Courses - Faculty of Business And Economics
Business MBA
Postgraduate 700 Level Courses
Coaching for Leadership
Develops skills to lead oneself, others and organisations in increasingly global, uncertain and complex business environments. Explores principles of effective leadership within a context that is constantly changing.
Financial Return, Risk and Valuation
Examines factors that affect the value of real and financial assets and explores the relation between risk and return and its implications for asset values and the cost of capital. Includes coverage of models and techniques used for the valuation of real and financial assets.
Managing Capacity and Inventory
Develops effective strategies for determining and allocating capacity and inventories to match supply and demand consistent with business strategy, cost factors, and uncertainty. Considers both manufacturing and services utilising perspectives from operations, accounting, and finance.
Globalising Mindsets
Develops skills to navigate the complexities of the global business environment. Critically evaluates differences in regulation, culture and customs in formulating strategies to reach overseas customers and navigate different business systems.
Managing Talent in the 21st Century
Explores the factors that enable organisations to attract, keep and promote valued talent. Considers the role of technological developments in the definition and organisation of work and the implications for individuals and organisations. Explores principles of human talent management within a context that is constantly changing.
Approaches to Growth
Explores various strategic approaches to growth, drawing on strategic management and marketing. Develops skills to critically evaluate, develop and manage growth strategies that are appropriate for the given context.
Innovating New Products and Services
Examines the processes that create successful new products and services and explores the development of appealing concepts, prototyping and testing, refinement, production and launch. Develops skills to create a refined concept for a new offering, and plans for processes required to execute its launch into the marketplace.
Engaging Innovation Ecosystems
Provides a multi-disciplinary approach to build the practices of innovation, commercialisation, and corporate entrepreneurship. Examines the essential processes of open innovation, such as collaboration, knowledge sharing, and contracting.
Leading and Managing Change
Critically evaluates the key determinants of successful organisational change including factors within the control of the change agent, including those that enable and constrain the actions of the change agent. Develops skills to initiate and manage change, and then to embed change in organisational systems and practices.
Market Making and Market Shaping
Explores the factors that enable organisations to make and shape markets, drawing on the transdisciplinary science of systems theory. Develops skills to devise and implement strategies on a market or ecosystem level in uncertain and complex contexts.
Organisational Resilience
Develops skills to critically assess current reality and understand ripple effects while scanning the horizon for long-term threats and opportunities. Develops skills to build individual and organisational resilience in a context that is volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous.
Leading in Complexity
Develops skills for navigating the complex and changing workplace, to enable students to lead organisations positively, during uncertainty. Topics covered include leadership mindsets, leadership influence and leading in complex, changing environments. Draws on a range of theoretical backgrounds including psychological and management theories, and combines both international and Aotearoa leadership perspectives.
Te Ao Māori Business
Investigates how to integrate Māori values into contemporary business practices through examining governance, tikanga, and the Māori economy. Emphasis is placed on sustainability, societal well-being, and principles like kaitiakitanga, social purpose, and long-term planning.
Aotearoa NZ’s Unique Legal Landscape
Evaluates how New Zealand’s unique history shapes our legal and political environment, exploring how businesses can influence future policy and law-making. Through the lens of key areas of commercial law, business leaders learn to identify and critically evaluate significant business constraints and opportunities, thereby enabling more effective decision-making in both domestic and international contexts.
Strategy in Dynamic Markets
Explores strategic approaches to sustainable growth in a VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity) world, focussing on problem-solving, effective positioning in existing markets and shaping of new markets. Develops skills to devise and implement strategies at organisation, ecosystem and market levels in uncertain and complex contexts. Practical examples are used to reinforce climate mitigation and circular economy practices to face and embrace 21st-century challenges.
Navigating the Economic Environment
Develops analytical and critical thinking skills in contemporary economic issues, both international and domestic, including national goals, productivity growth, money and inflation, inequality, and the genesis of financial crises. Micro-economic skills in the theory of the firm, competition, and supply and demand are also covered. Practical insights are gained into international economics and domestic issues such as the Māori economy.
Accounting&Finance
Develops finance and accounting skills covering topics such as interpreting financial statements, risk management, valuation techniques, financing, international finance, and fintech. Using case studies and real-world examples, students will develop practical skills in finance decision-making, including the importance of sustainable accounting and climate-related disclosures for ethical financial practices.
Analytics for Business Decisions - Level 9
Develops a critical understanding of data science techniques. Students will be able to independently evaluate and identify sources of data, make high-level data-driven decisions, communicate specialised insights, and contribute to solving real-world problems.
Delivering Value Through Operations
Explores operations and supply chain management, focusing on effective production and delivery of goods and services that meet customer needs. Examines how to improve operations and supply chains to support competitive positioning while considering factors such as uncertainty and environmental sustainability.
Creating Value Through Innovation
Explores contemporary approaches that enhance innovation activities. Expands thinking about design and innovation beyond new products to other sources of value creation. Critically evaluates the role of innovation and design processes in creating new products, services, experiences, and markets. Develops skills to manage a creative approach to problem/opportunity/solution identification and ideation.
Global Success and Scaling Up
Evaluates and assesses opportunities, challenges and risks in exporting or operating a business across borders as part of a global value chain. Combines country and market analysis with internationalisation strategies to explore challenges firms and their leaders face, focussing on New Zealand firms, their global context and the unique trade-offs to be considered.
MBA Capstone Consultancy Project - Level 9
Develops skills in the identification of new opportunities and strategic recommendations for international growth through a consultancy project working with a New Zealand business. Students will learn to utilise information from a range of sources to make decisions while navigating uncertainty. An international field trip provides practical experience and exposure to global business practices.
Prerequisite: 90 points from BUSMBA 720-729
Navigating the Business Environment
Critically evaluates the business environment from legal, economic, political and social perspectives, at both the national and international levels. Develops skills to identify and influence major constraints and opportunities, and to use this critical understanding in strategic decision-making.
Financial Management and Control
Covers the process of financial management within a corporation and explores how the analysis of a range of financial information can be used to gain insights which enhance managerial decision making. Examines how value can be created for shareholders and other stakeholders through investment and financing decisions.
Building Capabilities for Performance
Explores business strategies based on unique resources and capabilities, utilising perspectives from management and marketing. Develops skills to generate market intelligence, devise strategies, manage intangible assets as well as relationships with external stakeholders.
Designing, Managing, and Improving Business Processes
Explores leading and organising intra- and inter-organisational processes and systems, for effective production and delivery of goods and services meeting customer needs. Considers uncertain and complex business environments, along with operations and supply chain management ideas and technologies.
Making Evidence-based Decisions under Uncertainty - Level 9
Develops highly specialised knowledge about decision making within organisations. Requires the critical synthesis and appraisal of different types of expertise and evidence in informing management practice.
Prerequisite: 90 points from BUSMBA 701-753
Managing Entrepreneurial Growth Project - Level 9
Provides a practical opportunity for participants to work with a New Zealand or international business in an advisory capacity to develop strategic recommendations for growth locally and internationally. Develops a hands-on multi-disciplinary approach to recognising, assessing, and marketing entrepreneurial opportunities for new products and services. An overseas fieldtrip is required to complete the course.
Prerequisite: BUSMBA 760 and 90 points from BUSMBA 701-753