MSc International Business Management

The world-wide political and economic liberalization and continuous technology improvement in the last three decades have brought unprecedented flows of goods, services, labour and capital across national boundaries. International business today comprises a larger and ever-growing portion of the world’s business and global events and competition affects almost all companies. A company operating internationally will engage in modes of business that are different from those it is accustomed to domestically. International business management is the process of applying management concepts, theories, and techniques in a multinational environment so that firms can become and remain international in scope. Moreover, a comparative view of management and organization in internationally operating firms is provided to understand these processes in detail.

Management of Human Resources is an introductory module and available to students undertaking a range of MSc programmes at the Surrey Business School. It is intended to provide a firm understanding of the theory and practice of Human Resource management and its strategic role in contemporary organisations. This module covers core functions of HRM and their integration within business strategy as well as contemporary topics concerning management of people. By the end of this module, the students will have gained a foundation knowledge base of HR as a function in organisations and its strategic role in achieving business objectives through people management.

Business operates in both a market and a nonmarket environment, the latter being the space where the formal and informal rules governing market competition are set and enforced. A successful corporate strategy aligns the firm's capabilities with the demands of both its market and nonmarket environment. This module systematically examines the political, regulatory, societal, cultural, and natural factors that shape a business' nonmarket environment. Students learn how to analyse and proactively manage the nonmarket environment through integrated market and nonmarket strategies.

This module provides students practical and theoretical knowledge of International Marketing in contexts, operations and strategies. It aims to develop students’ critical thinking and ability to apply and adapt theories to cases in international marketing.

This module provides students with both a theoretical and practical understanding of International Trade, considered from an international political economy (IPE) as well as management perspectives. This is done through the assessment of International Trade from different angles, predominantly from the international trade management view, the international trade operations dimension, the state’s perspective, from the international trade regime perspective (the GATT and WTO) but also from the perspective of the international society, regional cooperation and the perspective of business and industry.

This is a compulsory module for the MSc International Business Management programme. Being the final element of the programme, it provides an opportunity to conduct study on a real international business situation and reflect on it. Students will identify a topic area of interest that they wish to develop further through their project. This must be relevant to their programme of study. The module is largely based on self-directed study and research, which takes place during the summer. The learning strategy is designed to develop the students’ ability to conduce and report independent research. It builds on the Business Reporting Techniques module, allowing students to gain experience of applying some of the principles and methods learned. Students should build on the outcomes and feedback received in the Business Reporting Techniques module and develop a project – using secondary research – that demonstrates the successful understanding of the module’s aims and outcomes. The students will have opportunity to understand the techniques essential in writing business reports in the taught module “Business Reporting Techniques”. The project is unsupervised, which means you will not be assigned a supervisor. Instead, two support sessions will be conducted by the module leader to assist students to gain a comprehensive understanding of the requirements of the report.

The Business Reporting Techniques module enables students to understand a research problem and source, process and conduct appropriate research while preparing a report. It facilitates independent learning process and provides them with the knowledge, skills and understanding required to articulate findings in a structured format. By covering the fundamentals of research techniques and their applications, this module will enable students to work independently for the project module. This module expects students rely on almost everything they learn in the International Business Management Programme.

In an increasingly globalised business and business environment, it is necessary for management students to learn how to strategies internationally viable global strategies. This module covers a variety of topics such as global strategic analysis, global strategy formulation, and global strategy execution. Strategy-related subjects shape at least half of the contents in this programme.

This module introduces students to the main principles of accounting and finance and demonstrates the importance of these to management decision making

The main aim of this module is to get students ready for conducting professional and academic (dissertation) research. Whereas all stages of a research process are covered in this module, the clear focus is on conducting qualitative and quantitative studies to support marketing decisions in response to business opportunities or problems. More specifically, this module offers the relevant framework for making the informed marketing decisions. The module is organized around the stages of a marketing research project (e.g. problem definition, design, data collection, data analysis, and documentation). The course will be of particular value for students planning careers in marketing research and marketing consulting.

The module provides an opportunity for students to apply their understanding of key theories and debates in International Political Economy (IPE) to current developments and case studies. Students will be able to discuss and debate the role of the main IPE institutions. Current and future challenges to the status quo of IPE are discussed as well.

The course is mainly aimed at reviewing modern theories of international finance, with special reference to developing economies. This module starts with micro foundation of macroeconomics, that is, intertemporal optimization. Then it exposes students fundamental topics of international finances such as risk sharing, exchange rate, and currency crises. It also emphasizes the importance of empirical analysis with recent econometric methods.

The module is an advanced, research-led module on sustainability and social innovation. It offers research-led insights into current issues and anticipated trends in sustainability, social innovation, and the changing role of business in society. The module will consider the current theory and critically examine the corporate practice of managing for sustainability, including aspects of corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, innovation and strategic, operational and supply chain solutions for improving sustainability on an international scale. We will examine the social, environmental, economic and business case for sustainability in the global context and reflect on the possible trajectories for the advancement of the sustainability agenda. We will study the emergent trends in organizing for the fulfilment of social needs that are insufficiently (or not at all) addressed by either the private or public sector and examine the case for the social enterprise. We will examine the practice of social entrepreneurship and innovation and reflect on the transferability of the model to more traditional organizations. We will examine how value is created through social innovation and enterprise and look at the associated challenges and opportunities for the future.

Internationalisation is a very substantive feature of the retail industry, with implications for retail competition, retailer strategy, retail development, digitalisation and supply chain management among other issues. A considerable and growing body of academic and practitioner literature surrounds this issue. It highlights some of the potential complexities and enduring challenges of retailing in an international environment and provides a valuable body of knowledge to inform future international marketing managers and retail marketing managers.

The world is increasingly complex and interconnected and there is a need to identify and manage the resulting hazards and risks (WEF, 2011). Business is facing unprecedented risks. The level of uncertainty and tensions resulting from climate change, pandemics, trade wars, geopolitics and just- in-time supply chains require the identification and strategic management of risk. A successful business manages its downside risks and takes advantage of opportunities resulting from upside risks. This module provides students with a fundamental understanding of uncertainty, hazards and risks required to succeed in business. Many of the increasing unanticipated commercial costs of risk are related to incomplete hazard identification (Goh and Chua, 2010). This course will provide you with an understanding of generic and operational risks of business, using research-led insight into the identification of risk, hazards, and uncertainty. The module facilitates learning through a combination of case studies and insight from practitioners and professionals in risk management. The course provides students with the opportunity to produce a Strategic Risk Management Report. Students work in groups to identify, analyse, and propose a risk management strategy for a corporate or public institution. Students will use the knowledge and skills gained from risk professionals and practitioner lectures, literature, frameworks, and real-world examples which are embedded in the module to produce a Strategic Risk Management report. The course equips students of management with key risk management skills to confidently communicate verbally and in written format risk management required for the strategic management of risk.