Diplomacy, International Business and Trade

The aim of this module is to introduce students to the evolution and change in diplomatic practice in the contemporary digitised world, through a range of conceptual tools, cases and issue areas. The main objectives are:

A) To equip students with theoretical approaches, concepts and debates enabling the critical interrogation of diplomacy in the contemporary digitised world through theoretical and empirical exploration of the relationship of diplomacy to the following key organising categories: sovereignty, representation, communication, power, knowledge production, gender, and sustainability. In so doing, it aims to uncover the role of both state and non-state actors in diplomacy in the contemporary digitised world, thus adopting an enlarged approach to diplomacy, entailing diplomacies in the plural--of multiple actors, in multiple issue areas, and of multiple modalities.

B) To showcase skills and various ways of being a diplomat in the contemporary digital world, through introducing and unpacking the real-life applications of such skills and ways, integrating practitioner contributions where possible; as well as through examining various and often overlooked pathways of practicing diplomacy (such as public diplomacy, paradiplomacy, protodiplomacy, NGO and advocacy diplomacy).

The aim of this module is to understand the main features, concepts and practices of international negotiations. It provides an overview of the most important elements of negotiation and offers an application to a number of case studies

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.

The aims of this module are to:

• To introduce students to the field of entrepreneurship
• To assess the roles entrepreneurship plays in modern societies and economies and in an international context.
• To explore the different types of activity contained within the definition of entrepreneurship, and the main theoretical and analytical approaches used to understand the phenomenon.
• To examine entrepreneurial and innovative activity at different stages of a business, from start-up to more mature firms, and relate this to wider contexts.

The aim of this module is for students to understand the conceptual tools of Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA), acquire specific knowledge relevant to an understanding of the foreign policies of key state actors in the global arena, and develop awareness of the issues and policy contexts that shape these policies.

The aim of this module is to:

• develop awareness of the scope and diversity of business models within the creative industries
• understand the relationships between business model innovation, technological advancement and creative industry evolution.

The aim of this module is to interrogate various permutations of violence, from physical to structural and symbolic, in several political contexts stretching a spectrum  from open war and conflict to the everyday. It aims to do so through the explicitly transdisciplinary objective of bringing scholarly and practitioner debates in security, conflict and peace-building studies to bear on debates in development and sustainability, and vice versa.

In doing so, throughout the module, students will be encouraged to think through and analyse contemporary global problematics, policy problems and cases across disciplinary divides; and through a critical re-thinking and examination of the development-security-sustainability nexus via a unique lens of political violence. The module aims to achieve the latter via explorations of several competing or complementary conceptions of violence drawn from Political Thought and Political Philosophy from both Western traditions and those in the Global South. These are then put to use to explicate contemporary problems and cases in the nexus of development-security-sustainability.

The aim of this module is to understand the role that sport plays in political and diplomatic issues at a national and international level. Using contemporary examples from developed, transitioning, developing, and fuel-based economies, the module will explore how sport can be used to positive (e.g., facilitating socio-economic plans) or negative (e.g., whitewashing human rights violations) ends. In doing so, the module aims to promote a critical, evidence-based understanding of the interplay between sport, politics, and diplomacy.

The aims of this module are to:

• examine HRM strategies and practices in institutional and cultural contexts
• examine the role of HRM strategies in the management of multinational firms.
• understand how institutional and cultural differences affect multinational companies decision
• identify emerging issues in international HRM and various challenges that multinational companies face in managing people and workplaces globally

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.

The module aims to introduce students to the way the changing nature of world order has affected societies globally. Transformations in the world order have brought to the fore risks and challenges that indiscriminately impact peoples around the world. The module explores the nature of these transformations, namely the agency and autonomy that individuals have in mitigating change. Key emphasis will be placed on the identifying the most successful strategies that societies have designed and implemented in order to adapt to changes in the world order.

Some of the most important challenges derived from the evolution of the world order that the module aims to discuss include conflict and geopolitics, global inequality, innovation and progress, resilience and sustainability or migration.

The experience of societies in the Global South will be given greater consideration, with a special focus on the impact that the BRICS group of states (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) has on the world order. In broader terms, the module evaluates the various strategies that states, international organisations, businesses or NGOs have developed in order to cope with change in the world order.

The aims of this module are to give the student the opportunity to study a subject, business problem 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. 

Cities and large urban areas are home to more than half of humanity and generate over 80% of global economic activity. Consequently, cities have become leading actors in diplomacy and critical hubs of international and domestic political, economic, technological, social, cultural, and security developments. This module examines the role of cities in international affairs, exploring both their capacities as influential actors and the diverse issues associated with them.

Using London as the central case study, students will research other cities to examine the issues and theories presented in the module and write about these cities in their assessment. The module will cover topics such as theoretical approaches to global cities, the history and evolution of cities, ideas and models of how cities act in international and domestic affairs, and the main political, economic, social and security issues connected to them.

The module will also allow students to better understand London, the city they have chosen to study in, and the central place in international affairs of many of the cities most of them will spend their lives living and working in.

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.

The aims of this module are to:

• Introduce students to the fundamentals of business intelligence and its application to business decision making in the context of the digital economy.
• Introduce students to the leading data mining methods and their application to real-world problems.
• Provide students with a core understanding of the common algorithms in data mining and its utilisation on data and resources available relevant to business intelligence.
• Equip students to further explore application areas beyond the module coverage.
• Provide students with an understanding of the size and versatility of the digital economy.

The aims of this module are to:

• Provide students with the ability to identify and understand different types of risks companies are facing
• Equip students with an understanding of the processes and tools companies use to assess and manage various risks they are facing.

The aims of this module are to familiarise students to the importance and practices of market research and analysis and equip them with skills to design, perform and present effective and creative market research projects powered by modern digital technologies.

The aims of this module are to:

• To introduce, compare and contrast traditional and critical approaches to peace and conflict transformation;
• To undertake empirical case studies, in lectures and via readings and class discussion, as a means of illustrating and critically interrogating competing theories, concepts and debates on intervention, success and failure of contemporary approaches to peace and conflict transformation;
• Introduce and interrogate recent trends in the practice of conflict transformation, and assess their political and ethical implications.

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

This module has two main aims. The first is to expose students to concrete development challenges experienced by different stakeholders (policy makers, communities and industry representatives, etc) in developing countries.

The second is to experiment with the ways through which the immersion into the field can inform the identification of development challenges and the formulation of research questions and action plans in the area of development.

Note that there are additional travel costs involved in taking this module.

The aims of this module are to provide business awareness regarding

• How businesses and other economic actors are influenced by sectoral, national and global institutions
• The differing institutional trajectories along which regional and national economies develop
• Examine the relationship between markets, institutions, business strategy and macroeconomic economic outcomes regarding slow growth, inequality and crisis
• Provide an introduction to alternative theoretical approaches to understanding capitalism

The aim of this module is to develop students understanding of sustainability, and map out the relationship between sustainability and global business. The world is going through a variety of environmental and social crises, most notably the climate crises, and in the module the focus is on the different ways in which global business contributes to these crises (and can contribute to the solutions for these crises), as well as what sorts of consequences these crises have or may have on global business. Various theoretical approaches will be utilized throughout the module, and the students will engage in practical applications of these theories and concepts.

The aims of this module are to give the student the opportunity to study a subject, business problem 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.