1 | Page

Content

Section / Page
Sources of Additional Information / 1
1. / Welcome / 2
2 / Award Management / 3
3. / Your course team / 4
4. / An introduction to your course – aims and intended learning outcomes / 9
5. / The structure of your course / 11
6. / Employability / 13
7. / Learning, teaching and assessment on your course / 14
7.1 / Learning and Teaching / 14
7.2 / Assessment / 16
7.3 / How to submit assessments / 17
7.4 / Extenuating Circumstances / 17
7.5 / Feedback on your work / 17
7.6 / Moderation Process / 18
7.7 / External examiners appointed to your course / 18
8. / Placements / 19
8.1 Undertaking a Placement / 19
8.2 Hints & Tips / 19
9. / Extra Costs / 20
10. / Communication / 20
11. / Support and Guidance (Including Personal Tutoring) / 20
12. / The Student Voice / 21
13. / Rules and Regulations / 21
14. / Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) / 21
15. / Equality and Diversity / 22
16. /

Concerns and Complaints

/ 23
Appendices
Appendix A – Learning Outcomes / 24
Appendix B – Assessments / 40
Appendix C – Business Placement – Information & Project Guidance / 41

Sources of Additional Information

This handbook provides useful information about your course, how it will be delivered and how you will be assessed. It does not try to give you all the information you will need during your time at the university. More information can be found in the following places:

On-Line Student Guide

The on-line student guide ( provides important information about the University and the services available to students, including:

  • Welcome Week
  • Student Cards
  • e:VisionStaffs Portal
  • Our Student Charter
  • The Staffordshire Graduate
  • Term Dates
  • Timetabling
  • Student accommodation
  • Campus and travel information
  • Finance, fees and support
  • Disclosure and Barring Service applications
  • Visas
  • Course and module enrolment
  • Changing your award or modules
  • Withdrawing or intermitting from your course
  • University rules and regulations
  • Disciplinary matters including academic misconduct
  • Appeals and complaints
  • Referencing and study skills (including guidance on completing assessments)
  • What to do if you can’t hand in work due to circumstances beyond your control
  • Examinations
  • Getting feedback on your work
  • The student voice
  • Employability and careers
  • IT services and support
  • Disability and dyslexia
  • Counselling
  • The Nursery
  • The Multi-Faith Chaplaincy
  • Graduation
  • Certificates, Transcripts and Verification Letters

Module Handbooks

Your course is made up from a number of individual modules. Detailed information on each module is provided in separate module handbooks. Your module tutor will tell you how to access the handbook for their module.

The Blackboard On-Line Learning Environment

Information and learning materials for your moduleswill be providedon the Blackboard on-line Learning Environment (VLE). Blackboard will form an important part of your learning experience. Please let your module tutor know if you encounter any problems accessing this material.

1.Welcome

Welcome to the Faculty of Business and Law. You join us at a really exciting time, as we are transforming our campus into a modern and vibrant environment that will enhance the academic and social life of the university and your learning experience.

Through the “Staffordshire Graduate” programme, we focus on you, our students. We will help you to become independent thinkers, to debate, question and discuss key issues in your chosen subject. You will be encouraged to be enterprising and entrepreneurial, to be an effective communicator and successful team worker. We will focus on supporting your development through your course, so that you will have the best opportunity for successful graduate employment on completion.

Employability, enterprise and entrepreneurship are important to us at the university and are integral to the design of all our courses. This means that we have close connections with employers, business practitioners and professional bodies that help us make our courses relevant, interesting and up to date.

The people you will meet in the Faculty are friendly and approachable. They are all keen to help you succeed. Our aim is to nurture and inspire you, to help you grow, to build your potential through working in a vibrant, thriving, and sustainable international academic environment.

Our academic staff are passionate about their subjects, their teaching, research and enterprise. They will help you to build your knowledge, understanding and expertise through sharing with you experiences of their academic research, their work with local communities and their work with organisations, local, national and international.

The Faculty of Business and Law is international in its perspective. The people that you meet will inspire you through the international perspective they have gained through studying at or working in partnership with other universities and colleges, both in this country and around the world. There are many opportunities for you to learn and gain a global perspective; from other students and the academic staff. We will help you to see new possibilities and to bring new horizons into view.

Above all, our strongest partnership is with you, our students. We put our students at the heart of everything that we do and we are committed to giving you the best possible experience we can. We understand the importance of the commitment you have made to us and we value the time you spend with us, and remember, we are always pleased to hear what you have to say.

I hope you have a successful, exciting and fulfilling time with us.

Dr Peter Jones

Acting Dean of the Faculty of Business and Law

Here is the link to the Faculty of Education, Business and Law web page:

2.Award Management

Faculty Management

Dean of Faculty

Dr Peter Jones, , Room B315, Tel: 01782 294029.

The Dean has responsibility for the strategic development, operation and management of the faculty.

Associate Deans – The Dean is supported in running the Faculty by two Associate Deans:

Robert Curtis – Associate Dean – Learning and Teaching; Room B250, Tel: 01782 294346

David Williamson – Associate Dean-Scholarship, Enterpriseand Research; , Room B303, Tel: 01782 294192

Award Management

The MSc International Business Management is run by the Strategy, Economics & International Business(SEIB) Academic Group of the Business School. The SEIB group is headed by Peter Considine, supported by the Award Leader and the tutors who deliver the modules.

Peter Considine (Head of SEIB Academic Group)

, Room B248, Tel: 01782 294063

Peteris responsible for the management of this award and the integrity of the academic discipline. He is also responsible for ensuring the awards are appropriately resourced and delivered.

Zedias Mutema(Award Leader)

Responsible for the day-to-day management of the MSc award, dealing with resourcing issues and ensuring any student concerns are appropriately addressed. (See ‘Your Course Team’)

3.Your Course Team

Role / Name / Room / Email / Telephone
Course Leader / Zedias Mutema / B279 / / 01782 294910
Tutor / Room / Email / Telephone
Jenny Gale / B264 / / 01782 298521
Sue Clews / B374 / / 01782 298510
Ahmad Mlouk / B278 / / 01782 294196
Andy Hirst / B383 / / 01782 294058
Katerina Thomas / B334 / / 01782 294082
Stephen Kelly / B224 / / 01782 294348
Anni Hollings / B249 / / 01782 294202
Lorainne Limbrick / B362 / / 01782 294154
Fatimah Moran / B335 / / 01782 294125
Role / Name / Room / Email / Telephone
Course Administrator / David May / B108 / / 01782 295907

Zedias Mutema

Zedias is a Lecturer in HRM and Organizational Behaviour. He teaches across various awards, including the Post-graduate Diploma in HRM and the Masters in Business Administration. He has subject expertise in the following: Managing Employee Relations, Managing and Coordinating the HR Function, Qualitative Research Methods, The Human Capital Dimension, Strategic Management in Organisations, and Leading, Managing & Developing People. He is also engaged in research supervision for the Masters Dissertations. His primary research interests lie in broad areas of comparative Human Resource Management and Employment Relations. He is particularly interested in African labour history and contemporary Sub-Saharan African Employment relations and trends in the domestication of ILO and other international conventions on employment in Sub-Saharan Africa .

Jenny Gale

Jenny is a Senior Lecturer in HRM and Organizational Behaviour and currently the Course Leader for the MA in Strategic Human Resource Management (top-up). She teaches across various awards, including the Post-graduate Diploma in HRM and the Doctorate in Business Administration. She has subject expertise in the following: Employee Relations, Managing Performance, and qualitative research methods. She is also engaged in research supervision for both MBA and Masters Dissertations in additional to doctoral theses. Her research interests include public sector employment relations, particularly within the criminal justice system and developments in public service HRM and the labour process.

Sue Clews

Sue’s career began with over seven years employment at J Wedgwood & Sons developing expertise in market research, forecasting and planning, and new product development. She began her teaching career in 1991 as a visiting tutor at a local college and accumulated much insight and experience both from the college and high school where she worked for a short spell teaching A level Business. Alongside teaching, she became a research associate (in 1991) with a business consultancy based at Keele University where she was involved in numerous projects with blue chip companies ranging from acquisition feasibility projects to customer and employee satisfaction surveys, and new product development projects. She became a visiting lecturer at Staffordshire University in 1997. She also undertook a part time supporting role as Marketing / PR Officer at a local high school where she was tasked with raising the school’s profile and generating additional funds. Since gaining full time employment at the University in 2001 she has developed her marketing interests (focusing on research and communications) undertaken external research projects for small businesses and have become very involved in award leadership and management.

Ahmad Mlouk

Ahmad joined the accountancy firm (AFTACO) in Beirut shortly after completing his high school baccalaureate in 1979 and worked his way to qualify as Chartered Accountant in 1983. At about the same time he graduated with B.Com ‘Accountancy’ (equivalent to first class Hons. degree) from Beirut Arab University, Lebanon. Ahmad continued to work for the same accountancy firm until 1986 when he embarked onto his postgraduate studies. He started his postgraduate study journey with a PG Diploma (Business Analysis) from Lancaster University after which he went on to earn a MA (Business Analysis with a strong core of Economics) from the University of Leicester. This was followed by a Ph.D. (Accounting/Finance) again from the University of Leicester. He was formerly Assistant Professor of Accounting at New England College (an American University College) with a second campus in West Sussex (England).

He joined Staffordshire University in 1995 and he became the Senior Award Tutor for ACCA and CIMA courses for the period 1999 to 2001. He was the Head of Field of Accounting and Finance between 2002 and 2005. During this period, he led a successful review and revalidation of the Accounting and Finance Awards. In the same period, the Business School experienced a significant reduction in academic staff and naturally, Dr Mlouk was at the frontier of managing this for the A & F Field. During his tenure at the Business School, Ahmad taught a wide range of subjects/modules at undergraduate, Postgraduate and professional levels. These modules included: Business Finance, Corporate Governance, Corporate Finance, International Corporate Finance, Management Accounting, Financial Statement Analysis, Financial Reporting Analysis and a host of other modules. He also served and continued to serve on countless number of committees, special task force, review and revalidation panels, etc.

His research interests include; ‘Data Envelopment Analysis’ as a quantitative technique that is used primarily to evaluate the performance of non-profit oriented type organisations; Business finance, corporate finance and business valuation methods; Islamic finance as an alternative system to the conventional ‘western-based’ philosophy of banking and finance.

Andy Hirst

Andy attended Sheffield University reading Materials Engineering and graduating in 1979. After a year with the former British Steel Corporation, I returned to Sheffield with a CASE Award from the UKAEA to study for a PhD . This was completed in 1984 after which I joined Rolls-Royce plc in Bristol holding a variety of roles in Engineering and Commercial during which I studied part time for an MBA at Bristol University. In 2004 I accepted a new role with Rolls-Royce in Derby to be Head of a Central Purchasing organisation. After 6 years in this role I left Rolls-Royce after nearly 25 years to pursue an academic career.

Over 25 years experience in industry – mostly in aerospace, he has held a variety of senior Customer & Operational roles. He also has an accomplished track record of managing customer relations, managing sales campaigns and leading & implementing major organisational change.

Andy’s research interests are marketing & supply chain strategies, organisational change, performance measurement & management.

Katerina Thomas

Katerina holds a BA with a double major in economics and management from Moscow State University of Economics, Statistics and IT (MESI), Russia, whereshe graduated with a distinction in 2000.I hold a PhD in Management from Aston University, whereI had earlier earned an MSc in International Business. Whilst doingmy PhD,I worked at Aston Business School as a part-time lecturer and tutor in Strategy, teaching undergraduate level students.I also worked as a Business Studies lecturer in various international colleges in the UK.I completedmy PhD in 2010.I participated in extra-curricular activities, supervising international study visits, collaborated with research colleagues and actively contributed to the university’s research profile by presenting at international conferences. Since August 2011,I hold a Senior Lecturer position in Strategy and Enterprise Management at Staffordshire University, lecturing on Strategy and Innovation at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

Herresearch applies theories and concepts related to international business economics, political economy and innovation. Areas of interest include technological learning and innovation; industrial development and catching-up of developing and transition economies; evolution of innovation systems; political economy of science and foreign investment. Among others,her main interest has been in assessing the determinants of multinationals’ actions and their impact on the development of indigenous technological capabilities, investigating the locational determinant of FDI (i.e. examining why MNEs activities have expanded so rapidly, and why some transition countries and regions within the countries have seen more of such activities than others).

Inher PhD thesis,she has examined why some countries are better at using learning and innovation for their economic development. A major contribution of the study was therefore the empirical testing of learning interactions between different actors within the systems of innovation and assessing the impact such interactions have on consequent learning and innovation capability development within SMEs.Her current research work focuses on the field of macroeconomics (foreign direct investment) and political economy (the effect of corruption and crime) and management.

Stephen Kelly

Stephen worked for ten years for a number of different high profile global organisations in a variety of Supply Chain, Operations and Project Management roles. During his time with Staffordshire University, he has undertaken teaching at a number of levels with a wide variety of students and he is an active researcher looking at the processes of interaction between organisational buyers and suppliers.

He is currently working on an EU ERASMUS+ funded project worth €490k, developing a pan-European Purchasing curriculum with the Universities of Mainz, Dortmund, Twente and Lappeenranta.

His research interests include; Organisational routines and processes; Procurement processes; Opportunism in buyer-supplier relationships; Influence and persuasion in buyer-supplier relationships; Education in Supply Chain Management

Anni Hollings

Anni is a Principal Lecturer in HRM and Faculty Academic Learning and Teaching Manager. She has worked extensively with many organisations in the pursuit of organizational success through effective leadership and management development programmes. Her main interests are in Organizational Change and Leadership and Strategic HRM. Her research focuses on organizational storytelling and its impact on change and development as well as innovations in learning and teaching As well as being a University Teaching Excellence Fellow, Anni is the Branch Chair of UCU and regularly consults with the University Management Team on matters affecting academic staff.

Lorainne Limbrick

Lorraine isa senior lecturer in strategy. Sheholds a First Class BA honours degree and an MBA with Distinction. She is also currently studying for a PhD in strategic management at Staffordshire University, which is due for completion in 2017. In addition to working for Staffordshire University since 1997, she has also worked in the past as a part-time lecturer for Manchester Metropolitan University, teaching marketing and business finance to undergraduate students. She is currently Module Leader for several modules on various postgraduate programmes, including Global Strategic Management and Business Management Research. She is also responsible for organising international study visits at postgraduate level. During her time at Staffordshire University she has also delivered programmes overseas in China, Malaysia and Kosovo as well as carrying out various overseas quality assurance roles, e.g. Programme Advisor and External Examiner.

She is a member of; the Academy of International Business (AIB); the British Academy of Management (BAM) and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA)

Her breadth of interests and experience qualifies her to design and teach various courses offered in a business department. She also has significant expertise in the development of academic provision to undergraduate/postgraduate level students, specifically in the areas of Strategy, Research Methods and International Business. She has contributed to SU’s curriculum developments over a number of years in line with their strategic objectives. As a seasoned curriculum developer, she has confidence in her ability to assist colleagues in generating course materials across the broad spectrum of business studies offerings. Prior to her career in academia, she worked as Group Marketing Manager for a small chain of retail outlets in the North West of England where she gained valuable experience of managing budgets and co-ordinating/integrating marketing activities across diverse business units. Altogether, she has over 10 years’ experience of working in a variety of non-academic roles for a number of organisations.