Advanced Higher Business Management

Why multinational corporations have grown so rapidly, and the real costs and benefits globalisation brings to businesses.

The three real ways an organisation can grow abroad: building new facilities, acquiring an existing business, or forming a joint venture.

How multinationals set prices between their own divisions in different countries, and the real risks of exploiting local resources and labour.

The real costs and benefits an MNC brings to the country it operates in, and separately to the country it originates from.

How the EU and ASEAN function as trading blocs, and the real costs and benefits UK organisations face trading with them and with China.

How business ethics differs from corporate social responsibility, and the real ways government policy and technology shape organisations.

Two real, named frameworks describing what managers actually do: Fayol's functions and principles, and Mintzberg's categories and roles.

Four early, real schools of management thought: classical, administrative (Fayol), scientific (Taylor), and bureaucratic (Weber).

Later, real schools of management thought that shifted focus toward people and adapting to circumstances: Mayo, McGregor, and contingency theory.

Two real approaches to explaining effective leadership: identifying fixed traits a good leader has, versus recognising that the best style depends on the situation.

Tuckman's real stages a group passes through as it develops, Belbin's team roles, and what actually makes a team effective.

The real benefits of managing time well, common time stealers that undermine it, and techniques managers actually use to manage their time and tasks.

Kurt Lewin's stages of change, the real range of approaches organisations use to manage it, and what determines whether change management succeeds.

The real conventions expected for referencing research findings, including a bibliography and footnotes.

How a force field diagram weighs the real forces driving a change against the real forces resisting it, to help decide whether it should go ahead.

How critical path analysis identifies the tasks that directly determine a project's overall completion time, and how a Gantt chart displays a project's schedule.

How to reach justified conclusions from reported financial information, annual reports, government statistics, market data, and customer surveys, recognising each source's real limitations.