From Compulsory Choice Group 1 - Choose either SMLM088 or SMLM239.
From Optional choice group - Choose 30 credits.
BEMM059: International Human Resource Management
The aim of this module is to equip you with a solid understanding of the complexities of international human resource management (IHRM) as well as with the strategic knowledge needed to manage these complexities. The context, theory and practice of IHRM will be explored, e.g. cultural and institutional theoretical frameworks to understand differences across global contexts, comparative HRM practices around selected countries as well as challenges of managing expatriation, global staff and multi-cultural teams. The module also aims to foster critical perspectives on sustainability and ethics within the realm of IHRM by addressing CSR in Multinational companies and drawing attention to international labour practices and human rights. Aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), it encourages you to reflect on how IHRM can promote 'Decent Work and Economic Growth' (SDG 8), and 'Reduce Inequalities (SDG 10).
Internationalisation
This module looks at International Human Resource Management and how it responds to globalisation, so countries all over the world are brought into consideration. How companies manage their expatriated staff in international assignments is a major theme in this module.
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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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BEMM116: Principles of International Business
Business is international in scope as managers take advantage of the comparative advantages countries around the world offer through complex and geographic dispersed value chains, not only to sell products but also to access inputs, knowledge and skills. This module provides the theoretical foundations of international business and its practical applications in explaining the dynamics and constraints of firms' international strategies. It analyses changes in the international economic environment as a result of globalization as well as the increased interdependence between countries and firms in terms of flows of goods, services, finances and people. The module considers also political, economic and institutional differences around the world and the strategies companies adopt when conducting business across national boundaries. While many practical examples are provided, focus is given to developing an analytical approach to addressing these questions, drawing on several theoretical perspectives.
Internationalisation
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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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SMLM087: Intercultural Communication: Key Concepts and Theories
This Intercultural Communication module provides you with an in-depth understanding of the complexities and challenges of communication across cultural boundaries. The module covers a range of contexts, including business, education, and migration. Through interactive lectures and individual fieldwork, you will develop intercultural competence and practical skills for communicating effectively in diverse cultural contexts. The module aims to equip you with the knowledge and skills necessary to navigate the complexities of intercultural communication in a globalised world.
The aim of this module is to provide you with a comprehensive understanding of intercultural communication, its theoretical foundations, and its practical applications in various social and cultural contexts. It will explore the complexities of communication across cultural boundaries, as well as the role of language, power, identity, and discourse in shaping intercultural interactions. You will gain an understanding of concepts such as culture, identity, language, culture shock, acculturation, prejudice and othering, verbal and non-verbal communication. Additionally, you will have the opportunity to collect first-hand data on specific intercultural settings for analysis and discussion.
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SMLM088: Dissertation
This module will prepare you for undertaking the most substantial piece of work of your MA. In the first part of the module you will learn to plan and design your research project, to collect data following research approaches and methods in intercultural communication, and critically analyse data. You will have the chance to conduct a small-scale pilot study that will help you refine your dissertation project. In the second part of this module, you will have the opportunity to research a topic of your own choosing and to produce a piece of independent research.
The aims of this module are to help you:
- critically examine the available theories of intercultural communication enquiry with a view to a research enquiry;
- design an appropriate enquiry and select suitable methods for the enquiry and justify these in theoretical terms;
- carry out a small-scale enquiry within the filed intercultural communication at Master's level;
- interpret evidence and discuss its relevance to existing enquiry;
- develop a critical understanding of the ethical issues associated with intercultural communication enquiry;
- acquire communication skills that will allow you to present your research effectively.
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SMLM239: Consultancy Project
The consultancy project, available only to MA Intercultural Communication students, serves as an alternative to the dissertation (SMLM088). The consultancy project enables you to showcase your research skills and critical thinking through practical work while fostering a mutual exchange of knowledge between you and an external partner within the field of Intercultural Communication. You will be responsible for initiating contact with the external partner, with support from the module convenor. In collaboration with the external partner, you will design and undertake a 6 to 10-week consultancy project that applies the knowledge of relevant theories and transferrable skills gained throughout your course.
This module aims to support you in making the most of a work experience in which you will connect theory with practice through experiential learning and design thinking methods. It aims to enhance your current and future employability skills by providing opportunities to apply your knowledge in professional settings. You will conduct relevant research, analyse data, and present your solution/recommendations in the form of a report (which may include a deliverable, e.g. toolkit, educational materials, etc.) and accompanying critical reflection on your work.
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BEP3172: Future 17: Sustainable Development Goals Challenge
Future17 is designed to develop the skills needed to collaboratively tackle 21st Century global challenges and to work with professionals to create pathways towards innovative solutions to real-world issues that relate to one or more of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Future17 enables students to collaborate with learners from a consortium of global partner universities in international, interdisciplinary and multicultural teams to tackle challenges through projects defined by third-party organisations (businesses, charities, NGOs etc.). Students will first undertake an online induction programme that will develop skills for collaborative, challenge-based and inter-cultural learning, which promotes forms of Design Thinking for tackling global challenges. They will then work with academic and third-party mentors to diagnose a sustainable development challenge and develop an approach for developing one or more solutions. They will be assessed on the basis of a 1500 project report and presentation to a panel including representatives of the third-party organisation that set the challenge and academic staff from the partner universities along with other student groups at a showcase event.
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SML3026: Corporate Language and Communication: When Sharks Work with Dolphins
In today's corporate world, language, discourse, and communication play a key role in navigating complex work relations. Struggles with communication in unequal work environments have serious material and symbolic consequences. This module will equip you with an understanding of how linguistic exchanges play a key role in tackling crises, conflict, and everyday inequalities in corporate language. We will examine empirical studies from sociolinguistics, applied linguistics and discourse analysis and explore concepts such as language as practice, interactional sociolinguistics, and (critical) discourse analysis to analyse spoken and written language in real life scenarios including new media to explore, for example, how individuals brand themselves in corporate settings. You do not need any prior knowledge to take this module. It is suitable for non-specialist students and recommended for interdisciplinary pathways.
The module aims to:
- Examine key theoretical frameworks such as language in use, language legitimacy, professional communication and competence, linguistic capital, language policing and rapport building in the workplace.
- Explore what corporate communication is and how you could develop ability to respond to today's competitive work environments where hierarchies intersecting with gender, ethnicity and race play a key role in linguistic delegitimization, language policing, linguistic violence, and socio-cultural problems.
- Develop tactics to navigate through linguistic injustices in the workplace with theoretical frameworks such as corporate discourse, corporate culture, language in interaction, corporate identity, labour surveillance, language ideology, language in society, humour at work, and gendered discourse in a range of contexts pertaining to today's workplace.
- Develop communicative competence, transform workplace inequalities, and provide with some tactics and strategies for employability.
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SML3043: Migration and Multilingualism
Around two-thirds of the world's migrant population is multilingual and due to migration a high level of linguistic diversity is now the norm in our society. In this module, you will explore the link between migration and languages, learn how migrant communities use and maintain their languages, as well as their attitudes and ideologies, through a wide variety of real-life case studies. You will learn how individual migrants or immigrant communities use their languages, how and why some languages are maintained, how the use of languages among migrants varies according to several factors such as different communicative situations, the migratory trajectory, speakers' attitudes towards the languages and shared ideologies.
You will be introduced to sociolinguistic concepts and means of analysis for the study of multilingualism in the context of migration. This module is interdisciplinary with no pre-requisites and will benefit students across language streams. If you need the module to count for credits towards a specific language, you must engage with material relevant to that language in your assessment.
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