MSc Finance & Management

The aim of this class is to provide you with an understanding of the basic principles of financial accounting and financial analysis, the ability to interpret financial statements and their use in assessing the financial position and performance of companies.

This class provides an introduction to the principles of accounting and the analysis of financial statements. It will enable you to prepare financial statements in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and to interpret and analyse these statements. Particular emphasis is placed on the accounting concepts and information employed in financial analysis and decision taking.

You'll develop the ability to prepare and interpret financial statements and construct cash forecasts. In addition, you'll develop an understanding of the demand and supply for accounting information; an appreciation of the role of financial analysis and analysts; and an awareness of the statistical characteristics of accounting numbers.

Find out more in the class outline of Accounting & Financial Analysis.

20 credits

The aim of the class is to provide you with an understanding of the financial system and the roles and functions of financial markets and institutions. A particular emphasis is placed on understanding the roles of intermediaries such as banks and investment firms.

You'll develop an understanding of the various characteristics and roles of fixed income, equity, and foreign exchange markets. While some attention will be given to the UK financial markets, the global nature of financial markets will be widely discussed. This class aims to equip you with an awareness and understanding of financial markets and institutions in the context of the global economy. Particular emphasis will be placed on the role and contribution of the banking sector.

This class covers the reasons for, and nature of, of financial markets and institutions with a particular focus on banking, the global nature of these markets and their regulation.

Find out more in the course outline for International Financial Markets & Banking.

20 credits

This class will provide an introduction to financial decision-making, and much of the relevant analysis will be developed from the standpoint of corporate finance. It'll explain how a company should decide on the investments to be undertaken to meet its objectives, generally assumed to be the maximisation of its value. It will be demonstrated that this will require a rate of return on its investments in excess of the return available in the capital market on equally risky financial investments. As a result, it will be necessary to develop an understanding of the capital market risk-return relationship. This will require an appreciation of the nature of risk and how this can be managed by the development of portfolios.

Even though the focus of the class will be on corporate finance, it'll also require an appreciation of how the risk-return tradeoff is determined in the capital market.

Find out more in the class outline for Principles of Finance.

This class develops your awareness and capabilities as a manager using a Personal Development Plan (PDP) process to help you critically evaluate the skills and attributes needed to be effective. Over the course of the year, workshops and exercises will help you identify and move towards fulfilling your potential.

This class provides opportunities to explore, understand and apply the language of strategy and strategic management. By examining real-life organisations, you will develop your understanding of the forces within their contextual and transactional environments that influence their strategy, and by applying different strategic frameworks, develop the ability to critically analyse the strategic direction being adopted.

10 credits

The aim of the class is to provide you with an understanding of the main ideas of behavioural finance. A particular emphasis is placed on understanding the roles of non-rational actions and the development of new financial models that incorporate these ideas.

You'll engage with up to date research and develop a critical view of existing and new finance theories and models. It aims to introduce you to the rapidly evolving area of behavioural finance. You'll develop an understanding of behavioural finance and an appreciation of its possible implications and applications.

This class introduces you to behavioural finance and provides you with an understanding of the main flaws of 'traditional' finance theory from a behavioural finance viewpoint. It will allow you to develop the ability to discuss issues arising from violations of the rationality assumption and will enable you to evaluate new theoretical models based on research in psychology.

The course will allow you to appreciate the role of new developments in finance and their possible implications for established views of the functioning of financial markets.

Find out more in the class outline for Behavioural Finance.

This class will provide you with a strong grounding in derivatives that may be used to manage the financial risks faced by individuals, financial institutions and business corporations.

Find out more in the course outline for Derivatives .

While fixed income securities (bonds) have been traded for a far longer time than equities, it's only recently that the trading volume of these instruments has exceeded that of equities in many of the economies with highly developed capital markets. The bond markets for the last 25 years or so have been characterised by rapid innovation and the range of bonds now being traded is quite diverse. Any graduate of an MSc programme in Finance is expected to be familiar with the nature of the valuation of bonds.

This class will put the MSc courses at Strathclyde in a position to provide students with the opportunity to analyse bonds and the markets in which they are traded in more depth than is possible at the moment.

Find out more in the class outline for Fixed Income Analysis class outline.

This class focuses on equity valuation. The aim is to equip students with the knowledge and tools required for analysing the financial performance of firms and measuring their value. Students will be skilled in reviewing financial statements, estimating and assessing financial ratios and relevant accounting and economic data, and use this data for making forecasts and performing equity valuations. In addition, the module will cover the theoretical background for each valuation method and its application with real-life examples and case studies. Also, the module will examine the advantages and disadvantages of the main valuation models. Finally, the ultimate goal is for students to be able to perform and deliver an equity analysis report for any publicly listed firm.

Find out more in the class outline for Equity Analysis class outline.

The aim of this class is to discuss the different ways in which companies can raise funds, internally and externally, the role of capital markets in determining the terms on which funding will be available, the costs and risks of different sources of financing, and the role of taxation.

The class will cover the capital structure decisions of companies, the weighted average cost of capital, the dividend policy of companies, and share repurchases. This class builds on the introductory investment appraisal, risk, return and cost of capital material covered in the first-semester class Principles of Finance.

Find out more in the course outline for Topics in Corporate Finance.

This class gives you the skills involved in managing people in Europe with a focus on cultural and knowledge issues as well as managing cross-cultural differences.

You'll be able to understand the European context in terms of human resource management and employment relations and manage effectively in this context. You'll also be able to adapt to different cultural environments and to manage effectively in an intercultural European context as well as a global context.

The nature of how we think about ‘markets’, and the activities involved in trying to understand and communicate with customers, is changing rapidly. This class examines contemporary international practice, exploring the major concepts and techniques involved in the marketing planning process. It'll help you analyse what companies are offering, how customers behave, and ultimately identify what they need to do next to deliver on their objectives.

This module aims to provide students with skills and knowledge relating to the use of practices in Project Management with particular respect to the project triple constraint: time, cost and quality.

This elective focuses on the investigation of the processes involved in creating a new business venture. This elective is very interactive in nature, requiring a high degree of involvement and commitment from students. It is multidisciplinary, requiring students to work to strict deadlines. It has a range of individual, group and plenary activities interspersed with short “taught” inputs that introduce different aspects of business planning will be presented in short taught inputs. Business plans, case studies, exercises, presentations and scenarios will be used to demonstrate the sequence of processes involved in business planning and associated issues. Participants will draw heavily on their functional business knowledge, applying it within the new venture context. The core activity will be a group project in which groups of 4-5 students will develop a plan for a new business.

The mission of this elective is to provide a solid understanding and application in the strategies of global brand management. Key skills and theories of brand management will be presented and discussed in order to equip the learner to operate effectively in a global brand management environment. Students will gain a clear appreciation of the role of brand strategy within the corporation’s operating plan.  This will entail consideration of environmental factors causing changes to the structure and composition of the brand portfolio as well as discussion of conceptual issues surrounding the strategic roles of brand management.

The class will consider a number of financial decisions of strategic importance, ranging from capital expenditure decisions to those concerned with the evaluation of the terms of a merger. These decisions will be explored through lectures, exercises and most importantly, case studies. The preparation of the case studies and the discussion of the analysis will provide the focus of the class.

This class provides MSc students with insights into ‘Service’ Operations Management, an area of study that is increasingly relevant to our graduates as compared with traditional/manufacturing operations management. Emerging concepts such as ‘services science’ emphasize the need to understand operations management within the service sector as a whole, while providing specific examples from different service sectors to illustrate the wide range of challenges within service industries. Aiming to be as practically useful as possible, the class provides both conceptual and technical perspectives on services. The technical perspective utilises discrete event simulation (DES) as a powerful tool to analyse service operations and facilitate decision making for service operations managers.

Games of strategy are ubiquitous throughout the corporate world, political environments, and in everyday life. Game theory provides a framework within which such strategic situations can be modelled and analysed. Through studying game theory and learning how to think strategically you can better optimize your well-being by trying to outmanoeuvre your adversaries by recognizing the fact that they are trying to outmanoeuvre you. A world of strategic thinking awaits that will transform the way you think about making decisions!

Business organisations and management decisions and actions exist in a complex, dynamic and often turbulent environment. This class will develop your understanding of the many dimensions and layers of the global business environment. It'll encourage you to recognise, understand and reflect upon the challenges and opportunities that various aspects of the business environment present to businesses, organisations and managers operating in an international context. The class will also introduce you to a range of useful theories, concepts and tools for analysing the business environment and give them an opportunity to apply these to ‘real world’ and hypothetical management scenarios.

The module starts by looking at the main types of business vehicle that are used in the modern commercial environment. It goes on to explore how commercial contracts are formed and how the concept of agency can affect contracts. An exploration of common contractual problems follows.

The module then turns to examine practical skills: goal setting, time management and risk management (all of which are set in a theoretical context for participants). Finally, participants learn about the theory of negotiation and have the opportunity to bring all of their theoretical legal knowledge and practical skills to bear during a negotiation simulation.

The mega-trend of digital transformation is first examined to familiarise the student with the environmental drivers – social and technological – behind the rise of digital transformation.

Key technological advances powering digital transformation as a global phenomenon are introduced, including:

• elastic cloud computing
• big data & analytics
• the internet of things (IoT)
• artificial intelligence (AI)
• machine learning

Social implications for work and life are examined, and examples explored as to how digital transformation is already reshaping nations, sectors, organisations and individuals.

The principal aim of this course is to provide students with the ability to understand how changes in the global economic environment could impact upon future business models – and to gain experience in identifying the strategies that best respond to different situations. Learn about major ‘grand challenges’ and how they might impact upon your business model.

To provide students with a strong understanding of how an economy operates (and can impact upon individual businesses), and the role of policy in shaping economic outcomes, and in turn inform business strategy.

This elective provides an understanding of how sports management practice can help any type of organisation. This is very different from other classes that we currently have for electives offerings. The key objective of MBA and MSc education to develop effective business leaders.

The aim of this class is to introduce the strategies, tools and techniques utilised by organisations in business and sport who not only improved performance over a sustained period of time – they changed the rules of the game in their industry or sector.

This class introduces you to a range of different methodological approaches to conducting research and key issues researchers are commonly faced with (eg relevance of practitioner engagement, ethics). You'll be provided with a broad overview of research choices and issues from the perspective of Strathclyde staff representing each department in the Business Faculty who will present vignettes from their own research projects.

These projects provide you with a valuable opportunity to apply what you have learned through the taught modules to a more practical situation. Working under the supervision of a faculty member, you'll spend time working individually on a topic of central interest in these areas. You'll learn the skills needed to develop a proposal and conduct an effective enquiry into your topic areas, producing reports that are both informed and practical.

Project subject matters are diverse, with a vast array of industries and topics to consider. While many projects can be subject specific, increasingly, many projects are undertaken with organisations, which allow you to learn more about a specific industry or work with a particular company.

Our experience shows that such interactions often act as a catalyst for future career opportunities. While you'll be encouraged to put forward your own suggestion of a company, we do have client projects on offer, so are more than happy to assist you in identifying appropriate clients and partnerships.