Management and Corporate Sustainability MSc

• Professor Catarina Figueira

To introduce the concepts and techniques associated with Managerial Economics, i.e., Microeconomics (e.g. market analysis, price theory, rationality) and Macroeconomics (e.g. inflation, exchange rates and interest rates).

• The initial few sessions are spent on discussion of the main concepts that serve the basis for the understanding of Economics and the business environment.
• There is extensive discussion about the properties associated with different market structures and levels of competition.
• The students are then introduced to important elements regarding the interplay between management and the firm’s objectives and this is followed by a comprehensive discussion about business strategy that builds on what was previously delivered and, as a consequence, the investigation of economic implications for a firm.
• One important element of the corporate strategy relates to decisions about pricing and this is discussed in great detail.

On successful completion of this module you should be able to:

• Employ economic reasoning when making choices in the use of resources.
• Recognise Evaluate the importance of marginal analysis and diminishing returns in the context of business and consumer decisions.
• Appreciate Assess the various objectives which different firms may pursue and the consequent impact on managerial decisions, including those relating to price and output levels.
• Analyse both the external environment and the internal capabilities of a firm and understand the forces shaping the firm’s competitive environment.
• Critically evaluate Recognise the importance of developments in the macro economy and explore their impact on  for management and business performance.

• Dr Namita Shete

Global sustainability challenges are shaping the way business operates in the 21st century. Businesses are under increasing pressure from multiple stakeholders (for e.g. shareholders, customers, employees, society) to manage their positive and negative impacts with clear responsibility and strategic intent.  Leading firms are choosing to respond to these challenges by generating sustainable value propositions to ultimately drive competitive advantage. For many this has meant re-engaging at the level of purpose and re-addressing their role in wider society and for human well-being.

This module outlines the major sustainability challenges and explores the capabilities organisations require to respond positively to them. It will engage you in gaining a better understanding of how corporate action can be best configured to promote responsible and sustainable business strategies. In doing so, it will demand management students (as future business managers and leaders) to reflect on the long-standing debate about whether or not ‘the business of business, is still business?

Watch video: An introduction to the Leading Corporate Sustainability module

The content is organised around the sustainability management ‘compass’ below:

The course content is structured as follows:



Part 1: Setting the context

Context setting

• Managing corporate sustainability
• Social and environmental trends

The role of business

• The role of business
• Challenges and opportunities for business

Exploring possible futures

• Playing an interactive future sustainable scenario board game
  



Part 2: Developing the capabilities

• Setting a purpose
• Formulating and implementing strategy
• Working with stakeholders
• Innovating
• Collaborating
• Valuing
• Leading

On successful completion of this module you should be able to:

1. Identify global environmental and social trends and assess how these present both challenges and opportunities to business and analyse the capabilities businesses need to manage these.
2. Classify the potential stakeholder groups businesses can work with to develop and implement their sustainability strategies and evaluate collaborative approaches.
3. Assess the role of personal leadership in an organization’s values, strategic direction and ability to execute its sustainability strategy.
4. Critically assess the content and reporting of businesses’ sustainability strategies.
5. Design and recommend a sustainability-oriented innovation for a selected business.

• Dr Abdelkader Aoufi

To provide the participant with an understanding of the Operations Management task and its contribution to organisational competitiveness.

An introduction to Managing Operations

The module covers:

• Strategic role of operations
• Process design and layout
• Managing the process experience
• Tools and techniques of process improvement
• Capacity management
• Inventory management, lean and agile operations
• Quality management and improvement
• People in operations
• Managing product and service innovation

On successful completion of this module you should be able to:

• Examine the different types of operations employed by organisations and their distinctive characteristics.
• Analyse the capabilities of different types of operation including the trade-offs involved.
• Critically assess and select the priorities for operational performance improvement and how to implement them.

• Dr Chia-Yu Kou-Barrett

Organisations are run by and for people, and the success or failure of an organisation depends on the people in that organisation. 

It is rarely an absence of planning that causes organisational difficulties; rather it is the failure of management in understanding and managing complex personal and interpersonal systems that can lead to significant problems.

Similarly an acute and critical understanding of these dynamic relationships can lead to profound and enduring success and benefit for the individual, the team, the organisation and wider society.

In this module students will be introduced to various aspects of people and organisations.  This module combines models, theories and ideas from organisational behaviour, psychology, and sociology in order to provide students with a basic understanding in recognising, understanding and utilising what has been termed the "human factor" in organisations; including ways of conceptualising organisations and how people behave within them.  We shall consider the impact of the external environment; and address notions of organisational change.

This module is necessarily an introduction; further suggestions of reading and of consequent activities will be provided. 

It may also be that students will wish to undertake a project in this area; several of the faculty involved will be pleased to discuss this with you.

• Culture
• Development
• Diversity
• Emotional Intelligence
• Individual and Organisational Change
• Individual differences
• Introduction to People and Organisations
• Leadership
• Learning
• Motivation
• Negotiation, influence & persuasion
• Performance Management
• Personality
• Politics
• Self Awareness
• Stress, Resilience, Well-being
• The Individual and the Team
• Values

On successful completion of this module a student should be able to:

1. Apply a number of different ways of conceptualising people in organisations, including communication, culture, diversity, leadership, politics, management and change.
2. Assess the importance of relationships at work, group dynamics, effective teams and leadership, and propose different approaches to work effectively with others accordingly.
3. Apply theories, models, and ideas from the module to examine the evidence of the focal context and issues in order to enhance personal capability, including identification of gaps in knowledge, skills, and competence, and propose directions regarding one’s personal and professional development agenda.

• Dr Joshua Haist

The module is primarily designed to provide students with an understanding of what is required to conduct research in business contexts considering that todays’ managers

• are paid to make decisions
• are expected to make ‘informed’ decisions (i.e. based on evidence)
• are evaluated on the basis of the outcomes from their decisions. 

Therefore, understanding the process of producing evidence will ensure students to have the core skills to inform management decisions.

Introduction to evidence-based management

• The elements of evidence-based management



Conducting research in management

• Defining management problems
• Reviewing the literature



Using qualitative research methods

• Interviews and focus groups in qualitative research
• Qualitative data analysis: using NVivo



Using quantitative research methods

• Designing questionnaires and conducting surveys
• Quantitative data analysis: using IBM SPSS statistics



Presenting research evidence

• Translating data into information to support management decisions

On successful completion of this module you should be able to:

1. Critically evaluate evidence in order to inform management decisions.
2. Assess and select appropriate methods of qualitative and quantitative data collection to gather a varied range of evidence to support decision.
3. Choose and apply appropriate methods of qualitative and quantitative data analysis to gain insights from data and explore the implications of decisions.
4. Utilise quantitative and qualitative analysis software.
5. Access different sources of evidence to gain a comprehensive and critically reflective understanding of organisational issues.

• Dr Will Lewis

Strategic Management is concerned with the direction and scope of the organisation.  This involves determining the purpose of the organisation, establishing objectives and formulating strategies to achieve the objectives. It predominantly explores how an organisation positions itself with regard to its changing environment, and in particular its competitors, in order to gain and sustain competitive advantage. This means that strategic management considers how an organisation’s internal resources and capabilities can be developed to meet the changing demands of customers, in such a way as to achieve the expectations and objectives of its stakeholders. 

An introduction to the Strategic Management module

The module begins by focusing on strategy at the strategic business unit level. It is orientated around five key questions

1) where to compete?

2) how to gain competitive advantage?

3) what capabilities are required?

4) what capabilities do we have?

5) how do we change?

The module then explores corporate level strategy and the issue of strategy implementation and change. Throughout the module a range of tools and techniques for strategic analysis and choice will be introduced.

On successful completion of this module a student should be able to:

• Identify the key questions and associated challenges to be addressed in formulating an organisation’s competitive and corporate-level strategies.
• Evaluate how an organisation sustains competitive advantage though harnessing its internal resources and capabilities and reacting appropriately to changes in its external environment.
• Appraise and differentiate between corporate, competitive (business unit) and functional strategies.
• Critically apply a range of tools and techniques to illuminate the key questions of competitive strategy and corporate strategy.

• Dr Matthias Nnadi

The aim of the Accounting and Finance module is to introduce a number of traditional and contemporary accounting approaches that will increase the visibility of financial information and support management decision making.

• Interpretation of financial statements;
• Exploring the relationship between accounting information, management decision making, financial strategies, and financial performance;
• Applying traditional and contemporary accounting tools and techniques, which can be applied to support business management decisions;
• Exploring the many cost trade-offs between business processes (Make v Buy).

On successful completion of this module a student should be able to:

1. To judge the effect of decisions, transactions and events on financial performance;
2. To create simple sets of accounts from basic information.
3. To understand the main variables affecting working capital management;
4. To interpret financial statements to support decision making, planning and control;
5. To apply an appropriate costing approaches to solve a range of business issues;
6. To apply a number of financial tools and techniques to appraise alternative capital investment opportunities;
7. To use financial information to make informed management decisions

• Professor David Grayson, CBE

Organisations are coming under increasing pressure from various stakeholders to manage their positive and negative impacts with clear responsibility and strategic intent. Responsible and sustainable organisations are re-engaging at the level of purpose and re-thinking their role in wider society and for human betterment.

This module reminds students of the major sustainability challenges facing organisations and explores how the most progressive ones are responding in-terms of leadership and strategy, mind-set, structure, integrating sustainability into different management functions, stakeholder collaborations, environmental and social impacts and managing change. It will engage students in gaining a better understanding of how organisational action can be best configured to promote a responsible and sustainable mission. In doing so, it will demand students to reflect on the long-standing debates concerning the political economy and ethical management practices.

The module is brought to life through its assessment in which students are invited to consider an organisation’s (the client) live sustainability challenge. The client’s challenge will inspire discussion and become the foundation for the students’ problem-solving activity in order that they produce a design specification for their proposed solution and present it back to the client.

This module combines developing a broad understanding of the wider context of organisational sustainability and how organisations are responding with the practical aspects of problem-solving around sustainability challenges. In particular, the module will focus on:

Organisational Ethics, Purpose and Governance for Sustainability
This part explores the Ethics, Purpose and Governance of organisations to understand the moral and business case arguments for sustainability. Sustainability calls for ethical and authentic leadership from senior executives, and this will be a feature of this teaching element. 

Structure and Process
This element explores the different structural arrangements organisations put into place for managing sustainability.  The various roles and responsibilities constituted to mobilise these structures will be discussed.  In addition, the integrative capacity of the structures will also be considered. To embed the new structures key business processes and their adaptation for the successful pursuit of corporate responsibility and sustainability will also be considered (e.g. procurement, marketing, H&S processes).

Sustainability Through the Value Chain
This part focuses on external dimensions of the sustainable organisation, specifically on sustainable supply and value chains, partnerships, and stakeholder engagement. We will explore and how supply and value chains might adapt to accommodate greater levels of responsibility and more sustainable goals and the important role of collaborative approaches to addressing corporate responsibility and sustainability challenges. 

Culture for Sustainability
This part explores how to initiate the nature and size of change necessary to create sustainable organisations and endeavour to develop a ‘new normal’ set of conditions.  This amounts to a cultural change process that generates a momentum for positive organisational level change to embed sustainability.  Successful organisational level cultural change creates further momentum for adaptations within the supply chain and wider industrial (ecology) system.  Particular emphasis is paid to the focal (client) organisation can begin to engage managers and employees to create momentum for positive organisational level change.

Problem-Solving for Sustainability
This element complements the theoretical aspect of the module and introduces a problem-solving process that the students will apply to the sustainability challenge presented by the invited company. It will allow students to engage with the intricacies of the problem presented in context and breakdown the task into manageable components.  The outcomes of this process will lead to the design and formulation of potential solution/options for the organisation. Each option will discuss the implications for implementation and include clear deliberations regarding the development of leadership and management skills. 

On successful completion of this module you should be able to:

1. Evaluate key theories and dominant practices associated with organisation structures and management (function) processes for corporate sustainability.
2. Contrast the range of collaborative opportunities available to pursue corporate sustainability.
3. Propose the central features of a cultural change process for embedding sustainability.
4. Appraise the organisational context of the sustainability challenge and identify and engage with an appropriate range of stakeholders, change agents and sustainability champions.
5. Working in teams, design, review and critically discuss different options available to organisations in response to sustainability issues.

• Professor Philip Longhurst

Environmental sustainability is a main board issue.  General managers need to be able to navigate this agenda broadly, and their internal specialist officers, whether in regulatory affairs, sustainability, CSR, risk governance, procurement or finance may need to become intelligent customers for professional advice on environmental matters or experts in their own right.  This module is a postgraduate ‘primer’ for the aspiring general manager.  It seeks to equip you with:

• The business case for reducing environmental impacts – termed sustainability, as viewed through various lenses including resource security, risk management, regulatory compliance, supply chain management.
• Case studies and critical reflections that contextualise good environmental governance from various business sectors.
• An overview of environmental analytics and decision tools (e.g. life cycle analysis, environmental risk assessment, environmental impact assessment, carbon and water foot-printing etc.) that are used increasingly to evidence good environmental performance.
• A summary of key technologies for the treatment of water, wastewater, waste, soil and air emissions, their general performance characteristics and principles of operation.
• An update of current sustainability paradigms, including design for sustainability, the ‘circular economy’, smarter environmental regulation, sustainable manufacturing and their implications for business.

This module has four elements as follows:

The Business Imperative for Environmental Sustainability

We begin with a discussion on the business case for environmental sustainability.  What has been the history of engagement with the environmental sustainability agenda and why the recent acceleration of emphasis?  Connections to the circular economy, tomorrow’s company and the globalisation agenda will be made in considering the following topics:

• Trade-off between the bottom line and reputation risk.
• Proactive environmental management versus the cost and risk associated with passive regulatory compliance.
• Evolving expectations of shareholders and stakeholders.
• Optimising long-term impacts of energy, carbon, and waste on business.



Case Studies

Next we examine key issues from a resource perspective, i.e. energy, water, GHG emissions, land & soil needs, plus resource loss through waste. Industry sectors and specific businesses with major impacts are introduced and these benefits in managing impacts for strategic competitive advantage explained. Examples include the developments that specific sectors have followed are included. Pinch points and key ‘shifts’ that prompted the change are also discussed.




Tools and Techniques for Environmental Decision-making

Corporate commitments to the environment without defensible metrics are no longer credible.  Here we examine some of the principal tools used to secure regulatory approvals, examine whole-life impacts, measure carbon and water footprints, and quantify risk.  Practical in approach, we explore what works in real life, the decision power such tools can offer and the current state of the art.




Technology Selection and Appraisal

Pollution prevention and control requires choices over a bewildering array of environmental technologies to minimise wastes, recover materials and energy and treat toxic residuals.  We will walk though some of the established and emerging technologies for pollution prevention, critique and appraise them and discuss the operational requirements.  The aim is to make you as future intelligent customers aware of the right questions to ask when faced with appraising technology recommendations.  A visit to a local materials recovery plant will reinforce the complex and heterogeneous nature of waste and resource management. In particular attention will be given to:

• The context, causes, definition and approaches to waste management.
• Technology types and principles.
• Selection methods and decision-making levels; strategic to operational.
• Principles of energy recover and carbon cycling.
• Innovation, trade-offs and sources of information.



Sustainable Design and Manufacturing

How do these principles and practices work through in a manufacturing and production environment?  The concepts of design for sustainability and sustainable manufacturing will be considered through worked examples. For example:

• Discussing the impact and subsequent importance of considered design for the environment.
• Introduction to the historical context of design for sustainability.
• Examples of best practice in sustainable design approaches including dematerialisation, design for reuse and repair, design for disassembly and longevity.
• Facilitating the move from a linear to a circular and regenerative approach to design: whole system design, regenerative models for business and production.



Sustainable Operations

Understanding what practices are used in manufacturing operations to reduce resource use and how these can be translated into tactics for eco-efficiency and beyond.  References will be made to improvement methodologies that capture process improvement sequence as well as supporting tools for analysis.

On successful completion of this module you will be able to:

1. Explain and give examples of relationships between technology, governance and decision analytics as they relate to the environmental sustainability agenda.
2. Evaluate and use tools and techniques for technology and strategy appraisal, explaining their advantages, disadvantages and data requirements.
3. Explain the key challenges presented by the use of the term sustainability as a concept in business.
4. Demonstrate awareness of some of the current thinking on environmental technology trends, business analytics that relate to the environment, and the strategic environmental agenda on resource security within a written proposal.
5. Participate in critically reviewing environmental advice that can support business decisions.

• Dr Richard Adams

The aim of this module is to familiarise students with the concepts of social enterprise and intrapreneurism, and enable them to compare and contrast these phenomena with “non-traditional” entrepreneurship. Both business models overlap extensively with what is regarded as traditional entrepreneurship, but have distinctively different features: while being profit-or surplus-making, their aims typically embrace social outcomes and purposes, and their distribution or sharing of value created is frequently closely linked to these declared values.

Students will be introduced to the history and evolution of non-mainstream modes of entrepreneurship and will develop their understanding of how social entrepreneurs/social intrapreneurs and intrapreneurs create and operate enterprises/intrapreneurial activities in different environments. They will see how such enterprises fit within the spectrum of profit and not for profit entities, and how these are regarded by policy-makers and other stakeholders.

Students will emerge with a clearer idea of whether they would like to make a career in this business environment or, indeed, aspire to found their own social enterprise or pursue a corporate intrapreneurial initiative.

• What social enterprise is: the history and evolution of social enterprise/entrepreneurship.
• How social entrepreneurs compare with “mainstream” entrepreneurs.
• Legal, commercial and financial structures of social enterprises.
• Enabling environment for social intrapreneurism.
• Compare and contrast: social vs non-social intrapreneurism.
• Measuring the impact of social enterprise and intrapraneurism of all types.
• Social enterprise and social intrapreneurism: how they are viewed by policy-makers and other key stakeholders.
• Social enterprise, sustainable business and sustainable value creation.

On successful completion of this module a student should be able to:

1. Describe, analyse and categorise the drivers and motives of social entrepreneurs/social intrapreneurs and intrapeneurs.
2. Differentiate and delineate the salient features which distinguish these modes of entrepreneurial behaviour from other “mainstream” forms.
3. Define the factors, both environmental and intrinsic, which promote or hinder the development of both a free-standing social enterprise and social intrapreneurism within the corporation,
4. Apply the measures of impact used to define the effectiveness of social enterprises.
5. Explain and appraise the agenda of policy-makers regarding the role, purpose and economic value of social entrepreneurship

• Dr Marwa Tourky

This module presents a strategic perspective of marketing, whereby understanding of the needs and wants of customers is used to guide and direct the organisation. It focuses on the input of the marketing perspective across all functions hence prepares students for general management responsibilities. No prior knowledge of the subject is assumed.

• Strategic marketing in context
• The strategic marketing planning process
• Mission statements and organisational objectives
• The Marketing Audit and analytical tools
• Market maps and market segmentation
• SWOT analysis
• The Directional Policy Matrix
• Marketing objectives and strategies
• Product and pricing strategy.

On completing this module, the following outcomes will have been achieved and students will be able to:

1. Understand the evolution and role of marketing and be able to evaluate the characteristics of a customer-centric organization.
2. Select and critically reflect on a series of marketing strategy tools and techniques which are applied to business opportunities and problems.
3. Have a critical understanding of the construction and evaluation of a strategic marketing plan.
4. Compose a written strategic marketing plan for a senior management audience.

• Professor David Grayson, CBE

The aim of the Green and Sustainable Finance module is to develop students’ awareness of the ways in which finance and financial services are increasingly integrated into and central to Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) criteria and in supporting sustainable economic growth. In particular, the module is designed to deliver insight into the role finance can and must play in the transition to a more sustainable economy as well as of the wider national and international regulatory and enabling frameworks.

Over the duration of the module, students will engage with the following key ideas and concepts:

1. Introduction to (sustainable finance): What is the purpose of finance? The big picture: international drivers, national and international policy landscape (Paris Agreement, European Commission’s Action Plan on Financing Sustainable Growth, Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures etc). Regulatory environment and industry response. Systemic risk and investment decision making. Different initiatives globally, e.g.: World bank initiative, UK green finance strategy; disclosure practices and disclosure legislation; EU 2021 sustainable finance disclosure mechanism with 32 metrics against which companies will be ranked, measured and punished.
2. Green finance and financial instruments: Organisations' fiduciary duty; Financing instruments for low carbon and alternative energy projects such as green & social impact bonds, blended finance, catastrophe bonds and others.
3. Responsible/impact investing: Responsible or sustainable investing involves integrating social and environmental performance into the investment process. Institutional investors and asset managers; firm level; individuals including high net worth individuals including shareholder activism; stranded assets. Styles of responsible investment. Taxonomy of types.
4. Reinventing capitalism? Business ethics and the purpose of the firm. Exploring challenges to an economic system whose detractors would argue has created and continues to support an imbalanced system in which wealth and power are migrating to a minority elite while simultaneously propagating environmental harm. Who is the stakeholder? Who is the company there for? Consumer and stakeholder activism (Legal forms, B Corps). Making the business case: the sustainability impact on profitability.
5. Understanding risk: Understand the relationship between risk and return, and the impact on sustainable finance. Identifying, evaluating and mitigating the risk to firms of social and environmental externalities. Business planning for resilience. Valuing externalities & internal intangibles (regulatory). Green/Sustainable project/business analytics. Climate-related financial risks, and other environmental and sustainability risks. Asset valuation and climate risk. Assets at risk – reclassification of assets for companies.
6. Environmental valuation: Efforts at 'putting a number on it'. What does sustainability cost, what are the opportunities, how are they measured and reported, who takes what notice and why. Increasing the transparency of companies on their environmental, social and governance (ESG) policies. Tools: EP&L; KPMG true value method; SROI.
7. Development finance and social investment: Inclusive finance, through microfinance, gender finance and small and medium enterprise (SME) lending, and relevant regulation.  Understanding mechanisms in the social investment market. What are venture philanthropy funds financing and how? Capital flows for a sustainable future. SDGs and finance.
8. Role of the public sector: The role of the public sector and government in sustainable finance: the actors and the law, covering such diverse issues as sanctions law, immunities and aspects of state aid, environmental and social law in financial transactions. The science of climate change and the role of the financial system.
9. Green and sustainable FinTech: e.g. blockchain, financial instruments etc.

On successful completion of this module you should be able to:

1. Describe the drivers, strategic implications, risks and opportunities posed by social and environmental challenges for financial systems, including the associated and emergent regulatory framework, financial and capital markets, asset management, public sector policy formation and investment decisions.
2. Describe and critique the emerging theories and practice of sustainable finance and investment as a basis for transition to a more sustainable economy.
3. Critique the existing financial system, policy tools, the ethics of business and finance in society and potential for positive social and environmental impact.
4. Demonstrate practical skills and confidence in understanding key green finance principles, how these are applied in the evaluation and analysis of organisational sustainability and applied to devise mitigation strategies.
5. Understand and explain the vision of green and sustainable finance, its associated products and services and the opportunities and challenges for mainstreaming green finance.