The modules on our Accounting and Finance MSc have been carefully put together to give you the most up-to-date and relevant set of skills and knowledge for progressing in your chosen career.
Compulsory modules
International Financial Accounting and Reporting (15 credits)
The aims of this module are:
- To explore the nature, purposes and roles of accounting in organisations.
- To introduce students to the international regulatory framework of accounting.
- To learn fundamental principles of international financial reporting standards and terms used.
- To master the preparation of statements of profit or loss, statements of financial position and statements of cash flow under international financial reporting standards.
- To establish an awareness of some of the advantages and limitations of financial accounting to help decision making.
Management Accounting: Decision Making (15 credits)
The aims of this module are:
- To introduce students to the concepts and techniques of management accounting.
- To evaluate different overhead cost assignment methods.
- To apply management accounting concepts and tools to support short-term and long-term decisions.
- To examine the budgeting process in planning for profits.
- To develop relevant transferable skills.
Corporate Finance (15 credits)
The aims of this module are to equip students with a working knowledge of the accounting and commercial skills required both to monitor and evaluate company performance, and to understand the financial consequences of business decisions, particularly for relatively small and young firms; be able to critically assess alternatives.
Grand Challenges (15 credits)
The aim of this module is to give students an opportunity to explore grand challenges facing our global society and to propose imaginative solutions to specific challenges in one or more country.
Students will critically reflect on the United Nations Sustainability Development Goals and think about how Loughborough University's Creating Better Futures. Together Strategy might contribute to them.
Students will engage with ideas and approaches to possible solutions from their own programme and gain diverse insights from Loughborough University London's interdisciplinary ecosystem. This will involve solution-oriented thinking and a balance between criticality and possibility, leading to a deep understanding of grand challenges and imagining creative responses to them.
Compulsory modules
Statistical Methods in Finance (15 credits)
The aim of this module is to equip students with the statistical and quantitative techniques necessary to conduct studies in the area of applied finance and economics.
Optional modules
Choose one of the following
Management Accounting: Control and Performance Management (15 credits)
The aims of this module are:
- To build on the pre-requisite modules.
- To examine standard cost and variances.
- To explain the behavioural considerations in the design, implementation and operation of management accounting systems.
- To encourage a critical understanding of performance measurement and management in organisations, taking into account factors such as economic, cultural, political, social and behavioural.
- To examine the management accountants’ role in changing organisational contexts.
- To understand the theoretical underpinnings that underlie different management accounting and control research.
- To consider current and future directions in management accounting and control research including the role of the management accountant.
- To develop relevant transferable skills.
Topics in Financial Reporting and Analysis (15 credits)
The aims of this module are:
- To build on the knowledge gained in earlier studies of financial accounting and reporting.
- To explore relationships between theory and practice in financial reporting.
- To broaden and deepen students' knowledge and understanding in respect of published financial reports.
- To develop an understanding of contemporary issues in accounting and the challenges of with different proposals and solutions.
- To further encourage an openness to new ideas and awareness that in many situations there is a range of alternatives which should be evaluated.
- To develop relevant transferable skills.
Choose one of the following
Financial Statements Analysis & Valuations (15 credits)
The aims of this module are:
- Deepen and broaden students' understanding of conceptual and theoretical issues in accounting and financial management through real world cases.
- Develop an understanding of the analysis of firms' financial reports relevant to the investment decision and firms' valuations.
- Develop an understanding of, and apply, the tools and techniques available to value the stock of listed public companies.
- Develop and enhance transferable skills.
- Introduce alternative investment classes.
Money and Finance (15 credits)
The aims of the module are to:
- Understand the role of money, equity, bond and exchange rate markets in allocating capital and managing risk.
- Analyse the functions of banks, stock markets and asset managers in the age of financial globalisation.
- Explore the efforts of governments, central banks and international financial institutions to maintain stability and manage crises.
Choose one of the following
Collaborative Project (15 credits)
The aims of this module are to:
- Provide students with an opportunity to be exposed to project-based teamwork in diverse settings (understood in this context as involving a range of multidisciplinary, multicultural and demographic elements in differing configurations), aiming to strengthen their cooperative and collaborative working skills and competence, while raising awareness and appreciation of diversity itself.
- Provide students with hands on experience of identifying, framing and resolving practice oriented and real-world based challenges and problems, using creativity, critical enquiry and appropriate tools to achieve valuable and relevant solutions.
- Support the development of students' ability to engage in critical enquiry and individual reflection, as well as to apply individual strengths and skills, building on their own educational backgrounds.
- Provide students with opportunities for networking with stakeholders, organisations and corporations, aiming to enhance the competence and skills needed to connect to relevant parties and build up future professional opportunities.
Corporate Governance (15 credits)
The aims of this module are to:
- Equip students with the necessary academic skills to understand the role corporate governance plays in generating financial and economic development.
- Equip students with a working knowledge of governance and corporate governance frameworks; be able to critically assess alternatives.
Compulsory modules
Dissertation (60 credits)
The aims of this module are to give the student the opportunity to study a subject or research question in depth and to research the issues surrounding the subject or background to the problem.
The module will equip the student with the relevant skills, knowledge and understanding to embark on their individual research project and they will be guided through the three options available to them to complete their dissertation:
- A desk based research project that could be set by an organisation or could be a subject of the student's choice
- A project that involves collection of primary data from within an organisation or based on lab and/or field experiments
- A full professional placement within an organisation during which time they will complete a project as part of their role in agreement with the organisation (subject to a suitable placement position being obtained)
Students will achieve a high level of understanding in the subject area and produce a written thesis or project report which will discuss this research in depth and with rigour.