Swinburne University of Technology - Melbourne Australia
Future Students - Courses
Duration
Contact Hours
Campus
Prerequisite
Corequisite
One teaching period
36 hours
Hawthorn, Sarawak
Nil
Nil.
Credit Points: 12.5 Credit Points
An elective unit in the Master of Business Administration (CMBA640) suite and a core unit in the Master of Business Administration (International) (CMBAS680) program.
This unit may be taken on its own or as the first part of a pair with Enterprise Project (HBR683). Knowledge gained in this unit involves preparation for undertaking a project in the latter. The two unit sequence provides a unique opportunity to utilise the knowledge gained from previous and concurrently studied units of study to demonstrate, the application theory and knowledge to a real situation, task or challenge, as well as derive theory from such work. The ‘hands-on’ approach aims to provide students with the skills and experiences to become either a more successful and effective manager and innovator within an organisation or a researcher. This unit aims to introduce students to a range of ways of exploring the management and organisational issues that confront organisations and businesses. Students will be offered a range of techniques designed to help them work effectively with others in inquiring into opportunities and problems, framing them in useful ways and creating options for tackling them. The unit offers a range of perspectives for doing this, including analysis using metaphor, gap analysis, and systems thinking. It is intended to help students integrate and apply the different discipline perspectives they study throughout their degree; think holistically as well as functionally; and develop skills in collaborating with managers, clients and colleagueswhose training and perspective may be very different from their own. After successfully completing this unit, students should be able to: Apply a range of techniques in inquiry and analysis to organisational and business problems and opportunities.Be familiar with ways of developing useful diagnostic framing for understanding presenting problems and opportunities.Integrate different discipline perspectives in issue analysis, for example marketing, leadership and finance.Explore, understand and leverage differences in individuals’ mindsets, experience and background, including their own.Work collaboratively with a range of others in developing their diagnostic practice.
Lectures; workshops; individual exercises; and open and informal discussion with collaborative exchange among participants.
Class engagement and contribution 10%Presentation and report to client 40%-50% Workplace issue report 40%- 50%
Management Analysis and Problem-solving (HBR682) and Enterprise Project (HBR683) are designed to allow students to further develop capabilities from across the spectrum. Students determine their specific capabilities when they review their professional development needs.Leadership: Students successfully completing this subject will have acquired interpersonal skills that facilitate bringing thoughts, feelings and imagination to the service of a task; and feeling at ease with self and be able to relate to a wide range of others. The will be confident when working in teams and large groups/organisations. It is hoped that engaging with complexity and increasing their sphere of influence and responsibility within an organisation, industry or community will be skilfully accomplished.Strategy: Entrepreneurship and Innovation: The research inquiries or practical interventions will develop specific cognitive abilities that relate to practice of the tools of imaginative analysis as well as synthesising from differing events and paradigms. They are able to adopt holistic thinking: discerning and connecting emerging patterns that lead to imagining, shaping and orchestrating a series of future positions.Global Focus: In addition, the practical interventions will hone their skills and use of tools and techniques relating to monitoring external change – demographics, new knowledge, changes in perception, mood and meaning; operating across national, religious, ethnic differences; systemic thinking: finding the interconnectedness of apparently discrete issues and events.Financial Competence: From an economic perspective, the following abilities are developed: ability to quantify alternative opportunities for resource utilisation; and communicating financial information in a useable form.Ethical and Social Responsibility, Individual and Organisational: In developing research topics or other interventions, students are expected to display an ability to engage effectively with ethical dilemmas which do not have simple or happy endings, and ensure application of the triple bottom line, thus reflecting sustainability as a criterion in decision-making.Lifelong Learning: In sourcing and evaluating information and conceptual frameworks, students exhibit an overarching capacity for life-long learning.
Mode 1: Literature reviews, development of conceptual frameworks, alternative research paradigms, ethical considerations and procedure for approval, selection of methodologies, sample definition, analytical approaches, interpretation of data, thesis and report writing.Mode 2: Negotiating entry into an organisation; critical action-reflection learning; literature searching and reviewing; organisational diagnosis skills to identify systemic needs/problems/issues; data gathering and recording; review of fundamental techniques and frameworks offered in Level 1 and 2; ethical considerations and procedure for approval; review of personal development needs and preparation of a personal development plan; development of a plan for the intervention.
Sudents are advised to check the unit outline in the relevant teaching period for appropriate textbooks and further reading.
