Course description
Full-Time study
Introduction
The MA in Marketing is designed for students who wish to follow a career in marketing within commercial, professional, industrial or public organisations, and who also require an appreciation of the wider business context.
Course Structure and Content
During the first semester (September to January) students study four core modules, followed in the second semester (January to May) by a further four modules, some of which are options chosen by the student. Each taught module is worth 15 credits. In the later stages students undertake a project or a dissertation which is worth 60 credits. Students gaining 180 credits from a combination of taught modules and the successful completion of the dissertation will be awarded an MA. Students gaining 120 credits but not proceeding to the dissertation/project will be awarded a Postgraduate Diploma. Students who do not gain 120 credits but pass modules worth 60 credits will be awarded a Postgraduate Certificate.
Course Modules
The following list indicates the range of modules that may be offered:
• Marketing Management: Provides an overview of marketing and how it is performed and organised in a variety of market settings. This module is studied early in the course and begins to develop a wide range of underpinning skills and knowledge relevant to the course as a whole.
• Consuming Behaviours: Evaluates and explores the relationship between marketers and consumers, underpinning cultural practice that drives consumption, and ways in which marketing managers can use this knowledge and understanding to reach consumers.
• Marketing Research Theory and Practice: Provides a framework for marketers to understand philosophical debates about research,
and to consider appropriate methodology and methods, whether involving qualitative and quantitative data and approaches.
• Contemporary Issues in Marketing: Considers contemporary thinking in marketing, and the theories that are currently shaping and influencing marketing practice and practitioners. Areas of interest here could be, for example: ethics and advertising, internal markets and relationships; food marketing and obesity; the need for a“consumer culture theory”; marketing debates of the day. This module will focus on recent developments and current concerns for the interrelationships between marketing, society and culture, and will involve external guest speakers, as well as interactions with, and visits to, external events of relevance to marketers today.
• Strategy and Information Management: Widens the focus of study to consider issues and insights at corporate strategic level, and to evaluate the influences of this level of decision making upon functional areas, including marketing.
• Accounting and Finance: Provides students with a working knowledge of relevant aspects of financial and management accounts, so that as market practitioners they can engage with other specialists in the organisation.
• Dissertation of 60 credits underpinned by the Marketing Research and Contemporary Issues modules in particular, focusing on a relevant aspect of marketing, and demonstrating engagement with current thinking in marketing.
An option module may be chosen from a list that would typically include a range of general management as well as marketing modules.
Titles could include, for example:
• Branding
• Social Marketing
• E-Commerce
• Strategic Entrepreneurship
• Marketing Communications Theory
Teaching and Assessment
The Course Director is responsible for running the programme and providing support and information for students. Modules are taught in lectures, tutorials and computer laboratory classes. Practical use is made of standard educational software and data sources. Taught modules are usually assessed by a mixed diet of examinations and coursework, the latter including essays, practical projects, marketing plans, reports and presentations. Guidance is provided on dissertation/project topics and each student will be assigned a supervisor.
