Strathclyde Business School, Glasgow, Scotland

MDP 3 - Timetable - Teaching Team

The class outline for the 3rd Year 2009-10 Management Development Programme class is given below.

Class Code: 49310

Course Aims

The Management Development Programme runs in each of the first three years of the BA degree. The class is so designated as it aims to develop a more rounded view of business context and management. This means interacting with students from across the different business subjects and learning to think across and beyond the boundaries of any single subject discipline. Each year of the class focuses on a different aspect of business in this cross-subject way, so that you develop the kinds of integrated knowledge and transferable skills most organisations require of their managers.

In the first year the objectives of the course were to develop and enhance your skills in communication, team working, business numeracy, inter-personal skills, and the use of Information and Communications Technologies.

The second year of the class focussed on entrepreneurial behaviours, leadership, decision- making and negotiation.

The third year of the class considers the wider social context in which business works, looking at the idea of social, ethical and sustainability issues in organisations, information and research skills and project management. Underpinning the philosophy of the class across the 3 years is the value of developing and enhancing key skills, which are relevant to your studies, employability and personal development; to gain a holistic view of business and management, which will increase your employability, make you more effective managers and reflective individuals.

Learning Objectives

The key learning objectives and outcomes of the third year class are:

• To develop and enhance your appreciation of the importance of the social, ethical and sustainability issues in organisations performance
• To develop and enhance your understanding of business information and how to obtain information appropriate and relevant to the needs of a business manager
• To develop and enhance your skills in searching for business information and to assess its value
• To develop and enhance your skills in conducting and managing business research
• To develop and enhance your team working and communication skills
• To encourage reflection about your own personal and career development through consideration of the kinds of organisation you would want to work for

Class Organisation and Management

Management Development Programme Manager

Aileen Watson
Human Resource Management
Email a.c.watson@strath.ac.uk, tel x3553

MDP 3 Academic Class Coordinator

Stephen Tagg
Marketing Room 5-34 Stenhouse Building
Email s.k.tagg@strath.ac.uk, tel x2409

Class Administrator

Adele McPherson
Business School
Email admin2@mansci.strath.ac.uk, tel x4024
Room 3.27 Sir William Duncan Building, 130 Rottenrow, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, G4 0GE

Web Developer and MERCURY Systems Administrator

Derek Crowe
Management Science
Email d.crowe@strath.ac.uk

Class Description

Semester 1 focuses on social, ethical and sustainability issues in organisations and related information searching skills. Business is placed in its social context. Whilst we traditionally think of business as concerned with the pursuit of profit making activities and relate this to the main business disciplines of economics, marketing, accounting and finance or human resource management, this does not in itself provide an integrated appreciation of the issues business managers have to deal with. Whilst business provides many benefits to us (wealth, wages, goods and services of all kinds) it also produces what economists would term “negative externalities” or harmful effects. These become critical social issues, since they impact on society in all kinds of ways. Part of society’s reaction to this is to establish and develop regulations on business behaviour and actions. These regulations provide a basic legal framework in which business operates, reflecting what society at any particular point in time finds acceptable. But not all behaviour or activity undertaken by business is covered by legal regulations, or the legal regulations may only set a basic standard of behaviour and managers are often under pressure to go beyond this and demonstrate to a variety of stakeholders that business is acting in a sustainable, socially responsible and ethical manner.

Many managers belong to professional associations and these associations have standards of behaviour and codes of conduct for members. Think about the subjects you are studying and in each of them you should be able to identify such social issues and ethical problems. Those doing HRM are dealing with how people are managed and clearly this is not just an economic issue but an ethical one- some critics even question the very term Human Resources as applied to people working for a company. Those of you doing Marketing will know about the influence of advertising and the way in which products are marketed as a way of influencing consumer behaviour. What are the legal and ethical limits to how this process should be carried out? If you study Accounting and Finance then you will be aware of the big stories such as Enron, which show how the accounting process can be subverted. Students of Hospitality and Tourism Management are aware of issues such as the pay and conditions for many employees in the industry, but also growing concerns about the ecological impacts of tourism development against the possible economic benefits it can bring. Students of Management Science are aware of the need to identify and consider the interests of different stakeholder groups in the process of decision- making. If you study Economics then issues of how to reconcile conflicting demands on the use of scarce resources raises important sustainability, social and ethical questions.

The second semester focuses on research methods and management. Many of you at some point in your career will be required to investigate a problem and report on this. The format of this process may take different forms depending on the scale and complexity of the problem, information requirements and timescales, but there are underlying principles of doing research in a business context, which you should be aware of to help you manage this process effectively. So whilst many of you may want to think about research in relation to possible dissertation proposals for your honours year, the kinds of issues we will look at will have more general application and use. They will be focussed on researching employment prospects for graduates in a selected area. The topics we will look at in this second part of the class include:

• Identifying research topics and questions
• Reviewing existing research and literature
• Reflecting on your research methods
• Writing up a proposal

Teaching and Learning Methods

As in the second year of this class the third year does not have traditional lectures but is organised around group sessions, and within the groups you are assigned to a team of around 6 other students. This organisation is aimed at encouraging active involvement and cooperative learning. The sessions are either centred on real issues facing business managers, which cut across disciplinary or subject boundaries, or skills required to effectively undertake a research project.

The class web pages provide some of the information related to the class, including some information relating to the group sessions. A lot of material is available in the Year 3 Course book which students are expected to purchase. Again as in previous years of this class you should keep in regular contact with the StrathMDP.com and MERCURY websites. Most communication to you will be through the web sites and by email.

You will be allocated to a group and then a team. For the first semester the team is a critical part of the class because the assessment for this semester is based on a team project. In organising the teams we try to have a mix of subject disciplines, which in part reflects the trends in business organisations to set up cross-functional teams, for example based around particular projects. This can bring a mix of skills and experiences and ways of looking at problems adding insights into these but also meaning people have to find ways of working together to arrive at agreed solutions.

Structure of Class - Semester 1

Week 3	Introduction to the Class: identifying and exploring social and ethical issues Personal ethical dilemmas What is sustainability Assigning organisational cases
Week 5	Information Literacy and the Workplace Locating sources of information Evaluating their value
Week 7	Stakeholders Identifying stakeholders Analysing their interests and influence Case study
Week 9	Organisational and Management Responses How organisations manage sustainability, social and ethical issues Internal and external dimension of sustainability, social and ethical issues management Assessing responses and social performance
Week 11	Team Presentations and Conclusions

Materials relating to each session including exercises and discussions will be posted up on the website or made available at the sessions

Note, attendance at the group sessions is required. Failure to maintain satisfactory (at least 80%) attendance will mean that you will be put forwards to be non- qualified to complete the class. The same will happen if you fail to submit any assignments. Failure to complete the class means you will not be able to graduate with the Pass Degree and therefore progress into Honours. If you miss a session you must inform us. There is an Absence Notification webpage in MERCURY that you can use for this purpose.  We may require evidence to support any missed sessions.

Assessment

Full details about the assignments will be available in files which can be downloaded from MERCURY.

The marks will be divided equally between the two semesters. The first semester group report is on an assigned company for which you will have chosen a social, ethical or sustainability issue to address. The other piece of Semester 1 is an individual personal development planning (PDP) reflection on team working. The second semester assignments will be an individual research proposal literature review and a group assignment on research skills.

NOTE: If you fail to pass the required number of assignments, a mark of 0% will be returned at the June Exam Board (i.e. regardless of your mark shown on MERCURY)! This indicates that you have failed the class. Your final grade will be confirmed by Registry after the Exam Boards have met.

Late Submission Penalties: The Business School has the following penalty scheme for the late submission of assessed work:

• 1 day late - deduct 5% of mark allocated
• 2 days late - deduct 10% of mark allocated
• 3 days late - deduct 20% of mark allocated
• 4 days late - deduct 40% of mark allocated
• 5 days late - deduct 80% of mark allocated
• After 5 days - deduct 100% of mark allocated

This applies only to weekdays where students submit in hard copy but includes Saturdays and Sundays where students submit electronically.

Reading

There is a course book for this class.

Compiled by Stephen Tagg & Aileen Watson Management Development Programme Year 3 Course Book, Pearson Custom Publishing 2007, ISBN 978-1-84658-811-2. This text will be valuable not only for MDP3, but also for your honours year thesis.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is concerned with the appropriation of the ideas and works of others without due acknowledgement of the sources. It can manifest itself as copying from sources without proper acknowledgement. Normally plagiarism is interpreted as deliberate attempts to deceive the reader as to the originality of the work submitted.

Plagiarism occurs where acknowledgements are omitted or quotations and other material from original sources are not clearly identified. This concerns not simply text but figures, diagrams, statistics and illustrations. It would include any source whether printed or electronic. The most obvious forms of this are copying directly from the work of others or slightly changing words copied from another source. Always acknowledge your sources at the point of use in the text and cite these in the bibliography and references. This includes electronic sources. Plagiarism applies to all assessed work and similar penalties and procedures will apply in such cases. This is treated very seriously by the Strathclyde Business School. Penalties can range from discounting the particular piece of work to referring the matter to the University's disciplinary procedures which could ultimately involve dismissal from the University. Any penalty would be applied only after an investigation allowing individuals the opportunity to present an explanation.

Under University regulations dealing with academic dishonesty you are required to sign a declaration for each piece of work to say that the work is your own, that you have referenced all documents (paper and electronic) used according to University rules, and that you have not copied the work of another person, whether student or published author, in any way. If you are in any doubt about what is acceptable and what is not you should ask your tutor.