University of Manchester

This course introduces the way that banks, financial markets, and monetary policy work and interact in theory and practice. Students examine how bond and money markets operate and how interest rates behave. Students also look into some of the problems and dilemmas that central banks face in choosing appropriate policies and implementing them, both in normal times and during financial crises. Examples from financial newspapers and other sources are used to familiarize students with how theoretical concepts are used in practice. Topics include how interest rates behave in the bonds and money markets; the term structure of interest rates; theories of the demand for money and their implications; how the supply of money is created within the banking system; how central banks conduct monetary policy; and the various tools, targets, and goals employed in monetary policy.

This course introduces students to the related topics of creativity, design, and entrepreneurship. By alternating sessions between creativity, design, and entrepreneurship, students learn how to develop a start-up using their own creativity as well as knowledge about users and changes in the global marketplace.

This course explores works in Islamic studies and considers the theoretical problems surrounding studying Islam as a living tradition. It explores core texts in Islamic sciences (QUT'AN, hadith, prophetic biography) in relation to the scholarly traditions (Islamic law, theology, Sufism) that have emerged. Students examine significant developments in the history of major Muslim communities in Europe and the Middle East.

This course examines the sociology of work, considers the emergence of modern work, and assesses the nature of contemporary work and workplace organization. The course covers themes from rationalization, discipline, and workplace organization of time, to emotional labor, unemployment, domestic labor, and low-waged work in the global economy. The course considers both global trends and specific features of contemporary work, and contextualizes work in the movement from Fordist models of production to post-Fordist and globalized production.

This course covers the historical development of Japanese culture from the earliest traces to the early 20th century. Students look at key cultural texts from genres such as mythology, theater, poetry, and prose, and study their historical context.

This course will cover a broad range of relevant themes and historiographical debates associated with the economic and social history of capitalist development in industrializing countries, and aims to engage students with critical concepts relating to the study of economic history and social history. At the end of this course you should be able to demonstrate an awareness of the ways in which historians have examined and understood the economic and social history of Britain over the period 1700 to 1913; articulate key themes related to the emergence of capitalist institutions in modern Britain and Europe; confront how ideas of social justice and inequality shaped past societies; and to confidently analyze the relationship between people and institutions in their social and economic contexts.

This course focuses on the strategic management of technology development and acquisition in the modern business organization for the purpose of developing new products. The course covers the fundamentals of the nature of innovation and new product development. Students examine strategy, the nature of technological knowledge, how firms manage new product and process development, how they organize and manage research and development, the importance of learning from others, collaborative arrangements for innovation, how to profit from innovation, and the dynamics of competing technologies.

The course introduces the following topics: marketing and consumer behavior; market definitions and scope in leisure and tourism; cultural influences on tourist consumer behavior; international consumers: cultural convergence and differences; and factors influencing tourism and leisure demand at the individual level such as consumer psychology, perception, learning and memory, motivation, personality and self-concept, lifestyles, and group influence and opinion leadership; consumer behavior, the internet and social media; consumer behavior tourist typologies, and tourist destinations; tourist expectation formation; market segmentation in travel, tourism and leisure; and consumers and marketing planning.