Executive Management 3

This subject has the following teaching availabilities in 2016:

Students are requried to undertake 30 hours of reading during the pre-teaching period. Reading material will be available via reading packs.

280 hours

Enrolment in the Master of Business Administration (MC-BAEV) course

For the purposes of considering request for Reasonable Adjustments under the Disability Standards for Education (Cwth 2005), and Student Support and Engagement Policy, academic requirements for this subject are articulated in the Subject Overview, Learning Outcomes, Assessment and Generic Skills sections of this entry.

It is University policy to take all reasonable steps to minimise the impact of disability upon academic study, and reasonable adjustments will be made to enhance a student's participation in the University's programs. Students who feel their disability may impact on meeting the requirements of this subject are encouraged to discuss this matter with a Faculty Student Adviser and Student Equity and Disability Support: http://services.unimelb.edu.au/disability

This subject contains four components, as described below.

Operations:

In competitive global and dynamic environments, companies face increasing pressures to exceed customer expectations along multiple performance measures, such as cost, quality, flexibility and innovativeness. To outperform their competitors, firms need to build a sustainable competitive advantage around these capabilities. The focus of the component is to highlight how firms should design, manage and continually improve their business and operational processes to better manage the mismatch between supply and demand. It aims at providing the core concepts in operations that are essential for appreciating how operational capabilities can help organisations achieve sustainable competitive advantage. This component provides a logical and rigorous approach to plan and control process structure and managerial levers to achieve desired business process performance.

Finance I

This component is designed to provide students with foundation knowledge about financial management. This foundation knowledge provides the basis for funding a firm’s investments and using its resources efficiently. The topics covered will include:

• Foundations of capital budgeting and project valuation
• Foundations of financial instruments
• Foundations of portfolio theory
• Foundations of capital structure determinants

Managerial Judgment

The brain is a truly amazing biological machine, moulded through millions of years of evolutionary pressure. More recent changes in human history have created a gap between the world for which our brains were designed, and the world in which we actually live. This mismatch is played out in many aspects of management and leadership. We suffer from strong biases that hinder good decision-making, and we often fail to develop realistic perceptions of others and of ourselves. Fortunately, scientists have generated a great deal of knowledge that allows us to identify these deficiencies and to find remedies for them. These sessions are based on long-standing psychological research as well as state-of-the-art neurobiological research that sheds light on the obstacles we face when making decisions. By discovering the roots of many of our biases we can also learn remedies to these problems so that we can avoid pitfalls in decision-making.

Seminar III:

This Executive MBA Seminar Series complements the mainstream components of the module, and is dedicated to contemporary issues and global best practice development in the Operations, Ethical Leadership and Economics of Strategy fields.

Operations:

On completion of this component students should:

• Understand core fundamentals of process analysis
• Recognise taxonomy of process types
• Understand the link between operations and finance
• Understand the role of inventories in organisations and managerial levers for controlling the investments in inventories
• Understand variability and its adverse effect on process performance and ways of mitigating its negative effect
• Have developed skills in quality management, statistical process control techniques and fundamentals behind six sigma initiatives
• Be able to demonstrate knowledge of lean production and core principles governing Toyota production system
• Recognise the importance of collaboration and cooperation in supply chain management

Finance I:

On completion of this component students should:

• Understand the scope and content of business finance and financial management;
• Understand the link between the theory and the practice of finance and investment.
• Understand how information is used in the formation of prices in capital markets
• Be able to calculate the cost of capital for basic situations

Managerial Judgment:

On completion of this component students should:

• Better understand
  • Cognitive biases and their remedies
  • The neurological source of gut feeling and how to use gut feeling in decision-making
  • The role that cognitive dissonance and self-justification play in distorting our perceptions and producing sub-optimal performance
• Use this knowledge to make better managerial decisions, be a more effective leader, avoid mistakes where possible and learn from mistakes that are made

Seminar III:

On completion of this component students will be able to:

• Understand and discuss contemporary and advanced issues in the field
• Recognise and apply global best practice models

Operations:

Class Participation (attendance at lectures, peer and instructor evaluation of contribution to class learning) 10%

Syndicate Assignment (equivalent to individual 1200 word assessment) 40%

Final Exam (hurdle requirement; 90 minutes) (1500 words) 50%

Finance I:

Class Participation (attendance at lectures, peer and instructor evaluation of contribution to class learning) 10%

Individual Problem Sets (3 x 10%) (400 words each) throughout module 30%

Final Exam (hurdle requirement; 1500 words) 60%

Managerial Judgment:

Class Participation (attendance at lectures, peer and instructor evaluation of contribution to class learning) 15%

Individual written paper (1,500 words) mid way in the module 35%

Final Exam (hurdle requirement; 90 minutes) (1500 words) 50%

Seminar III:

Class Participation (attendance at lectures, peer and instructor evaluation of contribution to class learning) 10%

Individual Assessment (hurdle requirement; Module Reflection & Application) (1500 words) 90%

This subject is not available as a breadth subject.

This subject is ONLY available to students enrolled in the Master of Business Administration (MC-BAEV) course.