Dr Rebecca Campbell

This course is compulsory on the Executive Global MSc in Management. This course is not available as an outside option.

This information in this course guide pertains to the 2024-2026 cohort.

A thorough grounding in the key management disciplines. Students will be provided with an overview of the development of Management disciplines and will develop an understanding of the disciplinary anchors in economics, sociology, psychology and business history. Within each field, we will cover origins, disciplinary boundaries, core concepts and current debates.

35 hours of lectures in the AT.

Scheduled over 2 modules – 10 sessions of up to 3.5 hours each. 

Lectures:

1. Course introduction and the origins of management

2. The theory of the firm

3. The professionalisation of management

4. What about the workers?

5. Understanding organisational structure 

6. Organisational decision making 

7. The origins of modern strategy

8. Contemporary strategic management: Firms as bundles of resources

9. Managed by markets?

10. The challenge of the age: Climate change



Seminar classes:

1. Managers and managerial work

2. Bureaucracy and Agency

3. Scientific management

4. How to generate cooperation

5. How should structure reflect strategy

6. Understanding decision biases

7. Strategy: how not to compete 

8. Firms as bundles of resources

9. Managed by markets

10. Can sustainability and profit co-exist? 

1,500-word case write-up

Paul Willman: Understanding Management: Social Science Foundations

Oxford University Press, September 2014.

Class participation (10%) and case assignment (30%) in the AT.
Take-home assessment (60%) in the WT.