100% online MSc Organisational and Business Psychology

Psychology has historically focused on what we call ‘a deficit approach’ to understanding human behaviour. This means that we tend to focus on what is going wrong and try to fix that problem. This approach, however, ignores a vast wealth of positive experiences. New thinking in the field has triggered a shift in focus towards developing a greater understanding of what works. In this module students will explore positive psychological phenomena such as resilience, growth, flow and how those relate to personal wellbeing and performance.

This module introduces people management and effective leadership practice within the organisation. In particular, it analyses themes that relate to the changing landscape of people management including: the strategic organisational context of attracting and selecting people for work: training; performance management; and the employment relationships. It also deals with the actual way in which effective leaders emerge within organisations and how they use people management practices and their distinct qualities, such as cross-cultural awareness to motivate and reward diverse employees. It provides you with the opportunity to optimise your potential and be involved in the day-to-day decision-making processes within organisations that advocate change as a route to achieving competitive advantage.
On successful completion, you will be able to demonstrate a comprehensive knowledge and focused awareness of the internal and the wider business context in which to manage and lead effectively within and across teams.

What makes us tick? Have you ever noticed that you approach some things in your life differently to other people? Have you ever watched a celebrity and wondered why they do the things they do or keep making the same mistakes? By taking a critical look at issues such as personality, our preferred ways of looking at and approaching the world, intelligence, emotions, and persuasion this module will consider what has changed since the study of this extensive field began and delve into ideas about what makes us unique and what unites us as human beings. Through examining issues like contemporary approaches to measuring intelligence and personality, you will gain a critical understanding of the ways in which humans are likely to behave in certain situations. You will also gain an understanding of contemporary issues in behavioural change and understand how we might go about getting someone to change their behaviour (and if that is even possible).

What is different about virtual teamwork and leadership? Many of us have recently experienced a situation novel to us when having to interact with our teams and managers in a virtual environment, but businesses have utilised distance leadership and virtual teams for decades, with varying degrees of success. There are many reasons why an organisation may need to operate with geographically dispersed teams, with many historical practices being driven more by organisational needs and resources than a sound evidence base. The global Covid-19 pandemic has thrown telecommuting, technological advances and personal and psychological challenges into the limelight. This module will critically examine the evidence base for distance leadership practices as well as working in virtual teams and ask what organisations can do to enhance distance leadership and virtual team working.

This module introduces practical techniques for identifying emerging trends in the business environment, both in a national and international context. It encourages the use of conceptual frameworks and practical tools and techniques to improve the quality of strategic decision-making, and develops the insights and competencies needed to present strategies and business plans in a persuasive manner.

Organisations face several challenges and opportunities which they must respond to through marketing decisions. This module develops your understanding of the market decisions that organisations face. Through the application of marketing theory, models, and tools you will gain an understanding of the importance of the organisational environment and the impact this has for analysis, planning and control in a marketing management context.

This module provides you with a firm foundation in the principles of operations and supply chain management. It introduces you to a broad range of operations management challenges facing managers working in modern organisations and equips you with the knowledge and tools to resolve them. The module explores the information needs of organisations and systems to support operations management processes. The focus of the module is on how firms can achieve competitive success through improving the processes involved in delivering products and services.

Climate change, resource depletion and population growth, and the role of business in society are amongst the most highly debated subjects today and create a profound challenge to the status quo for all organisations. But these issues also create opportunities for innovation and change, and the business case for acting sustainably is becoming increasingly persuasive. In this module, you will explore the range of meta-challenges facing business, understand the social and the business case for acting sustainably, and discuss how sustainability can be managed.

Managers in all sectors are required to take account of the financial impact of their decisions. Whether they are being required to approve the purchase of new plant and machinery, increase or decrease the workforce, increase marketing efforts, or authorise the new strategic and budget plans, one of the key aspects of the decision is the financial impact. Managers therefore need to understand financial reports, be able to question the information provided in them and make decisions based upon the information provided by them.

This module seeks to enable you to make well-informed decisions based upon a sound knowledge of financial reports, systems, and developments in the accounting and financial environment.

This module will equip you with knowledge and training to be able to conduct psychological research ethically and responsibly. It introduces the use of critical thinking to develop independent research and study design that can be used to inform your self-directed dissertation research project. You will learn how to statistically analyse human behaviour through research and will gain transferable skills that will be useful to a wide range of professions.

You will conduct your own piece of psychological research, investigating a phenomenon of psychological interest that is developed into an answerable research question. Working with a supervisor to design and conduct research of the highest ethical standards, you will learn how to critically evaluate an existing evidence base, gather data and apply comprehensive analysis techniques to establish your findings, resulting in a report of your research ready for dissemination.