Overall you must take 150 credits of compulsory modules, 30 credits of optional modules
From Compulsory Choice 1 choose either CDFM001 Dissertation - Written or CDFM002 Dissertation - Practice (you cannot choose more than one module from this group).
DRAM141: Ideas Generation and the Creative Process
Working at the intersection of theory and practice, you will explore creativity not as a neat sequence of steps, but as a dynamic, non-linear process shaped by intuition, constraint, environment, and collaboration. Drawing on theories of creativity, innovation, and design-led thinking, you will test how ideas are generated, stretched, disrupted, and transformed through doing.
The module places particular emphasis on embodied and performative approaches to thinking. Through improvisation, play, and structured experimentation, you will work with creativity as something that is enacted - something that happens in space, in interaction, and often under pressure. Performativity here is both a lens and a method: a way of understanding how ideas take form, and how they are communicated, negotiated, and brought to life across different cultural contexts.
At the same time, you will situate creative practice within the realities of the creative industries. Ideas do not exist in isolation: they move through systems of production, distribution, and value. You will critically examine how imaginative, non-linear processes can be translated into viable, impactful, and responsible outcomes, and what is gained, and sometimes lost, in that translation.
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DRAM142: Creative Management
This module explores the management of creativity and the application of creative approaches to project, team, and creative project development. You will investigate the challenges of working with creative individuals and teams: What motivates and drives creative talent? How can leaders inspire, support, and enable innovation? Conversely, how do organisational practices or managerial behaviours stifle creativity? You will examine the roles of individuals and teams in promoting ideas, developing projects, and generating value.
Through case study analysis, research, and reflective discussion, you will engage with live challenges and debates from the creative industries. You will be encouraged to consider how organisational culture, sectoral differences, digital storytelling, placemaking, and Theory of Change frameworks may influence creative decision-making, processes, collaboration, and outcomes. Examples may draw on creative management case studies, including projects, events, or exhibitions, offering insight into both successes and lessons from failure.Assessment is portfolio-based, allowing you to demonstrate practical and strategic skills. Portfolios may include elements such as creative projects, business strategies, business model canvases (BMCs), or project plans, providing opportunities to apply your understanding in realistic professional contexts.
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DRAM169: Creative Industries
This module explores concepts, structures and issues that draw from creative industries narratives and challenges. By looking at the past, present and future of the creative industries, you will form an understanding of how cultural value is created, consumed and evaluated. This module provides you with an overview of the creative industries in a global context and equips you with a rich, critically informed understanding of the sector. Through engaging with organisational challenges, disruptive innovation and strategic change, you will learn how the business of creativity and value capture has resulted in a growing creative economy, and will analyse, reflect and creatively respond to a range of professional, sustainable contemporary contexts.
This module aims:
- To develop critical skills through the analysis of contemporary case studies from a range of creative organisations.
- To interrogate the notion of value as applied to creativity and to creative industries.
- To develop a balanced understanding of generic business content, such as business structures, business models and funding streams.
- To equip you with an understanding of how the creative sector is adapting to digital technology, social media and changing audience behaviour
- To introduce and study the role and impact of social entrepreneurship.
- To equip you with skills to develop and communicate key business concepts and ideas.
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CDFM001: Dissertation - Written
The dissertation project is the culmination of your postgraduate course and represents an opportunity to explore a research question in detail over an extended period of time. Across the module you will conceive, plan, research and write a study of 15,000 words. Initially you will be supported by a supervisor, but during the writing period you will be expected to work independently.
The dissertation will enable you to consolidate and develop your subject knowledge and methodological skills in your discipline by exploring in detail a topic of your own devising.
You will be supported through the early stages of planning your dissertation in the second term of your studies through a series of workshops. This will enable you to develop and submit a dissertation proposal by the end of term 2 (for part time students the proposal will be submitted by the second term of the second year of study).
You will then be assigned a supervisor who will support you during term 3 as you conduct initial research, prepare draft work and establish your project sufficiently to enable you to work independently after the end of term 3. Your supervisor will support you as your research, planning and writing progress through one-to-one supervision sessions. These combined activities will offer you the necessary guidance and support to refine your initial plans and bring your research project to completion.
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CDFM002: Dissertation - Practice
The dissertation project is the culmination of your postgraduate course and represents an opportunity to explore an idea, theme or issue in detail over an extended period through your chosen form of practice. In negotiation with a dissertation supervisor, you will devise a research-led practical output relevant to your field and then conceive, plan and deliver this work. It will be equivalent to 7,500 words of written work (your supervisor will advise you on equivalency in your chosen form of practice) and you will also submit a 7,500-word piece of writing to provide critical context to your practice. Your supervisor will support you during the preparation of your practical output, which will normally be delivered towards the end of term 3, and through the initial phase of planning your written work, though beyond the end of term 3 you will be expected to work independently.
The module aims to:
provide an opportunity for you to pursue a single research topic in depth, partly through a form of practice appropriate to your discipline
demonstrate evidence of research achievement at master's level
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BEMM068: Managing Competitive Strategy
In this module you will explore strategy and strategic management from a range of different perspectives. In the current business climate there are many significant issues which organisations and their leaders must navigate successfully to survive and prosper. You will have the opportunity to discuss these sources of dynamism and disorder and to think about how strategy has changed over time with many competing theories and schools of practice emerging to provide solutions to the wicked problems facing strategists. If you aspire to a senior management role, to run your own enterprise, or to work in consultancy, this module will help to prepare you to think strategically and to be able to appreciate the long-term view necessary to set the direction for and successfully lead an organisation in the 21st century.
The module focuses on case method for a majority of the time - so you will be working on a variety of case studies applying theory to real world organisations, diagnosing their problems and discussing the actual decisions facing senior managers in those companies as they search for the best solutions. The skills you gain from this are highly valued by employers and provide a good preparation for some styles of interviews and assessment centres used to recruit graduates.
This module is AI integrated, which means there is an expectation that you will use AI during classes and as part of the assessment process
The aims of this module are to
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BEMM069: Marketing and New Product Innovation
Marketing is the term given to those activities that occur where an organisation and its customers come into contact and result in a mutually beneficial and satisfying exchange relationship. It is the driving force behind modern business and is concerned with ensuring the closest possible fit between what an organisation does and what its customers need and want. This involves offering the 'right' marketing mix.
However, marketing also depends on the constant updating of ideas and development of new products and services. Consumers can be fickle and change their needs and wants, competitors alter their strategies, and forces within the marketplace regularly change. These factors require organisations to implement New Product Development (NPD) programmes, with a view to integrate and coordinate their marketing efforts through strategic decision-making, reflected in the production of marketing plans.
The module will provide students with the relevant skills and techniques necessary for implementing marketing strategy and planning around the framework of developing a new product/service development programme. Working in project teams, students will develop their project management, communication and team-working skills during the development of a formal presentation of their marketing plan. Students will be asked to reflect on the reasons for new product/service development and how businesses develop a product into a commercial idea.
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BEMM071: Leadership and Global Challenges
The aim of this module is to provide you with an opportunity to actively and critically engage in debates about the role of leadership in major global challenges facing the world today. In doing so, the module looks to challenge your implicit conceptions of leadership and to develop a more sophisticated understanding of real-world leadership and its challenges. Each topic will be explored in depth through engagement with academic literature theory and research, as well as practical case-study perspectives and real-world examples. Particular attention will be given to how each topic plays out at the interaction of leaders, organisations, and society.
- Destructive leadership
- Inclusive leadership
- Responsible leadership
This module equips you with the ability to apply critical thinking and understand how different types of leadership contribute to the problems and solutions to the world's greatest challenges. This ability to ask critical questions is an essential higher order thinking skill that will underpin all future management practice.
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BEMM128: Brand Design
Brands have increasingly become a focus of marketing activity with some arguing that marketers no longer make products - rather they create brands. This module will give the critical evaluation of the creation and development of brands and their management process from different disciplinary perspectives. Theoretical insights from these perspectives will be used to create or assess current brand strategy and the role of marketing tools in effectively delivering this strategy.
Students will learn different approaches, theories, and concepts for creating and managing brands, managing brand portfolios and provides insights on drivers of successful brand strategies. This module will show the importance of brands in business, consumers' daily lives and the society at large.
Internationalisation
Branding has a global perspective and there are implications in creating, developing, and marketing of a brand on a global scale or in different countries. This module provides an extensive range of brand identity building, brand strategy and brand repositioning examples on local markets and on a global scale, providing frameworks for understanding the brand management process. This module draws extensively on international branding examples and encourages you to examine brands from your home countries in your assignments.
Employability
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BEMM375: Sustainable Tourism Management
Tourism relies on the quality of the environment so the careful management of businesses, people and places is a critical issue for the sector. This module offers critical insights into the impact of tourism on a variety of environments, the emergence of more sustainable forms of tourism and the management responses to developing more sustainable practices. Although the module starts from first principles, it offers you an opportunity to develop a critical awareness of the theoretical and practical issues that influence how the principles of sustainable development are applied in tourism. You will study the challenges of tourism activity in a one-day field visit, enabling you to appreciate the issues for businesses, communities, organisations and tourists at first hand. The aims of the module are:
- to investigate the multiple connections between tourism, tourists and place, including the impacts of tourism on different environments and the role of tourism as an economic force within the climate emergency era;
- to critically evaluate traditional approaches to tourism planning, development and management and more innovative forms that promote sustainable development and stewardship of environmental resources;
- to develop an understanding of a range of strategies used to develop and monitor sustainable tourism in global, national and local contexts, and different business settings.
Additional Information:
Internationalisation
Tourism, in itself, is a globally significant subject and it is taught using a number of international case studies, covering examples from every continent in the world.
Sustainability
The entire module is dedicated to embedding sustainable principles into tourism management. Thus, sustainability is a fundamental aspect of the curriculum where the aim of the module is to encourage future tourism practitioners and managers to develop a sustainable perspective.
All of the resources for this module are available on the ELE (Exeter Learning Environment).
External Engagement
Guest speakers have previously included Dartmoor National Park Authority, Historic Royal Palaces, VisitExeter, Eden Project, and tourism and environmental consultants.
Employability
Students develop their understanding of how to apply sustainability principles in practice through a strategy plan assignment. Through guest lectures and a field visit, engagement with external organisations allows students to gain insights and connect with sustainable tourism practitioners.
This module offers critical insights into the evolution of sustainable tourism; the impact of tourism on a variety of environments; and the emergence of more sustainable forms of tourism. Although the module starts from first principles, it offers students an opportunity to develop a detailed and critical awareness of the theoretical and practical issues that influence how the principles of sustainable development are applied in tourism. The aims of the module are to:
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BEMM786: Service Design and Innovation
This module offers an interdisciplinary and applied introduction to service innovation, with a strong focus on how organisations can design, analyse, and improve services to enhance customer experience and remain competitive. It is particularly relevant if you are interested in the practical challenges of creating value in today’s service economy and in using digital techniques and technologies to inform service innovation.
Building on core ideas from operations management and marketing, the module introduces you to the concept of the service delivery system and explores how customer experience shapes service design, delivery, and evaluation. You will develop technical and consultancy skills that will equip you for the workplace, using real-world data and service improvement examples throughout the module.
The module is research-led and draws on insights from the VISTA AR project, a €7.8m ERDF-funded project focused on digital innovation in cultural heritage sites. This gives you the opportunity to engage with contemporary service challenges and examples of innovation in practice.
There is a strong applied focus throughout, with lectures and practical workshops introducing tools for customer experience analysis and advanced approaches such as eye-tracking and natural language processing. As part of the assessment, you will analyse real-world service examples and make recommendations for improvement and innovation.
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BEMM801: Entrepreneurship: Business Simulation
This module is integrated with a sophisticated simulation package that allows you to gain an authentic learning experience whilst running a business as an entrepreneur. Underpinned by experiential learning and gamification, this module is designed to allow you to learn a wide range of aspects about running and growing a business in a simulated environment.
This practice-based module will focus on the various functions of a business at different stages of development to equip you with tacit knowledge of the complex nature of running and growing a business. You will have the opportunity to enhance your understanding on how the decisions you make will generate impact on the various aspects of your business by running the day-to-day activities for your business in the simulation.
No prior knowledge skills or experience required to take this module as the simulation itself offers very detailed instructions and explanations for various concepts. No pre-requisite and co-requisite modules needed.
This module is suitable for business specialist and non-specialist students; however, it is worth noting that those without a business background may find that it takes longer to get familiarised with the business concepts.
This module is recommended for interdisciplinary pathways.
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BEMM839: Unlocking Innovation
Research demonstrates that innovative organisations outperform those that fail to innovate, whatever environments they are operating in. Innovation is often misunderstood as a distinctive "flash of genius," but for successful organisations, it is a disciplined management process essential for survival in a volatile global economy.
Unlocking Innovation serves as the backbone of your study of innovation and its management, moving beyond buzzwords to master the fundamental mechanics of bringing new value to life. In the module you will adopt the core process model (Search, Select, Implement, and Capture) to navigate the journey from a raw idea to a market-ready reality. You will learn how to scan the environment for opportunities (Search), make tough strategic choices on where to invest resources (Select), manage complex project development (Implement), and sustain value from your efforts (Capture).
The module bridges the gap between academic theory and practical application. Whether you aspire to launch and scale a disruptive start-up or drive transformation within an established multinational or public sector organisation, you will develop the "dynamic capabilities" required to manage risk, navigate uncertainty, and turn global challenges into competitive advantages.
The management of innovation is professionalising fast. This is your essential toolkit for becoming a proactive innovation manager in a digital, sustainability-focused world.
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BEMM841: Protecting Innovation
Innovation operates within competitive and dynamic environments shaped by rapid socio-economic change associated with technologies such as artificial intelligence, sustainability challenges, market uncertainties, evolving innovation policies, and geopolitical pressures. In this context, the ability to protect innovation is central to long-term organisational success.
In this module, you will explore how organisations and governments protect, manage, and responsibly share innovation while safeguarding it from imitation and misappropriation. You will examine both the strategic importance of innovation protection and the practical tools organisations use to secure and sustain competitive advantage.
The module introduces formal and informal protection mechanisms and covers key contemporary themes, including national and regional innovation strategies, innovation policies, intellectual property (IP) regimes, global production networks, and technology sovereignty. These topics provide the foundation for understanding how innovation protection strategies are shaped by technological, economic, geopolitical, legal, and related contexts.
Through case studies, applied exercises, and analytical discussions, you will learn how organisations and governments protect innovation, anticipate and respond to emerging risks and uncertainties, opportunities and shifts in the innovation landscape.
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