Accounting and Finance MSc module details
Block 1: Financial Accounting and Policy
This module enables you to understand how to use and analyse financial statements in the public and private sector. Financial accounting practices are synthesised across various contexts using global accounting standards such as IFRS and IPSAS.
The context will include challenges and developments in financial accounting, tax policy and accounting standards, which are examined using international case studies on topics such as sustainability and transparency.
Block 2: Corporate Financing and Governance
This module enables you to conceptualise the context in which finance operates, such as the regulatory environment, history, institutions, markets, corporate governance, and regulations. You will synthesise the evidence for and against finance theories, such as EMH, CAPM and behavioural finance; and will apply corporate finance tools to firm case studies. You will critically evaluate firms’ investment, financing and corporate governance decisions, and the impact these have on the firm and its stakeholders under changing contexts, such as market conditions, investor behaviour, and financial innovation.
Block 3: Financial Decision Management
This module will allow you to use critical financial decision management skills across functions, and apply skills used in designing and implementing strategy, including designing objectives for the company, such as financial, ethical, social, and environmental goals. This allows the you to demonstrate an understanding of how the external environment and stakeholders affect strategy. Throughout the module you will deal with evolving situations, which will test your risk management approaches, and responses to competitor actions. The module will provide you with the skills required to apply the tools in the evaluation of the performance implications of your chosen strategic objectives, and to examine the performance of the organisation.
Block 4: International Trading and Investments
This module provides you with an understanding of the tools and techniques needed to turn investment objectives into trading strategies. It is designed to help students prepare for roles in investment firms, regulators, and clients.
You will be guided on the links between finance theory and trading. You will be given a stock and sector to manage, as part of a student-managed international portfolio. You will be make trading recommendations in response to stock-specific and macroeconomic factors, reflecting on and justifying these trades through presentations and reports. You will critically evaluate the investment and environmental performance of your trading strategies using relevant theories, models, and evidence. The module emulates many aspects of a trading floor and investment reporting.
Block 5 and 6: Business Research Project
The module provides you with a broad understanding of business research methods. The module will review research design, paradigms, and ethics, including the broader ethical impact of research. The module covers qualitative and mixed methods suitable for case studies, comparative, and cross-sectional business research. You can choose from a portfolio of existing case studies or can self-source a suitable project.
Block 5 and 6: Data Analysis Project
The module provides you with a broad understanding of data analysis methods. The module will review research design, paradigms, and ethics, including the broader ethical impact of research. The module covers quantitative methods suitable for comparative, cross-sectional and longitudinal research. You can self-source a suitable project or can choose from pre-specified data analysis projects.