There is a seismic change in the world of multinational companies. This makes it an exciting time to be exploring international business.
The Management School and the Department of Languages and Cultures jointly run this four-year degree course. It offers the chance to study French alongside management studies and brings all of the associated benefits of language studies with it - such as gaining an international perspective on management practices, enhancing your problem-solving and critical thinking abilities, improved communication skills, and a boost to your employability.
You will need an A-level in German or be of a similar standard. In your first year, you will study the German language and culture at an advanced level. Alongside this, you will choose from either Entrepreneurship, Human Resource Management, Management and Organisations or Marketing.
In the second year, you can select what to study, with choices ranging from Advertising to Understanding Culture, Franchising to Society on Screen. You will improve how you communicate in German, whilst broadening your knowledge about German-speaking society, politics and contemporary issues.
During your third year abroad, you can choose to either studying Management at a partner university or on a work placement. This will give you an international perspective as well as boosting your language skills.
In your final year, you can select options covering subjects such as brand strategy, foreign literature and film, business models, translation and strategic management. By graduation, you should have an excellent understanding of the German-speaking world. You should also be able to communicate close to the level of a native speaker.
This degree equips you with the skills to deal with the cultural complexities of management in local and international contexts. Your substantial international experience and language skills will give you a strong edge in the jobs market. Past graduates have secured roles in international business, government departments and well-known corporations.
Required Subjects A level German, or if this is to be studied from beginners’ level, AS grade B or A level grade B in another foreign language, or GCSE grade A in a foreign language. Native German speakers will not be accepted onto this scheme.
This module is designed for students who have already completed an A-level in German or whose German is of a broadly similar standard. The language element aims to enable students both to consolidate and improve their skills in spoken and written German. A further aim is to provide students with an introduction to the historical and cultural development of Germany in the twentieth century, and also to contemporary institutions and society.
There are three language classes per week, of which at least one is normally conducted by a German native speaker. Tutorials are based on a textbook, and emphasis is placed on the acquisition of vocabulary and a firm grasp of German grammatical structures. Listening and speaking skills are developed under the guidance of German native speakers using audio and video materials.
The culture programme consists of a combination of lectures and seminars over 20 weeks. The module looks at how key moments in German history have shaped contemporary German culture (films, plays, novels etc.).
All DeLC first year language programmes are supported by a series of plenary sessions and film screenings designed to offer students further opportunities to expand and consolidate their knowledge and skills base. The DELC100/101 programme runs for 22 weeks and consists of language-specific film screenings relevant to their course(s) in addition to skills-based plenary sessions. The module is non credit-bearing but students are expected to attend so as to acquire complementary skills useful in areas such as oral presentations, essay-writing and engaging with culture alongside useful strategies to enhance autonomous language learning outside the classroom. Towards the end of the programme, to help students prepare for their exams, plenary sessions offer help and advice on managing revision time efficiently and identifying strategies and techniques to suit individual learning styles and needs.
This module aims to provide you with a broad introduction to management covering a wide range of topics that are relevant to work, business and organisations.
The module begins by exploring the basis of all management activities – human resource management and development which fundamentally contributes to the development of employee-engaged and productive organisations. The module is constructed to encourage you to think critically and to reflect upon taken-for-granted assumptions about the world of work and management’s role in relation to it.
As a means to achieve this, the second part of the course introduces different metaphors through which we can understand and analyse organisations.
The final part of the module continues this theme of encouraging critical reflection and explores key issues and debates related to technology, globalization, sustainability and ethics that are intimately related to management. Many of these debates and issues will be explored in greater depth in subsequent OWT modules (e.g. OWT.226 Management and Information Technology, OWT.328 Work and Employment Relations).
This module aims to enhance students’ linguistic proficiency in spoken German in a range of formal and informal settings (both spontaneous and prepared). Specific attention will be given to developing good, accurate pronunciation and intonations well as fluency, accuracy of grammar, and vocabulary when speaking the language.
By the end of this module, students should have enhanced their comprehension of the spoken language, as used in both formal speech, and in everyday life situations including those that they may encounter in German-speaking countries.
The module aims to enhance students’ proficiency in the writing of German (notes, reports, summaries, essays, projects, etc.) including translation from and into German; and the systematic study of German lexis, grammar and syntax.
The overall aim of this course is to develop an appreciation and understanding of the fast-moving and multi-faceted world of advertising from both a theoretical and managerial perspective. This course will focus on advertising within the private sector and will cover a number of contemporary issues in advertising, including social and ethical issues, international advertising and advertising regulation. On completion of this course, students should be able to demonstrate a clear understanding of advertising theory, strategy and execution.
The overall aim of this module is to develop an appreciation and understanding of consumer behaviour from both managers' and consumers' perspectives, building on current research in consumer behaviour and the social sciences generally. The lectures initially focus on consumers as individuals and then consider more closely the influence of our social experiences on behaviour. The workshops provide a chance to focus on a specialist topic within the field, focusing upon improving academic reading and analysis skills.
The module gives students an opportunity to investigate both established and emerging forms of digital marketing. Initially the focus is on integrated digital campaign planning. Commercial web analysis tools, provided by comScore, a global leader in this area, will be used to assess consumer web browsing behaviour on corporate and social websites, to inform campaign decisions. Topics discussed will include: integrated campaign planning; search marketing; digital advertising, in particular display advertising; the consumer decision journey and approaches to using commercial software. However, this does not require a statistical approach.
Building on the knowledge of data-driven, integrated digital campaign planning, the module introduces students to strategic aspects of the ongoing digitalization of marketing activities. The aim is to explore how marketing in the digital space is not an isolated or ‘add on’ element to established marketing strategy, but increasingly becomes an integral and ‘blended’ part of key business-to-business and business-to-consumer activities. Value creation will be discussed in the context of, for example: the internet of things (IOT); personal, connected, devices (eg trackers); and innovative digital services.
Human Resource Development (HRD) is a dynamic and evolving area that is part of Human Resource Management (HRM). This module follows on from the Human Resource Management module and assumes the centrality of the self in managerial discourses. Where HRM focuses on a wide range of processes that deal with the needs and activities of people in an organisation, within those processes HRD in the new economy is concerned with the theory and practice related to training, learning and development for both the benefit of individuals and the organisation. In 1989 McLagan proposed that HRD comprises of three main areas: Training and Development; Organisational Development and Career Development.
This module will take McLagan's three themes and offer a contemporary look at the tensions that occur when human resources (people) are exhorted through particular managerial discourses.
The module focuses upon the relationships between management theory, practice and the natural environment. The first part of the module examines how management have conceptualised the range of environmental issues which have emerged since the rise of industrial society. We then consider different aspects of sustainability focusing upon ecological modernisation, consumerism and waste management. There is a sharp focus throughout the implications for policy making.
A broad but critical understanding of the complex interrelationships between management in contemporary organizations and their social, cultural and physical environments.
Improved their ability to relate key ideas and theoretical frameworks such as those presented in this module to the ongoing social and intellectual controversies concerning management and its place in the modern world.
This module outlines how the management of people is approached and understood within different cultural, economic and political contexts. It will review to what extent the meanings, strategies and practices of managing work and workers have changed over the last couple of decades. Particular emphasis is thereby placed on the exploration of the social, temporal and spatial dimensions of managing and regulating work within the organizational context and beyond.
Overall, the module aims to outline the organizational as well as individual challenges, ambiguities and complexities that are concomitant with current modes of managing workers and employees. We will cover topics such as bureaucratic and entrepreneurial forms of work organization, creative knowledge work and workers, employee subjectivity and identity, normative forms of power and control, as well as ethico-political aspects of contemporary management.
This module provides you with the opportunity to further develop your knowledge of marketing management and its conceptual frameworks and techniques as well as to apply and adapt your knowledge of these frameworks to a diverse range of marketing management contexts. Going to market will be examined in terms of business buyer behaviour, consumer buyer behaviour, brands and brand management, channel selection and management, and international markets.
In OWT 228 we look at the changing role and position of management and managers in organisations and society. Much of modern analysis of management emphasises a change in forms of management control from traditional authority through vertical hierarchical forms to ones which are more horizontal and look to incorporate employees into the organisation and its goals in ever closer ways. This happens for example through attempts to align employees identities, emotions and interests with commitment to the organisation: the much discussed capturing of hearts and minds. Another aspect of this is the manipulation of meaning in order to facilitate this identification of employee and organisation, usually discussed as the corporate culture movement. Together these can be taken as two significant aspects of modern management the management of meaning and the management of identity - which feature little in traditional management texts that emphasise management as the co-ordination of tasks and the control and deployment of resources.
However, it is important to see management and managers within the light of organisation analysis. Managers are not the autonomous agents they are often portrayed, first because they are also employees themselves (albeit in the position of formally representing the interests of capital), and second, they are also subject to organisational structures, cultures and power relations. Perhaps especially in the light of managerial control designed around commitment, integration and identification with the organisation, managers are tied in by the very control strategies that they themselves are promoting. However, as we shall see, there are also important tensions between the changing context of management and these forms of control which can lead to unintended consequences such as impression management and various forms of resistance.
Thus this module focuses on how management is a social process, and what this means for the lived experience of doing management. In exploring this we look at topics which are relevant for the day-to-day experience of managers, although rarely are these addressed in conventional management textbooks: issues such as humour, diversity, impression management and emotional management.
The second year of this degree programme will be spent studying abroad at one of our partner universities. We have exchange agreements with prestigious universities all over the world and many of our undergraduate degree programmes include an integral year spent studying at a top university in the US, Canada, Europe, Asia or Australasia. Progression to the study abroad year will be dependent upon performance in the first year of the degree programme. Some students may also have to complete a Study Abroad Maths examination. Studying abroad in the second year of your degree means that you gain international experience without having to extend your studies. You can find out more about our study abroad programmes on our LUMS Study Abroad web pages.
This module is a half unit and is integrated with the German Language: Written Skills module.
By the end of this module, students should have developed an informed interest in the society and culture of the German-speaking world. They should also have acquired almost native-speaker abilities in both spoken and written language.
This module is a half unit and is integrated with the German Language: Oral Skills module.
This module has two main aims. The first one is to enhance students’ linguistic proficiency with emphasis on understanding of spoken and written German, the speaking of German (prepared and spontaneous) in both formal and informal settings, the writing of German, and the systematic study of German lexis, grammar and syntax. The second aim is to increase students’ awareness, knowledge and understanding of contemporary Germany.
This module aims to provide students with the opportunity to critically review existing research and theory as it relates to a number of current consumer research specialist topics. The module provides students with the experience of applying and adapting existing theoretical frameworks to real consumer contexts and will enable a fuller engagement with the research interests of the marketing department staff. The module adopts a topic-based model; a typical syllabus would include self and identity in consumer behaviour, consumers & communications, theories of consumption, children as consumers, consumers & culture, consumer research applications in the public policy domain and consumers & ethics.
This module will provide students with a managerial and critical understanding of how brand strategy must integrate and balance a variety of perspectives such as the social, cultural, and creative dimensions of contemporary consumer culture with the managerial and economic determinants of organisations. Students will master the language of brand strategy, discover how the brand function fits with the other functions of an organisation, and learn how this knowledge can be applied in the real marketplace contexts. A range of theories, concepts, strategies and practices designed to build, evolve and sustain brands will be addressed across a range of categories, product types and industries. Students will be encouraged to think for themselves about the role brands currently play in cultures of consumption around the globe.
Entrepreneurial teams operate in diverse contexts and organisations at the local,regional and international level. This course focuses on building and leadingentrepreneurial teams that can operate in diverse contexts. It will provide you with an understanding of how entrepreneurial teams are formed, interact and produce diverse outcomes.
This module takes a practical approach to help you understand and design business models. This module has been developed to provide you with a theoretical basis as well as cutting-edge tools and frameworks for business model design and innovation for both start-ups, and established organisations,which you will apply to real-life organisations.
This module looks at the less visible but vast area of marketing to help you understand how ideas familiar to you as marketers apply in business-to-business settings. The module aims to deepen your understanding of business-to-business markets and of the marketing activities that organisations engage in with respect to these markets. The module aims to consider a range of contexts but focuses to a large extent upon contemporary trends in B2B marketing practice and theory.
The module concerns the communications strategies and techniques used by new social movements, brands and people. We will study a spectrum of tools and media of communications, such as lobbying, design, sustainable communications (and greenwashing). Students will use action learning to develop a campaign strategy and creative work for a major UK government campaign. We will examine how protesters and social activists use communications, and students will be encouraged to think critically about how communications shape societies and human values.
The objective of this module is to attempt to develop moral sensibility and practical reasoning in the context of managerial everyday action in organisations. It will be concerned with morality in action, as it happens, rather than a removed reflection on codes and principles of ethics.
The module seeks to show that ethics in action is diffused and difficult. Nevertheless, managers and employees have a responsibility to ‘work it out’ for themselves. It is this ‘how to work it out’ that the module will keep as its focus. A number of case studies will be used as a basis for developing a moral sensibility so that managers will be able to act in a morally appropriate manner as part of their ongoing organisational action.
As marketing activities become more and more internationally focused, firms are increasingly looking for prospective employees with the knowledge and skills to address the new challenges and opportunities associated with globalisation. This module combines the latest research in the field of international marketing; providing insights, theories, concepts and tools that enable students to navigate the global market. Students will take part in interactive lectures and case study analysis that examine the trends in global marketing management. The module will also pay special attention to emerging markets and the roles they play in invigorating marketing theories and practice.
The aim of Managing Human Resources is to develop an informed, critical understanding of how the management of Human Resources is undertaken, why and with what effect. What it is not is a prescriptive course providing ‘how to do it’ set of rules and practices. The focus here is on a critical understanding of the employment relationship within the organisational context. Some students are interested in becoming HR practitioners in their future careers and many wish to become a manager of some form. In both cases the course provides a solid foundation to evaluating different approaches to managing human resources and gain a critical understanding of where they would be appropriate.
Initially the course introduces the development and roles of HRM and the ways in which different management styles can be adopted in organisations. The course then examines the nature of the relationship between HRM and performance (including aspects of remuneration). The lectures then present contemporary HRM issues, for example, Equality and Diversity, Flexible working, Careers and Wellbeing.
This module examines Austrian national identity as manifested and debated in cultural representation. Is Austrian national identity really best understood by listening to Mozart, watching The Sound of Music, or holidaying in the Alps?
Students will analyse ways in which texts and cultural phenomena present, promote, or criticise accepted notions of post-war Austrian identity.
A range of sources will be used for this module, such as film, drama, novels, cabaret, essays and journalistic pieces, as well as tourist information, websites, and the linguistic specificities of Austrian German. The module aims at providing understanding of the ‘flashpoints' in the history of the Second Republic, spanning its baptism as the ‘first victim of Hitlerite aggression' in 1943 to its international pariah status, following the 2000 coalition government with an extreme right political party.
This module is taught in English, but most texts are only available in German, so a working knowledge of the language is required.
In this module students will discover what it is like to be a famous author in today’s modern, media-driven Germany.
The module examines the cultural and political expectations placed on high-profile German authors from the 1960s onwards. Students will analyse sources ranging from press cuttings to internet articles. The module also considers the different strategies developed by well-known authors for responding to this interest in both their private personae and their public function.
Discussion will focus on the different self-presentation strategies the authors have developed: in the spheres of the media and in their writing. The module examines relevant theories of media and literary communication and develops a methodological framework to underpin our critical analysis of the authors and their work.
The aim of the module is to introduce students to theoretical frameworks and empirical evidence of contemporary innovations in markets and an exploration of marketing activities that support them. Students will be given time and opportunity to reflect on their learning and to discuss their emergent understanding. They will have the opportunity to explore challenges faced by managers of innovation, as well as comparing potential outcomes of marketing management decisions in real world scenarios.
The module begins by identifying marketing innovations, followed by exploring the issues of why firms are thought to either typically succeed or fail in business. From here students will be encouraged to explore the changing business environments within which firms must survive. The module will be organised around six themes: (i) Creating Innovations (ii) Developing an Innovation Strategy (iii) Building the Innovative Organization (iv) Managing the Innovation Process (v) Capturing the Value from Innovations (vi) Emerging of the Contemporary Innovations in Markets. We see how Social Innovation, Innovations for Emerging Markets and Sustainability-led Innovation are emerged and contribute to the global markets.
This module aims to introduce students to the theoretical and research issues surrounding the fast expanding field of service marketing. It is designed to develop an understanding of the special context and techniques in the marketing of services. For those who recognise the crucial role that services play in the economy and its future, this module aims to develop an appreciation and understanding of Services Marketing from a theoretical point of view as well as business and management context. This module explores frameworks for understanding the nature and characteristics of services, and how these help in formulating marketing strategies and planning marketing tactics in relation to services. This is achieved through exploring the key theoretical foundations for services marketing, including the models and frameworks associated with the marketing of services and examining how these are employed by managers in service based companies. Other more common topics in services will also be addressed, including service quality; the role of people in service organisations; service encounters and moments of truth; customer satisfaction; customer retention; services branding and strategic issues.
The aim of this course is to provide students with a critical understanding of organisations and the management of change. Management gurus and media commentators have heralded a break with earlier ways of organizing and managing and yet change is often more difficult than they suggest.
This course introduces different ways in which to understand change. It pays particular attention to management gurus and asks why their prescriptions are so popular? Overall, the course examines some of the problems and obstacles that companies face when attempting to introduce a variety of new change initiatives including teamwork and knowledge management and it draws on case study material to enable students to explore change in different organisational settings.
Technology is widely regarded as an unstoppable engine of change that is driving the advance or progress of the modern world. It would seem that no corner of the planet is left untouched by the transformative power of technology: from computers and telecommunications technology to biotechnology, from genetic engineering to the production of designer drugs to control and reshape human behaviour, the technological (re)ordering of the world would appear to have no limits. Against this background utopian or dystopian depending on your viewpoint OWT.326 aims to explore the (inter)relationship between technology and organisation.
The lectures place a strong emphasis on the examination of accounts and representations, visions of technology, technologically mediated change in organisations and society (including issues of identity, power and surveillance), and the ethical dimensions of technology.
No prior knowledge of technology is assumed.
Organisational change is widely accepted as a defining feature of contemporary life. Most of the topics covered in management courses, for example, structure; technology; people; power; culture; strategy; leadership and learning, to name a few, assume the need for changes of one kind or another. This course of lectures and the associated seminar programme review some key ideas associated with approaches to change. Seminal approaches to the field that can be said to conceptualise change management are introduced and compared, particularly those at the micro - that is the individual and group level.
help you to understand and evaluate your own approaches to the management of change and to evaluate management practices in this area.
The module will provide you with an alternative view of entrepreneurship andenterprise development by examining the social context of entrepreneurship.The module will be based on an interactive, student-led model oflearning. Conceptual issues such as the power and dominance of a particularenterprise discourse, organisational legitimacy, theories of trust, responsibility,sustainability and stewardship will be applied to practice.
In this module on Strategic Marketing the key word is "strategic". Hence it is essential for students to obtain a solid understanding of the various perspectives on strategy. This understanding of strategy is of utmost importance as the marketing decisions must be consistent with the company's strategic choices. Often strategic planning is confused with strategy, and this module will highlight the nature of this crucial distinction by reviewing and highlighting the importance of each in Strategic Marketing. This module will focus upon applying relevant concepts and theories to appropriate contemporary developments as well as feature case studies.
Students will learn how to negotiate and make sustainable business deals, not short-term persuasive negotiation tactics, instead, long-term business deals that are economically, socially and environmentally sustainable. Strategic negotiations are highly relevant in today’s interconnected business landscape. The resources that are necessary for companies to solve their problems, gain and retain customers, launch and re-launch new products or services, and develop profitable business. The resources that companies need are widely dispersed among many actors within networks of inter-connected business relationships. Companies need to negotiate with multiple stakeholders, such as suppliers, customers, agencies, governments and authorities to be able to access the resources that they need. A strategic deal that companies would need is not a fixed entity but rather the outcome of long and time-consuming negotiations that affect further negotiations. The course will examine 1) the strategic challenges that companies face in their markets today, 2) the analytical tools that are needed to make sustainable business deals, 3) the biases and errors in deal-making 4) the various ways by which business deals are manifested and 5) the managerial implications of strategic negotiations.
This module builds on and integrates material taught in the proposed module Essentials of Strategic Management and other programme modules in offering students the opportunity to put theory into practice in a simulated environment. The simulation will run for eight simulated quarters over 10 weeks of Lent term. It provides students with valuable team-based hands-on experience in developing and implementing strategy for a small but growing business (a regional airline carrier) in a simulated environment in direct competition with other student teams. In each quarter teams make a series of decisions, manipulating key strategic variables in a dynamic environment, evaluating results and decisions each quarter.
Technology is widely regarded as an unstoppable engine of change that is driving the advance or progress of the modern world. It would seem that no corner of the planet is left untouched by the transformative power of technology: from computers and telecommunications technology to biotechnology, from genetic engineering to the production of designer drugs to control and reshape human behaviour, the technological (re)ordering of the world would appear to have no limits. Against this background – utopian or dystopian depending on your viewpoint – the module aims to explore the (inter)relationship between technology and organisation.
In the Michaelmas term the lectures place a strong emphasis on the examination of accounts and representations, visions of technology, technologically mediated change in organisations and society (including issues of identity, power and surveillance), and the ethical dimensions of technology.
In the Lent term, students will also address the literature on the social construction of technology. Not only is technological development managed and subjected to processes of organising but it also has to be understood in relation to the influences of politics, culture and gender, risk and the management of risk in the context of technology, together with an exploration of future technological developments, are also key themes of of the module.
This module focuses upon those individuals and organizations who are regarded as the most influential or powerful individuals/organizations in their chosen field and beyond. These are the individuals whose leadership or challenge to the status quo transforms their immediate arena and beyond. In so doing this class is broad in coverage affording study of prominent leaders and artists, as well as the context of their operations. The module incorporates important aspects of strategy and leaderships as well as marketing. It is suggested that examination of these individuals provides valuable lessons for corporate marketers.
This course involves a brief (and therefore rather packed) review of some of the main theoretical and empirical debates in the study of work and employment relations. Work is among the most defining experiences of individual lives and the particular form the employment relationship takes is among the core tenets that define the uniqueness of societal arrangements over time and space. Exploring various facets of work and employment is an endeavour that cuts across disciplinary boundaries economists, public policy makers, engineers, geographers, historians, among others, all have their views, interests and preferred methods of inquiry and manners of debate. Furthermore, even within disciplinary boundaries, there is no consensus on how to approach the subject matter, which questions to ask, and how to pursue the answers. In this course, the approach is sociological and the content is somewhat eclectic, being drawn from all of the aforementioned disciplines.
This degree offers remarkable prospects for graduating students. The international experience in both work and study, together with language and cultural competencies, take our graduates to highly valued positions in the corporate world.
Recent graduates have started their careers in various roles, from market research and financial analysis and management to communications and consultancy. They are working with leading global brands such as Aston Martin, Centrica, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, General Electric, McKinsey & Co and Neilson. Some have stayed in France and Germany to continue their studies or take up employment.