Core Courses

Human Resource Management

This course develops an understanding of the human aspects of business management. It will provide insight into the factors influencing attitudes in the workplace. The ability to contribute to the design and evaluation of key human resource management processes, and a framework for understanding the function of a human resources department and its practitioners will be developed. The course will also include the integration of human resource strategy and a business plan.

Economics for Business

This course will give an overview of business and the economy. An analysis of consumer demand and production costs in competitive environments will develop an understanding of pricing strategies in the micro economic environment. The domestic macro-economic environment will be assessed in terms of the economy and fiscal and monetary policy. International trade and exchange rate policy and economic growth and development within an international macro economic environment will be discussed. It includes an integrated, social scientific analysis of the global, African region and South African environments of business.

Accounting and Finance

This course will assist candidates to develop financial literacy as generalist users of accounting information for the purposes of business decision making and control. On completion of the module, the candidate should know basic terminology and concepts of finance and accounting and should have successfully compiled a mental model of business dynamics based on the numerical data available. In particular, the candidate must know the characteristics of financial success and be able to identify situations where these may be absent by reference to accounting and financial information.

Marketing Management

The course will introduce candidates to basic issues in marketing, including the marketing concept, marketing research, consumer behaviour, market segmentation and targeting. The marketing mix will be discussed and used to develop a marketing plan. In addition special topics will be addressed including business marketing, the marketing of services, and retail marketing.

Operations and Technology

The ability to use good judgement in any type of operating environment is important: service or manufacturing, unique through to continuous type operations. This course also provides an environmental link to operations and a strategic framework, showing linkages to other functions. Models of operations are developed such that useful pictures and/or conclusions can be drawn from the process, including the technology choices.

Information Systems Management

The objective of the course is to enable the student to build simple but correctly formulated models of any operation such that useful pictures and/or conclusions can be drawn from the process. The objective is to clarify how the physical process strategies and planning (aligned to market requirements and forecasts) for an operation should always precede any Information Technology or indeed any technology choices.

Organisational Development and Leadership

Candidates will become competent to propose and lead the development of organisations, including diagnostic aspects; identify organisational growth characteristics and the strategies and leadership styles required at different phases of growth and development; leading and manging organisational culture, including leading diverse teams; action organisational development initiatives, understand and utilise power dynamics within organisations, apply the principles of the Learning Organisation, and lead change initiatives, including those of mergers and acquisitions. The general principles of leadership will be covered as they apply in a variety of organisational contexts.

Finance

The course covers the management of working capital, financial analysis, the time value of money, capital budgeting, risk and return, capital structure and equity valuation. Concepts explored include operating and cash cycles, ratio analysis, benchmarking, net present value, payback, internal rate of return, operating cash flows, the capital asset pricing model, the cost of capital, and economic and market value added. The course is intended to expose the student to the financial techniques which drive the management of a company.

Ethics, Sustainability and Governance

Candidates will learn the relevant concepts, laws and practical issues in the field of ethics, sustainability, and corporate governance, including an understanding of the King II Report, and the application of the concepts to the workplace. Methodologies will be developed identify and address the primary ethical, sustainability, and corporate governance challenges in the workplace.

Decision Science

The course is designed to broaden and deepen the student’s understanding of the analytical techniques used to solve business problems in management situations. Students learn to apply statistical theory by means of software packages, where appropriate, to problems involving estimation, simulation and queuing, correlation and regression and forecasting. It is a practical course and on completion the student should be able to use or to supervise the use of the techniques covered.

Strategic Management

This course will give candidates an understanding of thinking approaches and actions that allow for the creation and execution of strategic change in an organisation. It will identify local and global strategic leadership and management issues.

Research Methodology

In this course students are briefly exposed to the philosophy of science and an understanding of the scientific method. Qualitative and quantitative approaches to research are contrasted and the methods of research design and analysis explored for both paradigms. Students are given guidance to the writing of their research proposals and their research reports.

International Business

The content of the course includes (1) an overview of the means of conducting international business, with an emphasis on what makes international different from domestic; (2) the effects of the social systems within countries on the conduct of international business; (3) the major theories explaining international business transactions and the institutions influencing those activities; (4) the financial exchange systems and institutions that measure and facilitate international transactions; (5) the dynamic interface between countries and companies attempting to conduct foreign business activities; (6) corporate strategy alternatives for global operations; and (7) international activities that fall largely within functional disciplines.