Dr Rebecca Campbell

Dr Yally Avrahampour

This course is compulsory on the Executive Global MSc in Management. This course is not available as an outside option to students on other programmes.

The information in this course guide pertains to the 2026-2028 cohort.

This course equips students with a broad understanding of management theory and practice, and of their relationship to financial control.  Students are provided with an overview of the development of management, drawing on the disciplines of economics, psychology, sociology and business history.  

Part A: The Modern Firm: History, Theory and Practice
This is designed to equip students with a broad understanding of management theory and practice since the emergence of modern industrial organizations in the late 19th century. We look at the rise of big business in the US, and ask why did these extraordinary organisations take off when they did? Considering questions such as: Why do we all hate bureaucracy so much (but can't get rid of it)? How do managers ensure workplace cooperation? What are the basic principles of organisational structure? Is good strategy about your market position, or just being really good at what you do? 

Part B: Governance, Financial Control and Sustainability
In its second half, the course proceeds by introducing debates relating to governance, financial control and environmental sustainability as they arise in the management of the contemporary firm. The course proceeds in two sections focusing, respectively, on financial accounting and management accounting.  The first section begins with an introduction to the conventional financial statements and, briefly, restricted and expanded value-added statements.  The course then considers the debate relating to measurement in financial accounting, including between historical cost and current value measurement approaches, and how political and economic theories of accounting standard setting explain why standards usually consist of a combination of these two measurement approaches.  This section concludes with discussion of the implications of the establishment in 2021 of the International Sustainability Standards Board for the future of financial accounting.  The second section focuses on the internal metrics used to manage organizations and introduces Value-Based Management by way of comparing traditional costing methods and Activity Based Costing.  The course then compares financial and non-financial performance measurement and the Balanced Scorecard.  The course considers financial ratio and residual income approaches to performance measurement in both VBM and environmental management accounting. 

Sessions combine interactive lectures and case study discussions to provide students with an opportunity to apply concepts relating to these topics to real world cases.

Essay.

The purpose of the formative essay is to enable students to practice writing assignments for this course. 

Part A: 

• Kay, J., 2025. The corporation in the twenty-first century: Why (Almost) Everything We are told about business is wrong. Yale University Press.
• Hastings, R. and Meyer, E., 2020. No rules rules: Netflix and the culture of reinvention. Random house.

Part B:

• Barney, J. B. 1991. Firm resources and sustained competitive advantage. Journal of management Vol. 17 No. 1:99-120.
• Barney, J. B. 2018. Why resource‐based theory’s model of profit appropriation must incorporate a stakeholder perspective. Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 39: No. 8: 3305 3325.
• Chandler, A. 1963 Strategy & Structure
• Freeman, R. E. 1984 Strategic management: A stakeholder approach
• Kaplan, R. & Atkinson, A. 2014. Advanced Management Accounting 3rd edition.
• Lingane, A. & Olsen, S. 2004. Guidelines for Social Return on Investment. California Management Review Vol. 46, No. 3:116-135
• Miller, P. & Power M. 2013. “Accounting, Organizing, and Economizing: Connecting Accounting Research and Organization Theory.” The Academy of Management Annals, Vol. 7 No. 1, 557-605
• Porter, M. E. 2008. The five competitive forces that shape strategy. Harvard business review Vol. 86 No. 1: 78-93
• Scott, W. & O’Brien, P. 2020. Financial Accounting Theory 8th ed.
• Willman, P., 2014. Understanding Management: The Social Science Foundations.

Course participation (10%).

Essay (60%).

Powerpoint slides (30%).

The individual summative essay provides students with an opportunity to explore selected topics in greater detail, linking theory and evidence to practice.  This will also provide students with an opportunity to develop their writing skills relating to the content covered in this course. The group presentation will be held live, either during module 2 or online following module 2.