Contemporary and Emerging Issues in Business and Management

Overview

In today's rapidly changing and uncertain business environment, business leaders and managers need to be aware of emerging trends and issues and how these might impact the organisation both strategically and operationally.

This module allows students to explore a range of contemporary and emerging issues under the broad umbrella of grand challenges and wicked problems. Thus, macro level and emerging global ‘issues’ such as those relating to, for example, to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), modern day slavery, and (de)industrialisation may be discussed.

Changing trends in consumer behaviour, the role and impact of working with diverse stakeholders will also be addressed.

Given the uncertainty and operating in VUCA environments, topics such as organisational resilience and diversity will also be explored.

Attention will be also be given to local and national issues and their impact (both positive and negative) on the internal business environment.

Learning Objectives

Upon successful completion of the module students should be able to:

Critically evaluate the role and meaning of grand challenges and wicked problems as applied to business and management

Critically evaluate a range of contemporary and emerging issues in business and management nationally and internationally

Analyse the potential (and actual) impact of these issues in a range of business environments

Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of a range of social science theories (e.g. drawn from disciplines such as Geography, Sociology, Business/Management) and apply these to contemporary and emerging issues in business and management.

Skills

• Critically evaluate information and its veracity in relation to the role and impact of emerging ‘issues’ in business and management
• Apply logic and reasoning to scenario based situations and problem solving
• Communicate ideas, critique theoretical frameworks and discuss their strengths and shortcomings in a range of business environments. Communication will be in both written and presentational forms
• Work both independently and in groups
• Manage own time and workloads effectively
• Pursue independent enquiry

Assessment

Students must achieve an overall mark of 40% in the module to pass