module specification

By the end of this final-year core module “The Practice of Management”, you will have:

- studied and applied a range of management theories and techniques to critically evaluating your personal development and management style

- studied and applied a range of management theories and techniques to critically analyse large PLCs, plus wider global issues (such as the UN’s SDGs)

The Module will be based around two themes:
(i) Theme 1: Personal and Academic Development, where students will study, reflect on, and use management theories and techniques to assess their own creative qualities and career ambitions. Alongside this theoretical work, you will take part in practical activities that mirror real recruitment processes, such as developing a professional CV, crafting a personal statement, and practising interview techniques. By doing this, students will be closely and creatively engaging with and evaluating classic and contemporary theorists, and directly applying the ideas from these theorists to their own experience.

(ii) Theme 2: Professional Development, where students will study, analyse, and evaluate the management and performance of large corporations, and, looking ahead, consider these corporations in light of the UN’s Global Sustainability Goals 2030, justifying ways in which their selected PLCs will need to be strategically re-aligned and managed internally in order to contribute to these long-term external goals.  By doing this, students will be closely engaging with and evaluating management and business strategy and performance, and creatively re-designing corporate strategy to contribute to wider social, political, and cultural objectives.

Each theme will conclude with an assignment: Theme 1 will conclude with a team-based formative Seminar Task, and Theme 2 will conclude with a pairs-based summative assignment.  The summative assignments will include demonstrating how graduate recruiters can assess candidate’s management approaches and personal self-reflection on how to demonstrate leadership in professional job applications.

Once complete, this Module aims to enable students to understand a long-term time line. 
- Firstly, students will ‘look back’ and be exposed to classic and contemporary texts, theories, and techniques, which they will apply to their personal and professional development. 
- Secondly, they will ‘look forward’ and evaluate how contemporary PLCs can contribute to future wider global socio-political objectives, namely the UN’s Global Sustainability Goals 2030, which will strengthen their professional development.

In addition, this Module has been designed following University guidelines and policies on:

• Artificial Intelligence:
https://student.londonmet.ac.uk/your-studies/student-administration/guidance-on-the-use-of-artificial-intelligence/#

• Education for Social Justice Framework (ESJF):
https://www.londonmet.ac.uk/about/centre-for-equity-and-inclusion/a-fair-outcomes-approach-to-teaching-and-learning/the-degree-awarding-gap/education-for-social-justice-framework/

Sustainability:
https://www.londonmet.ac.uk/about/sustainability/

No prerequisites 

The Module will be divided into two themes:
(i) Theme 1: Personal and Academic Development
(ii) Theme 2: Professional Development. 
A long-term time-line will provide a link between the two themes.  

In Theme 1, students will study, reflect on, and use key classic and contemporary management texts (from writers such as Drucker, Mintzberg, and Amabile), case studies, and academic articles, which they will then directly apply to their own performance and intended career. Alongside this, they will engage in practical job recruitment-focused activities, using insights from management theory to strengthen their articulation of their career skills and ambitions. (LO1, LO2)

In Theme 2, students will look ahead to studying and reflecting on the UN’s Global Sustainability Goals 2030, and consider how large contemporary corporations can contribute to these goals (LO3)

Classes in both Themes will be student-centred, and will contain tasks, exercises, close readings (of academic articles, company websites, annual reports, journalism / media articles), discussions, presentations, activities, videos, feed-back, and feed-forward, designed around preparing students for the assignments (LO1, LO2 and LO3)

Scheduled teaching will involve sessions which will include formal lectures, student-led sessions, workshops, seminars, discussions, presentations, online readings and tasks, and formative tasks.  All materials and readings are available online, directly building blending learning directly into the Module.

Theme 1 will conclude with a team-based formative Seminar Task, for which the students will receive written and verbal feedback to reflect on, and will feed directly into the Theme 2 summative assignment.  Students will receive ‘feed-forward’ for the summative assignment, followed by written / verbal feedback after submission.  These activities will allow students to reflect on their learning style and academic performance on this Module and on other Modules also.

These class and online activities will contribute directly to the student’s Personal and Professional Development  (PDP), as Theme 1 is based around Personal and Academic Development, and Theme 2 is based around Professional Development.

By the end of the Module, students will be able to:

LO1: Identify, reflect on, their own strengths, abilities, and performance, and the impact of them in relation to their future management style, employability, and career.

LO2: Evaluate their own strengths, abilities, and performance, and the impact of them in relation to their future management style, employability, and career.

LO3: Critically evaluate and re-design the management and performance of large corporations, in order to contribute to external long-term global sustainable goals, referring to sustainability, digital technologies, AI, and Big Data, where appropriate

Link to online Library Reading List:

https://rl.talis.com/3/londonmet/lists/287AEB8C-D31C-12CA-B600-DE1CC2F2A50D.html?lang=en-GB&login=1

Core:
Amabile, T, and Kramer, SJ (2011) The Power of Small Wins, Harvard Business Review, see: https://hbr.org/2011/05/the-power-of-small-wins

Amabile, T and Kramer, SJ (2012) The Progress Principle, Rotman, https://forimpact.org/downloads/blog_progressprinciple_011312.pdf

Chartered Institute of Managers (CMI), Personal Development Plan, at: https://www.managers.org.uk/knowledge-bank/personal-development-planning

Drucker, P (2007), The Manager of Tomorrow, pp. 320-330, from Drucker, P (2007) The Practice of Management, 2nd Edition, Routledge (PDF here:

Laasch, O (2024) Principles of Management, 2nd Edition, SAGE

Additional:
Covey, S (1989) The Seven (7) Habits of Highly Effective People, Simon and Schuster, plus see Hussain, below, and at: http://www.quickmba.com/mgmt/7hab

Davis, J (2018) Management Education for Sustainable Development, Stanford Social Innovation Review, September 2018, see: https://ssir.org

Financial Reporting Council (FRC) (2018), The UK Corporate Governance Code

Hussain, A (2018) The Seven (7) Habits of Highly Effective People, Book Summary, at:
https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/habits-of-highly-effective-people-summary

Langdon, K et al (2008) Interpreting Company Reports for Dummies, John Wiley and Sons, available FREE as an e: book via the Library, click here (especially Chapter 20: “How Companies Sooth the Shareholders”)

Mintzberg, H (2018) How Experienced Practice Can Inform Management Education: Personal experience is central to the education and development of managers, Stanford
Social Innovation Review, September 2018, see: https://ssir.org/

https://mycreativetype.com/

Pope, R (2005) Creativity: Theory, History, Practice, Routledge

Reynolds, A and Lewis, D (2017), Teams Solve Problems Faster When They’re More Cognitively Diverse, Harvard Business Review, see PDF:

Rogers, C (1954) Towards a Theory of Creativity, pp. 137-151 from Vernon, P (ed) (1970) Creativity, Penguin Modern Psychology

Royal Society of Arts (RSA), Carl Rogers, Creativity, and the RSA, at: https://www.thersa.org/blog/2014/09/carl-rogers-creativity-and-the-rsa

Syed, M (2020) Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking, John Murray Press, see also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5UHfcwal0M / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yf53Rf_qbv8

Spungin, J and Furgason, L (2019) Re-learning creativity for business impact, The London Business School, at: https://www.london.edu/think/relearning-creativity-for-business-impact
Test My Creativity: http://www.testmycreativity.com
What Does a Creative Manager Do?, at https://www.zippia.com/creative-manager-jobs/what-does-a-creative-manager-do/

Websites:
London Stock Exchange, FTSE All-Share, see:
https://www.londonstockexchange.com/indices/ftse-all-share/constituents/table

London Stock Exchange, FTSE Alternative Invest Market (AIM) All-Share, see: https://www.londonstockexchange.com/indices/ftse-aim-all-share/constituents/table

United Nations (UN) Global Sustainability Goals, 2030, see: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdgs

Journals:
British Journal of Management, see: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/14678551

International Journal of Management Reviews, see: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/14682370

Journal of Management Education, see: https://journals.sagepub.com/home/jme