critical enquiry with practical insight.
One of the distinguishing characteristics of the programme is the emphasis put on developing a 'collaborative' rather than 'competitive' approach to learning. This is based on our belief that successful businesses operate through the cooperation and collaboration of others, both within the business and through the development of long-term relationships and alliances with customers and suppliers. We are more interested in you and your personal and intellectual development than where you are ranked amongst your peers in terms of ability and achievement. This approach is embedded in our teaching, learning and assessment on the MBA programmes.
The Oxford Brookes MBA can significantly improve your employability prospects by providing you with
* the confidence to perform across all functional areas of the business;
* enhanced capabilities to operate and think more strategically;
* increased self-awareness of your leadership style and your strengths and limitations;
* a process to develop your leadership capabilities, now and beyond the MBA;
* an understanding of different organisations and sectors;
* the knowledge and expertise to operate more effectively in a senior management role;
* the skills to continue developing and learning after completing the MBA;
* assistance with launching your career after graduation and membership of an alumni network for life.
Course content
The MBA provides you with an understanding of the foundations of management and of different functional perspectives. The programme gives you with frameworks for the analysis of organisational activity and the integration and application of learning, and develops the strategic and integrative nature of business and management, preparing you to take a holistic view of the organisation and its environment.
The MBA begins with an induction programme that familiarises you with the learning environment and library facilities. It enables you to interact with other students and tutors. It facilitates understanding of the assessment requirements and introduces you to case study analysis and to the feedback and support available to you during the MBA.
You will study Foundations of Management to provide you with an integrated understanding and critical perspective of management, organisations and business functions (marketing, operations and strategic information management). The Accounting and Finance module aims to develop your managerial perspective of accounting, enabling you to assess organisational decisions and goals in terms of their financial impact, and to use and interpret financial information.
Leadership Development is designed to enhance your leadership capabilities by providing an understanding of effective leadership and by developing your self-awareness of your own leadership style and the impact of your behaviour. .As a result of completing this module you should be able to manage your own development and identify how to be more effective in terms of your career and life goals.
Managers in all organisations need to understand the trends shaping the global business environment and the strategies needed to deal with the challenges of operating in an increasingly competitive and dynamic marketplace. The Global Business Strategy module will develop your ability to apply a wide range of strategic concepts to the changing dynamic of the global business environment.
Quality
The reputation of the Business School is underpinned through membership of and programme accreditations received from the Association of MBAs, the Association of Business Schools, and professional associations such as the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, and the European Foundation for Management Development. The Business School is, therefore, widely regarded as one of the best within its peer group.
The Business School’s programmes benefit from rigorous quality assurance procedures and regularly receive excellent feedback from external examiners, employers, students and professional bodies. In 2005, Business and Management achieved ‘Broad Confidence’, the best possible result, in the discipline audit trail as part of the Quality Assurance Agency Institutional Audit.
Many students who graduate from Business School programmes go on to achieve high status in the industry of their choice.
The Business School has an active programme of research based around six key research areas:
* Accounting, Governance and Information Management
* Economics and Strategy
* Hospitality, Leisure and Tourism Management
* Human Resource Management and Organisational Behaviour
* Marketing and Operations Management
* Pedagogy
The School maintains a rigorous and dynamic doctoral programme leading to the higher degrees of MPhil and PhD. Postgraduate students join a supportive, friendly and multicultural research environment.
Building on your previous studies, the Organisational Innovation and Change explores the strategic management of people to achieve organisational change and transformation. The focus is on choices about how people can be managed in order to generate new ideas, and new ways of working that contribute to the development of an organisation. You will have the opportunity to carry out an assignment that explores and reflects an organisational change/innovation, which can, if you choose, be based upon your own organisation.
Finally, you have the opportunity to either broaden your knowledge or specialise in an area of your choice through a combination of electives and your dissertation or consultancy project. The consultancy project gives you the opportunity to apply your learning and skills to a real business issue facing an organisation. A substantial consultancy opportunity is offered by the dissertation and you may choose to carry out a project for your employer or another approved organisation or to further your own career aspirations.
There are opportunities to participate in international events where you are exposed to a range of challenges facing businesses operating in different markets. In addition to this, you may wish to take an elective offered by one of our partner Business Schools as an intensive one-week block in another country or on campus in Oxford or online.
Executive coaching or mentoring are features of the programme, which help you to improve your employability and develop new skills. All programmes are supported by bespoke/exclusive learning materials developed specifically for your MBA.
Your MBA gives you the opportunity to specialise in a number of areas by combining your elective choices with a dissertation in an appropriate field of study. Electives are reviewed each year and may run at different times. It is therefore advisable to check the timings with the course administrator at the time of application.
The elective specialisms currently offered are in the following areas:
* entrepreneurship and enterprise
* hotel and tourism management
* information technology management
* marketing
* publishing
* real estate
Please see separate entries for details of these specialisms.
Teaching, learning and assessment
Lectures and discussions, role-play exercises, learning packages and seminars will be linked with selected case studies and assignments to strengthen your practical analysis and decision-making skills. You will have the opportunity to develop your skills in team working through structured syndicate work and group assignments. Your learning experience will be greatly enhanced through the knowledge of life and work that you and your fellow students bring to discussion and debate.
The full-time MBA is studied over a 12-month period.
