General Management 1 (BUSA90482)
Graduate courseworkPoints: 62.5On Campus (Parkville)
Overview
| Availability | September |
|---|---|
| Fees | Look up fees |
Business Foundations
This subject provides students with a foundation that is essential to be an effective business executive. After completing this subject, students will have a clear understanding of the key areas that need to be managed effectively for a business to be successful, specifically leading and managing people, growing demand, managing operations, and managing financial sustainability. Students will acquire many useful skills and techniques that will help them effectively manage those key areas. This subject will also provide students with essential skills for successfully completing more advanced subjects in the MBA program, which cover many more advanced topics that will help students become a better business leader.
Leadership
Organizations face many adaptive challenges to survive and thrive in a context of a complex and uncertain environment driven by forces such as globalization and technology. Managers maintain the status quo efficiently but leaders help individuals, teams, organizations, and societies to do adaptive work. Leadership is not a position but a process and it is often emergent and shared by individuals who choose to be leaders and have developed leadership capability. Leadership is particularly important in new organization structures that are flat, flexible, diverse, and global rather than hierarchical, stable, and homogenous. There is substantial evidence that leadership can be learned, and this introductory subject is aimed at developing the capability to lead individuals and teams through intrapersonal (i.e., self‐awareness and self‐management) and interpersonal (i.e., social awareness and social skill) development. This subject includes theoretical and conceptual content alongside solo and group exercises designed to prepare students for leadership experiences in the MBA program and their future careers.
Data Analytics
Contemporary business is awash in data. Modern business processes and activities usually involve multiple streams of data from areas as diverse as marketing activities, operational processes and financial activities. Therefore, managers are frequently confronted with how to harness these to understand their business better, so that they can make more informed decisions. This subject provides the fundamental quantitative skills necessary for an MBA student to extract information from data, through quantitative analysis, to make better managerial decisions. Students will be familiarized with the tools of quantitative analysis, develop the necessary skills for analytical thinking and a quantitative mind set in measuring performance. The fundamental quantitative skills from this subject provide a foundation to the advanced subjects within the MBA and provide students an analytical framework towards solving managerial problems in their career.
People Management
The course examines human behaviour at the individual, group and organisational levels. Theories, models and research will be discussed and applied through case studies, syndicate team assignments, experiential exercises and reflection on work experience. Each topic has been selected to help you better manage yourself, other people, groups and organisations.
Economics for Managers
Economics for Managers is designed to provide you with the tools of economic reasoning for developing and evaluating strategic business options and to make better choices. To this end we discuss and develop the fundamental economic concepts and analytical skills required in managerial and strategic decision-making. Applications lie in bargaining, price setting, the analysis of different market environments, and the analysis of situations with asymmetric information. Many subjects—and in particular business strategy, finance, marketing, and negotiations—build upon the material learned in Economics for Managers.
Personal Effectiveness 1
The “Personal Effectiveness Program” (PEP) runs across the two core modules and is designed to help students develop the skills and knowledge required to effectively manage the early stages of their career. PEP identifies specific needs of each individual student and then provides ongoing support, training, and opportunities to practice and perfect these skills. PEP focuses on three core areas.
- Communication skills: These skills include effective presentations, verbal communication, written communication, and public speaking
- Career development skills: These skills include case practice, interview skills, CV writing, networking, and business etiquette
- Team skills: These skills include managing conflict, cultural awareness, giving and receiving feedback, and resilience.
Intended learning outcomes
Business Foundations
On completion of this topic, students should be able to:
- Make decisions that recognise the interdependence between the firm and its broader economic and social context and recognise potential pitfalls of individual moral judgment.
- Analyse a company's competitive environment and business model to determine its internal and external fitness for achieving competitive advantage.
- Identify and evaluate sources of demand‐based growth and identify the data necessary to make market decisions.
- Apply structured thinking, evidence‐based approaches, and basic economic analytical skills to solve business problems.
- Apply standard techniques in selecting, coordinating, influencing and leading teams.
- Identify potential conflicts of interest between management and shareholders and approaches to mitigate those conflicts.
- perform basic process analysis to identify bottlenecks and improve processes through debottlenecking as well as develop an appreciation for how processes and operating policies can be developed to support the overall business strategy.
- Read and interpret a company's fundamental financial statements
- Evaluate and select investment opportunities using standard financial analysis techniques
- Conceptualise, plan and execute projects
- Communicate and present information effectively
Leadership
On completion of this topic, students should be able to:
- Appreciate and work with diversity and discover the value of collaboration
- Heighten their self‐awareness and self‐knowledge
- Apply their leadership to individuals, groups and organisations
- Better relate to and influence others
- Communicate and manage conflict more effectively
Data Analytics
On completion of this topic, students should be able to:
- Analyse and summarise multivariate data clearly
- Apply the principles of statistical variation in data analysis.
- Select appropriate performance metrics based on statistical principles
- Combine multiple performance metrics quantitatively.
- Distinguish between correlation and causation in statistical analyses
- Construct relevant statistical models from ambiguous business problems
- Undertake regression analysis to quantify complex relationships between multiple explanatory variables and a response variable
- Identify elements from regression output that are directly relevant to a business problem or question.
- Identify and model nonlinear effects and interactions in regression models
- Measure and articulate statistically significant relationships between variables
- Apply quantitative methods and analyses to identify optimal decision strategies and risks
- Evaluate the robustness and appreciate the limitations of data analyses
People Management
On completion of this topic, students should be able to:
- Make decisions that consider the link between how people are managed and firm outcomes;
- Use practices to enhance the attraction, selection, development, utilisation and retention of people in organisations;
- Make decisions that consider how organisational culture and design affect organisational processes and performance;
- Identify common factors that constrain and facilitate the implementation of change;
- Effectively manage some of the challenges and opportunities of leading a diverse workforce;
- Gain skill in managing team processes and interactions;
- Influence organisational dynamics by applying knowledge on how to shape behaviour in organisations.
Economics for Managers
On completion of this topic, students should be able to:
- possess fundamental economic analytical skills required in managerial decision making and apply them in solving business problems
- apply the understanding of different cost categories to managerial decisions such as pricing and creating competitive advantage
- accurately predict firm behaviours and market outcomes for different market environments such as those characterised by bargaining between agents, oligopoly structures, and commodity markets
- apply fundamental insights from game theory to business situations
- effectively design strategies involving product differentiation and price customisation for segmented consumer markets
- predict market dynamics in competitive markets and in markets with entry barriers
Personal Effectiveness 1
On completion of this topic, students should be able to:
- Appreciate the importance of communication, career development, and team skills in career success
- Have identified communication, career development, and team skills that need improvement
- Be more comfortable receiving feedback
- Be able to create an effective CV
- Have improved their business etiquette
- Be more comfortable making public presentations
Last updated: 8 November 2024
Eligibility and requirements
Prerequisites
None
Corequisites
None
Non-allowed subjects
None
Inherent requirements (core participation requirements)
The University of Melbourne is committed to providing students with reasonable adjustments to assessment and participation under the Disability Standards for Education (2005), and the Assessment and Results Policy (MPF1326). Students are expected to meet the core participation requirements for their course. These can be viewed under Entry and Participation Requirements for the course outlines in the Handbook.
Further details on how to seek academic adjustments can be found on the Student Equity and Disability Support website: http://services.unimelb.edu.au/student-equity/home
Last updated: 8 November 2024
Assessment
| Description | Timing | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
Business Foundations: Individual quizzes
| First half of the teaching period | 20% |
Business Foundations: Syndicate assignment and presentation ; Equivalent to 700 words individual with 4 – 5 students in a group
| Early in the teaching period | 20% |
Business Foundations: Individual assignment
| Early in the teaching period | 20% |
Business Foundations: Final examination
| First half of the teaching period | 40% |
Leadership: in class assessment
| During the teaching period | 40% |
Leadership: Syndicate assignment Equivalent to 500 words individual with 4-5 students in a group)
| During the teaching period | 60% |
Data Analytics: individual assignments
| Throughout the teaching period | 15% |
Data Analytics: Syndicate assignment; 500 words individual with 4-5 students in a group.
| Second half of the teaching period | 25% |
Data Analytics: mid-term test
| Week 4 | 20% |
Data Analytics: Final exam
| End of the teaching period | 40% |
People Management: Class preparation and discussion
| Throughout the teaching period | 15% |
People Management: Syndicate Assignment; 500 words individual with 4 – 5 students in a group
| Second half of the teaching period | 10% |
People Management: Syndicate presentation and report; 800 words individual with 4 – 5 students in a group
| Second half of the teaching period | 40% |
People Management: Final exam
| End of the teaching period | 35% |
Economics for Managers: weekly problem sets
| Throughout the teaching period | 10% |
Economics for Managers: mid-term test
| Week 4 | 30% |
Economics for Managers: Final exam
| End of the teaching period | 60% |
Personal Effectiveness 1: Contribution to class learning (attendance at skills workshops, peer and instructor evaluation of contribution to class learning) | Throughout the teaching period | 10% |
Personal Effectiveness 1: Syndicate presentation
| Throughout the teaching period | 40% |
Personal Effectiveness 1: Individual assignment
| End of the teaching period | 50% |
Last updated: 8 November 2024
Dates & times
- September
Time commitment details
Estimated Total Time Commitment Business Foundations 295 hours Leadership 75 hours Data Analytics 150 hours People Management 150 hours Economics for Managers 150 hours Personal Effectiveness 1 30 hours
What do these dates mean
Visit this webpage to find out about these key dates, including how they impact on:
- Your tuition fees, academic transcript and statements.
- And for Commonwealth Supported students, your:
- Student Learning Entitlement. This applies to all students enrolled in a Commonwealth Supported Place (CSP).
Subjects withdrawn after the census date (including up to the ‘last day to withdraw without fail’) count toward the Student Learning Entitlement.
Additional delivery details
This subject is only available to students admitted to MC-BA, or students with permission of the MBA course coordinator
Last updated: 8 November 2024
Further information
- Texts
- Subject notes
- Related Handbook entries
This subject contributes to the following:
Type Name Course Master of Business Administration Course Master of Business Administration/Master of Marketing
Last updated: 8 November 2024