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Who is the programme for?
You will be a graduate, but not necessarily with a first degree in management. You'll have three or more years of work experience, ideally in some kind of management role and be keen to invest in a programme that will give you the skills and knowledge to progress your career. Alternatively, you will be looking for the opportunity to use the MBA programme as a stepping-stone to a new career.
By studying a broad range of subjects you will learn to see management processes from a number of different perspectives, not least the international dimension. The overall aim of the programme is to enable you, through the development of your managerial and leadership capabilities, to assist or direct your organisation to become more effective and efficient in a rapidly changing, complex and knowledge based economy.
As a Newcastle Business School MBA student you will diagnose problems, research and retrieve information and apply the insight from powerful conceptual models to develop and evaluate solutions.
By the end of the programme, you will have developed into a highly equipped modern business manager who has embarked on a process of self-development. You will have become a reflective and strategic thinker with an international outlook and a body of contemporary knowledge in skills relating to business and organisations, organisational research and change management.
Programme Content and Structure
The MBA comprises a number of core modules and two options delivered over two semesters, leading to a significant piece of research work, taken either in the form of an academic dissertation or a work-based action research project.
The core component of the programme covers the functional areas of business, the essential principles of managerial practice, leadership development, strategic management, research skills and an examination of contemporary issues in business management. Options allow you to explore a specialist complimentary business area. These themed options include marketing, finance, human resource management, tourism, hospitality and operations management.
The final third of the programme consists of a supervised individual research study in the form of either a dissertation or a work-based action research project undertaken on behalf of an organisation. In addition, induction, academic skills support and dissertation preparation sessions are provided alongside the programme to support your learning.
Career Opportunities
The MBA remains the best-known management qualification in the world. It has the potential to help you get that new job, accelerate your career, prepare you for promotion, or take a significant career change. The opportunities are endless. Recent graduates have often returned to their home countries to senior management positions (including General Manager and Managing Director), these roles often being significant early promotions back with their previous organisations, whilst other graduates have started academic careers in the area of business and management or started to undertake further study at doctoral level in the form of PhD or DBA qualifications.
However, it is not the MBA on its own that will open doors for you. It is the combination of the programme and your own personal characteristics that will make the difference, which is why we combine academic rigour with a focus on personal awareness and personal development on our MBA programme.
Characteristics
Students on the MBA programme enjoy all of the generic aspects of the Newcastle Business School postgraduate experience. In addition, the full-time MBA programme
has a number of distinctive features:
- The core aspects of the programme comprise a range of subject modules, the majority of which are unique to the suite of MBA programmes in Newcastle Business School and that the MBA students are taught as a standalone group of students.
- The management development residential and a later residential event covering qualitative research skills are shared with the part-time MBA programme, allowing the full-time MBA students an opportunity to meet and study alongside their British counterparts who are employed locally to Newcastle.
- An International Study Mission, which in recent times has taken place in South Africa. This allows the students to visit a range of multinational organisations, and is linked to the Contemporary Issues in Management Practice module. Students participate in a series of guest lectures, which provide the basis for groupwork and primary research involving the participating organisations.
- Students have a free choice from a list of 16 option modules that allow them to study alongside postgraduate students from a range of specialist programmes in the school. These options potentially permit MBA students to leave with a named MBA award, e.g. MBA (Finance) or MBA (Marketing) instead of the general MBA qualification.
- Alternatively, students can undertake a group consultancy project, set up by a "real organisation" and supported by Newcastle Business School as their programme option, thus permitting access to, and work with, a host local organisation.
- For students with appropriate organisational contacts, the MBA has an alternative to the traditional Masters dissertation, in the form of a Work-Based Action Research Project.
For a more detailed course structure, please click here