International Business Management MSc (Amsterdam)
12 Months Full-Time | September Start

In this module you will gain an understanding of the academic skills that are required to produce a Masters Dissertation. By the end of the module you will have written a 15000 word Masters dissertation. The areas included are:

• Justification for the choice of topic
• Appropriate understanding, awareness and critical analysis of existing and up to date literature evidenced by a comprehensive and well-referenced literature review with an extensive reference list
• Selection, justification and application of an appropriately rigorous methodology - including limitations of the approach selected
• Clear statement of the findings of the research
• Critical analysis of the findings
• Explicit links between the analysis and the conclusions supported by critical argument
• Evidence of original work or thought for example in the form or context of the data collected, analytical process or application of findings

This option is offered as an alternative to the NBS Masters’ Dissertation on all 1-year MSc programmes and in the second semester of year 2 on the 2-year programme variants with Study Abroad and with Advanced Practice (if the students select an Internship in semester 1), again as a Dissertation alternative. It is also offered as alternative to the Management Investigation on the MBA.

On this consultancy based module you will enhance your individual effectiveness and employability skills by locating the learning and development in an organisational context. In doing so, you will promote personal and group development, commercial awareness, and a range of inter-personal, intellectual and practical skills and knowledge centred on and demonstrated through a group negotiated real-time work-based project.

The content of the management report will be unique. The nature and scope of the area of your investigation will be defined and agreed in collaboration with the organisation and the University supervisor. The syllabus will include:

• Conducting research in organisations.
• Identifying researchable questions.
• Consultancy and project management skills.
• Research methods and doing a literature review
• Presentation, communication and report writing skills.
• Analysing findings.
• Writing recommendations and action plans.
• Reflecting on work based experiential learning.

In undertaking this project based module, you will critically reflect and evaluate upon organisational practices and their relation with academic theory, and in doing so, provide practical and actionable recommendations through an investigative management report.

The assessment for your module consists of a Group Consultancy Report (7,000 words) and Final Client Presentation, weighted at 60%, alongside an Individual Assignment comprising a Literature Review (4000 words) and a Reflective Learning Statement (2,000 words), weighted at 40%.

This module engages you in personal and professional development in order that you develop and hone your teamworking, management and leadership skills,

capabilities and attributes, and in so doing, enhance your employability. On this module, you will not only prepare for your first job after you graduate but also kickstart

your commitment to life-long personal and professional learning. In the first part of the module you will be supported in a self-analysis by a range of activities, including

the completion of self-administered tool-kits to demonstrate an increased self-awareness and self-understanding. This will also involve applying theoretical frameworks

and researching contemporary literature for a more in-depth understanding of self. A key outcome of this process is how you will be able to exploit this development in

order to lead, and manage, more effectively in your future careers. The second part of the module contains activities which enable you to build on your self-analysis and

explore further your strengths, weaknesses and areas for development in the context of your career development plans. You will receive guidance on how to craft

professional, postgraduate CVs, LinkeIn profiles, and supporting documentation to meet the needs of employer. Furthermore, you will use your understanding of self to

help you to understand the key issues and specific challenges that you face, with your skills profile, in relation to your employability prospects in your target

profession/industry/sector. This will also include the development of knowledge into the global graduate market, (including routes such as self-employment and

developing your career with an existing employer) drawing upon local, national and international examples.

In this module you will learn about a comprehensive range of research methods and business analytics techniques. This will equip you with the knowledge and practical skills necessary for you to conduct research at Masters’ level and prepare you to complete a Master’s Dissertation, Consultancy Project or Management Enquiry. By the end of the module you will know how to apply both quantitative and qualitative data collection and business analysis techniques. In quantitative techniques you will learn about sampling, questionnaire design, statistical inference, and hypothesis testing while qualitative techniques covered will include methods such as interviewing and focus groups. Analysis methods such as content analysis and thematic analysis will also be covered. In addition, you will gain some understanding of research philosophy (positivism and interpretivism) and research ethics and you will be able to write a research proposal to bring these ideas together.
Furthermore, this module will provide clear, critical, and analysis of data, you will also be able to consider the use of analytics implementation skills, where you will be introduced to analytics software such as SPSS. SPSS statistics analysis is one of the powerful solutions that is designed to help businesses and researchers to solve problems by various methods (geospatial analysis, predictive analytics and hypothesis testing).

Owing to changing migration patterns and digital media, we live in an increasingly global society. Whilst posing many opportunities for business, the decision to internationalise a company’s offering involves as range of complex business decisions. In this module, you will explore how marketing practices can be applied to global business, and in doing so develop a thorough commercial appreciation of the complexities of marketing across nations.

The module is broadly composed of three themes:

• The Global Consumer: Consumers across the globe differ on a wide range of factors, including education levels, cultural norms, religious beliefs and wider lifestyle preferences. You will be introduced to some of these core differences, explore how cultural values differ across regions and the emergence of a global consumer culture. You will also explore how consumers tend to favour products from certain countries based on principles of country-of-origin and national identity.

• International Marketing Strategy: This theme will introduce you to the various market entry strategies utilised by organisations, including export, intermediate and hierarchical modes. Here you will explore the complexities of the global marketing environment (encapsulating political and economic differences) and developing international buyer-seller relationships.

• Global Marketing Decisions: Once an organisation chooses to internationalise, you will explore the range of marketing decisions that need to be made, including queries over product, pricing, marketing communications and branding. As part of this, you will be introduced to the ‘standardisation versus adaptation’ debate, which considers whether organisations should offer identical offerings across markets or implement a more tailored approach.

In this module you will gain a comprehensive understanding of the nature and practice of innovation and creativity and how it can be applied in the innovation process, whether within the context of a new venture or an existing organisation. The module will cover theories relating to innovation and its management within a strategic management context. This will be combined with an introduction to processes of stimulating creativity in a variety of business contexts. The module will seek to facilitate the development of practical skills to promote creative thinking through practice-based elements in which real world problems are introduced for the testing of creative teamworking techniques.

This 20-credit core module is delivered during the first semester of the MSc International Business Management and is aimed at you if you have prior business and management academic experience.

The aim of the module is to build on your prior academic knowledge of business management and explores the new post-recession economic and business environment. It aims to develop your academic knowledge and professional skills in evaluating sustainable strategic options for international organisations seeking competitive advantage through innovation. Contemporary but also traditional strategy formulation theoretical frameworks are presented within the module to develop you as critical thinkers and future practitioners.

The module is designed around five pillars: (i) developments in the new (post-global recession) economic and business environment; (ii) strategic options for international growth; (iii) innovation; (iv) leadership and change within an international/global business model; and (v) sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR).

This module examines worldwide integration of economic, political, and socio-cultural aspects of business in order to explore and understand the impact of globalisation on countries, organizations, and individuals. You will develop a world-view of the global marketplace. You will learn how knowledge and understanding of the global environment affect business functions. Special consideration is given to key issues in ethics, global social responsibility and technology. You will also gain essential knowledge of international business management and will learn how to evaluate challenges of organisational functioning in the global economy. You will be engaged in the analysis of the wider impact of individual and organisational decision making with respect to the business environments in major world markets. The aim of the module is to introduce you to the main International Business (IB) theories relating to external environment analysis and demonstrate how they can be used to inform strategic decisions.
You will also engage with key issues pertinent to the global business environment today, particularly as it pertains to recognising global shifts in political and culture as well as developments in emerging economies and least developed countries.