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MSc Sustainability and Management

The School of Management is the base for global leaders in research for sustainable businesses and the Department of Geography is recognised for expertise in research and teaching of environmental and social sustainability. Both departments run this programme jointly and will provide you with an important commodity for today’s employer: an interdisciplinary education.

 

The programme will enable you to understand connectivities beyond the borders of just one discipline and you will develop the skills to communicate with experts across a variety of backgrounds. You will acquire the knowledge and skills to help you become an expert in sustainability for leading companies, governmental agencies and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs).

Autumn Term	Spring Term	Summer Term
Core:	Core:	Core:
Corporate Social Responsibility	Principles of Environmental Sustainability	Dissertation
Principles of Environmental Sustainability	Core Research Pathway:
Core Research Pathway:	Quantitative Research Methods
Business Research Methods	Electives:
Core Conversion Pathway:	Business Ethics
Qualitative Research Methods	Corporate Governance
	Business Strategy

Core Courses

Business Research Methods
Students will learn to understand and apply the basic principles underlying ‘good’ business research methodologies, for instance relevant interviewing and questionnaire survey techniques to gather data. They will be able to devise and critically assess various research designs, and explain, produce, and display descriptive statistics from various data sets. They will demonstrate an awareness of the benefits and pitfalls of quantitative and qualitative techniques, and understand how to conduct, prepare, and present a dissertation.

Corporate Social Responsibility
On this course, students will evaluate the factors that need to be considered by politicians in encouraging the adoption of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). They will also evaluate the factors that need to be considered by corporate strategists in developing a business and corporate strategy including CSR, and they will evaluate the economic and cultural factors involved in the adoption of CSR by firms and identify the implications for a firm in terms of risk and competitiveness of the adoption of a CSR agenda when other firms in its markets may not have done so. The students will understand the implications of CSR for capital markets, and understand the implications of implementing and embedding CSR in a corporation.

Qualitative Research Methods
This course examines key methodological debates in management research and the methods and techniques of qualitative data gathering and analysis. It examines the relationship between theory and method in research design and the nature of validation and reliability in the research process. The course is particularly appropriate for students who intend to pursue research-related careers in both academic and non-academic settings.

Principles of Environmental Sustainability
This course explores the linkages between environment, socio-political and economic issues in modern society. By the end of the course students will be knowledgeable about key theories pertaining to modernity’s shift to environmental governance for sustainability and understand how these theories are relevant towards developing practical approaches to manage different types of environmental and human resources. The course will explore academic literature and illustrative case studies to investigate governance for sustainability. Students will study a range of topics relating to the scientific, legal and political attitudes towards sustainability, which integrates perspectives of social and environmental justice. The course considers the relevance of the socio-cultural in the manifestation of sustainability in different geographies and reflects on the responsibilities of various stakeholders, including business. The course equips students with a set of principles for approaching issues of sustainability and draws on empirical examples from across the globe to explore questions about the key topics of sustainability.
By the end of the course the student should be able to:

• Identify the scientific, legal and political basis for sustainable governance of resources
• Assimilate and critically evaluate current research and demonstrate originality of interpretation in written and oral arguments
• Apply principles of governance for sustainability to analyse how society interacts with environment and the effects on environmental processes and functions
• Identify and devise different approaches to governance for sustainability suitable for a range of resources (water, air, land, biodiversity) at varied spatial scales (local, regional, national, international) in different locations

Quantitative Research Methods
Quantitative Research Methods introduces the basic statistical concepts and procedures used in empirical research. It focuses on the need for statistical understanding in a practical context, and provides the confidence needed to employ data. It also provides students with the background that is required to understand and apply the more specialised statistical methods used in graduate research.

Dissertation
The dissertation provides an excellent opportunity to analyse a management or business issue in depth and is written over the summer months. By the end of the dissertation, students should be able to plan and manage a project; define the aims of this project; identify the data sources and methods appropriate to conduct the project; identify the potential pitfalls to conducting such projects; execute the dissertation plan; and construct an effective argument with the dissertation.

Elective Courses

Business Ethics
This course provides an opportunity to explore ethical issues in the business world and offers a number of frameworks to analyse moral dilemmas. The lectures present a range of theoretical perspectives from the field of moral philosophy and their application to business. Which are applied to a range of ethical dilemmas faced by companies and their managers.
By the end of the course students should be able to:

• understand key principles of moral philosophy and be able to apply them to business
• show a critical understanding regarding the role of business in modern society
• demonstrate an ability to explain and communicate ethical beliefs and expectations
• show skills of problem definition, analysis, problem solving and decision taking

Business Strategy
This course provides the student with an understanding of how International Business Strategy fits into a programme of Sustainable Development for an organisation. The aim of the module is to introduce the student to the way in which a firm can achieve sustainable competitive advantage
By the end of the course students should be able to:

• Evaluate the factors that need to be considered in analysing a firm’s external environment
• Evaluate the internal core competences of a firm
• Formulate strategy for a firm
• Understand the nature of  corporate strategy
• Understand the nature of international strategy

Corporate Governance
The aim of this course is to introduce students to the growing importance of corporate governance for businesses and to stimulate an intellectual debate with international and theoretical approaches. The lecture series is designed to provide a critical analysis of agency theory, stakeholder approaches, and neo-liberal views on corporate governance and stock market failures. Students will also learn about prevailing debates on insider- versus outsider-controlled corporate governance regimes, and the role of regulation in corporate governance. Company specific cases and international comparisons will broaden the scope of the course with a wide range of issues related to corporate governance.
By the end of this course students should be able to have a general understanding of corporate governance in an international perspective and will gain the following skills:

• Analytical thinking about Corporate Governance within theoretical as well as empirical contexts
• Understanding the intricacies of different stakeholder interests in Corporate Governance
• Understanding political and economic structures affecting Corporate Governance practices
• Deeper understanding of the importance of law, regulation and institutions affecting Corporate Governance
• Learning about the long-term destabilising affects of abuse, mistrust and exuberance. A vision of international understanding of Corporate Governance and of firms specific cases
• Ability to assess and evaluate the widening scope of Corporate Governance in relation to Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Sustainability
• Strategic thinking in Corporate Governance for long-term gain

» MSc Sustainability and Management brochure  

For More Information

Contact Anika Bloomfield, Postgraduate Programmes Administrator
Anika.Bloomfield@rhul.ac.uk  +44 (0)1784 276127, or

Dr. Lutz Preuss, Programme Director

The Centre For Research into Sustainability (CRIS)

The academic home of your MSc Sustainability & Management is the Centre for Research Into Sustainability (CRIS) at Royal Holloway, University of London.

CRIS makes an impact at various levels:

• Teaching programmes and courses - including the MSc in Sustainability & Management
• Its research focuses on the problem of creating sustainable societies, in particular sustainable organizations and sustainable eco-systems.
• Consulting activities - we collaborate with companies, governmental and non-governmental organizations in order to transform organizational practices towards the goal of greater sustainability.

For more information visit the CRIS website at: www.rhul.ac.uk/Management/Cris/index.html

Careers and Employment

All major multinational companies now have sustainability departments, codes of ethics and corporate social responsibility reports.You will acquire knowledge and skills to make you desperately sought-after as a future employee for the world’s leading companies, governmental agencies and Non- Governmental Organisations (NGO's).

Royal Holloway is ranked third among over 90 universities in England and Wales for the proportion of our students* who gain employment within 6 months of graduation, according to official HESA statistics (*leavers obtaining first degrees from full-time courses 2005/06).

Application Forms

Royal Holloway University of London now offers applicants the opportunity to apply online for Postgraduate programmes. Applicants who decide to use the 'Embark' system can send and track their application online.

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